Want a Penryn processor crack open an apple! - Page 8
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| Vertigon wrote : Lukebird I hear you about the keyboard and desktop. I use a razer lycosa keyboard, I can design in complete darkness with it because all the keys light up, or the WASD for gamers. The keys are also programable and have a lovely sticky feel to them. I also use a 7 button razer copperhead mouse, only using about 4 of them regularly because I mainly use the spacepilot to navigate with. This system works for me.
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I'm glad you understand the 'ergonomics' point, it can sound like a rather contrived comment, but even for me (I'm not a designer, but work in a design & development department) it makes a big difference having a decent desktop set-up.
With regard to the multiple desktops (called 'Spaces'), I was very scheptical of them initially, but it really does make a difference! At first I didn't use them, but the moment you start using a few programs together (as I said, like I do with CS3) it is so easy to not have to flick between a load of windows on the same desktop a la XP. It's one thing I notice more than most in comparison between XP and OS X. It's quite odd, but it works wonderfully and is so simple to use. I'll see if I can screenshot it (I think you can...) to give you an idea. But think of having all of your programs open at once you're using at that time, but all fully open and ready to go, press one key, select your desktop and there you are, whatever program you wanted is there.
Oh and apologies for some of my earlier replies, things became a little heated, eh?
Apologies chap... 
Reply to LukeBird
| LukeBird wrote : Very true, but I made my Windows based PC myself.
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We've been this way since Delphi ( I came shortly after), thats many moons ago now, But Tom himself used to bash Apple on a regular basis so its pretty well ingrained in most of us. I personally like to get into mud slinging over the topic (or anything I can) just because I dont get to post very often and my time is more limited than 7 years ago. I generally mean no offence I just like stirring the pot from time to time especially when I know the mods don't care all that much (specifically Apple related).
Word, Playa.
| LukeBird wrote : In many ways Macs are easier to design on because of the ergonomics physically and within the OS. |
A lot of keyboards are crap. The ones that come with inexpensive OEM desktops are absolute garbage and even ones that come with expensive OEM desktops are typically not that great. I have used many keyboards and have found Apple desktop keyboards to be very mediocre. They have a very light, squishy keystroke that I do not like. They are also less durable than a decent other OEM keyboard if my relatively limited sample of a hundred or so Macintosh keyboards in a few computer labs over five years is any indication. Apple keyboards used to be pretty decent though as I used the ones on Apple IIs, LCs, and PowerPC 60x Power Macs and they were fine- it was when Apple went to the polycarbonate-shell units and the horrible puck mouse of the first iMac that the quality went way downhill. Probably the best OEM keyboards I have used recently are the ones Dell ships to be abused on OptiPlex business computers, but even those are only so-so. If only IBM hadn't been an idiot and stopped making the Model M keyboard- that was the best OEM keyboard made, bar none. They have a very nice key weighting, good tactile feedback, and the suckers are DURABLE. I'm currently using one that had been abused for many years in a university computer lab, then stacked in a big pile and left to sit for over five years before I was able to snag it before it was thrown out. It works perfectly and has served me well for the last two years, which is about the time that it took some of the the rubber dome switches on my previous Logitech keyboard to squish their last squish.
Don't even get me started on laptop keyboards. Apple and Sony have the worst laptop keyboards out there. The "Chiclet" style keyboard in the MacBook died out in the mid 1970s for a reason- they were HORRIBLE. But yet Apple and then Sony decided to bring them back. They are absolutely terrible to type on, even compared to the rest of the manure pit that is the laptop keyboard selection today.
| Quote : Also the way the OS handles multiple programs is far, far beyond what XP or Vista can do. That's one area where OS X really is ahead of Windows. On my PowerBook I have 6 desktops, I can leave anything I want in each one and can drag and drop windows into each one. I can have upto 16 as well. It may sound like an utter waste of time, (and I did think it was initially) but when you're using several programs it's much easier being able to flick between a desktop than minimise all of your current windows to open several more! |
Virtual desktops were introduced in X11 desktops on Unix a long time ago. Apple just inherited it when they bought out NeXT and based OS X of NeXTstep. MS does support virtual desktops on Windows through the MS Virtual Desktop Manager power toy. It's clunky compared to the desktop switching on Unix, particularly if you use a hardware-composited desktop and get all of the eye candy, but it's still there.
