# This Macbook is my first and last Mac, switching back



## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

Frankly, I've never really been that frustrated with computers until I decided to switch to Mac. I've used alot of PC's in pro and home settings and altough they do suck to use sometimes and are prone to viruses, I think they are relatively reliable if you know your way aroud.

Here's why I'm not liking my mac experience:

-Macs are ultra expensive. You can get a cadillac of a PC compared to the price of an entry level Mac.

-I'm taking a music analysis class at university so now I'm using a Mac for what it does best, right? music! However, 10 days before my final project is due, my hard drive just quits and I send it to inso (the mac resellers in Montréal) and spend 150 bucks to get my data back and it doesn't work. I was putting off buying an external HD (to back up) until the end of classes, but my barely 9 month old computer crapped out first. Oddly enough, in my same little class of barely 15 students, another girl's G4 will not turn on anymore and she has to submit her project today, but it will lack certain components she wasn't able to back up to a USB data key. At least my mac turned on. Her's might have a dead motherboard and is no longer under warranty.

-All my friends that have owned macs have had critical problems with the hardware. Most got their parts exchanged except one who's logic board failed a week after his warranty expired.

-The customer service people at Apple Canada are not very helpful and are really unkind. They tend to be really snappy over the phone and they are not well trained. My friend had just bought a new MBP and we couldn't figure out how to get exposé to work. We kept hitting the F9 key and a semi transparent square with an X kept appearing on the screen. Since the computer was days old we called apple care and they first had us reset the pram by holding down certain keys and rebooting 4 times, then they had us DO A FULL REINSTALL OF MAC OS X. It wasn't a big deal because she barely had any data since the Mac was so new. So about 2 hours later the os is reinstalled and still we can't use exposé so we call back and the person says "oh, you just have to hold down the function key and then press f9"! When you consider that Mac has 6 models of new laptops out (really only 2 models: Macbook and MPB) and they can't help you with a simple keyboard operation question... that's pretty hopeless.

-Apple champions bootcamp. It's on their TV adds, it's on any of their add campaigns at my university. Run windows on a Mac! It works! Better than on a PC! Yea. Mine worked until they added support for iSight. After that update, never again was I able to connect properly to the internet with airport. I fiddled with it for about three weeks and gave up. Every time a new update came by, I would reinstall my windows partition to see if I could connect but it was still really buggy and didn't work. Try calling apple about bootcamp, they won't even hear you out. They keep barking "NOT SUPPORTED, BETA SOFTWARE"! Yea, it is a beta release, so why do you wear it like a badge of honour if it barely even works and isn't supported? 

-Every time I get a problem (like the one above), I have to go to these community forums. I use the Mac support forums and this forum. Out of all the questions I asked (many) I have almost never gotten a solution from a poster. Often, people won't even respond to your post! So your question just sits there. I had the Bootcamp discussion forums bookmarked in my browser and kept posting and checking for help but I kept getting nothing for over a month before I gave up.

-Mac's aren't compatible with much. Altough Apple again champions the fact that you can plug a food processor into your mac and it will work, a mac user knows this isn't the case. Your new camera doesn't work, your special mouse drivers come on a CD with EXEs on it etc. Every new product that doesn't have an apple logo on it is hours of fiddling and downloading and work arounds. Even my new Sony ericsson (a company that's supposed to be good with mac) required me to pay for a plugin so it would even speak to my mac. I found out AFTER I bought my phone that iSync has a list of compatible phones... there were only a handfull of phones from each company there, not a great selection.

-Mac doesn't have a great shareware community. Need to split a wav file in half? Need to make a fade out on the end of a song? PCs have a wealth of little shareware programs that will do just that. With a mac you need to buy this software and that software for 59.99 that has way to many features and that you only need once.

So there you have it. I'm going to use my Mac until the end of its warranty and I'm switching back. I'm not saying that PCs are better, it's just that I can't solve my problems on a Mac. I get the simplest problems, like trying to view videos outside of my browser and every time its a stalemate, since I'm not getting any answers from the forum community. Maybe I'm being unreasonable, but I first though that Apple was an alternative to the evil PC, now I'm beginning to think it's the other way around, with their often failing hardware, expensive price tag and questionable business practices.


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## CanadaRAM (Jul 24, 2005)

Sorry the drive failed. 
Sorry you didn't have a backup. 
Sorry that your friend's 3 year old (?) laptop broke down.
Sorry you haven't learned how to search for shareware.

I took the liberty of looking up your posts and most if not all of them were answered by community members within hours.

Of course, Windows machines never have failures, breakdowns, system software issues or compatibility problems, so I'm sure you'll be fine.


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## harzack86 (Jan 30, 2005)

Sorry to hear about your bad experience...

Funny enough, I could read you post and replace "Mac" with "PC" almost everywhere, or even have worse cases on a PC.
Each story is unique, so one can't make general statistics with one experience.

So good luck for your switch back to PC, until you may realize there is no "angel" or "evil" side, but that all computers are beejacon 

Don't forget to come back and tell us your story about switching back...


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## thejst (Feb 1, 2005)

I don't understand your post – are you looking to have people beg you to stay?

All of these machines are plastic and metal and software. PC or Mac, they break, don't work the way they should sometimes...

Factor in the software and Macs are no more expensive than Windows to own. 

Sorry about your bad experiences.


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

CanadaRAM said:


> Sorry the drive failed.
> Sorry you didn't have a backup.
> Sorry you can't tell the difference between an Windows installer and a Mac installed on a hybrid third party hardware driver CD
> Sorry you haven't learned how to search for shareware.
> ...


See, that's the kind of snappiness I'm talking about. I'm not trying to attack anyone personally, I just feel like I've been hard done by. I don't see why you feel the need to disrespect me in your reply.

I do know the difference between a windows installer and a mac installer and a hybrid 3rd party hardware driver CD I can tell you that no such CD came with my sony ericson phone. It could only run on windows. I managed to download a plugin for only 2$ and get my phone to sync and work really well with iCal and my address book. In that isolated case it was fine but I find that more often than not, it takes great fiddling to get the most basic hardware to work, unless it came with an apple logo on it, which means you payed about twice the price for it.

I think I know how to search for shareware and have found some for my mac, most of it has been trial version software which is different from shareware. When it comes to anything relating to music editing/manipulating sound files, I haven't found any ressource for small programs so if you know of one, please share. Most of the stuff mac has to offer is very expensive professional grade software and just because I need to record a student of mine once doesn't mean I want to speend 1000$ on Logic pro.

P.S. Are you sure you don't work for Applecare phone support? If not, you should apply, you've got just the kind of attitude they are looking for  .


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## darkscot (Nov 13, 2003)

My wife, who is smarter than I in every other way, didn't get the FN key thing either. Course she hasn't had the benefit of using a lot of PC's in pro and home settings like you and I have that enables us to tackle this "simple keyboard operation".

I think you're giving up too quick.


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## Pelao (Oct 2, 2003)

It really sucks that your experience has been so bad. One of those things.

My experiences, and that of many friends and colleagues, have been pretty much the exact opposite of yours, with the possible exception of hardware failure. Hardware does just fail, for all computer makers. It has yet to happen to me, or my friends, but it may.

I hope you will be happy with your WIN machine. What matters is that you are able to be productive in an environment that suits your mentality.

I do believe your tale is somewhat out of the ordinary, but there you are. I would not dream of placing any sense of responsibility on the user.


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## teknikz (Nov 20, 2006)

Yes , Apple does have quality control issues with the Macbook( Im a victim) , but I dont think you can say PCs function properly with a straightface


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

Computers are just machines as my Mac using architect client says.

I switched back in July 2005 to replace a PC that's frustrated an advanced user like me over and over.

My ex switched early 2005 before I did and she won't go back to PCs except for work.

A friend of mine switched after she was impressed when her PC broke down so she borrowed my iBook to complete her school work on Sketchup which has a Mac version.

Unfortunately Macs aren't for everyone, we respect if it doesn't work for you. I only hope that you don't give Mac a bad rap from your bad experience.

By the way, just to clear one thing up, which camera and mouse did you have trouble connecting to your MacBook? As long as they follow industry standard there is no reason they shouldn't work in MacOS. Even a Logitech 8 button mouse will work without drivers just fine. Any standard digital camera should be recognized in MacOS no problem. 

Final note, Garageband will do the trick in splitting your WAV file. Takes a few steps since it's not the intended purpose but it's free.


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

harzack86 said:


> Sorry to hear about your bad experience...
> 
> Funny enough, I could read you post and replace "Mac" with "PC" almost everywhere, or even have worse cases on a PC.
> Each story is unique, so one can't make general statistics with one experience.
> ...


"Each story is unique, so one can't make general statistics with one experience."

Many if not all of my friends use macs. I'm basing my observations on my personal experience with my friends and colleagues and we've all had major hardware problems. It's possible that by a great coincidence, all the people I know that use Macs have problems and that everyone else doesn't, but you can't blame me for being somewhat skeptical. Here are some examples:

My friend Fred:
-Powerbook, screen died after 2-3 years, not covered by warranty.
-brand new Macbook 2Ghz. Caps and num lock must be ON for them to be off and vice versa. Mouse pad barely works and is real glitchy.

My friend mathieu:
Ipod photo fails. Returns iPod. Mac loses iPod. Replace with a next generation ipod video. Sweet!
Logic board dies on ibook only a few weeks after 1year warranty. Tough bananas. Gotta spend the 300$$$ or else!

My friend marc:
cd drive failed twice.

My friend phil:
battery malfunction. replaced, then logic board fails.

My colleague at school:
Powerbook won't turn on, lord only knows whats up with that computer.

me:
Hard drive failed, Superdrive replaced, mousepad button doesn't work properly.

PCs are in no way infailable. But, I've never heard of so many brand new PCs being returned. Sure, wear and tear, many of these macs were returned after months of usage.


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

dona83 said:


> Computers are just machines as my Mac using architect client says.
> 
> I switched back in July 2005 to replace a PC that's frustrated an advanced user like me over and over.
> 
> ...


I agree. Anyone getting a computer expecting it to never break is in for a surprise. It's just that if you look at the list I posted above, many of my friends have had major problems. It might just be bad luck, but after a while yo can't help but make a connection.


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## CanadaRAM (Jul 24, 2005)

Pat McCrotch said:


> See, that's the kind of snappiness I'm talking about. I'm not trying to attack anyone personally, I just feel like I've been hard done by. I don't see why you feel the need to disrespect me in your reply.
> 
> I do know the difference between a windows installer and a mac installer and a hybrid 3rd party hardware driver CD I can tell you that no such CD came with my sony ericson phone. It could only run on windows. I managed to download a plugin for only 2$ and get my phone to sync and work really well with iCal and my address book. In that isolated case it was fine but I find that more often than not, it takes great fiddling to get the most basic hardware to work, unless it came with an apple logo on it, which means you payed about twice the price for it.
> 
> ...


You weren't asking for a solution, you were dissing this community and Apple and looking for a rise out of someone. You succeeded. If you didn't intend to offend us, you would not have posted a "%^# you and your OS too" letter.

To the specific question

Audacity
Audacity X 1.3.2 – Mac OS X – VersionTracker

"Audacity is a free audio editor. You can record sounds, play sounds, import and export WAV, AIFF, and MP3 files, and more. Use it to edit your sounds using Cut, Copy and Paste (with unlimited Undo), mix tracks together, or apply effects to your recordings. It also has a built-in amplitude envelope editor, a customizable spectrogram mode and a frequency analysis window for audio analysis applications. Built-in effects include Bass Boost, Wahwah, and Noise Removal, and it also supports VST plug-in effects."

*That's exactly what you were asking for, it's free, it took 30 seconds to find on the most popular shareware search site.
*


> Most of the stuff mac has to offer is very expensive professional grade software


 The professional grade software that is offered for Macs is almost always exactly the same price as that offered for Windows.

The reason I am responding is you are directing your hating Apple and the Mac community, when it is down to your own lack of initiative and common sense. If you don't back up, if you don't check compatibility before you buy a product, if you don't look in the appropriate place for drivers (if in fact they are needed) and if you maintain a chip on your shoulder about how much cheaper a PC is, then it is not our issue. And it is especially not our issue that you feel hard done by because people didn't solve your problem for you fast enough online.


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

thejst said:


> I don't understand your post – are you looking to have people beg you to stay?
> 
> All of these machines are plastic and metal and software. PC or Mac, they break, don't work the way they should sometimes...
> 
> ...


You've got me there! :lmao:

The reason for my post I guess is because deep down I loathe Windows as an OS and really enjoy the beautiful Mac GUI. I don't really want to go back to PCs, I like the nice sleek look on my Macbook it's just that I've had so much trouble with it that my sense of logic is yelling at me that I made a bad choice.

You're at the car dealership and you see a Ford Taurus and a BMW. You figure you'll get the BM: stylish, european, more reliable. Its worth paying for reliability and quality. The ford taurus is ok, but is ugly and will probably break down.

