How come I miss this stuff?
Aug. 10th, 2002 03:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pseydtonneI was catching up on my online comic strips when I came across Penny Arcade's bashing of the latest "Switch" ads from Apple. In case you hadn't seen these ads, as I hadn't, go to http://www.apple.com/switch if you want to have text for my context.
Be prepared to download an obnoxious video player to watch these ads. The ads are about former Windows users that switched to Macs. These are Apple ads, so they have stark white backgrounds and some ooky banjo plucking underneath people's tales of salvation. These ads are also only available as QuickTime flicks and not in the more readily available streaming formats (RealAudio or Windows Media Player). So I installed the software and I had to remember which settings would mess up my Winamp choices. Then I selected an ad and got... another ad (for QuickTime Pro).
When I finally got to the ads, I felt like I was watching something from fifteen years ago. One ad features a girl that lost a term paper to a core dump. Does this happen? Yup. It happens in every single operating system. Such events are highly preventable (or at least salvageable) through two simple activities: saving every few minutes and not keeping more than a few apps running at any time. The girl implies Windows scorched her paper but never explicitly claims a Mac wouldn't.
Most of the stories aren't as interesting. Some guy quit Windows "cold turkey"; I would assume he's been stealing his Windows apps so he didn't lose much investment when he started swiping Mac apps. A woman fell in love with the look of an iBook and switched -- obviously, this commercial is not for a geek.
One commercial actually makes a viable case, sort of. A woman explains that she never "got" what Windows was doing but that her Mac is "intuitive" and thus lets her get more done.
Since some of you use Macs, you'll be pleased to learn that I'm not about to bash Macs. I used to use a Mac (1992 through 1996) and my mother uses a Mac. Macs are great for certain specific things: desktop publishing, pre-press work, graphic design, and getting visual work done. They are more efficient in their installation of software by far: you decompress a file and wind up with a folder, you put the folder where you want, and double-click on the brightest icon in the folder. Windows 95 was basically a crippled System 6.7, released about five years before.
However, Macs aren't The Answer. They crash, too. They are very strange when you're used to configuring your computer by editing text files. They have no GUI-free version, meaning you can't use them as servers.
When Apple releases a new OS, you can throw away a lot of your software and some hardware. Bashing Windows is easy, but WordPerfect files from 1985 are still legible and printable in Windows 98. This one-way conversion is acceptable if you only have one machine to deal with but it's a pain when you cruise around all day.
None of this reaches the big point: that Apple is a weird scene the deeper you dig. Windows is evil, but it only sells a couple pieces of hardware (some nice trackballs and mice). Apple sells you hardware, and acts like the OS, while integral, can be wiped at a moment's notice. This is the main reason businesses don't take kindly to Macs anymore.
Say you run a small company -- a flower shop with two locations. You've got inventory to track, customers to serve, the works. You need to be able to say "I can ship the mums to your mum from the Langston Ave store tomorrow morning." You invest in readily-available software that helps you do this. You spent some time learning how to do this, and that sucked, but it paid off. When Microsoft tells you their newest annoyance is available, you can shrug it off.
Now you open a third store. If you have a Windows-based store, the new computer for the new store will be faster and run the shiny new OS, but it will also load the old software you've been using to track stock. A Mac-based office could have a serious problem with this because the latest box, running the latest OS, may not recognize a damn file without conversion and reconversion. This slows a business down.
This, by the way, is also why databases with web interfaces have caught on.
Catering to newbies is nothing new. I felt like I'd gotten into computers late when I first got a computer with a "real OS" in May of 1992. I loved that computer. I can hardly believe that I got anything done on it, since it could not keep up with my typing speed by the time I graduated college.
What is my point? They all chunk. Linux has a steep learning curve, but it is the best way to run a networked machine that's too old to play Flash. It's also the hands-down finest environment for learning to program, for programming, and for being broke. Macs are the easiest to use, but you can't mack them out. Windows is... what, the fifth seal from the Book of Revelations?
One of the ads features a programmer. He was stunned at how easy it was to start surfing the Web on a Mac. I'm not. Then again, I notice he didn't mention a dang thing about compiling anything on that machine. "It's an all-around computer," he says. For two grand, it had better be. You could buy a dual-processor AMD instead and still have enough for a week's vacation.
Computers are tools. Different people need different tools. Apple made a decision 18 years ago that its newest computer wouldn't be compatible with anything. This was a bold move, and it worked. It hasn't foundered yet. However, it hasn't made it simpler for developers to get involved and it has no such plans. Linux can run on anything (possibly even a rickshaw). Computers need applications to be successful, and Apple is always a little behind about that.
I forget about Macs so easily; maybe this is because I don't walk through Harvard Square every day, where their ads are on permanent display. "Think different" the kiosk says, and I always say back:
"-ly! Differently!" Too much gloss for this cheapskate. Gimme a broken Windows machine and I'll give you a Linux box. Gimme a few bucks and I'll show you how to use it. Gimme a Mac, and I'll... well, I'll keep it if it's teal. Just remind me to uninstall QuickTime.
