Be Excellent To Each Other

Deliberately Controversial Post Time!

Macs are basically a bit rubbish, aren't they? I've had this 2nd hand Mac Mini for a week now (bought as a little media box/PVR for under my telly) and it's basically done nothing but piss me off and not be as good as a Windows PC doing the same job. Hell, it's not even as good as my X360 working as a Windows Media Center extender from my desktop PC. It's getting Win7 stuck on it and fuck Steve Jobs in his culty turtlenecked ear.

Worst....post....ever.

I swear much less often when using OSX than when using Windows. And that's all.

DOWN WITH MACS!

I bought a second hand external Macbook Air Superdrive off eBay the other day. Now, this was my fault for not checking the system requirements, but my vindication is that I never expected this little fact...

The Macbook Air Superdrive, despite being a USB external CD-ROM drive, will not work with anything other than a Macbook Air. Not because the Air provides more power or anything, but because the drive itself has an IDE to USB controller inside the case that has custom firmware placed on it by Apple that "handshakes" with the Macbook Air and refuses to work on anything else.

The thing that truly puzzles me is why Apple would do this?

They have here an external DVD writer that's £64, so not particularly cheap. It probably costs them peanuts to make. It is fucking tiny, barely the size of a CD jewel case. There are probably LOADS of design-conscious Mac fanboys, and plenty of PC/laptop users that would love to have an external CD drive this small. I just do not see the logic in restricting the drive so that it only works on a $2,000 laptop.

It is possible to "hack" it into working by replacing the USB controller for another one, but I just can't figure out why you have to.

I was pondering trying to get Mac OS X working on my PC (when I finally get around to installing Windows 7), for "research purposes". Has anyone bothered trying this? Is it worth a go, or is it just a big old faff?

I've never used a Mac. Ever. I've been into the Apple store in Liverpool, but it's always full of kids fucking about on all the hardware. There's been absolutely no way to get a decent look at one or the quiet to concentrate on seeing what they're like.

I took a long train journey with my girlfriend to the "nearest" Apple store recently, and I know exactly what you mean. Not like many years ago, just before I go my first Mac, when I could sample the usage of one at my leisure in PC World, back before Apple was a designer brand.

I bought a Mac Mini a few months back for a contract I was offered. After playing around with the Mini, a better contract came up so the Mini went back in its box and hasn't been out since.

I quite liked OSX and didn't run into any problems with it, but ultimately unless I'm doing Mac specific stuff I have no reason to use a Mac.

PC World still sell Macs. Not that you can tell the difference in the laptop section these days.

I've got a couple of Macs at home, and I'm quite happy to use either them or a Windows PC (or a *nix one, come to that). I'd rather develop on my Windows PC, mainly because it has the software I like on it. The Macs were a bit fussy about going onto the network, but all types computers have their problems.

The worst thing about Macs, by far, is the people that use them.

They're OK. I use a windows PC all day at work and it's nice to get away from some of the aggravations I have with that. Of course, the Mac has different aggravations. The hardware is pretty nice though.

But I've also learned (or remembered) a fair bit of unix-ness through using it and running it as a server, and I'm very happy with the stability and reliability of it.

If it had a decent text editor, file manager and something like winCVS I'd use it for development too.

To clarify: I'd bought this thing entirely as a media/PVR box, because people go on (and on, and on) about how ace Macs are for video and music and things. It turns out that means they're mostly alright, so long as you don't include any kind of live TV in that equation at all, because that means you have to use EyeTV, which is like a TV application from the 90s and doesn't even attempt to integrate with FrontRow or anything, has worse picture quality than my TVs built-in tuner and has a stupid system whereby if you choose to manually record something, that silently overrides any scheduled recording you've got queued up.

OS X itself seemed fine enough - but it doesn't offer me anything (other than a decent command line) that Windows doesn't, and it upsets MrsP because it's different and she fears change. For what it's worth, I'm entirely at home using a Unix-like system (although I wouldn't want Linux on my desktop, that's for entirely other reasons; I've got no problem with it on my servers).