| Quote : When I was doing some design work at work, I had Photoshop open in one window, Fireworks in another, iTunes in another, MSN Messenger and Safari in another and Dreamweaver in another. It was far more pracitcal than having a load of tiny icons in my taskbar. OS X is far more integrated into design work than a PC, because a PC has to be a compromise between many different functions. If you don't agree with me, so be it. But there is more than one reason for you. |
All right, I'll try to do my best to summarize why somebody might want to buy a Macintosh over another brand of OEM computer:
1. You want to run MacOS X.
2. You like how they look compared to another computer or want one for the cachet.
3. You qualify for some discount on Macintoshes that makes them less expensive than another OEM machine of identical specifications.
Otherwise, a Macintosh computer is virtually identical to an OEM computer from another vendor. They all use the same processors, same chipsets, and many of the other internal components are similar if not identical. It's not like it was in the past where Macintoshes had different processors inside.
Message edited by MU_Engineer on 05-14-2008 at 05:46:55 AM
Yes, I am actually still running the Pentium III 1.0B Coppermine in the picture.
Reply to MU_Engineer
| spud wrote : We've been this way since Delphi ( I came shortly after), thats many moons ago now, But Tom himself used to bash Apple on a regular basis so its pretty well ingrained in most of us. I personally like to get into mud slinging over the topic (or anything I can) just because I dont get to post very often and my time is more limited than 7 years ago. I generally mean no offence I just like stirring the pot from time to time especially when I know the mods don't care all that much (specifically Apple related).
|
Fair enough.
I'll be more than happy to oblige! 
Reply to LukeBird
| MU_Engineer wrote : A lot of keyboards are crap. The ones that come with inexpensive OEM desktops are absolute garbage and even ones that come with expensive OEM desktops are typically not that great. I have used many keyboards and have found Apple desktop keyboards to be very mediocre. They have a very light, squishy keystroke that I do not like. They are also less durable than a decent other OEM keyboard if my relatively limited sample of a hundred or so Macintosh keyboards in a few computer labs over five years is any indication. Apple keyboards used to be pretty decent though as I used the ones on Apple IIs, LCs, and PowerPC 60x Power Macs and they were fine- it was when Apple went to the polycarbonate-shell units and the horrible puck mouse of the first iMac that the quality went way downhill. Probably the best OEM keyboards I have used recently are the ones Dell ships to be abused on OptiPlex business computers, but even those are only so-so. |
The new iMac keyboard (the flat, aluminium one that macgirlfriend said about) is a great keyboard, I completely agree with you over the polycarbonate shelled one, that was a godawful keyboard! Utterly horrid, didn't like it at all...
| MU_Engineer wrote :
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See for me, my PowerBook keyboard is fantastic, but laptop keyboards are generally far worse than even a mediocre desktop one.
| MU_Engineer wrote :
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Sorry, should have clarified, I know it was nothing new in the world of OS's (but new to OS X). I was just comparing the main two OS's in the home/desktop environment (no doubt you're going to tell me all of your computers run Ubuntu! 
). I didn't know that MS had a virtual desktop, never even heard of it. Which tells you pretty much all you need to know about it really...
| MU_Engineer wrote :
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That's where you're wrong. My Mac doesn't use any components you could find in any OEM machine.
My PowerBook is a Power PC based machine (the forerunner to the MacBook Pro), as you said, an older Mac.
I have no desire to buy a Core 2 based machine, none at all. I bought mine because I had very little knowledge of OS X and wanted to use it more (because I'd enjoyed using it on my housemates eMac and new iMac), in exactly the same way I want an eee to mess around with Linux. I do indeed like the look of my PowerBook, cracking looking machine and very well made. Utterly solid! And as mine was an older machine, the discount point is not applicable. That and I wouldn't be eligible for any of the discounts anyway! (Not including an old university pass I still have that's still valid for a couple more years. One they never took off me when I quit! 
