Vista Still Sucks, But I Actually Found A Mac I Kindof Liked
Now, I won't argue that Vista will someday not suck - after all, give an infinite number of monkeys $30 billion a year in cash flow and they'll code Shakespeare. Or whatever. But I have to agree with this post by Glenn Reynolds that Vista is still not ready for prime time. Now, I wrote this same conclusion over a half year ago, but incredibly, no updates of any seriousness have been issued. It is still the mess it was then, and Moore's Law has yet to catch up to make the average machine run it acceptably (particularly with laptops). When I set up the dual boot back to XP on my kid's laptop, I did not make the XP partition large enough because my kids absolutely refuse to install anything on the Vista partition, which they use only because that is where MS Office is installed.
Am I a lone wolf on this issue? Oh my God, am I a Vista denier! Well, check out this announcement from Microsoft reported by ZDNet on June 28:
Microsoft is simplifying the processes via which its PC-maker
partners will be able to provide "downgrade" rights from Windows Vista
to Windows XP for their customers.Microsoft will implement the first of the policy changes for its
Gold Certified (top-tier) OEM partners within the next couple of weeks.
The company will streamline downgrade-rights policies and procedures
for the broader channel somewhat later, said John Ball, general manager
of Microsoft's U.S. Systems Group....Microsoft is working on ways to allow the rest of the channel to
take advantage of these simplified downgrade procedures, but is still
in the midst of hashing out the details, Ball said. He didn't have a
timetable for when Microsoft will make its more liberal
downgrade-rights policies available to the rest of its PC partners.
I am not sure this is the sign of a healthy product line when your top customers are demanding easier ability to go back to the old version.
As a side note, I have never, ever liked Macs. First, I never wanted to be one of "the rest of us" and I enjoy tweaking and upgrading too much to be a fan of Macs. Also, I thought their historic resistance to some obvious improvements, like the two-button mouse, was just stupid. All that being said, I will admit that I really like the new iMac I bought my wife. It is perfect for her, and it is gorgeous. The keyboard is not great for speed-typing but it looks really cool and my wife is fine with that. The iMac did a great job with the tough stuff - it immediately recognized the PC's on my network and was able to trade files with them (something our Vista laptop still balks at from time to time) and it set up a network printer on the first try. And, for perhaps the first time ever on a Mac, I didn't feel like the things was wallowing in first gear when compared to my desktop PC.
Brian:
I am not a member of the House of Apple - I have not drunk the Kool-Aid.
Four years ago work offered me a PowerBook G4. I tried it out for a few weeks, testing the water to see if I'd be happy with that or if I wanted to jump back to my ThinkPad running W2K.
I've not been back. I've got my second Mac - a MacBook Pro - a six months ago. Why?
I'm a system administrator - a 60/40 mix of Solaris, Windows and some BSD. This machine simply fits what I do for work much better than a Windows laptop.
A Mac is really - and this is a perspective thing I admit - a Unix workstation with a really nice Window manager. If I want to fool around with Unix-y stuff it's there. If I don't and I just want to get work done, well awkward bits slide out of the way and off I go.
I do loathe the stereotyp8ical Mac user - but I've never met one of those. The guys I know here who use Macs use them because they're a superb tool. When something better comes along, I'll use that.
August 20, 2007, 1:37 pmAnna:
Brian, don't forget that with the new Macs, you can also use Windows if you really have to. You can use it with either BootCamp or Parallels. We use the latter for that one Windows program we can't do without, and it's been just perfect.
I actually had to read Warren's post a couple of times because I couldn't believe he was serious about actually liking a Mac (kind of).
And, Warren, the Mac will work with pretty much any 2-button mouse you have around. At least the USB ones.
I think your wife will really like this iMac. If you have any problems with it, just post it on your blog. You'll have Mac users coming out of the wazoo trying to give you advice and helpful hints.
August 20, 2007, 4:03 pmRogel:
Vista did me a great service. It convinced me to finally make the move and buy Mac. After so many years on MS OS I was hesitating for long time, and when I finally made the move I rushed to install BootCamp and Parallels. Not surprisingly, I almost never use the XP partition.
August 20, 2007, 5:10 pmwheels:
I bought an iMac last year, after my WinXP desktop died (hardware failure), and I decided that I didn't want to hassle with driver incompatibilies and the other problems I've experienced in Windows for years.
I still have to use Windows at work, and my new desktop (to replace one that's 5 or so years old) is currently 3 or 4 weeks overdue, because I insisted on WinXP, rather than Vista. I know the hardware I have to use works on XP; I don't know that about Vista, and the stories I've heard haven't been encouraging on that topic.
August 20, 2007, 8:09 pmmishu:
I'm glad that Macs are now capable of using the multi-button mouse. Now if they quit pinning the menu at the top of the screen and attach it to the window you are working on...
August 21, 2007, 8:36 ammarkm:
"give an infinite number of monkeys $30 billion a year in cash flow and they'll code Shakespeare." Or Ogden Nash, depending on the tastes of the bosses in charge of the project.
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