(I don't buy the "stability" argument, either - in the time I've been using it, I've had to pull the plug on it once because it locked up and refused to shut down, and had to force kill applications a bunch of times, especially iTunes)

Oh, well stick Win7 on it then. Win7 MCE is the best PVR you'll ever see.

this reminds me of the fact that iDVD only burns (at least when i tried) to mac superdrives and not to my standard dvd burner

This is true. It's lovely.

I'm trying very hard not to laugh but what you wanted was Windows Media Centre

What Macs are good at is professional audio and video stuff. If I was building a media/PVR box I'd be using Windows.

I'm on OS X right now and it is nice for browsing and Twittering on but I prefer doing all my Peoww updates in XP. It's just easier to work in.

I've owned loads of Macs in the past, both pre and post OS X and I'm currently using a PC with Windows 7 installed as my main computer at home. Generally I'm a bit platform agnostic, I get on just as well with both. Obviously if you want to play games on your computer, the Mac is an expensive option, but still a decent one as there's plenty of games getting Mac ports these days and you can always boot camp into Windows if need be.

Personally, I'd say OS X is the nicer looking OS and really very versatile when you get used to using it - which if you're coming from a principally Windows background can possibly be a bit tough in places I guess. Also, the unified hardware architecture that Apple go for does pay dividends as there's very little fucking about involved to get it to do the things it's supposed to - for the most part Macs really do 'just work'.

Parm, I don't think EyeTV is the only choice for telly on the Mac, I think there's a few solutions that'll do the job - I'm sure I used to have one that integrated with FrontRow but I can't for the life of me remember what it was called now. Quicktime is also bloody fantastic on the Mac - nothing like the horrible mess it can be on Windows. I normally would actually pay for the Quicktime Pro on all my Macs as I got on with it so well. The other media player I'd normally use was VLC, although that operates identically to the Windows version. I can also understand why lots of graphics people still work on Macs, as in my personal experience Photoshop et al is a much nicer experience on OS X.

As the most pleasent way to get Unix on a laptop I love macs. Wonderful, wonderful things.

Not just video and audio stuff, they are also amazing for SCIENCE.

Thats right, even all caps science.

Quicktime is a lot nice on windows these days. At least they now let you do full screen without upgrading to pro

Still insists on adding itself to Startup every time you update it, though, and for that it can fuck off.

I prefer working* in Debian/Ubuntu over Windows**, but if I want to edit photos then I need to boot a Windows VM & if I want to make music or play games then I need to boot the Windows partition.

OSX I'm indifferent to, I've not used it much & at the end of the day it's just another OS with different a different set of pros 'n' cons & I'd probably still need Windows around anyway.

I wouldn't recommend anything other than Windows to 99% of my friends or family though, because I know it'll probably run everything they want with minimal fuss. That reminds me, my parents Win7 upgrade arrived the other day, I suppose I better stick that on for them.

*Mostly a euphemism for pissing around on the Internet & playing with MAME, but occasionally I write letters or do my accounts
**Only because it interested me & I've spent a bit of time over the years figuring out how to make it look & behave in a way that makes me happy.

I agree on the whole. But it does relieve my headache of the Mac types bringing in their shiny God-like Macs and expecting their quicktime files to work.

How much is a Mac Mini these days?

It's like Apple don't want people to migrate to os x. No amount of 'they don't act like idiots on their own os' can undo the terrible impression they create with their windows software. >:(

If you want Unix on a laptop there are many, many cheaper ways of achieving it.

Can't argue with that. There's a bloke at work who gushes about Macs and iPhones at every opportunity and on more than one occasion recommended that we replace all the users' PCs with Macs. Yeah, that'd turn out well when 99% of clients use Windows.




Why would your OS make you swear at all? I think the only thing that irks me with XP is programs switching focus.