).
Reply to LukeBird
^Oh yeah? I run AIX and Solaris, in full text only cmd line
| macgirlfriend wrote : Hey I was away doing research and I found that imacs use mobile processors making them better than PCs |
Power consumption may be. Raw processing power no.
Message edited by shadow703793 on 05-14-2008 at 01:16:19 PM
Reply to shadow703793
| amdfangirl wrote : sudo -s |
We were useing command line before you were born youngling.
Word, Playa.
^If they had so many specific products the world would indeed be very confusing to many (like the nVidia GPU naming scheme )
| spud wrote : We were useing command line before you were born youngling. Word, Playa. |
Not me, but I am teaching my self 
(along with Perl, VB .NET, JAVA,,etc). So I can be a POWER user . Looks good on a resume if applying for a job such as DBA.
Message edited by shadow703793 on 05-15-2008 at 01:24:33 AM
Reply to shadow703793
| LukeBird wrote : The new iMac keyboard (the flat, aluminium one that macgirlfriend said about) is a great keyboard, I completely agree with you over the polycarbonate shelled one, that was a godawful keyboard! Utterly horrid, didn't like it at all... |
I've never used one of the aluminum desktop keyboards so I cannot comment.
| Quote : See for me, my PowerBook keyboard is fantastic, but laptop keyboards are generally far worse than even a mediocre desktop one. |
I've used PowerBook keyboards and they are decent for laptop keyboards but like you said, they are not that great compared to a good desktop keyboard.
| Quote : I was just comparing the main two OS's in the home/desktop environment (no doubt you're going to tell me all of your computers run Ubuntu! |
Close but not quite. Both my laptop and desktop run Debian Lenny amd64.
| Quote : That's where you're wrong. My Mac doesn't use any components you could find in any OEM machine. |
Do you know what OEM means? It doesn't mean "generic x86 computer hardware" like you imply; it means a maker of pre-assembled computer systems. Apple is an OEM and thus all of their machines are OEM computers, including your PowerBook.
| amdfangirl wrote : All my computers run Fedora |
I've worked with Fedora before and it's okay, but it just doesn't rub me the right way for some reason.
| amdfangirl wrote : sudo -s |
The Unixes have a pretty darn good command line and somebody who knows how to use it can be very, very effective with it. Like Spud said, some of us have been using the command line since well before you were born. When I started to use computers, a CLI was really all there was. Unfortunately the CLI I had was a DOS one and not a Unix one, but this was in the days when Unix and the machines that ran it were proprietary and very expensive.
Yes, I am actually still running the Pentium III 1.0B Coppermine in the picture.
Reply to MU_Engineer
| MU_Engineer wrote :
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My apologies, didn't make my comment clear!
I meant any current machine. Which I only commented on because I guess you assumed I had a Core 2 based machine. The reason I have what I have, is I have no desire for an Intel machine!
That and there is currently no 12" MacBook Pro! When there is, I may consider going Intel.
Reply to LukeBird
| amdfangirl wrote : I know! How is the Macbook Air even called a replacement for my favourite mac of all time? (Imac g4 is second). One USB! |
So you like the PowerBook 12" as well then?
Reply to LukeBird
| amdfangirl wrote : Yup, its my favourite in terms of design and function..... |
Ewwwwww Intel! 
I do like the Black MacBook, but if I was spending that much of my £, I'd find the extra and buy a MacBook Pro. I just wish Apple would make a modern MacBook Pro 12". I could be swayed by Intel then, possibly!
Reply to LukeBird
| amdfangirl wrote : hmm...... if apple would only use some Turion 64 X2's they could reduce the cost alot..... or even Pentium Dual-Cores..... |
I like the idea of a Turion X2.
I was always surprised Apple (on a purely marketing side) didn't go with AMD, instead of Intel "The font of all Windows people"
I can't see me getting rid of my PB 12" until there is a proper replacement. Even then, I'll probably keep it for nostalgic purposes! 
Reply to LukeBird
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