Warning to all -- stay away from Apple!!

[midlifebear]

Finder and Explorer the same? No. They are very different things.

There are lots electronics and appliances I buy without going for the extended warranty. However, I would never buy either a Mac or a PC without also purchasing the minimum 3-year warranties. And I ALWAYS buy everything with my American Express card which gives me a whole 12 months of product protection anyway.

As for being nickel and dimed, I'm having a bit of sticker shock updating Adobe products. I regularly updated Adobe Photoshop on my old Dell (which, sadly died after five years) and to replicate or update everything on my MacBook Pro and the new Mac I use as a server, I cannot use my old Windoze-compatible legacy software. I must purchase a new "Creative Suite" that includes the latest versions of Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Acrobat, Flash, etc., -- cheapest "Creative Suite" i can buy costs $1,900. I can easily spend more if I want. Fortunately, it's tax deductible. Still, it hurts.

I have been running my old PC versions of Abobe's software on my new MacBook Pro using Parallels Desktop 4.0 for the Mac. But not only does Parallels add an annoying and sometimes unnecessary confusing extra layer to Mac's Snow Leopard OS, it also runs as slow as frozen molasses.

Still, Apple's on-line help and help forums networks are superior in quality of presentation and readability than Microsoft's. And I worked for Microsoft for many years and am able to live the life I currently enjoy thanks to Microsoft.

A little known fact is that in the early days writing technical documentation for Microsoft, we used Macs because they were designed for and already had the software for creating real books. But Uncle Bill put a stop to that and made us all suffer the trials and tribulations of quick and dirty Windoze 3.0 to do the same job and taking double or triple the time. By the time Windoze 95 came out, life was substantially better for tech writers in Redmond, Washington.

As for the iPhone, I'm relatively impressed with the thing. But my objection to owning one is that it's tied to AT&T. If it would work on other telephone networks (Telefonica, for example), I might buy one. But AT&T is raping and pillaging its clients for less than satisfactory service.

 

[FRE]

PCs will either have an application freeze that can be dealt with using a CTRL+ALT+DELETE, or if an important OS component crashes it blue screens and requires a full reboot.

Not always.

If a crash occurs, Windows is not necessarily looking at the keyboard in which case you can do nothing from the keyboard.

A proper operating system, which windows is not, will set a timer then give control to an application. If a timeout occurs, the OS will, if it detects a serious problem, abort the application. If it does not find a serious problem, it will read the keyboard and possibly do other things if there are other applications running, then return control to the application. That approach makes it impossible for the application to get into a loop which can be exited only by powering down the computer since a timeout will always return control to the OS. A proper OS may also provide additional means to abort an application, such as with an abort button.

Windows, upon giving control to an application, expects the application to return control to Windows periodically or when finished. If the application does not return control to Windows, Windows is completely out of the picture and can do nothing. Thus, with Windows, if an application gets into an endless loop, Windows can do nothing about it.

 

[midlifebear]

Not always.

If a crash occurs, Windows is not necessarily looking at the keyboard in which case you can do nothing from the keyboard.

A proper operating system, which windows is not, will set a timer then give control to an application. If a timeout occurs, the OS will, if it detects a serious problem, abort the application. If it does not find a serious problem, it will read the keyboard and possibly do other things if there are other applications running, then return control to the application. That approach makes it impossible for the application to get into a loop which can be exited only by powering down the computer since a timeout will always return control to the OS. A proper OS may also provide additional means to abort an application, such as with an abort button.

Windows, upon giving control to an application, expects the application to return control to Windows periodically or when finished. If the application does not return control to Windows, Windows is completely out of the picture and can do nothing. Thus, with Windows, if an application gets into an endless loop, Windows can do nothing about it.

Bless you for this post. :smile:

 

[josh20hung]

I just thought that after spending so much on the phone, and having to rebuy a bunch of apple products because what works for an iPod wont work for an iPhone (i.e. docks ... fm transmitters) that I would have gotten some sort of help. It turns out I just needed to deselect an option and now everything is fine. A few weeks ago I started having problems with my guitar hero for wii .. I called nintendo .. they emailed me an address to mail my nintendo to for repairs .. and an account number to add to the form so I wouldnt be charged for any of it .. including the initial call. I've had samsung phones, sony ericson and LG none of which charge for tech support!

 

[josh20hung]

If this is the "norm" .. then the "norm" needs to change because its bullsh*t ..

 

[MASSIVEPKGO_CHUCK]

I just got off the phone with Apple tech support. I called because I needed help transfering songs from iTunes to my phone. When I called, I was connected to an agent who was very friendly. I explained my problem to her and was waiting for her assistance. She told me that because I've had the phone for over 3 months, that Apple charges the customer $35 per problem, but if I wanted I could pay $70 and get like 3 months of unlimited tech support. I couldnt believe what she was saying, I didn't realize that this was an actuall thing that companies did. I asked her if she was high? but then quickly told her not to answer as I didnt want to be charged.

She did tell me that she could give me the website where I could find the information (apple.com ... hey thanks).

Does anyone else agree that this is totally bullsh*t?? Im kinda debating canceling my phone and getting a blackberry! thanks for listening to my rant!

Enough bullshit to fertilize my next yr's garden-TWICE! $70 bucks for tech support?!