THE best article on Mac users ever February 6, 2007
Posted by Al in : computers,personal , trackbackJustyn is going to hate me for this, but I agree with just about everything written by Charlie Brooker in this article. Why is one button better than two? Why can’t you buy the parts for a Mac and build it yourself, to your own configuration? Why are there no great games for the Mac? Why are the majority of Mac users such self-satisfied, smug tossers? (I’ll have to excuse Justyn from this as he doesn’t normally pontificate about how wonderful Macs are in the way that someone like Techie Tim did). I met a Mac user not so long ago who our mutual friend had thought I would really get on with: he’s into computers, networking and technology in a big way. However we were arguing about Mac vs PC within 5 minutes of the conversation straying into computers, and we never really saw eye-to-eye after that. My advice: buy a Mac if you never intend to play games on your computer, and you are willing to spend all that extra money on the hardware; however if you fancy playing games, would like to build your computer yourself, or would like to have a working system for under £500, then buy a PC. If you want the fancy OS then install Linux (Ubuntu for example) and then install Beryl.
Comments»
I’m not going to get into the whole argument about this. I do prefer my mac to the two XP machines that I have and it’s purely down to ease of use (mac’s now have 2 buttons by the way) and reliabilty.
Mac’s rarely have problems they just work.
I agree entirely that you can do a lot more on a pc for cheaper and I refuse to be one of these people who brackets themselves as a mac user as I am a computer user not a mac or pc user.
I use macs for general computer use and 3d graphics and animation. I also use 3 PCs 2 now running vista and one still running xp for games, admin stuff etc and to be honest would not be without any of them. I agree with Justyn about preferences i do prefer using a mac over my pcs but i think this is more to do with personal choice. Not everyone likes the Microsoft flavour and i have to say that i have had viruses with my pcs but never with a mac. I do run sophus on the mac as you never can be too carefull about this sort of thing but i do feel that people take this pc vs mac thing a little too personal. I remember having a conversation with alister in the canteen about computers and for some reason had a bullish response about viruses attacking macs etc which sort of supprised me a little bit as in no way was I detracting from my use of PC operating systems. I very much need and use them everyday and to be honest would be a little lost without them. If I am the person Alister is referring to then i think this is a little sad to be honest, as I took no offense and didn’t mean any either. Its quite sad that if this is the case then a difference of opinion can cause such bad feeling without the other person knowing about it. If everyone had the same view the world would be an extremely boring place and if I am the person you are referring to Alister then to be honest I have better things to worry about than peoples opinions on computers. Its a great shame because I thought that you were a mate and I feel quite supprised that you have taken this view with me. Never mind eh I am just glad we didnt start talking about linux who know what would have happened.
Take care
David
additional post. Just wondering if anyone out there uses both the mac and the pc for bits and pieces. As a user of both mac and pc i feel that i am qualified to coment on this matter not that it means a lot except the uber geeks out there. I use windows and mac os x for different purposes but feel i can only compare the two on one issue. Internet use as its the only thing I use the both for. PCs tend to render graphics quicker due to the faster front side bus and the 3 gig plus processor, also the pc is amazing at database design using access with a mysql back end. I have never come across a better front end than access. However, i have norton internet security, norton system tools and norton antivirus corporate edition on my xp machine. I have had to install the os on this machine 4 times in the past 2 years. My mac has not been switched off for over 9 months and i have NEVER had a virus on my mac. I am only concerned with spreading viruses from my mac not contracting them. I do run sophus antivirus on my mac for this purpose but as i say i have NEVER had a virus on a mac. Its good to be able to build your own computer made but literally thousands of manufacturers if you think about the components that go into a pc that has to be tied together by the operating system. The advantage that mac has over pc in this case is that the hardware has been designed by the same people who write the OS therefore you dont get the same driver problems that windows pc users get. I have recently upgraded to Vista on 2 of my computers and I have to admit this is how windows should be. I didnt have to look for any drivers and the os is very stable. I have to admit that I love this OS.
The point that i am trying to make is that unless you own both platforms, pc and mac i dont think you can be in a suitable position to give an unbiased view on things. As it stands i own 4 pc computers running small business server 2003, xp and vista and 3 apple mac systems running os x 10.4.7 and i can honestly say that after using pcs from 1995 to present and using macs from 2003 – present I rate the mac overall to pcs 10 – 1 for reliability and user freindlyness. By the way i own lots of games for the mac, however obviously there are way more tiltles for the pc due to the popularity of the platform but when i take recipt of my new mac pro next week and get both vista and osx on the same machine the argument no longer holds any weight. ANY title running on the pc will work with the mac. Pitty the pc community cannot say the same thing. LOL. My computer is better than your computer!!!! lol. My dad is bigger than your dad!!!
At the end of the day people who end up loosing potential friendships over something as pathetic as my computer is better than yours (remember the arguments of my spectrum is better than your commodore) is very sad indeed.
I prefer the mac but would never be without my PC. They each have a function and consider myself much like the uber cool well rounded Justyn a computer user.
Enough already! So many points! Take it easy man. Why do you think you are nuts?
I’m not quite sure why you’ve taken this so personally Dave – as I certainly did not have you in mind when I wrote my comments on the article. I had just had a discussion with a friend of a friend, someone I had never met before and am unlikely to meet again, when I made my comments. He was a complete Mac fan and I took umbrage at the way he was so smugly certain that Macs were better then PC’s (which can be the attitude of a lot of Mac users). However the friend who introduced us was not Justyn, and neither work with me (I do have friends outside work, you know).
Are you feeling paranoid for any reason? Lack of sleep or poor diet maybe? (Just in case – this is a humorous dig and is meant in a friendly way)
It was the way it was worded you know. It went from Justyn to this mutual friend. I put two and two together because of a reaction in the canteen when i mentioned everyone in my household switching to mac because of virus infections etc. Since then you acted differently to me and whereby you would make conversation you would in a way snub me., As I said in a training session, if I got this wrong then I appologise as I consider myself to be a user of both PC and mac hardware, however, due to the circumstances leading to this I drew a conclusion that for some reason you were acting differently to me after that conversation. I am glad that things have been cleared up as I love technology and the diversity it brings to everyday use.