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Post by dolphie on Aug 29, 2009 17:17:20 GMT -5
One of the common debates amongst computer users is that of PC vs Mac. I am sure many on this board have been around computers before desktops were available. Many will remember the Apples & PCs that did not have harddrives. Some will remember their very first Mac or they will remember something about their first PC. Once upon a time - Apple was more graphics industry focused whereas PC was more business focused. Time went by - PC motherboard makers made room for math cpus and the world evolved even more. Although there is a myth staunched within the computer industry that Macs are the only computers good for Graphics/videos/music - this is just that a myth. YET>.. myth or no myth - they do dominate the entertainment field. User interface - ease of use has been another feature touted with the Apple product line. That can be debated - yet for whatever reasons some people truly do buy into the myth. Another myth is that Apples will not become infected by viruses. Apple products have gained in popularity thus re-gaining a portion of the marketshare. Apples restrict the type of components they allow within their systems. With some Apple products there is a teeny bit of flexibility - yet not nearly the opening for entrepreneurs as there is within the PC environment. Apple holds on with a strong grip the proprietary strangle hold on the Apples. (once again - there are deviations in this, yet for the most part this is true) I will oft times join in the debate just to rebel rouse - taking one or the other side, depending upon my debate partner. The one area that has truly irked me (no, it is not the mac fanboys - I think of them like I do all blind sheep followers, they must be mind numb robots! errr leftists errr...) is the Virus myth. It is not the fact that once the criminal element decides there is money to be made with infecting Macs they will nail the Mac users prolifically. It is not that the Mac has a blueprint for most of its product line with minimal deviation (meaning very easy to follow a well-defined pathway with minimal to no deviations or side trails) which makes it an easier target to take down fully as opposed to the PC environment that contains so very many different constructs/components, etc. It is the dumbing down of the enduser. Mac people - thinking they are invulnerable - do not maintain the simplest forms of computer hygiene, security, safety. They are much like the users of AOL - dumbed down to the point it is difficult to get through to them the very basics. At least within the PC environment MOST people learn safe computer and computer hygiene early on (as long as they are not the dreaded AOLrs). Or within the browser war - FoxFire claiming that people will not be bit by spyware, ranting against IE, and then doing what they accused Microsoft of for years - not jumping on the latest vulnerabilities. FoxFire dumbs surfers down almost as badly as does AOL in the majority of the ways. Now that Apple is gaining more of the Market Share - we will be seeing more articles such as the following: www.betanews.com/article/Macs-dont-get-viruses-myth-dissolves-before-publics-eyes/1251493625'Macs don't get viruses' myth dissolves before public's eyes By Tim Conneally | Published August 28, 2009, 5:07 PM Stay tuned....
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Post by Turk on Aug 29, 2009 20:01:53 GMT -5
I’ve been a PC user since DOS .09, I was a beta tester from DOS 1.0 – DOS 5.0. When my youngest son was born his first crib toy was a mouse and at 6 months he had his first computer an Apple. As he matured (3 years old - his first PC,) Apples were forbidden in our home. At 16 he purchased his first Apple and he was told always keep his bedroom door shut so I did not have to see an Apple in my home.
Well he showed me father knows best, today my youngest son works for Apple he is almost 19 his job description and job title are are on his business card in one word “Genius.” His income is staggering for an 18 year old. It’s not a hardware issue, PC hardware is just as technically sold as Apple’s. The problem is software, the high end video editing only exists on the Apple. Apple’s advantage - hardware and firmware are proprietary, whereas the PC has many manufactures. With the open system came a lot of problems that Apple has used to their advertising advantages Kinda, two influence. One Apple had and still has a small market share and virus authors did not waste their time. Second portions of the Apple OS is firmware, meaning it is much more difficult to write a virus. While on the road this morning I was listening to “Computer Talk” on KFMB. In the computer market Apple has about an 18% market share according to Datel Systems. It is all the ancillary products that have made them successful. Walk into the Apple Store SE corner of Central Park, any given moment of the day you’ll 200-300 customers. I would have found agreement a few years back, today I see a different Apple user, they are much more sophisticated than before. The Apple user has moved past the games and now with MS Office 2007 available for a Mac, the Mac is far from a toy. Also you can partition the Mac and it will run on Windows or the Apple OS.