You drive the BM out of the dealership and keep having problems. It's in the garage and some of the features you can't seem to figure out. You actually end up cancelling important conferences because your car's busted. You speak to other friends in your same business and they say "Yea, I had my BM in the shop just last week".

In that example, isn't it reasonable to say: Well, the ford Taurus will breakdown, but at least I can open up the hood and get it up and running. This BMW is great, but tends to quit when I need it the most. 

I really don't want to switch back, I guess I'm just trying to rationalise how I spent the extra dough for a computer that's been unsatisfactory on many levels. Some things on Mac are so great and if you compare the qualities, I agree that Macs win over PCs. However, it's in comparing the faults that I'm getting the urge to switch back.


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## NBiBooker (Apr 3, 2004)

You're attributing far too much bad luck as being bad design.


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

CanadaRAM said:


> You weren't asking for a solution, you were dissing this community and Apple and looking for a rise out of someone. You succeeded. If you didn't intend to offend us, you would not have posted a "%^# you and your OS too" letter.
> 
> To the specific question
> 
> ...


Can you recommend popular shareware sites? Are you using something like download.com or a Mac specific search engine? I wasn't aware that such wealth of shareware was available to me as a Mac user

P.S. If you read my posts, they are not agressive and condescending in tone like your first reply. I'm just relating a bad experience and perhaps looking for other users to either agree or disagree with me. I must say, I'm pretty disgusted by certain of apples business practices but I am tenfold more disgusted with Microsoft. Again, I am just frustrated and desperately want someone to disagree with me and prove me wrong so that I can convince myself that using macs are a good idea.


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## krug1313 (Apr 27, 2007)

A popular site is Mac, Palm, and Windows Software Updates and Downloads - VersionTracker .

As everyone is saying... dont give up too soon on the mac. If you bought the macbook new 9 months ago it will be under warranty. I think in your post earlier you stated you had to pay to have the macbook fixed. It's my understanding any problems within 1 year are fixed at apples expense. Am I not correct??


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

krug1313 said:


> A popular site is Mac, Palm, and Windows Software Updates and Downloads - VersionTracker .
> 
> As everyone is saying... dont give up too soon on the mac. If you bought the macbook new 9 months ago it will be under warranty. I think in your post earlier you stated you had to pay to have the macbook fixed. It's my understanding any problems within 1 year are fixed at apples expense. Am I not correct??


Yea but they couldn't get my data back. They (inso) said that my only option was to send my drive to ontarioand pay upwards of 400$ for the recovery if I didn't want to void my waranty. Meanwhile my PC user friends are laughing at me because a) they've never heard of a HD suddenly failing mechanically and b) they can get the data off bad harddrives and they know many places in Montreal where they can get data recovery for much less than 400$. 

When I called apple they said that they have 3 services I can use not just the one that was told to me by the ppl at INSO. However, the person on the phone couldn't tell me where these three apple sanctioned places were, and if there was anything in my province. Pretty hard to believe that a help desk person isn't given that info...


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## Dukenukem (Nov 2, 2006)

I can understand where you are coming from...I switched four months ago to Mac and still have a "love - hate" relationship with it. There is some things from the Windows world that I miss ( a simple piece of software to play music like WinAmp for example and not the iTunes that scrambled and mixed my Music Library and it now looks like Encyclopaedia Britannica) but hey...I am just a novice in the Mac world.
For what its worth, I like the symbiosis between hardware and software and will still continue to use it. There is some great stuff for Mac and so far I am enjoying it for the most part.

Good luck!


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## darkscot (Nov 13, 2003)

Dukenukem said:


> I can understand where you are coming from...I switched four months ago to Mac and still have a "love - hate" relationship with it. There is some things from the Windows world that I miss ( a simple piece of software to play music like WinAmp for example and not the iTunes that scrambled and mixed my Music Library and it now looks like Encyclopaedia Britannica) but hey...I am just a novice in the Mac world.
> For what its worth, I like the symbiosis between hardware and software and will still continue to use it. There is some great stuff for Mac and so far I am enjoying it for the most part.
> 
> Good luck!


Alternative for music, and free: http://www.panic.com/audion/

Quote from site
"Hi! I'm a single app that bravely handles all your audio needs - I'm easy to use, but with gobs of advanced features ready to be discovered! I can play your Audio CDs, your MP3s, and your streaming network audio, I can encode, edit, mix, sort and manage, visualize and hypnotize. And now that I'm 3, I can broadcast, record, crossfade, and even hang with your iPod. Best of all, I've got that Panic design - light, simple, and powerful. It's sure nice to meet you!"


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## CanadaRAM (Jul 24, 2005)

Pat McCrotch said:


> Meanwhile my PC user friends are laughing at me because a) they've never heard of a HD suddenly failing mechanically


Which is nonsense and ignorance on their part... Every hard drive in the world will fail mechanically at some point. Some early, some late. There is no physical difference between a Mac hard drive and a PC hard drive.



> and b) they can get the data off bad harddrives and they know many places in Montreal where they can get data recovery for much less than 400$.


Which is nonsense and ignorance again. If the hard drive is operational and the *data* is scrambled, then it can often be recovered by software such as DataRescue. If however the drive motor is not turning or the heads have gouged into the media, this calls for a clean-room operation with specialized tools, parts and recovery software, like TotalRecall, ActionFront etc. and they DO charge hundreds or even thousands of dollars for this type of recovery. But note: *There is no difference* between a Mac hard drive and a PC hard drive in this regard! If it has failed hardware, no yobbo with some software in the back room is going to be able to recover it.

You're trusting the 'wisdom' of your PC buddies way too much.


Mac, Palm, and Windows Software Updates and Downloads - VersionTracker
MacUpdate: Apple Macintosh Software & Game Downloads
Tucows Downloads - Download Freeware and Shareware Software


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## twolf3232 (Jan 26, 2006)

I switched at the beginning of December with a floor model MacBook 2.0 GHz rev1, and I have to say I love this thing. My only complaints so far are:

- It runs a little hot. That's not a big deal though as long as it's not damaging the internals.
- The trackpad is a bit buggy. I've found that the trackpad sometimes doesn't respond the way I want it to. A little annoying for a couple of seconds. If I just stop what I'm doing, make sure my fingers are dry and come back at it, the problem goes away.
- The hard drive is too small - I knew this was a true when I bought it. Just have to scrape together the bucks for an external drive for my music/movies/backup.
- The tactile response for right-click on the Mighty Mouse sucks. Not the MacBook's fault. But it was an open box for a BlueTooth mouse on the same day I bought the MacBook. Love the BT part of it. And I'm sure the next mouse from Apple will be better.

On the other hand, I adore the iLife applications and their integration (the free Yahoo! plugin for iPhoto is pretty much worth the price of admission by itself). 
With Flip4Mac and Handbrake, there's really nothing I can't do, media-wise. (oh, and this forum has been a great resource)

And considering I had a retail XP SP2 and a retail Office XP Pro lying around, I was able to turn it into a perfect PC for my work (probably more stable than the HPs that IT gives out). And everything works perfectly on the XP side (except for tap-click on the trackpad - I'm sure that will come with BootCamp 1.0), Airport, video, iSight...

I can't say enough great things about my MacBook. I'm still in the honeymoon phase, I guess  As it stands, I don't see me ever switching back. I just have to convince my wife that she can work with one button so we can go all Mac, all the time


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## Trainman (Oct 2, 2006)

Sorry you feel that way but I had to reply to something you said in particular...

you say you never heard of a pc hard drive suddenly failing well, allow me to be the first then...  just last week one of the internal drives on my son's PC failed along with 160gb of data on it... fortunately I had all the data backed up so no big deal but as someone else already said there is no difference between a drive on a PC and one on your Mac.

On the other hand, my 24' IMac has been performing flawlessly since we got it several months ago, and let me tell you I'm never going back... slowly going to replace the PC's in the house with Macs in the next little while...starting with my son's pc followed at some point by a macbook to replace my old laptop.

Regardless of what you end up doing, I wish you all the best, it's your decision after all and to each its own I suppose.

Cheers!


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## imactheknife (Aug 7, 2003)

In all my years of using macs, new and used, I have never had ONE bad experience with hardware malfunction. I have used and personally owned over 30 + Macs in the last 10 years is that bad? nope. I am sorry to hear about your luck.

We now have a macbook CD 2 GHZ we bought last Sept and a CD Imac that we bought in Feb 2006. We have had ZERO problems with either and then run 24/7 a lot of the time. Cheers, Mark


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## iMatt (Dec 3, 2004)

Dukenukem said:


> I can understand where you are coming from...I switched four months ago to Mac and still have a "love - hate" relationship with it. There is some things from the Windows world that I miss ( a simple piece of software to play music like WinAmp for example and not the iTunes that scrambled and mixed my Music Library and it now looks like Encyclopaedia Britannica) but hey...I am just a novice in the Mac world.


Open iTunesreferences:Advanced:General and uncheck "Keep iTunes Music folder organized." Then organize it however you want via the Finder. Obviously, it's more useful to know this _before_ iTunes organizes it some way you dislike...

As for the OP's comments, I'm a little surprised that so many people in his circle have had trouble with their portable Macs, but not extremely surprised. Apple has long been notorious for quality control issues with some of its laptop lines. I've known and used many flawless desktop Macs since the bad old days of the mid-90s, but I just won't trust a laptop as a primary machine anymore.

I do find it very surprising that none of his Windows friends has ever heard of a hard drive crapping out. It's not an uncommon failure and in no way platform-specific. Not having a backup and then finding out that data recovery is an expensive operation is...well...not platform-specific either. 

I've never seen a camera, mouse or key drive that wasn't plug-and-play. (With the exception that Apple can be slow to add OS-level support for some RAW formats, though in this case the camera manufacturers deserve some blame for not agreeing on a standard.) You do have to make sure that a printer, scanner or other peripheral is supported, but a great many are. 

So, I appreciate the sense of frustration but I think a great deal of it was avoidable. Not all of it, but much.


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## gastonbuffet (Sep 23, 2004)

Pat,
for the record, you go back to PC, and i bet that the next computer you buy after that is Mac. Like Arnold, you'll be back.


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## Carl (Jun 7, 2003)

I'm just going to come out and say that was a stupid post.
I use both Macs & PC's, and make some of my money fixing PC's.
PC' and Macs are made out of the same components. Same motherboard manufacturers, same hard drive makers, same LCD makers. Apple doesn't actually "make" anything. They don't make iPods and they won't make the iPhone. Some factory in China makes it for them. When they are done, they make some piece of crap for Dell or Gateway or Microsoft.
Hard drives die. Back up, back up, back up. 
Everything I have is compatible with my Mac. My cameras, my phones, my printers, my scanners. If you don't know how to use something, don't complain.
Bootcamp is handy for people to run WIndows on an Intel Mac. It is beta, but works fine for me.

Whining on a board full of experienced computer experts is simply laughable.

BTW, I used to design stuff for the automotive industry. Calling a PC a Cadillac doesn't mean what it used to.
I wonder if Best Buy and Futureshop and Tiger Direct have piles of laptops and PC's in for repair? No, that seems crazy.

/owned Macs since 1985. My 512Ke still boots. I lost a 250 MB hard drive in the 90's, and a 250 G HD last year.


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## macsackbut (Dec 15, 2004)

twolf3232 said:


> And I'm sure the next mouse from Apple will be better.


Been reading this thread with a sigh, but this gave me a laugh. Dream on! (and I say this as a true Apple fanboy). I'll believe it when I see it. :lmao: 

As for the OP, I also find it strange that so many of your Mac-using friends have had problems, but I know that lemons do get sold. Too bad you got stuck with one. I've had a HD die and it sucks, but it happens. I'm willing to bet you'll be a little more fastidious about your backups from now on, even when you buy that shiny new Dell (or whatever). 

Oh, and a word of advice. Remember the experience of this thread if you ever get the urge to enter a church and start shouting "God sucks!" (and I use the metaphor on purpose and with a self-deprecating wink).


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## idesign (Aug 19, 2005)

I don't post in the forums too much but something about this thread has compelled me to.

I've been an avid Mac user for a long time, expect for a brief period when I was using a Pentium 133mhz back in tha day. In the past few years I've had a number of Macs at home including a G3 iBook, G4 iBook, G4 Powerbook Al, G5 iMac, Mac Mini and an Upgraded Quicksilver. I've used eMacs, G5 Towers and Mac Pros at work. My current machine is a 2ghz Core2Duo Macbook with 2gb ram and a 100gb 7200rpm HD. This is easily the best computer I've ever used. It doesn't get hot when just surfing the net or doing regular tasks, the battery life lasts close to 4 hours with wifi on, it runs CS 3 incredibly fast and just about everything about it has exceeded my expectations. The one caveat is that the wifi is a bit wonky, but considering all the other pluses, its excusable.

It sucks that the guy who started this thread had his Mac crap out on him, but thems the breaks as they say. PCs crap out on people just as much as Macs do, and you could argue about price (software alone for the Mac makes it worth more IMO) or this or that, but some people like windows better and some like OS X better. It's as simple as that.


