Now, that IS old.
Now, that IS old.
I have never work on or even a MAC with a 2 button mouse. ALL the MAC users here still use the supplied Apple mice.
Brian, those were NOT my conclusions, they were the conclusions of a local business man. He looked at the whole picture, the initial cost, the maintenance costs, the availablility of service when the machines went down.
He also said he had "almost as many problems with the Apple hardware as with the generic PC hardware" and he "wished the Apple product was as well made as they were in the mid 90s".
After taking in the whole picture, he made the decision to replace the failing MACs with, in his words, "quality PCs". It must be noted here that he does not buy the cheapest PCs, the ones that are sold to the average consumer.
I can sell a box to a home user who wants a cheap one for $400-450.00 CDN, while I would suggest one valued at $800.00 to a corporate client. Similar specs but better quality components. The "home" unit comes with a 1 year warranty, the "pro" unit has a 2 year warranty. The difference is Asus MB vs. Elite Group or Gigabyte, Maxtor HD as opposed to cheaper WD or Seagate. Plextor CD-RW as opposed to LG or Panasonic. Intel P4 as opposed to Celeron or Duron. (AMD Athlons still run to hot for my taste). An A-Open or Antec case as opposed to the generic E-Machine style cases.
You double the price and you double the quality. For 17" monitors, does he want a $175.00 LG, or a $225.00 Viewsonic. If you have seen these two side by side you will automatically know the value of the Viewsonic. True black screen as opposed to dark gray. Cleaner and sharper picture for sure.
Brian Paul Ehni wrote in news:BC936D00.4D71% snipped-for-privacy@comcast.net:
You must be kidding. True, I don't hear much from Mac users. I don't KNOW many Mac users. My wife was doing work with an interior design firm that had just installed new Macs. She said they had all kinds of problems with those machines and were very upset about it. Want to see problems? Just go to any Mac forum
Computers are complex and are called upon to do an incredible variety of tasks. Problems are inevitable. It mostly depends on the quality of the hardware and software in use. Macs, in theory, have a better chance of controlling hardware quality and compatibility. Software is software, and there is good and bad in both camps.
I put a top quality PC (hand picked parts) together with carefully evaluated software to run my home security and automation. It is in service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with hardly a hiccup. It is running Windows XP. On the other hand, I have had my share of hair- pulling experiences on other XP machines that are asked to deal with a MUCH larger variety of hardware and software.
I remember having a discussion with a Windows user when I was an OS/2 user. He claimed to have not heard of ANYONE who had ANY problems with Windows. He revealed himself for what he was and any further discussion was pointless.
in article snipped-for-privacy@optusnet.com.au, Mark Newton at mark snipped-for-privacy@optusnet.com.au wrote on 4/4/04 12:53 AM:
Exceedingly old fart. And there is no "standard." Netiquette grew up over time. "Rules" were propagated by the first person to post them. Some are band width reducers (no HTML in usenet news for example), others are just conventions, like imbedded vs top posting.
in article 5fWbc.19693$ snipped-for-privacy@read2.cgocable.net, snipped-for-privacy@CreditValley.Railway at snipped-for-privacy@cogeco.cant wrote on 4/4/04 8:57 AM:
Just because you haven't seen one 200 miles from Toronto, doesn't mean they don't exist. I happen to have a 4 button + scroll wheel mouse on my G4/733 (MS Intellimouse) and my wife uses a Kensington wireless with two buttons and a scroll "pad." I've also used glide points, etc. They all work just fine. It's just the Apple only sells the single button variety, not that they don't work. OS 9 and X both know about the right and left buttons automatically. You can also get the right click by pressing the "control" key whilst clicking the mouse. The Apple keyboard has that control key on the left and right sides, so it works for lefties as well as righties.
I have an AMD Athlon and it runs too hot. I probbly won't get another one. It has caused me some problems. The Motorolas in my previous Apples never gave a pico-second of problems.
I keep the covers off mine and have a user-installed fan (big one) that blows cold air over the motherboard and CPU. Even then, when the ambient room temp. climbs to much over 65ºF, the thing gets squirrelly. You can only do just so much cooling until you run in to the junction temperature problem. There is nothing you can do about that. You can't get rid of the heat until it gets to the surface of the device. A pure copper heat exchanger with liquid nitrogen pumped through it, bolted to the CPU, might reach to chill the insides a little better, but I don't think I want to go there.
He isn't. But regardless, I have had Macs since 1986, and I have had bugger-all in the way of problems. I HAVE had some, there's no denying that, but they were minor and easily resolved. Am I pretending?
No doubt the situation in rural Canada differs from what I'm accustomed to, but in the real world of print production in Sydney, Australia, Mac is the choice of graphics professionals.
That's bullshit, Will. I'm typing this on a iMac that uses a three-button Logitech mouse with scroll wheel. I can configure the machine any way I care to...
I can't imagine why. The standard mouse for the iMac is useless, no better than a sandwich tuna tin with a string sticking out of it. I binned it smartly and replaced it with a Logitech doover with (gasp) 3 buttons and a scroll wheel!
AM:
MXSbc.19662$ snipped-for-privacy@read2.cgocable.net,
Actually Ed, up until 2 years ago, I was living and working in Toronto.
I worked for Computer City for the last 5 years of their existance and our store carried Apple Computers. The service department worked on Apples as well as PCs, that is why I know the breakdown just as often.
I guess the local Apple users are not up to your level of use. At the local print shop, they only had the standard Apple mouse on their PC.
Well, Mark, I asked the question of a friend of mine who is an Apple technician in Toronto. He was free lance and did on-site repairs for many of the big print and graphic houses in Toronto. He said they are gradually switching over as well. everytime an Apple machine goes down, they replace it with an Intel box.
I am in full agreement Jim, I am not saying that PCs with WinXP are perfect, just that they are on a par with Apple MACs and feature for feature, cost less to buy. PCs are easier to have serviced becuase their are more technicians. Also aquiring anything to run on them is easier. Even in Toronto, Apple dealers are few and far between. There is not the market to support them.
Not pretending Mark, I would say you were "Lucky".
I bet if you purchased a new MAC, you would not be able to say the same. A little known fact is that the new MACs use most of the same components, only difference is the MB and Motorola chips.
One reason graphics pros seem to like Macs is the color calibration (and the ability to further calibarate color screens) which is included with the system out of the box. I'm not a graphics guy (audio and video editing is what I mostly do with my Mac), but a few graphics I know give this as a reason for going Mac.
Ed. in article snipped-for-privacy@optusnet.com.au, Mark Newton at mark snipped-for-privacy@optusnet.com.au wrote on 4/4/04 4:06 PM:
You've just described the last eight machines I've built for work...best part is, I never have any hardware trouble. Last two were P4C800-E Deluxe, P4 3,2, dual Maxtor 80GB drives in RAID-1, etc...nice.
Unfortunately, I still have to have somone else build my laptops. I've bought Gateway, Dell and IBM. My boss, the Samsonite gorilla of laptop users, still hasn't managed to kill the Gateway Solo 9300 I bought several years ago, a feat equal to taking the Wright Flyer out of the Smithsonian and flying it around the world.
Don't bother to reply via email...I've been JoeJobbed.
And in the real world publishing houses in Nashville (like the small operation known as "Lifeway").
Best thing Apple ever did for use was to ditch the hockey puck! The new optical mouse is very nice (though I prefer a two-button with scroll).
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