-doggie in the window, Ps/d
Be prepared to download an obnoxious video player to watch these ads. The ads are about former Windows users that switched to Macs. These are Apple ads, so they have stark white backgrounds and some ooky banjo plucking underneath people's tales of salvation. These ads are also only available as QuickTime flicks and not in the more readily available streaming formats (RealAudio or Windows Media Player). So I installed the software and I had to remember which settings would mess up my Winamp choices. Then I selected an ad and got... another ad (for QuickTime Pro).
When I finally got to the ads, I felt like I was watching something from fifteen years ago. One ad features a girl that lost a term paper to a core dump. Does this happen? Yup. It happens in every single operating system. Such events are highly preventable (or at least salvageable) through two simple activities: saving every few minutes and not keeping more than a few apps running at any time. The girl implies Windows scorched her paper but never explicitly claims a Mac wouldn't.
Most of the stories aren't as interesting. Some guy quit Windows "cold turkey"; I would assume he's been stealing his Windows apps so he didn't lose much investment when he started swiping Mac apps. A woman fell in love with the look of an iBook and switched -- obviously, this commercial is not for a geek.
One commercial actually makes a viable case, sort of. A woman explains that she never "got" what Windows was doing but that her Mac is "intuitive" and thus lets her get more done.
Since some of you use Macs, you'll be pleased to learn that I'm not about to bash Macs. I used to use a Mac (1992 through 1996) and my mother uses a Mac. Macs are great for certain specific things: desktop publishing, pre-press work, graphic design, and getting visual work done. They are more efficient in their installation of software by far: you decompress a file and wind up with a folder, you put the folder where you want, and double-click on the brightest icon in the folder. Windows 95 was basically a crippled System 6.7, released about five years before.
However, Macs aren't The Answer. They crash, too. They are very strange when you're used to configuring your computer by editing text files. They have no GUI-free version, meaning you can't use them as servers.
When Apple releases a new OS, you can throw away a lot of your software and some hardware. Bashing Windows is easy, but WordPerfect files from 1985 are still legible and printable in Windows 98. This one-way conversion is acceptable if you only have one machine to deal with but it's a pain when you cruise around all day.
None of this reaches the big point: that Apple is a weird scene the deeper you dig. Windows is evil, but it only sells a couple pieces of hardware (some nice trackballs and mice). Apple sells you hardware, and acts like the OS, while integral, can be wiped at a moment's notice. This is the main reason businesses don't take kindly to Macs anymore.
Say you run a small company -- a flower shop with two locations. You've got inventory to track, customers to serve, the works. You need to be able to say "I can ship the mums to your mum from the Langston Ave store tomorrow morning." You invest in readily-available software that helps you do this. You spent some time learning how to do this, and that sucked, but it paid off. When Microsoft tells you their newest annoyance is available, you can shrug it off.
Now you open a third store. If you have a Windows-based store, the new computer for the new store will be faster and run the shiny new OS, but it will also load the old software you've been using to track stock. A Mac-based office could have a serious problem with this because the latest box, running the latest OS, may not recognize a damn file without conversion and reconversion. This slows a business down.
This, by the way, is also why databases with web interfaces have caught on.
Catering to newbies is nothing new. I felt like I'd gotten into computers late when I first got a computer with a "real OS" in May of 1992. I loved that computer. I can hardly believe that I got anything done on it, since it could not keep up with my typing speed by the time I graduated college.
What is my point? They all chunk. Linux has a steep learning curve, but it is the best way to run a networked machine that's too old to play Flash. It's also the hands-down finest environment for learning to program, for programming, and for being broke. Macs are the easiest to use, but you can't mack them out. Windows is... what, the fifth seal from the Book of Revelations?
One of the ads features a programmer. He was stunned at how easy it was to start surfing the Web on a Mac. I'm not. Then again, I notice he didn't mention a dang thing about compiling anything on that machine. "It's an all-around computer," he says. For two grand, it had better be. You could buy a dual-processor AMD instead and still have enough for a week's vacation.
Computers are tools. Different people need different tools. Apple made a decision 18 years ago that its newest computer wouldn't be compatible with anything. This was a bold move, and it worked. It hasn't foundered yet. However, it hasn't made it simpler for developers to get involved and it has no such plans. Linux can run on anything (possibly even a rickshaw). Computers need applications to be successful, and Apple is always a little behind about that.
I forget about Macs so easily; maybe this is because I don't walk through Harvard Square every day, where their ads are on permanent display. "Think different" the kiosk says, and I always say back:
"-ly! Differently!" Too much gloss for this cheapskate. Gimme a broken Windows machine and I'll give you a Linux box. Gimme a few bucks and I'll show you how to use it. Gimme a Mac, and I'll... well, I'll keep it if it's teal. Just remind me to uninstall QuickTime.
-doggie in the window, Ps/d
no subject
Date: 2002-08-10 08:47 am (UTC)that wasn't nearly as interesting as i'd hoped. :P
~M~