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

macsackbut said:


> As for the OP, I also find it strange that so many of your Mac-using friends have had problems, but I know that lemons do get sold. Too bad you got stuck with one. I've had a HD die and it sucks, but it happens. I'm willing to bet you'll be a little more fastidious about your backups from now on, even when you buy that shiny new Dell (or whatever).
> 
> Oh, and a word of advice. Remember the experience of this thread if you ever get the urge to enter a church and start shouting "God sucks!" (and I use the metaphor on purpose and with a self-deprecating wink).


Yea, I hear you. I didn't realise how much importance some people attribute to computers. I consider a computer like a hammer or a calculator, you want one that does the job and will perhaps be reliable and save you money in the long run. I didn't expect such "militantism" but then again I don't have time to post that much in forums so maybe I'm not fully aware of the internet Mac culture.

With regards to the poster about the mighty mouse, I heard that the right click works very well only if you lift your "left finger" off the mouse. If you just rest both of your fingers all the time, the sensor doesn't detect the right click properly. Again, I'm not saying from experience, just what I read when I looked into the mighty mouse (which I ended up not buying).

I am now backing up all the time which will prevent future data loss, even if some part of my mac fails again.

I am fully aware that Apple doesn't "make" their hardware but like I said in my post, look at all my friends that have had major hardware issues with Macs. I expected Macs to be at least as reliable if not more than PCs because for similar hardware setups, Macs cost quite a bit more. Of course, it's better to pay alot for a 100 gig HD that works than get a 250gig one that is cheap and unreliable. Again, I'm just relating my personal experience and I'm not an expert; If a technician told me that for every Mac he fixed, he fixed 50 PCs then I'd feel reassured. 

Basically, I was under the impression that I was paying more to get better quality components, hence my outrage when my friends and I's mac computers have been breaking down.

My friend that fixes PCs told me that he's dropped regular desktop HDs on the floor and not had them fail. I really baby my computer so I was a bit frustrated to hear that. I am fully aware of the kind of hassle it is to take a hard drive apart and analyse the disk. My friend told me he knew a place in Montreal that could do it for 200-250$. Maybe he was exagerrating, I don't know, but I did feel like because I have a Mac, my options for data recovery where very limited.

I was a relatively advanced user in the PC world but then again I don't know C++ and I don't use console commands except when I had to run commands on a server. Now that I've switched, alot of that expertise was no longer valid and I just find that certain software issues are harder to get around on Mac OS.

For example, my computer buff/repair guy friend has a Bell high speed internet connection at home and connects using PPPoe. Whenever I show up and try to use my Mac, we endup spending 45mins to an hour trying to figure out the settings for the PPPoe and end up giving up. This not Macs fault at all, it is completely our lack of knowledge and expertise since we can't set it up properly and I know my Mac is 100% capable of working at his place. However, we both have experience using computers that exceeds the average user that reads just e-mail and surfs; if it's that difficult for us to figure it out, imagine the casual user. Meanwhile, my Mac gets put back in my bag and everything else is connected to the internet, including a few sony PSPs. Those "just worked" as the Mac faithful say, my Mac however, did not. It didn't work from the get go and not after considerable fiddling. That's a great example of how my Mac works for me right now, 95% of the time airport works amazingly and connects to everything no problem, but that 5% of the time, I just can't get it to work.

On the other hand, I can't believe Dukenukem would rather use winamp than iTunes for organising music. iTunes can be very easy to use once you understand how to set up the preferences, however some of thes are hidden pretty "deep" in the menus. So basically, the Mac interface works nicely, until I run into a problem. With a PC I could always manage to figure it out or call someone but with a Mac, my Mac using friends (who live and die by the Mac) shrug their shoulders and I end up at the mercy of mean applecare call center people or on-line forums.


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

I generally don't try to evangelize people into buying a Mac... I will just use my Mac as normal, if people ask me for my opinions I'll give both the ups and downs (mostly ups lol), or perhaps like my friend who's PC broke down let them use my Mac to do productive work and actually see how good it is for themselves... I just wouldn't push it because if things go wrong, they get angry and they come to you demanding answers. Much like here I guess. Too much expectations? Maybe valid but I've never been let down by my Macs. Can't say the same for the PCs I've owned in my life.


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## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

*Pat*, also spend some time at:

Apple for a mountain of freeware / shareware / demos organized by category. Also lots of Widgets for Dashboard.

As noted earlier, VersionTracker is *the* place for finding software of all kinds.

*twolf3232;543514*, regarding your trackpad issue, under

System Preferences-->Keyboard & Mouse-->Trackpad 

check to see if "Ignore Accidental Trackpad Input" is checked. This may be the issue for you, as it does take a moment for the OS to realize that you've stopped typing and want to use the mouse (would _really_ like to see a sensitivity slider provided in this PrefPane, as I always have a problem with my palms brushing the trackpad while I type, but I find that turning on "Ignore Accidental Trackpad Input" is more of a bother due to the delay...)

The hard drive size....  This is one unfortunate result of the major increase in digital camera use, movie making, etc. - stuff we never used to do on our computers. One nice thing about my MacBook: easy to swap in a new one, unlike pretty much any previous Apple portable (with the exception of the original Macintosh Portable! 

And FWIW, as noted in another thread (or two), my MacBook is giving me a few problems too - but I took the risk of buying an early-build machine rather than wait for the kinks to be worked out. That said, I'd buy another MacBook in a second. 'Course, I may well be singing a different tune after talking to Apple Support.... (yeah, yeah, I haven't had time yet. I'll do it on Monday!)

M


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## MacMarebito (Mar 19, 2007)

gastonbuffet said:


> Pat,
> for the record, you go back to PC, and i bet that the next computer you buy after that is Mac. Like Arnold, you'll be back.


lol That is truly funny 

Figured I wasn't going to add my own post as everyone is doing such a great job responding already but after reading 3 pages into this and hearing from other Mac users I figured what the heck so here goes. . .

I owned my first Mac (which happened to be my first computer) many many years ago. Shamefully, I can't remember the name. It used those gigantic floppies and ran no actually OS. Being the stupid kid I was I experimented with the parts inside and fried the motherboard.

Mysteriously, a few years later, I again found my path crossed with a Mac when someone unloaded a Performa 5200 CD on me. I spent the next few short years learning about it. When it broke I used PCs occasionally over the next 7 years until I recently bought a new iMac  (notice the smile). It is such a wonderful feeling to be back in the Mac environment. PCs often infuriated me as I was a constant target for "This Program Has Created An Illegal Operation And Will Shutdown". The only way I can explain the Mac experience is that "it is fun to use all on its own", which is more than I can say for owning a PC. Entirely my opinion, but it is one I will stick by. I've picked up a few video games but find myself content to spend my Mac time surfing with Safari, taking pictures in Photo Booth, utilizing iMove and iDVD as well as learning Tiger and the other apps included in iLife. I'm not going to claim you wont occasionally run into problems as I have actually had iMove and iDVD shut down on me before, but the experience of using a Mac is so much more rewarding in my opinion. If PC users are switching over to Mac expecting a perfect computer 100% of the time then you will be disappointed. No computer is perfect (but Macs still come pretty close!).


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

Yea, I agree with you Macburrito that Macs can be more fun to use. I've found that certain programs (like Sibelius, a music editing software I use) sometimes are a little unstable and when you try certain commands they crash. Then again, those same programs might be as unstable on a PC if not worse. It's weird though, I can remember using Finale on PCs when I was at Florida State and never ever having them quit unexpectedly altought my roomate's copy of Finale does shut down unexpectedly sometimes on his iBook.

One thing that I love about my mac is that the OS basically never locks up. Never ever. Some programs occasionally lock up and can be force quit but I can count on the fingers of one hand the times that I had to force shutdown my Mac. The only sad part is that the last time my OS did lock up, my harddrive was dead when I rebooted. :-(


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## HowEver (Jan 11, 2005)

PatM, what I think you're still missing is that hard drives are the same across computers. The fact is that Apple uses the best of them, but hard drives do fail, no matter which computer you have.

I replaced the drive in my MacBook with a Seagate, not because it was intrinsically better, but because it had more capacity. It took about one minute, as did upgrading the RAM.

I do think I have a Mac with a floppy drive that doesn't work, but hey it's a IIsi !


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## jmlachance (Nov 6, 2005)

*For what it's worth...*

I like the different point of view of the original post.
I'm one who switched after 10 years of pc hell. I'm used to working on cars and electric motors so a pc with Windows just drove me crazy. All i wanted to do was use it to post resumes, browse and let the kids have some fun and do homework: I didn't want to trouble shoot all the time and all the usual bs, so I fell in love with Macs right away and have been (annoyingly it turns out) telling everyone about them since. 
Well, turns out Macs, as I've been discovering, aren't the computer for everyone and are not quite perfect, which as a new owner, i was starting to imagine. So, I like to read the other point of view, to understand why not everyone isn't rushing out to buy a Mac. I've heard some anti Mac stories but most where about machines produced in the 90's, if i recall correctly and i thought it wouldn't apply today. As for me, I'm still a dyed in the wool convert to Macs. A few minor problems with my Imac G5 but still love it.


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## smellybook (Aug 31, 2006)

*The Applecare reps are not all bad either, they replaced an ibook*

logicboard free of charge for me and it was completely out of warranty.
I had agreed to pay $198.00 for labor and when I got it back 2 months later they waived the labor fees because of the long wait.

Sorry for your bad luck, and for the record the people on this forum have been very helpful for me when I made the switch a few months back; Thanks again,,,


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## tendim (Apr 6, 2004)

Pat McCrotch said:


> -Macs are ultra expensive. You can get a cadillac of a PC compared to the price of an entry level Mac.


Built an _equivalent_ PC and it will be just as expensive.


Pat McCrotch said:


> -I'm taking a music analysis class at university so now I'm using a Mac for what it does best, right? music! However, 10 days before my final project is due, my hard drive just quits and I send it to inso (the mac resellers in Montréal) and spend 150 bucks to get my data back and it doesn't work. I was putting off buying an external HD (to back up) until the end of classes, but my barely 9 month old computer crapped out first. Oddly enough, in my same little class of barely 15 students, another girl's G4 will not turn on anymore and she has to submit her project today, but it will lack certain components she wasn't able to back up to a USB data key. At least my mac turned on. Her's might have a dead motherboard and is no longer under warranty.


Sorry to be harsh, but _both of you are idiots_. If you have critical work on your HD, any HD, be it desktop, laptop, network, _whatever_, there are only three things that are ever going to save you: *backup, backup backup*. I've got a friend who is doing her masters in neurosciences, and she keeps her stuff on her laptop backed up in real time. She lugs her external USB drive with her _everywhere_ and every time she saves her files, she saves them in two places. If you lost work because of hardware failures, and you didn't backup, that's your own fault.



Pat McCrotch said:


> All my friends that have owned macs have had critical problems with the hardware. Most got their parts exchanged except one who's logic board failed a week after his warranty expired.


I hear this a lot, but I've never personally had issues. Of course, I've never bought _new_ hardware, so hardware I have has been "tried and tested" so to speak.


Pat McCrotch said:


> -The customer service people at Apple Canada are not very helpful and are really unkind. They tend to be really snappy over the phone and they are not well trained. My friend had just bought a new MBP and we couldn't figure out how to get exposé to work. We kept hitting the F9 key and a semi transparent square with an X kept appearing on the screen. Since the computer was days old we called apple care and they first had us reset the pram by holding down certain keys and rebooting 4 times, then they had us DO A FULL REINSTALL OF MAC OS X. It wasn't a big deal because she barely had any data since the Mac was so new. So about 2 hours later the os is reinstalled and still we can't use exposé so we call back and the person says "oh, you just have to hold down the function key and then press f9"! When you consider that Mac has 6 models of new laptops out (really only 2 models: Macbook and MPB) and they can't help you with a simple keyboard operation question... that's pretty hopeless.


No worse than three people trying to figure out why pressing "i" on their ThinkPad yields a "5" instead of an "i" because nobody knows how ThinkPads enable/disable the bloody "NumLock" setting. _READ THE MANUAL.
_


Pat McCrotch said:


> -Mac's aren't compatible with much. Altough Apple again champions the fact that you can plug a food processor into your mac and it will work, a mac user knows this isn't the case. Your new camera doesn't work, your special mouse drivers come on a CD with EXEs on it etc. Every new product that doesn't have an apple logo on it is hours of fiddling and downloading and work arounds. Even my new Sony ericsson (a company that's supposed to be good with mac) required me to pay for a plugin so it would even speak to my mac. I found out AFTER I bought my phone that iSync has a list of compatible phones... there were only a handfull of phones from each company there, not a great selection.


Sony + Mac = Crap in my _own_ experience. That might have changed, but after the MD fiasco with NetMD years ago, I've never expected anything from Sony to work well with my Mac. Mouse drivers are a download away, _buy a product that says it is Mac compatible_. Case in point: there are a slew of mouses out there from Logitech, but only a _few_ are Mac compatible. If you buy something that doesn't explicitly state it is compatible with your hardware, you're on your own. 

