On Mon, 2008-09-15 at 21:53 +0100, Stut wrote: > On 15 Sep 2008, at 21:15, Robert Cummings wrote: > > So the question is, can I get a comparable Mac system at the same > > price > > point? > > I've not gotten involved in this discussion so far because I've had it > so many times with so many different people I've realised it's just > not worth it any more. However I just wanted to say that it's not > possible to compare the pure numbers of Apple and other PCs and come > out with a meaningful answer. There's so much more to what makes a > computer responsive and usable than the pure numbers and if you can't > see that then I wish you all the best with your choice. > > I recently spent nearly £2500 on a Mac Pro and I'm fully aware that I > could have matched the raw specs with a non-Apple machine for just > over £1k less, but that's not the point. I would have spent less to > get less. I've been using Macs for a little over 6 years and I've not > looked back. In fact I've made career choices that allowed me to > choose OSX for my desktop (those choices turned out to be great in > other ways but that's another story). > > The OS is based on FreeBSD which makes it ideal for developing PHP for > deployment on BSD/Linux servers. Security is much less of an issue. > The "everything just works" saying is not just marketing hype, it's > actually true, but in return for that you pay a bit more. And when > something does go wrong I've found their support to be second to none, > especially when you pay for the add-on AppleCare package - the only > extended warranty in the industry that's worth what they charge for > it. My MacBook Pro is currently with them being repaired. No hassle, > no fuss, and free of charge even though it's 10 days past its warranty > expiration date. > > If you're the type of user who loves the numbers game then a Mac is > not for you. If you're the type of user that wants to be productive > and encounter less stress day-to-day then I'd strongly recommend a > Mac. But at the end of the day everyone makes their own choice and > most people in the world look at the numbers and don't see value > beyond that. > > As for Microsoft (will people please stop screwing with their name, > it's impolite), they've certainly made some bad choices over the years > and Windows has suffered for it. Just as NT was a massive improvement > on its predecessors, XP was also a massive improvement on NT. > Unfortunately they seem to have lost sight of their primary goals when > they planned Vista. They started sacrificing stability for fluff just > as the world thought they had woken up to what people needed rather > than what their marketing department could convince them they wanted. > > OSX is not perfect, neither is Windows, and Linux has a long way to go > both technically and PR-wise before it can possible compete with > either of them. My advice is to give each a decent try (by which I > don't mean a couple of hours/days). Give yourself time to get used to > what they do differently, don't let yourself snap back because it's > unfamiliar. You might find out what all the fuss is about. And if you > don't? Well, at least you tried and you can properly justify your > choice rather than regurgitating the opinions of others. > > That's all I wanted to say, back to your regularly scheduled > argument^Wdiscussion. > I think you misunderstand my point. Yes I think you can get added benefit by paying more, I mean Mac does come with productivity software I'm sure, built in to the price somewhat. But there's no reason really, not anymore, that MacOS can't run on generic intel hardware. The only reason it won't or can't is due to anti-competitive practices by Apple. It will be interesting to see how the current legal battle between Apple and that company doing OSX installs on generic hardware goes. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080715-apple-finally-sues-unlicensed-macintosh-cloner-psystar.html Next, I run linux for all my needs... web development, web hosting, office need, graphics needs, etc, etc, etc. I can't imagine anything that Mac OS could offer me that I can't find in the linux arena. Maybe I'm ignorant, or maybe I don't have those needs. I find myself to be exceptionally productive with linux software and I've rarely had to spend much time finding and then installing (sometimes compiling from source) some new package to fulfill my needs. Is it more complex than using Mac OSX? Maybe, but complexity isn't always associated with difficulty. On the topic of abusing the Microsoft name... maybe when they stop being a dirty monopoly. I'm guessing due to their aggressive and questionably legal practices that the progress of software (and quite possibly hardware) technology has been greatly impeded. I wonder how much Microsoft costs the world in lost priductivity due to the incompatibilities introduced by their software. We see it with the browsers, we've seen it with their bastardization of Java in the 90s, we see it with their lack of respect for the ISO processes... and there's still that question of SCO's funding, and the questionable claim by Microsoft that Linux is violating their IP. > Oh, and I saw this and thought of you lot: > http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p315/vince1956/logo.gif ;) I've seen that cartoon before... one of my all time favourites for sure :) Cheers, Rob. -- http://www.interjinn.com Application and Templating Framework for PHP -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
