Information Engineer

Well Well Well

I said to myself that I will not be part of this stupid Mac vs. PC war, but my dear friend sparkeled fire inside of me again, so I have to get it out so I can think about oher more importnat staff

OK, so… A while ago he said that … USA people buy too much cheap crap. On the contrary Japanese and European buy less, but cost is much more. They also buy more high quality staff as a rule: it works better, looks better and last longer. They also looks slimier than typical American and trams in Brussels has doors that so narrow that they would not be considered “politically correct over here”. Now, as economy shrinks, even USA Airlines started to charge extra for people that occupy more space. This is only fair, but …

You saw the stupid video about PC are cheap, right? In realty it is not exactly so. But hell with math, who cares. Look around: there are many cars. There are many brands. Not even 2 or 3, much much more. Some people over here drive Porshe and Lotus or even fancier cars, most have nice SUV even or fancy Hybrids ( my friend is no exception). In general so people prefer Japanese cars. They hold age in reliability if you are after that and do not need BMW or Corvette to compensate. It is not very likely to find Ford here if this is not F150 track but they are popular in other parts of country ( other coast ).

Why PC should be any different? All cars designed by certain standards: 4 wheels, 2 or 3 pedals. They are not the same, but they all use SAME ROAD. and you can relatively easy drive other car. Why computers and OS are all about Microsoft monopoly? Is this good? Healthy? Give more choice to consumers ( us !) ? I just do not think so.

That is just one reason why I like that other players out there.

Biggest drawback one can see with Windows Monopoly is MALWARE: viruses, spyware, botnets: It would be much harder to make such big and reliable botnet networks if s/w and h/w would be more diverse or BLASSEMY ! MORE SECURE ( say: only SIGNED and CERTIFIED code can run and it is goes as low as CPU level!). I do not even talk about some h/w that is R/O or running code from Ready Only memory: say you FLIPED THE SWITCH on computer and NO WRITING WHAT SO EVER will happen. You finished application: it is a CLEAN SLATE. How about that? On h/w level. What we see instead is h/w that is as bad as s/w: FLUSHED ROMS and even Intel CPU that can be “hacked” ( “cash poisoning” ?) Whatever….

That is not a point. My point is SATISFACTION.

Once , long time ago, WV made a car:. IT was so Beatle: it was so good back than, it almost bankrupted the company: it will just go on and on ( and there are still some that go on and on TODAY!). Who want to upgrade? Ah?

This is very good for consumer, but may be less so for company. It is also good for our planet: to force “upgrade” a company have to do a QUANTUM JUMP: say from gasoline to electristy to make consumers upgrade. Instead, they can make a defective products and just change shape and colors. That how car industry works today. If you look, modern cars probably consume more gas than before: even if gas engine became just a little bit better, they made it MUCH bigger in size. Cars, also, less and less reliable: they work good for first few years, then … well… that why I keep my old cars still: My new Toyota are not as good as much older Honda. It is true : “They are not make cars like this … anymore”

Now that we understand both USA vs American sociology and know company vs. customers politics we can move on computers.

When I was in “PC” or “Windows” world I always wanted NEW COMPUTER. Moment I got a new Laptop, I wanted to UPGRADE! A week latter, my computer was IRRELEVANT: price drooped, no re-sale value: you know that feeling, right ? It may be a Merfi law, but almost all my computers that I bought not as a kit, survived only as long as warranty period plus some time: some died mysteriously ( m/b!) Some became sick: CD or DVD drive not working, network card stopped to function e.t.c.

My last PC ( a super cool HP mini Tablet that won a lot of awards! – not a bad computer) was powered by Vista SP2 ( and I upgraded it to ULTIMATE, no less!) was a real disaster. The moment excitement about it faded and we had enough fun with it superb WACOM powered touch screen I started to weeeeee. Vista was like molasses. I had to clean it form crap ware. I had to hunt viruses. My 3 month old Photoshop from Costco would crash and I have to pay to Adobe for next version! It became hot. It body had some much crap on it ( holes, curves, latches, ports FUGLY protruding battery, and these CHEAP CORD that connect Wacom pen to it that just got trapped on every occasion) I found myself spending more and more time with my older Toshiba laptop: it was slowly dying, but it was still with XP and most staff I needed worked. New laptop ended up as a paper weight till stolen one day with my other electronic staff.:-(

It was exactly reverse with Mac. I had iBook G3 for many years. I got it in now dead Circuit City for 1/2 the price: they was nuking Apple inventory. It was mainly network kiosk: with 6G HD and 13” screen. and computer for kids ( Flush games). I liked this small computer and played with it once in a while. When new OS X upgrade came ( Tiger) it became even faster then before.

Than I got macMini for 600$ new as a cheap way to return to Mac programing that I did in the past. I got nice wireless mouse and keyboard with it and I used my own monitor. I was surprised, that I start to spend more and more time with it and almost stooped using my PC laptop, unless I need it to remote to office or do VS staff. I never found myself wanting to upgrade this Mac. It just worked. I started to play with XCode.