Re: iSync. If you didn't do your own research with iSync beforehand, that's your own fault.


Pat McCrotch said:


> -Mac doesn't have a great shareware community. Need to split a wav file in half? Need to make a fade out on the end of a song? PCs have a wealth of little shareware programs that will do just that. With a mac you need to buy this software and that software for 59.99 that has way to many features and that you only need once.


Learn to search.

I've deleted the parts that I either agreed with, or had no answer on. In short: I believe you are blaming your own inadequacies at problem solving, and being self-sufficient in searching for solutions, on the Mac. The answers are out there.

It's up to you to find them.


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## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

...and thus is reversed the civil turn that this thread had begun to take.

tsk tsk.

M


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## monokitty (Jan 26, 2002)

Learned lesson: Don't talk crap about the Mac on a Mac-based forum if you wish to survive the inevitable onslaught from the Mac faithful.


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## Monkeyman eh? (Jul 26, 2005)

I've had bad experiences with my mac stuff too, but I just smile and think of how many worse things happened with PC.

For example, the motherboard cracked from heat, and then it would heat up, expand the case a bit, open the crack, and turn off.

It was also a power hog. 50 minutes battery with the screen low, and word open.
It blew out 2 power inverters that were rated much higher than it needed.

I had doubts about my mac for a while, but you realize it's not perfect, but it still blows the competition out of the water.


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## jmlachance (Nov 6, 2005)

*A bit more to add*

In reference to Mac forums. I notice the difference,maybe imagined, as opposed to a pc forum, is that I often got blasted when posting basic computer questions,like "you idiot,you should /shouldn't do this" (on pc forums). Here, I've gotten very good friendly help, and the times no-one answered to my posts,I figured the experts weren't on-line or no-one knew the answers.
Another difference unfortunately, is that in Mac forums, you can get blasted from certain individuals if you say anything negative about Apple products. It's as if they don't want any discussion to go on about what could be wrong. I've lived under Mugabe in Zimbabwe and the tone there and here can be the same at times...


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## madgunde (Mar 10, 2006)

Pat McCrotch said:


> Meanwhile my PC user friends are laughing at me because a) they've never heard of a HD suddenly failing mechanically and b) they can get the data off bad harddrives and they know many places in Montreal where they can get data recovery for much less than 400$.


I'm sorry if this is going to come off as snippy, but I really can't help myself. Your PC using friends don't know much about PCs if they've never heard of a hard drive failing unexpectedly. My brother's Dell notebook hard drive was replaced twice. I work in a large IT department and hard drives are getting replaced all the time in desktop and notebook PCs as well as our NAS (network attached storage) devices. It's pretty much common knowledge to anyone who works in this industry that hard drives have a high failure rate. That's why any server setup uses redundant hard drives, because you expect them to fail. It's not a question of if, it's a question of when. Hard drives are by a large margin the number one point of failure in a computer.

Apple buys the same components from the same suppliers and pretty much any other PC manufacturer, so it's silly to think that Apple's hard drives, CDROM drives, memory or batteries, etc. have a higher failure rate than anyone else. Logic boards I could see, but not generic components.

As far as compatibility goes, it's just a reality of the market that everything is designed for Windows, but only some things are compatible with the Mac. But Mac support is at an all time high these days, and so it's not hard to find a Mac compatible peripheral, but you have to check for compatibility before buying, which really isn't hard. If you were expecting everything to work with the Mac, then you were misinformed, or made a bad assumption. The funny thing is, Mac users generally have fewer problems getting Mac compatible devices to work than Windows users do getting Windows compatible devices to work.

As for your Boot Camp problem, you do realize that was a Windows issue, don't you? Just a little taste of what you can expect if you switch back.

If you don't believe your bad experiences are mostly due to bad luck and inexperience, then maybe these links will help:

Apple Computer tops PC satisfaction study - August 15, 2006
Apple again leads Consumer Reports’ survey for notebook, desktop computer tech support, value, more - October 16, 2006
Apple far outscores all other PC makers in Consumer Reports Computer Tech Support Survey - May 5, 2006
Consumer Reports rates Apple best place to shop - November 24, 2006

Did you ever stop to consider that maybe the responses you get might be somewhat affected by your attitude? In other words, maybe the reason you seem to get snippy responses is because you elicit such responses in the way you communicate with support staff or in your forum posts?


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## genuineadvantage (Mar 14, 2007)

Pat McCrotch said:


> My friend Fred:
> -Powerbook, screen died after 2-3 years, not covered by warranty.
> -brand new Macbook 2Ghz. Caps and num lock must be ON for them to be off and vice versa. Mouse pad barely works and is real glitchy.
> 
> ...


Being that my dads side of the family is all about engineering, my dad being one of the very few engineers that are recognized world wide who has designed and built industrial systems for companies around the world will tell you these things happen. Thats electronics for you. If you have a concept of how electronics work then you can understand the fact that sometimes failures do happen. You also have to look at what may have actually caused the failure for example what are the power and environmental conditions? etc. 

And knowing some friends who work at stores who sell and service brand name PC's such as Hewlett Packard, Acer, Gateway, Toshiba, etc. the rooms are packed with repairs. The systems that have the lowest in repairs? Can you guess.... Mac. Just because you had one bad experience it doesn't mean that the product is bad all together it just means that you happened to be that one who either had a lemon or isn't properly maintaining their product. My iMac G3 (which I now use just for fooling around) is 8 years old and is still working with no issues, my sisters iMac G5 is 3 years old and no issues, my Intel iMac again no issues, my iPod shuffle first generation, still working, and the list goes on and on.


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## Pelao (Oct 2, 2003)

> Another difference unfortunately, is that in Mac forums, you can get blasted from certain individuals if you say anything negative about Apple products. It's as if they don't want any discussion to go on about what could be wrong. I've lived under Mugabe in Zimbabwe and the tone there and here can be the same at times...


tptptptp 

Kidding  

It does happen, and I think it sometimes stems from the days when Apple seemed perpetually on the age of dying and Mac users would have to head back to using some miserable OS.... fear of the end of the Apple created a defensiveness that built on the sense of being part of a small exclusive club.

Criticisms expressed as 'hopes' or 'wishes' or as suggestions as to how Apple could improve products are quite all right. Otherwise you could be in trouble  .


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## Betty Woo (Feb 5, 2005)

I find that one of the issues for me was my entirely self-induced admittedly overblown expectation (based, happily, on previous Mac ownership) that nothing serious will ever go wrong with my Macs.

I think a lot of people are just stunned when/if something major *does* happen... heck, I was genuinely stunned when I had to reformat my hard drive on this Intel Mac within four months of purchase.

I guess the yingful blessings of owning a machine with a very good reputation for stability is the deeper yangful shock when the realization hits that no machine can be guaranteed to always be perfect.

The purchase of a $180 back-up hard drive and AppleCare for three years is the outcome of this learning process. 

And I really can't see how you can loose out on a computer that can run a third-party operating system on the same box at the same time so Macs will now always win out, as far as I'm concerned


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## joyjoy (Mar 23, 2006)

To the OP:

How much time did you invest in being able to learn how to work with PCs in pro and home settings? PCs and Macs work differently, have you invested the same amount of time in learning how to use the Mac?

I switched to Mac a year and a half ago. It was a bit of a learning curve when I got it as I considered myself to be just a bit more knowledgeable than the average PC user so it took a little bit of getting used to. I didn't expect my Mac experience to be like magic and have it do exactly what I wanted it to without some work/research on my part. I had my iBook for 1 year...no problems with it at all. My aunt is now the proud owner of that iBook. I now have a 1st gen Macbook and have had no problems with it either. I've owned 2 iPod nanos, 2nd gen Shuffle, new Airport Extreme base and have had no problems. I use my Mac for email, internet, Office, photos, some video editing, ripping and burning. I use the software that was included with my Mac. The other software I'm using are mostly free and what software I've had to pay for has been similarly priced for a PC equivalent. I found out about versiontracker (for freeware and shareware) by browsing through some threads on this forum. 

As far as your problems with hardware compatibility with Macs...I have had a much easier time with just plugging in new hardware into my Macbook without having to search for any drivers. My Canon digital camera is the only one I don't connect to my Mac. I don't even remember if it was a problem with my Mac not recognizing the hardware or not. Anyway, with that I just plug my memory card into a usb card reader and it works the same as if I had plugged the Canon into my Mac. I would much rather deal with hardware compatibility with Macs than problems with hardware compatibility with PCs (I have better things to do with my time than search around for drivers or download drivers). 

I used to have Bootcamp installed on my Mac. I never really used it. I have since found equivalent software for Mac. I have Parallels just in case and have never had problems with either program working on my Mac. 

I've had to replace 2 wireless routers in our home. Each time I set up the new router my Macbook connects to it right away whereas I need to spend_ at least _10 min to get the PCs in the home to work with the router. 

My mom's PC has had to have its motherboard replaced twice in the first six months she had it. Her PC has also stopped recognizing its DVDR (Sony). I haven't bothered to try and fix it as I'm getting increasingly annoyed with troubleshooting her PC once every week (trouble connecting to the internet, not recognizing printer, router, programs no longer working, etc.) and she only uses it to check email, surf, Office. I cannot wait until it's completely dead so I can get her a Mac. My brother's PC just died last week. He tried to reformat it and couldn't. It's now at Futureshop and he's waiting to find out what's wrong with it and if they can fix it (Also hoping he'll be told he needs a new one so he can get a Mac). 

I've never had to call Applecare, so I couldn't relate. I will be buying Applecare for my Macbook before the first year is up. I think you mentioned one of your friend's Powerbook lcd screen dying after 2-3 years and it not being covered under warranty. Well, what PC manufacturer covers their lcd screens under warranty past one year? Isn't that the most expensive part to replace on a laptop? I purchased extended warranty on my PC laptop years ago and I'm doing the same thing for my Mac. 

I browsed these forums along with others and did my research so I knew what to expect before my first Mac purchase. I expected a much more user friendly experience after my switch but not without _some_ research/learning/adjustment on my part after using PCs for years. 

It's unfortunate you and your friends have had such bad luck with hardware but as others have said...that's not exclusive to Macs. 

I think if you are willing to put more effort into researching software and hardware then your Mac experience will be much better. After all, how many years of effort did you put into getting to the level of knowledge you have with PCs? Macs are different and you're going to have to learn some new things regardless of how the Mac ads claim they just work. They do "just work" (and much better than PCs) but it doesn't mean that you won't have to do some of the work yourself, imo.


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## lewdvig (Nov 20, 2003)

I'm sorry too. Allow me to take that piece of crap off your hands.

Based on your bad experience it isn't worth much.


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## mr.steevo (Jul 22, 2005)

Pat McCrotch said:


> I was a relatively advanced user in the PC world but then again I don't know C++ and I don't use console commands except when I had to run commands on a server. Now that I've switched, alot of that expertise was no longer valid and I just find that certain software issues are harder to get around on Mac OS.


Hi,

When my brother in law switched to Mac he initially had a lot of trouble with it. He was organizing his folders the way he had them on his PC and then get frustrated when iPhoto couldn't find his pictures. He'd move applications and find that the auto updates wouldn't work. His past experience and knowledge was causing more problems than helping. It's like moving from a manual transmission to an automatic, but still trying to shift gears yourself. It's like having a map of Canada and trying to find your way around Rome. You're in Rome now, so do as we do.

It stinks that you're having hardware problems.
Sell your current Macbook and buy a new one. Get a Macbook Pro if you can. Start fresh.

s.


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## guytoronto (Jun 25, 2005)

*Spoiled, ungrateful brat*



Pat McCrotch said:


> Every time I get a problem I have to go to these community forums. I use the Mac support forums and this forum. Out of all the questions I asked (many) I have almost never gotten a solution from a poster. Often, people won't even respond to your post!


Let's take a look at your thread history:
You started 22 thread (including this one)
Thread 1 - MacBook Temp - response within 1/2 hour
Thread 2 - Audio Interface - response within 1/2 hour - you? no reply or thanks
Thread 3 - Performance - response within 4 hours
Thread 4, 6 - General chat, no Mac issues to solve
Thread 5 - Widescreen Playback - response within 1.5 hours
Thread 7 - Battery Calibration - response within 2 hours - you? no reply or thanks
Thread 8 - Burning files - response within 1.5 hours
Thread 9 - Upgrade question - response within 7 minutes! You? no reply or thanks
Thread 10 - iSight question - response within 8 minutes
Thread 11 - RAM question - response within 1 hour
Thread 12 - Windows / Bootcamp Issues - no response
Thread 13 - Same as thread 12 - no help
Thread 14 - Sleeve question - no response
Thread 15 - Same issue as thread 12 & 13 - no response
Thread 16 - Cell Phone + Mac? - response next morning - you? no reply or thanks
Thread 17 - iPod question - response within 6 hours
Thread 18 - Going to Europe issue - response with 11 minutes
Thread 19 - Expose issue - response within 1.5 hours
Thread 20 - Quicktime issue - response within 1/2 hour
Thread 21 - HD crash / iPod recovery question - response with 40 minutes
Thread 22 - This one:


Pat McCrotch said:


> Every time I get a problem (like the one above), I have to go to these community forums. I use the Mac support forums and this forum. Out of all the questions I asked (many) I have almost never gotten a solution from a poster.