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Post by dolphie on Aug 29, 2009 21:13:22 GMT -5
I would have found agreement a few years back, today I see a different Apple user, they are much more sophisticated than before. The Apple user has moved past the games and now with MS Office 2007 available for a Mac, the Mac is far from a toy. Also you can partition the Mac and it will run on Windows or the Apple OS. You listen to Computer Talk with Larry and Andrew Piland? You ROCK! They are my main vendor. I have known them since before Andrew was a twinkle in his Daddy's eye. I worked at Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical. We were upgrading the company from Mainframe only and typewrites to a PC environment for most of the departments. Some of the departments were Apple. We networked the lot of them when we were bidding on the UAV for the DoD. We bought custom built computers from Datel at that time period. Well, except for our boss who was a twit. He bought a 386 compaq that hosed our work and had to be taken out of the equation. Re: I cannot disagree with you on the most part - you definitely elaborated on various points. I trust Datel's figures - yet I will do some homework as well. 18% is still more than it enjoyed a few years back. As far as the dumbing down - yes, there are some elements who are savvy with Macs. Moreso than there were at one point in time. Yet - overall - they are less savvy than the PC user (non-AOL). I have both Apple and PC clients. From business to home/office to home users. I was not thinking of the Apple as a toy - I was thinking more along the lines of computer savviness. In my fields of expertise the PC was more the gaming machine if one was not using a console. The Apples were used in business and home - but for purposes other than playing games. Even when I worked with a company that manufactured and sold Genetic hardware (DNA & Protein extractors, synthesizers, sequencers, etc) - when we went from the HP Vector to Apples attached to the equipment - the Apple endusers left a lot to be desired in the computer awareness realm. I would bet on an average PC user against an average Apple user relative to computer hygiene and safety any day of the week. Bottom line - I knew you were a good guy - the fact that you listen to Computer Talk means you are even more awesome. Thank you for joining in... I need to find something we can somewhat debate about or get you to post some articles as well. Hope you like the thread created for PC / Apple talk. (diversion from politics!) BTW if you usually listen to Computer Talk - you probably heard me on Computer Talk in 2007.
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Post by Turk on Aug 29, 2009 23:41:59 GMT -5
Oh a 386 we dare not even dream of the power when all we had 4.77 megahertz CPU and a single sided floppy. But a person could buy an Orchid card for $1,200.00 that would yield a whopping 5.77 megahertz. It was a day when hard drives first arrive, physically one third the size of a suitcase, 10 MB HD costing $2,200.00 spinning at 1,200 RPM’s but the worst was a 300 baud modem, god they were awful.
Larry Piland would never remember me our paths went in different directions; however we did meet in the early to mid 80’s. Larry was building computers in a garage somewhere east of Fletcher Parkway, El Cajon. Larry saw networking as an important business solution, I saw networking software as an untouched market. Subsequently I went on a global mission and traveled the world riding on networking software. I never met Larry again. I did meet Larry’s partner Darryl maybe mid 80’s to early 90’s. Darryl’s significant other, a manager of a store (I do not remember the type of business) was murdered in a robbery, Darryl struggled with the death and I lost contact with Darryl. I don’t remember the connection but there was a Korean SD City cop that committed suicide, I would have to think hard but Darryl, the cop, another guy named Larry and myself would meet at “The Spot” in La Jolla for pizza. Lots of floating memories.
There was a Maureen O’Connor connection also she joined us from time to time; I think the connection was a computer guy named Kevin (a relative of Maureen.) So many years and so many miles, reliving memories I have not considered in 15-30 years.
I was authoring business solutions for the savings/loan industry and workers compensation insurance companies from 1984-2001. I worked my ass off averaging 2,500 billable hours per year, meaning I was working 3,000 plus hours. If I listed my former clients with little effort you could ID me.
I worked on the first blood analysis system to run on a PC, I designed the data base for Australia’s lottery. I wrote the app that would print out a lottery ticket from the rice fields in China; I designed the educational system for Fiji. I designed many systems for HP, SDG&E (Enova/Sempra) Sony, so many I forget. So I’ve been around the PC world since its genesis.
I was very lucky to find a business that fit the way my mind worked at the right time and the right place and I rode the crest of the wave to the end. A software engineer thinks in detail that is where I was able to shine when considering data base design I could visualize the forth normal form, which was before the fifth form was born, that visualization is what made me a fortune.
This is probably the only topic I have any knowledge.
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Post by dolphie on Aug 30, 2009 1:11:28 GMT -5
Turk,
Those are impressive credentials and experience. We parallel in many areas yet followed different pathways.
I admire Sofware Engineers and at one time was talented in programming in general - I just could not see my self as a code jock. At the time I was too much into athletics and not much for sitting at a desk. In retrospect - it would have been a good career - yet again, I have great memories in other ways.
The other machines were 8086 until we graduated to 80286. After that, the IT manager purchased the 386 compaq so he could have the biggest and baddest. Needless to say - the Datel built 80286 machines walked all over that compaq.