Conversely I spend my life converting and encoding video files to formats that PC's can understand. Not that I object. I always laugh at competitors websites where their showreel is in Quicktime so no fucker will see it.

Quicktime isn't anything special apart from the special codecs Apple provide with Final Cut. Prores and its variants are the mutts for professional video editing use.

What formats do you go for, Chinny?

Windows Media for material to be played from a hard drive or DVD on a computer, Flash for the web, and MPEG2 for SD DVD.

There's also a H264x for Youtube and Vimeo uploads.

Footage is mainly shot in XDCAM with a small amount of HDV and I retain DV capacity. Rendering is Apple Prores as is any finished video.

My preferred option would be telling them they can convert it so they can use on a PC by bringing up the terminal & typing before handing them a Windows disc

I learnt all about incompatible file types the hard way by driving up to Glasgow to hand in an essay, getting there & discovering I'd saved it as an Open Office document instead of a Word document. The IT guy wasn't for doing anything so I had to drive back home, convert it, drive back up, print it & hand it in. A few hours & a load of diesel wasted. Lesson learned.

Kinda my point. It's more expensive but so much more pleasent that it is totally worth it.

Also, as time = money I save a bundle by not religiously installing every distro I want to find my favourite for this week.

(I actually have SUSE 10 working on a 200Mhz ancient laptop somewhere, that I used as just a terminal....)

What a prick. I have OpenOffice installed for that very reason, and for no other purpose.

I've got an adaptor that lets a Mac plug into our projector. Who's the prick now?

That actually makes you a hero.

But a Macbook one? A powerbook one? Or an iBook one?

*Glowers in direction of Apple HQ*

"Lets not spoil the sleak lines of our product by making everyone carry around a stupid dongle all the bloody time. Then lets keep changing the dongle too."

Do you own a mac? I guess that's why you have an adaptor. You'd think the other mac users in the world would have one too.

And didn't you know? Everyone's a prick except me.

I don't have one personally, I got one for the company in case someone turns up wanting to use our projector. My Macs aren't the type you carry around

I don't understand your logic. If people would just bring their own dongle, there wouldn't be problem.

As pointed out though, there are about 3 or different types of dongle. If you only have one, then you may run the risk of dashing someone's hopes to pieces with a room full of people watching

I got my iBook about five years ago, it's still going fairly strong (though I do worry for the optical drive due to the age) and that together with the G4 tower I bought (currently knackered due to dead PSU) means I only use Windows at work now.

Yes, hardware faults might not make this the most ringing endorsement, but it is!

My Powerbook will be seven years old next year, I think, and it's still up and running. I don't use it much these days - I use my iPhone for almost all my Internet stuff - except as a USB charger and to order from Sainsbury's, but it's going.

I think I have four.

That's the same age as mine. It plods on, but bugger me does it plod.

Yeah, I don't often use it to visit any of these fancy modern websites (e.g. "YouTube"). It doesn't like them much.

Opera generally runs quite quickly on it, though, certainly much, much better than Firefox. (The only version of Safari that will run on 10.2.9 is shit beyond belief.)

Still, not bad for a 7-year old computer. 2002 vintage PCs would struggle to run anything beyond IE6 and flash would probably cause a fire.

We still get clients demanding the complicated things we build work fully in IE5.5

I'm not sure how that's related to what you said, mind.

Yeah, why is every site* these days lined with embedded flash movies and flash ad banners and flash fucking everything? I tried to look at that new Zelda DS game but because the entire bastard site was flash it ran like shit!

*or (engaging AntiDrGTakingEverythingLiterally protection. ADGTEL engaged) so it seems!

Have you tried Powershell? http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/scri ... 42419.aspx

I'm not expert enough with other OS command shells to compare it with those, but Powershell is leaps and bounds ahead of the standard Winderz command prompt.

Except, you know, this one.
In my eyes, Flash is a fine media streamer / player, and that's what I'll use it for. Making anything else with it, though? GTFF.