Tell you what. Next time you decide to insult a place like ehMac, get your facts straight. I have issues with some of the members here, but overall it's a decent community. You've been a member for less than a year, posted less than 120 times, and you are already complaining about the neighbourhood. I'd like to say something about 'piehole' and 'shut it', but I'll remain civil.


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## SoyMac (Apr 16, 2005)

*Familiar*

When I read Pat McCrotch's first post, like many here, I felt Apple-defensive. How dare he!!
But as I read his post and subsequent posts, I felt not just sympathy but also an affinity. 
At times, I too have been blazingly frustrated by my Macs. 
Software difficulties and poor documentation have been the main causes of my displeasure.
I understand the emotions of frustration that Pat McCrotch is going through. 
Pile on top of this the anecdotal evidence of his Mac-friends' hardware problems, and I can see why he's so frustrated and wants to vent. I've done it on this very forum, but in a maybe more subtle way; eg: I'll post a question asking for help, and then I'll end my post with "I wish my Mac 'just worked'."

But with any of the problems I've ever had with my Macs, I feel a thousand times lucky that at least I don't have to go through the problems and frustrations that my Windows-using friends go through, every single day.

Macs aren't perfect, and if no-one complains about the problems, Apple won't strive to continually improve our Mac-using experience. 

Also, please Everyone, try to refrain from calling people "idiots" in response to their choices, experiences, perceptions, opinions, or lack of an advanced computer engineering degree. 
EhMac is a friendly place!


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

In response to Betty Woo:
Getting an external HD and applecare was the result of my experience too. Oh and PCs can run Mac OS also. My friend has Mac OS running in a Virtual machine on his PC. I do like the fact that I can run Windows on my Mac, but that capability is not necessarily exclusive to Macs.

In response to genuineadvantage:
If Macs account for say 5% of the computers on the market (I really don't know I'm just giving a figure for discussion) then that means there are 19 times more PCs out there than Macs. By that logic, if I have a computer repair shop and have 19 times as many PCs in my shop, then PCs and Macs are failing with the same level of frequency. To conclude that Macs are indeed more reliable on a hardware standpoint, there would have to be many more than 19 times the amount Macs in shop. Ask your friend if there really are that many more PCs in shop, I'd be interested to hear the answer. When I go to my Mac service center, there are always a bunch of people bringing in Macs, although I've seen quite a few Macbooks which might be just because of first gen problems. It also could be because it is one of the single service centers for Macs in Montreal so more Macs would appear, since you can service a PC anywhere.

In response to madgunde:
I worked in an IT department also and am fully aware that hard drives and computer components in general aren't reliable. It's just that when you really baby a computer and the hard drive quits for no reason, it's frustrating. In all the computers I've owned and used, this is my first time having a hard drive fail (except for a reallllllly out dated PC laptop that I used for components that just died. Not sure it was the HD though). I guess all my life I've been specially lucky; you can't really blame me for being dissatisfied. My first Mac, my first HD failure after only about 9 months. Of course it doesn't mean that Mac are necessarily less reliable, but it should arouse the skepticism of any half intelligent person.

My issue with Bootcamp was NOT because of windows. My copy of windows used to work like a charm (well, at least it work like windows!) on my Macbook until that fateful upgrade to iSight when Apple messed up all the drivers. I tried for 3 weeks to fiddle with all the ! I found in the device manager because of all the incorrectly installed drivers. I reinstalled windows and the drivers (which is not as fun as installing OS X, I'll concede that) about 4 times every time there was a version upgrade in bootcamp. 

Personally, I don't think you can judge Apple with bootcamp, because they clearly aren't putting any real effort into it and they advertise it to make it seem like they invented the wheel. If it works like crap and you make really bad updates to the drivers every 8 months and you ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT SUPPORT IT, it has no business being pasted al over your add campaigns. I've called Microsoft support people in an IT setting to get help on some third party software and they did everything they could to help me to get it to work, even if it was completely out of their mandate (and they don't even advertise that these softwares work with windows). It would be nice if an Applecare zombie could at least say something helpful like "the bootcamp assistant won't work on that MPB because you need to update the firmware which will not happen when you do software update. You need to search for the "MPB early 2006" firmware update and THEN it will work. It only takes 5 seconds to say that and it could help someone a lot.

I don't think I incite people to aggression. Read all my posts. When in my posts do I refer to Mac users as "idiots"? When do I use a condescending tone when referring to people that chose Macs? I thought being civil, respectful and friendly was at the core of being Canadian, which is part of the reason why I even post here. Apparently some Mac users don't fall in that category. I've called Dell customer service a few times and found them to be about 100X as courteous and 100X as helpful as the Applecare people. When I called Applecare and told them what the people at INSO had told me about my data recovery options, the person was practically yelling in my ear I had to raise my voice to get her to simmer down and address me in a respectful tone (which she did) for the rest of the conversation. I'm guessing these people are overworked and underpaid because there seems to be a lot of unhappy campers in the Apple call center somewhere in ontario.

In response to jmlachance:

Well, a lot of posters here have reserved the right to insult me and my friends exactly for the reason you mentioned, criticizing their raison-d'être, Apple. Maybe it's worse on PC message boards (which I never have and never will use because there's always plenty of effective help with PCs at your fingertips) but the personal attacks here are disappointing to say the least.

If anyone wants to post anymore replies in this thread calling me or my friends idiots, please save it. I know what backing up is and I was kicking myself when my HD failed. It's a great example of murphy's law. My hard drive failed as I was shopping for an external drive; I was putting it off until the end of school 10 days and that ended up being too long. In retrospect, I should have bought all that gear when I first got my Mac, but then I wouldn't have been able to afford my Mac in the first place.

No amount of insults is going to convince that Macs are great. It just convinces me that the people sending them are juvenile. I'm here to discuss and perhaps get information. Period.

BTW, my post in the help forums about Quicktime and Safari is still sitting there in ehmac's and in apple's discussion groups. Any help is appreciated.


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## guytoronto (Jun 25, 2005)

You want your problems solved? Give me your MacBook for a weekend, and $200, with a detailed list of all your issues, and you'll get it back Monday morning everything resolved.

Trying to resolve some issues over the internet is like trying to give a haircut over the internet. It just doesn't work. If everybody could fix everything themselves, there would be no plumbers in this world.


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

guytoronto said:


> Let's take a look at your thread history:
> Tell you what. Next time you decide to insult a place like ehMac, get your facts straight. I have issues with some of the members here, but overall it's a decent community. You've been a member for less than a year, posted less than 120 times, and you are already complaining about the neighbourhood. I'd like to say something about 'piehole' and 'shut it', but I'll remain civil.


I don't appreciate you digging up my posting history and displaying it just to insult me. Often, I don't reply to people that post solutions because they don't solve my problem and I'm hoping for other posters to post the answer, which often happens not to come. Perhaps on some occasions, I've posted a question and I've found the answer myself immediately and didn't check back to see. I've posted solutions for people and gotten nothing in return and I don't cry about it.

Personally, I'd rather be called "pie hole" than have my posting history exposed in an attempt to ridicule me. Please edit and erase your post or I will contact a forum moderator.


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

guytoronto said:


> You want your problems solved? Give me your MacBook for a weekend, and $200, with a detailed list of all your issues, and you'll get it back Monday morning everything resolved.
> 
> Trying to resolve some issues over the internet is like trying to give a haircut over the internet. It just doesn't work. If everybody could fix everything themselves, there would be no plumbers in this world.


I can't afford a computer that requires me to pay 200$ every time I have an issue. I need it to either work, or to be able to somehow make it work. Maybe I just don't use Mac's properly and don't understand them; nevertheless, I need a computer that I can get to work somehow.

Unlike some people, my life doesn't revolve around computers (although I did work in an IT dept. once). I need to focus on plenty of things, mainly making music and teaching music. I just can't afford to fiddle for hours and hours every time I have a problem. When I had a PC, I knew who to call and my problem was gone. With my Mac, I find I end up living with problems sometimes because I can't solve them.


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## robert (Sep 26, 2002)

Can you say "lock this thread"
Sure, sure.


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

robert said:


> Can you say "lock this thread"
> Sure, sure.


It's too bad, because there were sprinkles of intelligent debate amongst the insults.


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## CanadaRAM (Jul 24, 2005)

Pat McCrotch said:


> In response to Betty Woo:
> Getting an external HD and applecare was the result of my experience too. Oh and PCs can run Mac OS also.


Not legally.


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

CanadaRAM said:


> Not legally.


That's true. But why does parallels for windows support Mac OS X then?


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

wow. What a thread.

There all computers. Using the same kind of hardware, not a whole lot different internally really, save for the cool designs we all love. Hard drives fail, ram goes bad, all computers are not immune.

It's the software. The OS. Something 99% of PC users never EVER quite EVER will EVER get. 

Sure run a hacked copy of OS X on a PC. It'll never be as good. EVER. But for some windows users, who are used to crap, are happy with that. Funny enough.

But don't take it from me.

Now if you prefer the SOFTWARE of a PC, windows etc. etc., more power to ya.

Yer gonna need it after all the anitvirus/spyware nonsense (ohh and vista bloatations too) sucks half the life out of your resources.


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

groovetube said:


> wow. What a thread.
> 
> There all computers. Using the same kind of hardware, not a whole lot different internally really, save for the cool designs we all love. Hard drives fail, ram goes bad, all computers are not immune.
> 
> ...


Windows requires less resources than Mac OS X, so using antivirus software and a firewall never slow me down really. Mac OS X is more stable and nicer to look at, but I personally find it harder to use at times, probably because of my lack of experience with macs. I must say the help files for some programs aren't very helpful, like quicktime: there's about 30 articles in there. If one of those doesn't coincidentally have an answer = hours of internet searching, posting, fiddling.


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## IronMac (Sep 22, 2003)

I find that not being snippy on the forums really helps a lot when I need assistance.  

BTW, how do you "baby" a computer? Never turn it on?

As for needing to focus on your work, you've basically spent a whole day on this thread.

Look, why don't you describe your issues with full tech info in their own separate thread(s) and be done with it? Bump them up occasionally to remind people that you're still around.

Oh yeah, u can try other Mac forums too like I do such as DealMac and MacResource.


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## Pelao (Oct 2, 2003)

> I don't appreciate you digging up my posting history and displaying it just to insult me.


Woah there bud!

YOU are the one who raised your posts as an issue. If you do not want something examined or discussed, don't raise it.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Pat McCrotch said:


> Windows requires less resources than Mac OS X, so using antivirus software and a firewall never slow me down really. Mac OS X is more stable and nicer to look at, but I personally find it harder to use at times, probably because of my lack of experience with macs. I must say the help files for some programs aren't very helpful, like quicktime: there's about 30 articles in there. If one of those doesn't coincidentally have an answer = hours of internet searching, posting, fiddling.


ok. Now I know you're full of it and just stirring the pot. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.


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## tendim (Apr 6, 2004)

Pat McCrotch said:


> Windows requires less resources than Mac OS X, so using antivirus software and a firewall never slow me down really. Mac OS X is more stable and nicer to look at, but I personally find it harder to use at times, probably because of my lack of experience with macs. I must say the help files for some programs aren't very helpful, like quicktime: there's about 30 articles in there. If one of those doesn't coincidentally have an answer = hours of internet searching, posting, fiddling.


You're kidding, right?

Microsoft stated at one point that they didn't want to show the "seconds" indicator in the desktop clock because it was too processor intensive.

Tell me why Visual Studio 2005 on a 2 GHz PC with > 1 GB of RAM takes over 30 seconds to open up a _small_ Solution?

Why is it that closing Outlook takes upwards of 15 seconds at times, if you try to close another five windows at the same time?

I agree with you that you lack experience with Macs, and that might be the problem. I honestly can't remember how long it took me to get used to my first Mac (LC575 under OS 7.1), but I do agree that since I've been using them for 7+ years I do pick up things quicker on it, mainly because I'm accustomed to how "things work" in the MacOS world. No doubt, that with continuous use, you'd become a pro.

What kind of help are you looking for in QuickTime?


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

groovetube said:


> ok. Now I know you're full of it and just stirring the pot. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.


I'm not trying to stir the pot. I've been trying to achieve a very simple thing for 2-3 days now: getting movies to open in quicktime player and not in a tiny player in my browser. I've tried looking in the preferences of quicktime, Safari and flip4mac. I've looked in the help for all those. I've started a thread about it. Please post in it if you have a solution.

I've tried using activity monitor but I can't seem to use that to tell my computer how to open files. I downloaded a little app called Vince but I can't figure out how to use the app. Any info on this is appreciated.