You remember when bytes were more prevalent than kilobytes. I remember when kb or mb were HUGE. And as you described - harddrives then compared to now. Sheesh, we have thumb drives that out perform those old huge hdds. oh - remember the FDDs. The CPM and then the 5 1/4? Remember formatting those and then along came the 3 1/2" drives? If you formatted a diskette on one machine it might not work on another. Those were the days!
Now you are causing sleepy brain cells to wake up and remember some tales of a time long ago!
//I worked on the first blood analysis system to run on a PC,\\
I wonder if you might not know the company I worked for in the '90s. The people who created/grew the company were Cal-Tech, HP folks. Kerry Mullis was mixed into the group in an odd way as well (Kerry with PCR technology).
Thank you, Turk, for sharing and chatting.
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Post by IrishMike on Sept 1, 2009 20:46:01 GMT -5
To Turk or Dolphie or who may know,I downloaded the latest foxfire 3.5. and I've lost my right click spell check and also the cut and paste right click option,does the foxfire have anything to do with these functions?My computer skills pretty much end after I hit the power button.Any ideas would be appreciated.I'm tired of misspelling a word I want to use and having to use a more common word.
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Post by Jack on Sept 1, 2009 20:57:22 GMT -5
To Turk or Dolphie or who may know,I downloaded the latest foxfire 3.5. and I've lost my right click spell check and also the cut and paste right click option,does the foxfire have anything to do with these functions?My computer skills pretty much end after I hit the power button.Any ideas would be appreciated.I'm tired of misspelling a word I want to use and having to use a more common word. I got in the habit of using the free version of WordWeb wordweb.info/free/It puts an icon on your status bar and has a <ctrl>/righ click option.
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Post by IrishMike on Sept 1, 2009 20:59:38 GMT -5
To Turk or Dolphie or who may know,I downloaded the latest foxfire 3.5. and I've lost my right click spell check and also the cut and paste right click option,does the foxfire have anything to do with these functions?My computer skills pretty much end after I hit the power button.Any ideas would be appreciated.I'm tired of misspelling a word I want to use and having to use a more common word. I got in the habit of using the free version of WordWeb wordweb.info/free/It puts an icon on your status bar and has a <ctrl>/righ click option. Right on thanks Jack.
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Post by dolphie on Sept 1, 2009 21:03:06 GMT -5
IrishMike, Try running FoxFire in Safe Mode ( support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/safe+mode) If that works... You might be giving JavaScript the power to disallow right-click on pages. Tools, Options(/Preferences), Content, JavaScript — Advanced button, Allow pages to: (group of options) (uncheck) Disable or replace context menus Let me know if this makes sense and if it helps.
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Post by dolphie on Sept 1, 2009 21:04:06 GMT -5
I got in the habit of using the free version of WordWeb wordweb.info/free/It puts an icon on your status bar and has a <ctrl>/righ click option. Right on thanks Jack. Or go for Jack's quick fix. Sorry - I usually want to dig down and figure out why. Good suggestion, Jack!!!
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Post by Turk on Sept 1, 2009 21:05:54 GMT -5
I got in the habit of using the free version of WordWeb wordweb.info/free/It puts an icon on your status bar and has a <ctrl>/righ click option. Right on thanks Jack. Irish Mike there is a deeper issue, I think I've seen this and it would be better to solve the issue rather than band aid. Give me a few hours and I'll come back to it.
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Post by IrishMike on Sept 1, 2009 21:12:22 GMT -5
Thank you Dolphie,I went to tools and the to java console and clicked but nothing happened so I went with options and spell check box is check marked.I could just use the spell check box below.I guess I'll have to have my son check it out ,he loves trouble shooting for me,another thing he kicks my butt at COMPUTERS,LOL.Thanks again.
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Post by IrishMike on Sept 1, 2009 21:16:46 GMT -5
Right on thanks Jack. Irish Mike there is a deeper issue, I think I've seen this and it would be better to solve the issue rather than band aid. Give me a few hours and I'll come back to it. Very kind of you Turk,Thank you.The dictionary is so old fashioned,lol.Remember when your parents would say look it up in the dictionary?What if your trying to spell xylophone?You would be forever in the z section,lol.
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Post by dolphie on Sept 1, 2009 21:25:41 GMT -5
Thank you Dolphie,I went to tools and the to java console and clicked but nothing happened so I went with options and spell check box is check marked.I could just use the spell check box below.I guess I'll have to have my son check it out ,he loves trouble shooting for me,another thing he kicks my butt at COMPUTERS,LOL.Thanks again. I did not ask and should have - what is your operating system? Vista, xp pro/home or ?
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Post by IrishMike on Sept 1, 2009 21:33:41 GMT -5
XP home
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