I was in line when iPhone was released. I got it on first day. 4 people after me was lucky enough to snatch last and rest when home gloomy. While Apple could charge more for it to control demand they drooped price and bumped specs up a few month latter, but, for no reason what so ever gave 100$ back to me and original owners of first iPhones. I was amazed. As a gadget geek I always buy first and that mean I pay premium But anyway. iPhone got bumped up and eventually upgraded to iPhone 3G. I almost got it. I could get it without penalty, but when I was in-line store closed up. I got a voucher for next day guaranteed phone. I never used it. I still own original iPhone I love and I use as my main developer device. I runs latest OS and even betas. It is almost as good as 3G and I like it flat look better. Is not this SUPER STRANGE?

When you buy WinCE phone you can not even do MINNOR upgrade. You are in mercy of Carrier and Microsoft and your phone maker. Go to Microsoft when site and read about 6.0 to 6.1 upgrade. THEY DO NOT FUCKING KNOW if you can upgrade your fucking Smart phone!!! I had Windows Smart phone. It is still here. I can not upgrade it. Nice brick.

iPhone get upgraded when you dock it with iTunes. ( it ask you of course). It is free as well. It proved to be very useful. Major OS upgrades are VERY nice. 1.x-2.x added a lot of nice extras like Exchange sync. 3.X will add some amazing features as well.

When I look on WinCE I can not even tell what version is it. I only know that Office Mobile seems to be GONE on new one

That is a big difference, my friend. But what we talk about me? My dear friend. He like to upgrade his WinCE brick every year. I duno, but even if this is “just” 200$ and no contract… why? Do we need to put more crap in junk mountains? And what FEATURES he is getting every year? I just can not tell.

Let put WinCE aside. You know Windows. What you got from XP to Vista? What features? Did you liked it? What was a price?

When Leopard ( X 10.5 ) came out, it was HUGE anticipation. Why? Because it came out WITH NEW USEFUL FEATURES. Like Time Machine for example. It is fantastic! And it is just one example.

What happens with Vista? Right .. people came back to XP.

XP, in a matter of fact is almost OK product. That why people do not want to move on. That what Microsoft do not like. Remember WV?

Now that we know why Apple faithful LOVE OS updates – OS X or iPhone OS ( new great features) and Windows users HATE OS updates and even SP ( they fucking BREAK THINGS!) Let’s take application s/w.

I love upgrade iLife and iWork. Why ? It brings me new features I use. Say, iPhoto “Faces” – it is very cool. What about Microsoft Office ? I was very conservative till very last moment at work. I keep on my old 2003. Why ? Just because Microsoft can not even UPGRADE it own s/w. What new Office installer told me? Yes, right. He said that my “software” ( MS s/w – old office and .net?) is not compatible! Niceeeee!!! Now I had to manually clean my system and remove all s/w : including Exchange – my biggest concern of loosing local stored e-mails. I did this jump, but I hesitated for almost a year. Then I found that feature I use very often is not GONE. Printing is gone!!! Or crap… it took me few minutes to locate it under fancy round thing. Than I wasted some time looking where other things I use …. relocated. Did I used even ONE new feature or can name it? NO!

Even Adobe sucks in this respect: every new Photoshop version is more crapy and buggy. They do not actually add much tools I use. I can only probably name a new selector tools that some times can be helpful, but still more like gimmicks. I still use Photoshop mainly as I was using it long time ago. But Adobe, just like Microsoft needs money and we all know, that QUANTUM JUMP is expensive. It is much easier to re-pain car and change it shape: move buttons, make “ribbon toolbar”, change windows colors, add some useless gimmick features ( “selection by painting! – works like century old magic selector with shift more or less ) Yeah …

And just like I use Photoshop ( even on Mac) because I used to it ( some features), people will keep using Microsoft Office and they will be forced to upgrade for no reason

Now, after a while I got MacBook Pro ( a year ago)- I need a Laptop. MacMini went to kids. MacBook Pro is my main machine. It was not really upgrade, but more of necessity and I still love this computer. Yes, new UNIBODY Apple Laptops is sexy and good, but my MacBook Pro just work very nice. It will probably be good enough for me for a while. It is both aesthetically pleasing and perform very good. What more to ask for?

Suddenly, I do not need to upgrade my laptop and cell phone every year or every 2 years. It will be more like 3 or more years now and even after, it may still be in service. Just like my old G3 was.

That is a difference between cheap crap and quality and unlike BMW vs. Ford Focus. PC vs Mac is no brainer. They are in the same price tier more or less.

Now, how company manage to survive producing a higher quality products with constant support? I do not know. Apparently it is posable and with nice profit as well

Do you want to feel VERY COMFORTABLE about your computer and loose a burning desire to UPGRADE! UPGRADE! UPGRADE!, knowing that you already have THE BEST AVAILABLE ? Just like me?

It is simple … really… you know … ( hint : choose Mac )