Again, I'm not a computer genius of any kind and maybe I don't fully understand how my computer uses memory. I just find that my 1GB of ram on my Macbook gets used up very quickly with iTunes, Safari and a music notation software. The nature of the work that I do often requires me to have multiple programs open at once, and when I try to do certain things like lower or raise the volume, my computer can be very slow to respond. When I used a windows system, I would look in the task manager and would have to really have many applications running fill it up and get it to struggle. Again, maybe my music notation software is very resource intensive and would do the same or even worse on a PC. I just see a lot of spinning beachball (even on a clean install of Mac OS X) so I wish I had chosen the 2GB of ram.

When I run parallels, it used to be divided 512/512 for memory allocation between OS X and Windoz, which really made OS X struggle. Now I have it at about 302/722 with more memory on the mac OS X side. Now both OS's run smoothly. Perhaps someone with very technical knowledge can enlighten me as to why this doesn't suggest that Mac OS takes a bit more memory to run.

I've responded, go ahead and flame away.


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

Pelao said:


> Woah there bud!
> 
> YOU are the one who raised your posts as an issue. If you do not want something examined or discussed, don't raise it.


I disagree. What I said was that I often tried to solve problems by posting in forums and have rarely received a response that actually helped me solve a problem. Some people interpreted that as some kind of attack to the posters on ehmac. I didn't mean it that way at all. What I meant was that even with some responses like try this, try that, I couldn't solve my problems. In other cases, some of my posts don't even get addressed, but that is the exception rather than the rule.

I brought up my posting because I felt like it hasn't been helping me enough to solve problems, which are certainly my fault because I don't have the know-how to open up the Unix console and command line my way out of certain issues. It's no fault of anyone in the community and some have tried to help.

Torontoguy's post is simply aggressive and a personal attack. He is abusing a feature on these message boards that let people look at a users posting history. I have already asked him respectfully to delete his post and contacted the forum moderators. Call me an idiot all you want (I don't think that should be tolerated but it's not my call) but using my posting history and posting it publicly to denigrate me in front of all the posters, some of which are interested in informing me, is probably the most disrespectful thing one could do.


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## MacMarebito (Mar 19, 2007)

Wow. This forum looks like it's starting to get dirty. I think it's about time to sweep up. This is a comment for Pat McCrotch. 

OK, I really think you are pro PC and the thought of you being anything different is an illogical thought. I also think from viewing the final pages of this thread since my last initial post that the reason some of us from the neighbourhood are becoming upset is that your posts seem to broadcast an inner hate for the Mac/Apple (switching back, all my friends have problems with Macs, can't find any freeware, Apple call center workers are rude, etc). As I have said before and others have also said in so many words no computer is perfect. I think you are simply not happy with the answers you are getting in response to your situation because the conversation continues to drag on with certain "PCs are better hynuknuk" overtones after you are done making a passing positive comment or two about Mac. 

I'm sure we can all feel sympathy for the situation you have described. But the claims you are making suggesting Mac hardware/software is somehow awry is seriously flawed. Cetainly, there is a larger array of software available to PC users but would such a variety exist if every PC program simply worked the way intended? I really think not. The difference with Mac is that we don't always need to run a multitude of programs to achieve an effect. There is definately a learning curve when crossing over from one computer to another just as there would be while transferring over from one device to another. For those of us who express a desire to learn we benefit from such a challenge because we want to learn. There are others who find this less than desirable. Before buying a new Mac I had a PC. Wasn't much to do with it (as it was) so I took to playing some video games on it. Since owning a new Mac I picked up a few titles but my games collect dust. Someone somewhere commented on the fact that when it comes to game sales it appears that as Mac sales are on the rise the sale of video game software for Macintosh is not. You can read whatever you want into that, but it is my strong personal conviction that while you might want to game on a PC there are better things to do on a Mac. And I am a gamer. PC gaming is the one thing that PC users always try to hold over the heads of Macintosh users when in debate and I don't think it sticks very well anymore. Using a Mac I find myself more creative, trying out new things that I normally wouldn't think about trying creatively. 

So with that said, instead of dragging on and boring you, myself and the other dedicated Mac users I will end with this closing statement - Just go buy a new PC. Oh and fyi it's MacMarebito not MacBurrito as you called me in my last post.


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

IronMac said:


> I find that not being snippy on the forums really helps a lot when I need assistance.
> 
> BTW, how do you "baby" a computer? Never turn it on?
> 
> ...


I'm not trying to be snippy if that's what you are implying. Perhaps my original post was frustrated in his tone but I think that frustration is a normal reaction to equipment failure. I'm just trying to relate some personal experiences I've had with computers and I'm not pretending to be an all knowing computer technology guru. I'm just hoping that someone that knows more than me can explain to me why certain things might not be working properly.

I baby my computer by calibrating the battery, carrying it around very carefully in a special carrying case and in a separate compartment in my bag so it doesn't get knocked around. I never check it when I take a flight and always try to carry it with me (which can be tough when you are trying to convince someone to bring a guitar on board a flight). That's what I meant by baby. I know people who treat their computers like crap and haven't had their HD (and superdrive) fail. Again, that ship has sailed and I guess it's just a freak occurrence that my HD stopped working. I was interested in some peoples experiences with other computers that have an HD that failed.

You're right, I have been wasting a lot of time on these forums out of slight procrastination but also because I'm interested in the responses that some people have (the non belligerent ones). I've only recently got my computer back with a new HD and superdrive and I've spent the last few days setting it up and installing software and thus I posted here and opened the can of worms which became this thread.

Like I have mentioned earlier, I have posted my technical question here on ehmac and in the apple forums. I'll check out the other sites/forums you recommended also.


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## lewdvig (Nov 20, 2003)

This dude is a troll, what is the matter with you people? Why reespond? He is typing these posts on his TRS-80 in his mom's basement.

We don't need to evangelize anymore, the nineties are over. For every hater like this guy there are a thousand that are digging on Mac.

We are above this. Unless you type something clever that the OP doesn't understand. Inside jokes at the expense windows supporters (what a sad fate) are always going to be funny.


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

MacMarebito said:


> Wow. This forum looks like it's starting to get dirty. I think it's about time to sweep up. This is a comment for Pat McCrotch.
> 
> OK, I really think you are pro PC and the thought of you being anything different is an illogical thought. I also think from viewing the final pages of this thread since my last initial post that the reason some of us from the neighbourhood are becoming upset is that your posts seem to broadcast an inner hate for the Mac/Apple (switching back, all my friends have problems with Macs, can't find any freeware, Apple call center workers are rude, etc). As I have said before and others have also said in so many words no computer is perfect. I think you are simply not happy with the answers you are getting in response to your situation because the conversation continues to drag on with certain "PCs are better hynuknuk" overtones after you are done making a passing positive comment or two about Mac.
> 
> ...


When I said Macburrito, it was really a joke just because I couldn't remember how to spell your handle correctly. It wasn't meant as a mean statement.

I know that PCs are good for gaming but I don't game so that's no selling point for me. I need a computer that will help me do my work and a few things like emailing friends and speaking to friends/colleagues using skype.

If you look at one of my earlier posts, I make the analogy about cars. You have the choice between the BMW (good but $$$) and a ford taurus (crappy and cheap). If I buy a BMW and it has problems and I can't fix the problem, maybe it makes sense to buy the taurus instead to save cash. It's kind of like giving up I guess. I know how crappy and irritating it is to use windows, but whenever I have problems, I can get through them without too much pain. If I'm going to have problems either way, I need good reasons to justify buying a more expensive product that might be more difficult to service.

Never, did I mean to imply that PCs are better than Macs. I'm just trying to play the devils advocate. Remember, I'm not a computer expert like many posters here. I'm just basing my observations on experience. Maybe I was a little unlucky and I don't realize how much more reliable Macs are, but maybe someone here that has experience can attest to that.


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## MacMarebito (Mar 19, 2007)

You wouldn't be happy no matter what level of evidence in regards to Mac credibility you were presented with or anything else for that matter. You ARE funny, but not in the way YOU think. You're just here to rattle some chains, nothing more. If people on other sites weren't responding to your posts it is perhaps because they recognized this fact from the beginning. One thing is plain to see - you are sticking around because you are aware of a stir you made and you'd like to further it.


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

MacMarebito said:


> You wouldn't be happy no matter what level of evidence in regards to Mac credibility you were presented with or anything else for that matter. You ARE funny, but not in the way YOU think. You're just here to rattle some chains, nothing more. If people on other sites weren't responding to your posts it is perhaps because they recognized this fact from the beginning. One thing is plain to see - you are sticking around because you are aware of a stir you made and you'd like to further it.


I'm sorry if I come across that way. Look at all my posts in this thread. Ok the first ones are a little on the negative side but all the other ones are purely curious. Really I'm trying to convince myself that owning a Mac is the right thing and trying to get other users to chime in. Some people have posted interesting and convincing information. I does make me feel a little better to know that someone that works in an IT department is constantly fixing PCs.

Really all I am trying to say is: "look at all the problems my friends and I have had with Macs" and "I'm having a hard time figuring some things out on my Mac that is intended to be user friendly". I'm not trying to insult anyone and I'm surprised of the amount of personal insults I'm receiving.


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## madgunde (Mar 10, 2006)

Pat McCrotch said:


> I'm not trying to stir the pot. I've been trying to achieve a very simple thing for 2-3 days now: getting movies to open in quicktime player and not in a tiny player in my browser. I've tried looking in the preferences of quicktime, Safari and flip4mac. I've looked in the help for all those. I've started a thread about it. Please post in it if you have a solution.


If you want people to help you, try being more helpful yourself. Instead of just mentioning you have a thread and making the people who you want to help go out of their way to search for it, why not include a link to it in your post? Because I don't feel like wasting my time searching, I'm going to give you your answer here:

Get the URL of the movie you want to watch. Open QuickTime Player and choose "File-->Open URL..." and paste the URL of the QuickTime movie into the dialog box that opens up and click "OK". Alternatively, you can save the QuickTime file you want to watch using the little menu in the bottom right hand corner of the movie controls, then open the movie in QuickTime Player by double-clicking it in the Finder. Sometimes getting the movie's URL can be tricky, because it's embedded in a web page. You can use the Safari "View-->View Source" option to view the page's source code and search for common movie extensions like .mov, .mp4 and .avi. Movies are usually embedded using the <embed> or <object> tags, so you can also try looking for those and seeing if you can find the movie's URL between those html tags.

Hope that answers your question.


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## absolutetotalgeek (Sep 18, 2005)

Not to be mean, but I suspect the problem is that your level of competence and skill when in comes to working with computers may not be what you think it is. I mean come on some of the things you are saying are a little ridiculous. Sorry but a computer is a computer if you know how to use it, I can get my windbloz machine to pretty much the same things as my macs, with obvious differences of course. 

People somehow think because they buy a mac they are going to be gods at what ever they are working at, it's a computer. Do you really think because it's a mac it's gonna be gravy and you won't ever have problems? :yikes: It's a computer with an OS nothing more nothing less. M$ stuff is just as capable as Apple stuff, they both have their strong points. There is one cardinal rule though. If you want a Windbloz machine to function without problems - Keep it off the Internet. The Internet is no place for a MS product. :lmao: 

K, I've got to get back to a Ubuntu install....


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## Troutmagnet (Jul 30, 2002)

Trainman said:


> On the other hand, my 24' IMac has been performing flawlessly since we got it several months ago, and let me tell you I'm never going back...


Wow... a 24' iMac... now I'd LOVE to see that up and running... can you imagine the video card in that sucka'!?


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## rondini (Dec 6, 2001)

9 macs in this family, all work fine still. Oldest is 1994 non-PowerPC. The only issue I have ever had was a bad flyback transformer in my eMac, fixed under warranty. Lucky for me I live in the same town as a warranty service center.


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## Greg H (Jan 4, 2002)

Well, let me weigh in on this one. I can certainly commiserate with Mr. McCrotch (Pat no less eh!). I am a Mac bigot to be sure, having owned and worked exclusively with Macs (in a PC world) since 1987. From my persective, Mr. McCrotch has merely taken the opportunity to legitimately express his frustration with the poor quality of Apple's latest offerings, including their online service. I can personally attest to this assertion based on:
1) my experience with my MacBook Pro (both logic board, battery replaced),
2) all of my dealings with Apple staff (online and during PROCARE sessions),
3) comparison of my MBP versus my Powerbook. 
Despite my most recent series of disappointments with Apples performance latley, I am hoping that they will improve and return to their former glory, as sadly I am a card carrying member of the "Cult of Mac" and as such will likely never switch to a PC. 
So fellow Mac fellows, cut this poor guy some slack and give him some sympathy! 
Ok now, "Group Hug!!!"


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Pat McCrotch said:


> I'm not trying to stir the pot. I've been trying to achieve a very simple thing for 2-3 days now: getting movies to open in quicktime player and not in a tiny player in my browser. I've tried looking in the preferences of quicktime, Safari and flip4mac. I've looked in the help for all those. I've started a thread about it. Please post in it if you have a solution.
> 
> I've tried using activity monitor but I can't seem to use that to tell my computer how to open files. I downloaded a little app called Vince but I can't figure out how to use the app. Any info on this is appreciated.
> 
> ...


well, maybe it's just me. But isn't OS X running the parallels software, that is running the windows? Could that be why it needs a little extra ram?

After reading your posts, you seem to prefer PC. Well it's simple then isn't it!!!! It's no small wonder to me that the majority of computer users here have little or no trouble doing all the things you are having trouble with. Like any new platform, it takes time to relearn new things and that does not happen in a month. I switched from PC and it took me some time to learn how to use this new platform, and continue to learn new things as I go. So don't be surprised when pople ridicule this kind of nonsense.
If you're looking for help, people give of their free time to try. If you're not happy, see ya!


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## Strimkind (Mar 31, 2005)

Pat McCrotch said:


> Really all I am trying to say is: "look at all the problems my friends and I have had with Macs" and "I'm having a hard time figuring some things out on my Mac that is intended to be user friendly". I'm not trying to insult anyone and I'm surprised of the amount of personal insults I'm receiving.


I just started reading this so its my turn to add a little to this post.

Currently I own 2 computers. A PC and an iBook. Both have had their problems. The PC had a motherboard fail after 3 years of daily use. The iBook had its HD fail just after a year. Previous computers I've had were an 8500 that slowed over time; a Powerbook 170 that didn't always turn on; there were various Mac LC's that generally worked except for standard bus errors.

I've worked on PCs with a fried PSU, dead CD roms, shipped with a bad DVDROM drive, ones that never worked properly, etc etc.

Just like macs, there are some PCs that run forever. Macs have their parts manufactured in asia somewhere just like PCs. The quality control is no different than a PC. Even the motherboards are manufactured by a PC company (Foxconn I believe, which just so happens to be the motherboard brand in my PC). Apple laptops are built in the same place as many PC laptops , OpenDNS so there would be of similar quality.

Macs you are paying for the look and the software.

You just have bad luck with computers so make sure you backup and learn from this.


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

groovetube said:


> well, maybe it's just me. But isn't OS X running the parallels software, that is running the windows? Could that be why it needs a little extra ram?
> 
> After reading your posts, you seem to prefer PC. Well it's simple then isn't it!!!! It's no small wonder to me that the majority of computer users here have little or no trouble doing all the things you are having trouble with. Like any new platform, it takes time to relearn new things and that does not happen in a month. I switched from PC and it took me some time to learn how to use this new platform, and continue to learn new things as I go. So don't be surprised when pople ridicule this kind of nonsense.
> If you're looking for help, people give of their free time to try. If you're not happy, see ya!


Again, I'm no computer genius but as far as I understand, parallels runs a VM (virtual machine) which dedicates a percentage of RAM and a percentage of the HD to make a "virtual computer" somewhat independent of the host computer. So it's running with however much RAM I give it and it uses a virtual partition as a HD, that's why it runs with such efficiency compared to other emulations that are simply running one OS on top of another.

Windows XP is pretty old and ugly, that's why I supposed that it would use less resources than eye popping Mac OS with it's accent on transparency, exposé, animation etc. I've read however that Macs perform better in benchmark tests which would suggest that they are very capable of running a more memory hungry operating system. As far as energy consumption is concerned, Mac OS and my Macbook do amazingly well.

I'd like to thank some of the recent posters for their contributions.

Someone said earlier that it was real bad etiquette to refer to a help thread without posting a link so here it is: 

http://www.ehmac.ca/mac-ipod-help-troubleshooting/51974-avi-quicktime-safari-2.html#post544122


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

Greg H said:


> Well, let me weigh in on this one. I can certainly commiserate with Mr. McCrotch (Pat no less eh!). I am a Mac bigot to be sure, having owned and worked exclusively with Macs (in a PC world) since 1987. From my persective, Mr. McCrotch has merely taken the opportunity to legitimately express his frustration with the poor quality of Apple's latest offerings, including their online service. I can personally attest to this assertion based on:
> 1) my experience with my MacBook Pro (both logic board, battery replaced),
> 2) all of my dealings with Apple staff (online and during PROCARE sessions),
> 3) comparison of my MBP versus my Powerbook.
> ...


I hear you, brother! I guess I got into Macs right as they were transitioning to intel, so judging by your experiences, Apple might be having some intel growing pains and will produce more reliable (again, I'm not insinuating that Macs aren't already very reliable) technology as they release more and more intel based models. If that's the case, then it's very motivating to make my next computer a Mac again.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

well.

I'm no genius either. But it's hard to imagine running a program that hosts another OS virtually without requiring some resources.

But I'm being picky.

back in winXP days we had OS 9, which I think you'd find was far less hungry in resources.

A better comparison would perhaps be OS X and vista.


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

groovetube said:


> well.
> 
> I'm no genius either. But it's hard to imagine running a program that hosts another OS virtually without requiring some resources.
> 
> ...


Ha! by the time Vista will be acceptable, Leopard will be out and might have some interesting features such as bootcamp integration and that auto backup option; it's called time machine and it looks like it's comparable to system restore on windows. Of course it's not substitute for backing up on an external HD or DVDs but if you're like me and you accidentally move something or install something you don't like that leaves files all over the place, you don't want to have to revert to a backup you did 3 days ago.

The neat thing about parallels is that it can use a bootcamp partition to run. So with bootcamp I can reboot and use the partition natively for better performance or I can get parallels to run Windows off of the bootcamp partition without having to reinstall windows again. The only reason I haven't already done this is because the drivers included with bootcamp don't work properly and I haven't been able to reinstall them or tweak the to get it to work so I'm afraid that if I installed bootcamp that neither my bootcamp or parallels would work, so I'm just sticking with parallels for now, since I don't run anything very heavy on windows.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

well it isn't likely, that installing something in OS X, is going to to leave files 'all over the place' like it does in windows. There is no registry to bloat. But that's one of the highlights you'll come to realize, and appreciate after some experience in OS X. I have yet, in the bazzillions of demos, shareware, multiple versions of programs I own, have an install go bad enough that I need to revert. Ever. I have also, yet to even need to reinstall OS X for that matter.

And I believe that is a very, very common experience among mac users.

and some light reading, will reveal time machine, is not like windows system restore.

Now off to the Dell store with you.


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## Betty Woo (Feb 5, 2005)

Pat McCrotch said:


> In response to Betty Woo:
> Getting an external HD and applecare was the result of my experience too. Oh and PCs can run Mac OS also. My friend has Mac OS running in a Virtual machine on his PC. I do like the fact that I can run Windows on my Mac, but that capability is not necessarily exclusive to Macs.


Post *150* - wOoOoOoOo WoOoOoOoOo.

Anyhoo.

I didn't know you could do that (with happy results).

You learn something new everyday  

It's amazing. The $400 more I spent on the external hard drive and AppleCare really made me feel surprisingly calm after the purchases. I'd still be majorly POed if something that required the Mac to be taken in occured (and I'd expect a replacement Mac for the interim). But I really feel I have done all that is reasonable to assure a problem-free Mac for at least the next three years (and I usually use my Macs until past their 7th production birthdays).

I've kvetched about my Macs before since nothing's perfect but I am confident that I've covered my Mac-ass. And with the hard drive being bootable, it makes it rather easy to just plug it into another Mac to retrieve or run things.

'Cause, you know, **** happens n' stuff


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## madgunde (Mar 10, 2006)

Pat McCrotch said:


> Someone said earlier that it was real bad etiquette to refer to a help thread without posting a link so here it is:
> 
> http://www.ehmac.ca/mac-ipod-help-troubleshooting/51974-avi-quicktime-safari-2.html#post544122


Thanks. It was me. I copied and pasted the solution I posted above in that thread.


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## Tom Thomas (Feb 7, 2005)

*have a look and see what happend to me today*

http://www.ehmac.ca/anything-mac/51439-caes-warped-displays-mbp-17-inch.html


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

groovetube said:


> well it isn't likely, that installing something in OS X, is going to to leave files 'all over the place' like it does in windows. There is no registry to bloat. But that's one of the highlights you'll come to realize, and appreciate after some experience in OS X. I have yet, in the bazzillions of demos, shareware, multiple versions of programs I own, have an install go bad enough that I need to revert. Ever. I have also, yet to even need to reinstall OS X for that matter.
> 
> And I believe that is a very, very common experience among mac users.
> 
> ...


Actually, many kinds of Mac software that don't come with uninstallers will leave certain preference files hanging around even after you delete the program and it's directory. It helps to spotlight the name of a program to see if certain folders or files are cluttering up your preferences folder.


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## Vexel (Jan 30, 2005)

Pat McCrotch said:


> Actually, many kinds of Mac software that don't come with uninstallers will leave certain preference files hanging around even after you delete the program and it's directory. It helps to spotlight the name of a program to see if certain folders or files are cluttering up your preferences folder.


Or, you can download AppDelete.  Sure makes getting rid of those files easier. (YMMV)

On topic:

I think for the most part what we're seeing here is that there are more Mac users than ever before. Profits are WAY up.. Apple is in the game to stay for sure now and they're capitolizing on that.

I think Quality Control has taken a hit as a result. But, it's something that Apple will eventually figure out again. Keep in mind, this is a brand new architecture for Apple.. and, no other companies build the kind of machines that Apple do. There's bound to be some issues.

Laptops especially are an arena that have their hits and misses. The Macbook is a great machine.. but, there's some heafty issues arising from the design/architecture that have to be squeeked out. Apple COULD offer a 7 pound absolutely hideous laptop.. but, that's not the game they're in. They have the sexiest computers on the planet and intend to keep that title.

I think we're going to see a whole lot of good stuff come from the architecture change, but, as we've seen, there's going to be a few rivers to cross to get there. I'm confident that Apple as a company will get there, they always do. 

It would be interesting to see the failure ratio on the machines at the moment. I know a lot of people without issues. Mind you, I know a few with issues too. So.. without the data I can only assume.

But, for now. I'm happy with my cool-aid.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Pat McCrotch said:


> Actually, many kinds of Mac software that don't come with uninstallers will leave certain preference files hanging around even after you delete the program and it's directory. It helps to spotlight the name of a program to see if certain folders or files are cluttering up your preferences folder.


Actually. You cannot compare that to the mess of shared DLL files and the registry nonsense experienced on windows. I run both side by side daily and have for years. No comparison.

Depends on what you prefer. Dragging the app to the trash, and perhaps a preference file, an application support folder left behind that does nothing to hinder the OS in any way, except for the few megabytes it may take up on hard disk. Or, the bloating of the registry, shared DLL hell, the requirement to use an uninstaller (god HELP you if that fails...) and having to reinsall windows every so often to get that 'fresh install' feeling after the registry bloats to bring the OS to a crawl.

Your call. Not mine.


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## madgunde (Mar 10, 2006)

Pat McCrotch said:


> Actually, many kinds of Mac software that don't come with uninstallers will leave certain preference files hanging around even after you delete the program and it's directory. It helps to spotlight the name of a program to see if certain folders or files are cluttering up your preferences folder.


Yes, but they are easy to find, and more importantly, easy to delete without worry about it messing something else up. They generally have plain english filenames that are easy to distinguish so you don't have to worry about deleting the wrong preference file. Windows NEEDS an uninstaller, even thought they don't work half the time. On the Mac, it's totally unnecessary.

FYI, for most Mac apps, just browse through these two folders:
~/Library/Preferences
~/Library/Application Support

Where "~" is your home folder. Some apps, usually ones that run in the background or at bootup, may also put preference and support files here at the root level of your hard disk:

/Library/Preferences
/Library/Applications Support

Also, deleting such files in most cases won't break the app, they will just be recreated again if you run the program again, unlike Windows where if you touch one dll or registry setting, your application goes boom and may not even be able to be uninstalled or reinstalled again.

You see, Apple makes an OS that lets the user have control over what is going on, and encourages the user to have a better understanding of the OS. Windows makes an OS that treats the user like an idiot, spoon feeds you so you never really understand what is going on, then fails miserably leaving the user completely helpless because they never learned anything about how things work.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

madgunde said:


> Windows makes an OS that treats the user like an idiot, spoon feeds you so you never really understand what is going on, then fails miserably leaving the user completely helpless because they never learned anything about how things work.


Some like that though eh.

heh heh.


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## Pelao (Oct 2, 2003)

I find that the control over hardware _and_ software exercised by Apple to be a real advantage.

Yestrerday a neighbour called me to help with a problem on their Toshiba 17" notebook. They wanted a slideshow to loop continuously, but the mahine kept 'turning off' after a few minutes. 

I went into the power setting and showed them how to adjust things to their liking (the XP panel for this is a horror to look at, but works OK). As soon as the new setting were applied, up pops a warning that Toshiba's very own power management panel was also running and we needed to adjust or shut it down, starting the process by clicking the icon in the toolbar.

Of course there is no toolbar icon. Anyway, after a few minutes it was all set. In this case the user is simply that, a user - not someone interested in computers, or who would ever venture into a computer forum. The added complexity they experienced was unnecessary and it placed the manufacturer and engineers ahead of the user. I really hate that. It's all the constant small irritations and increased management load of the tool that frustrates me with WIN and WIN machines.


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

Vexel, your response about the new architecture was interesting and thought provoking. Thanks for recommending that little application, I might check it out although I've never had a big problem deleting preference files for certain programs. Some preference files are named in a way that don't make it obvious what program they come from so once in a blue moon, it makes it a little harder to know what to clean up. I'm glad to know that deleting such files is relatively low risk, I'm still figuring out the dos and don'ts of Mac OS (like renaming the root folder, Ouch, I'll remember that one)!

In response to Groovetube: I agree that registry stinks. I usually use a program called Spybot search and destroy that alerts me every time a change is made to the registry. But then you have to live with the "You are coming to a sad realization, cancel or allow" syndrome for a while until you've "taught" your PC which programs are legit. I definitely don't miss having to format my computer every few months, so that's a big plus for Mac OS, although I am sometimes perplexed as to how I can "speed up" my computer. I used to use Onyx (before my HD problem) but haven't reinstalled because I didn't think it was incredibly user friendly. I was always afraid that my decisions in that program would do more harm than good. Like deleting certain index files originally slow down your Mac as it has to figure stuff out (like opening Firefox for the first time). I heard there was something similar to Onyx that was easier to use for a Mac noob like myself but I can't remember the name.

I don't know who mentioned this but I don't think windows treats you like an idiot. I just think that Windows isn't particularly easy to use so they make a bunch of supposedly automated little helpful messages, which are purely irritating and do little to help the inexperienced user and only vexes the advanced one.

It's like my friend's Xbox 360, the games for it are fun, the controllers are well designed and it comes with some cool features but the whole profile system convoluted and impractical. Player one is the lead profile and only he can save, when he signs out you have to quit and come back, if you switch the lead profile to player 2 then you can't save properly, if you don't first sign out of a profile when shutting off a controlled you will be constantly asked to turn the controller back on. It really is a mess. It could have been simple but instead it is complicated.

I think that Microsoft can design things that work well (except for the OS!) but they basically don't understand users and how they interact with computers. Minesweeper was a great program! (just kidding)...


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

it sounds as though you are making a lot of assumptions without doing a lot of reading. So I would suggest doing that before deciding things erroneously as I've seen in many of your posts. Onyx has been great on all my machines, and I know others here like Applejack and others, so it's wise to read, ask questions, from those here that really know there stuff, that's how I've learned to keep my macs running well. Macdoc had a while back posted what the optimum settings for Onyx were perhaps asking nicely will help.


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

I don't understand why you say I make assumptions. All I said was that I found that Onyx was a little weird to use but I still read the help files thoroughly to understand what each option does. I worked well for me and I think I used it correctly but I remember reading in a post a while back about another program that did the same things as Onyx but had a slightly simpler interface. Don't think it was applejack.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

no that's not all you said.

But I gave you some advice, so either you can continue this nonsense, or do some reading. I'm done here.


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## Macaholic (Jan 7, 2003)

Like Onyx, Applejack does all the UNIX CRON tasks (swapping tmep files, repaieing oermissions etc.) but it can also repair your drive directories. OS X Disk utility can do this, but not while booted from the same disk you want to repair (you can only scan when in this case).

I prefer Applejack, beause, if you have to eitehr boot from a backup clone, or from our restore DVD in order to effect a repair on your boot drivge, booting in to UNIX is WAY faster. Then, you type "applejack auto reboot" [RETURN] and away it goes doing EVERYTHING. As the commands suggests, i reboots into OS X when done.

If you want a simple GUI, there's NO simpler than Applejack because it runs only booted from UNIX, NOT OS X, proper.


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## Trainman (Oct 2, 2006)

Troutmagnet said:


> Wow... a 24' iMac... now I'd LOVE to see that up and running... can you imagine the video card in that sucka'!?


 yep I realized afterward that I used the wrong symbol... it was supposed to say 24" iMac.

you boys just don't let anything slide do you?  

Cheers!


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

> P.S. If you read my posts, they are not agressive and condescending in tone like your first reply. I'm just relating a bad experience and perhaps looking for other users to either agree or disagree with me. I must say, I'm pretty disgusted by certain of apples business practices but I am tenfold more disgusted with Microsoft. Again, I am just frustrated and desperately want someone to disagree with me and prove me wrong so that I can convince myself that using macs are a good idea.


I found nothing offensive in your posts. I was surprised to read about your level of frustration as most people go from newbie to booster in a heartbeat. I'm used windows for many years, and my wife still uses and likes her Acer notebook. My experience converting has been very positive, but I am not doing music-I am doing photos and general computing.

I have to say that I find this Mac community generally very supportive and helpful. Finding answers to problems is as difficult as on Windows forums-where everyone is also very helpful. 

I do experience some frustration with the Mac community, I must admit, and it comes from what I see as the religion of Apple-or blatant fanboyism. I do not understand why some people see ANY criticism of Apple as disloyal at best and blasphemy at worst. Their products are great-but lord, it's just a big company who sells us stuff, and whose interest is in making money and market share-lots and lots. Taking criticism of Apple personally is just silly, IMHO.


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## TheDirtyOne (Sep 5, 2007)

mc3251 said:


> I found nothing offensive in your posts. I was surprised to read about your level of frustration as most people go from newbie to booster in a heartbeat. I'm used windows for many years, and my wife still uses and likes her Acer notebook. My experience converting has been very positive, but I am not doing music-I am doing photos and general computing.
> 
> I have to say that I find this Mac community generally very supportive and helpful. Finding answers to problems is as difficult as on Windows forums-where everyone is also very helpful.
> 
> I do experience some frustration with the Mac community, I must admit, and it comes from what I see as the religion of Apple-or blatant fanboyism. I do not understand why some people see ANY criticism of Apple as disloyal at best and blasphemy at worst. Their products are great-but lord, it's just a big company who sells us stuff, and whose interest is in making money and market share-lots and lots. Taking criticism of Apple personally is just silly, IMHO.



Uhhh dude? You're a year late. Just FYI.


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## jeepguy (Apr 4, 2008)

TheDirtyOne said:


> Uhhh dude? You're a year late. Just FYI.


Old threads never die they just appear, in the dead of night like zombies. :lmao:


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## SoyMac (Apr 16, 2005)




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## gastonbuffet (Sep 23, 2004)

i don't like 1 year old bread.
because when i stuffed a whole bun in , i can't chew on it. So i'm switching back to proteins, and will never look back. good day, i said good day! slam!!!!


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## Kosh (May 27, 2002)

Die thread! Die! 

Stick a steak through it's heart and kill it! beejacon


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## StageDive (Feb 8, 2008)

Steak isn't good enough! Bring out the pork chops!


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## HowEver (Jan 11, 2005)

StageDive said:


> Steak isn't good enough! Bring out the pork chops!


This little piggy was raised from the dead.


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

My bad! I should have checked the date. I do that with milk too, and it tastes yukky.


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## Quicksilver G4 (Jan 29, 2008)

Pat McCrotch said:


> Can you recommend popular shareware sites? Are you using something like download.com or a Mac specific search engine? I wasn't aware that such wealth of shareware was available to me as a Mac user
> 
> P.S. If you read my posts, they are not agressive and condescending in tone like your first reply. I'm just relating a bad experience and perhaps looking for other users to either agree or disagree with me. I must say, I'm pretty disgusted by certain of apples business practices but I am tenfold more disgusted with Microsoft. Again, I am just frustrated and desperately want someone to disagree with me and prove me wrong so that I can convince myself that using macs are a good idea.



Seriously, GOOGLE!!!! Just search for "Mac Shareware" and there's sites like Softpedia, ect that offers Mac software, from Free to Commercial.


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## Quicksilver G4 (Jan 29, 2008)

lol, I didn't read the date either! How silly!!!


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

I think we should all randomly bring old threads up from the dead, spice it up a bit.


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## PierreB (Mar 5, 2007)

Pat McCrotch said:


> See, that's the kind of snappiness I'm talking about. I'm not trying to attack anyone personally, I just feel like I've been hard done by. I don't see why you feel the need to disrespect me in your reply.
> 
> I do know the difference between a windows installer and a mac installer and a hybrid 3rd party hardware driver CD I can tell you that no such CD came with my sony ericson phone. It could only run on windows. I managed to download a plugin for only 2$ and get my phone to sync and work really well with iCal and my address book. In that isolated case it was fine but I find that more often than not, it takes great fiddling to get the most basic hardware to work, unless it came with an apple logo on it, which means you payed about twice the price for it.
> 
> ...


Sorry to hear you have had a bad experience. Macs are not perfect and like Windows computers will have problems. My experience with Apple support has been much better. You indicate in your post that you are in Montréal. You would likely have had a much better customer service experience if you went to the Apple Store at Carrefour Laval. I have had a couple of problems with my Mac and have gone there and have received excellent service. Given the recent survey by Consumer Reports, Apple's service was ranked #1 among computer manufacturers- this does not mean that there are perfect as support from computer manufacturers is generally pretty poor.


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## cap10subtext (Oct 13, 2005)

Zombie posting: it's the latest craze.


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## gastonbuffet (Sep 23, 2004)

get a PC already!!!!


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## gastonbuffet (Sep 23, 2004)

apologies for the bump, pardon


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

PierreB said:


> Sorry to hear you have had a bad experience. Macs are not perfect and like Windows computers will have problems. My experience with Apple support has been much better. You indicate in your post that you are in Montréal. You would likely have had a much better customer service experience if you went to the Apple Store at Carrefour Laval. I have had a couple of problems with my Mac and have gone there and have received excellent service. Given the recent survey by Consumer Reports, Apple's service was ranked #1 among computer manufacturers- this does not mean that there are perfect as support from computer manufacturers is generally pretty poor.





PierreB said:


> Sorry to hear you have had a bad experience. Macs are not perfect and like Windows computers will have problems. My experience with Apple support has been much better. You indicate in your post that you are in Montréal. You would likely have had a much better customer service experience if you went to the Apple Store at Carrefour Laval. I have had a couple of problems with my Mac and have gone there and have received excellent service. Given the recent survey by Consumer Reports, Apple's service was ranked #1 among computer manufacturers- this does not mean that there are perfect as support from computer manufacturers is generally pretty poor.


Please show me a link to the survey. I have to see this with my own eyes :lmao: 
Have you ever called apple care? :lmao: I found in my dealings with Microsoft (corporate assistance division) and dell (consumer assistance) that the service was exponentially better than Apple's. Now if only their computers would do the same!

I don't own a car so going to laval is not practical for me. I found a way better store than INSO. It is called iStore (formerly evolution concept). Some of the people there are better informed than others but they are all friendly and helpful and the few nerds hanging out there really know their stuff. It's located on Victoria just south of Sherbrooke.

Now that I look back, I laugh at the service at INSO. I'm surprised that this thread has come back. I posted that message 13 months ago. Must be the #13, like Jason Voorhese, brought back from the dead! My replacement Mac works fine, BTW.


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## keebler27 (Jan 5, 2007)

dona83 said:


> I think we should all randomly bring old threads up from the dead, spice it up a bit.


good pt, but interesting to note there is another 'mccrotchy' thread about him buying a mac for his Mom (wasn't going so well with the lack of help from apple in getting a French keyboard with a refurb).

but ya, old threads should die....


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

keebler27 said:


> good pt, but interesting to note there is another 'mccrotchy' thread about him buying a mac for his Mom (wasn't going so well with the lack of help from apple in getting a French keyboard with a refurb).
> 
> but ya, old threads should die....


Who would be left to flame if I wasn't hanging around :lmao:

When I reposted here after leaving the last time, I noticed that this thread contained new posts! After a full year without Pat, someone felt like they had to revive one of my threads through pure nostalgia... I'm so moved :lmao:


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

^^^
Naw, just waiting for The Coming Election - Part IV thread to get going.

One has to admit that flaming the fools on Parliament Hill is for more entertaining, what, with a cabinet minister sleeping with the Hell's Angels; but flaming a French Keyboard will have to do for now...


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## The Shadow (Oct 28, 2006)

Shwow.


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

EvanPitts said:


> but flaming a French Keyboard will have to do for now...


Que?


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## iMatt (Dec 3, 2004)

Pat McCrotch said:


> Please show me a link to the survey. I have to see this with my own eyes :lmao:


I would trust the American Customer Satisfaction Index before Consumer Reports:

ACSI - Scores By Industry Popup

Apple's rating took a dip in 2007, but its ranking was #1 for 2003-2007 inclusive.


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## CyberJock (Dec 21, 2001)

*Mac vs. PC*

I have taught on both platforms for more than 15 years.
Started on a Newton and LC475. Learned PCs starting with 3.1
I worked down in MountainView and at Cupertino.
Bottom line is that Microsft Code is always sloppy and poorly QAed.
Apple makes a Superior Product .


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

You do know this thread has been dead for a year now and originally started in 2007. Just in case you didn't, it has happened to me.


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