New Merom MacBook Pros!! It's CHRISTMAS!! W0h000!!!

[Guest endymion]

Well, I'd rather have a computer that I control than one that does whatever it wants. But that's just me.

That's funny because that's why I hate Windows. I read your message on an XP system (I'm doing web development browser testing) and I was about to reply but I walked away. When I came back just now the system had rebooted itself. I have no idea why. All of my browser windows got closed. I guess it needed to install an update or something. On a Wednesday morning. Gee thanks, Microsoft...

[Guest pod]

That used to hold true with the old Mac OSes, they would do random things and not tell you why. OS X kind of changed all that. It can't do shit unless you explicitly let it. And most stuff is turned off by default, and it will let you know if something can be automated.

[Guest endymion]

One of the things that used to piss me off every single day when I used Windows was when I would be typing and some app somewhere would steal focus, so my typing would cut off and go into the wrong window. That's the OS telling you 'no, what you're doing isn't as important as ... THIS' and ooooooooo it used to piss me off.

That has not happened to me since I bought my first Mac. Go Apple.

[Guest coach]

This is true, Dan. In the latest few updates, Mac OS has become more manageable like the PC OS. I still have mental scars from the earlier versions, I guess.

And no matter what anyone says, every mac I have ever worked on has crashed way more than my PCs. The Mac we have right now crashes or locks up about 3 times a week. The new Toshiba I have has crashed once (I think) since I bought it 3 months ago. The old Toshiba I had crashed less than 10 times in 3 years.

Mainly the Mac pisses me off because I can't find either my pictures or my music on there. iTunes and iPhoto automatically put files somewhere and label them something without telling me, so if I am trying to find them over the network from another computer, it is a huge chore.

[Guest pod]

Use Spotlight, it'll find them. Hover over the filename and it will tell you where it keeps things. Spotlight does a handy thing with image files too, it reads the metadata and can find images by many parameters, such as camera make, owner, etc. TJ showed me that once, he typed in my name into Spotlight, and it pulled up all the images he had saved of mine on his laptop...my camera is configured to tag all my images with my name and camera serial number.

Also, the trick when importing items natively recognized by the OS, is to do in such a manner that a program won't do it for you. For example, with a digital camera, you should have a cheap ($20 at the Shack) card reader with which to read your CF/SD/xD/STD cards, which the OS then treats as another drive. Then it's just drag n drop.

[Guest endymion]

Mainly the Mac pisses me off because I can't find either my pictures or my music on there. iTunes and iPhoto automatically put files somewhere and label them something without telling me, so if I am trying to find them over the network from another computer, it is a huge chore.

Coach, you're illustrating the fundamental difference between a Mac and a PC.

The Mac takes responsibility for managing your images and your music and other data. It doesn't just take the laziest possible route through the problem and leave the responsibility in your lap. By letting the Mac keep your information in standard places you're getting a lot of benefit for free, in the form of being able to very easily move to a new system when you upgrade hardware, or back up easily, or share information between a bunch of different programs, or find things when you need them in seconds with a slick user interface.

The alternative is to stick your images in C:\whatever and your music in D:\whatever and your super critical documents in Z:\whatever, and your contacts in Outlook and your bookmarks in Firefox in C:\Program Files\Some Crap\. If you do that, then you are taking responsibility for not losing it when you abandon that hard drive, for finding it when you need it, for remembering to include it in backups, all of that. Those are the very tasks that computers were invented to solve, why fight progress? Especially if you pay about the same for self serve versus full service?

The vast majority of PC users do not leave management of important data like that up to chance, because most PC users have an IT department that manages those things for them. Home users are just left on their own with a PC, they're either capable and on top of things or they're not and they lose data and hassle over simple tasks. Home users with Macs are taken care of by Apple instead of an IT department.

And my Macs don't crash much, you're definitely doing something wrong. If mine was going to crash then it would have happened at some point during the 18 hours a day that I've spent working on the thing over the last four years. I had a hard drive (Hitachi) go out twice but the system has never ever ever frozen or hung or needed to be rebooted or blue-screened or rebooted by itself or...

[Guest Adam Singer]

any notebook over 12" is overkill - you're simply destroying its portability

[Guest pod]

Depends really. If you're an anemic Guy-from-the-Mac-Commercials-esque sort of person, a 12" laptop will make you fall over, on your back, where you'll be helpless like some sort of turtle, kicking about.

For the rest of us, who had something to eat for lunch, the 15" models and even the 17" are portable.

Nevermind the guys in the infantry. Portable to them is something that doesn't add much to a 100-lb pack.

[Guest endymion]

any notebook over 12" is overkill - you're simply destroying its portability

Definitely. Intel has some new ultra-low power chips coming out soon that I'm hoping will show up in a very tiny MacBook Pro.

Systems are so fast these days that I would be willing to trade half or more of my raw processor power for a system that draws less power and generates less heat so that it can be crammed into a smaller case.

[Guest coach]

Thank you, Tech, that exactly illustrates what I do not like about Macs. I also hate full service at the gas station and using valet parkers. If *I* do something, I know what has been done. If someone else does it (be it a valet or a computer), who knows what the fuck is really going on. The valet is a perfect analogy. If I park my car, I know where it is and I can find it later without any outside help. If I let the valet park it, I have to rely on him to get it back for me.

As far as "doing something wrong" with the Mac to cause it to crash so much, I could say the same thing for you and your PCs. The PCs that I maintain have extremely low crash rates.

Pod, you missed my point. Whatever this "spotlight" thingy is does not help me when I am, for example, trying to find the files on the Mac from across the network. For doing that, I need to know where they are and/or what they are called.

And then you said this which really cracked me up"

Also, the trick when importing items natively recognized by the OS, is to do in such a manner that a program won't do it for you. For example, with a digital camera, you should have a cheap ($20 at the Shack) card reader with which to read your CF/SD/xD/STD cards, which the OS then treats as another drive. Then it's just drag n drop.

Because then I might as well be using a PC!

[Guest pod]

Eventually, stylish HUDs will become in fashion, and your computer as it were will be a device on your belt about the size of a big Nokia. Via a future Bluetooth variant or some other form of personal-area-networking, the device will transmit screen data and audio data to the HUD.

HUDs exist now, but it isn't something I'd wanna wear on a daily basis. First off, they screen off all of your external sources, i.e. you're totally immersed in whatever it is you're doing at the moment. Some bum could come along, rap you on the head, and take your shiny new HUD and belt-clip computer. And then you're really fucked.

The ideal solution is to use light-emitting polymers on the inside of a bog-standard pair of sunglasses, that would interface with said belt computer. The display could adjust to varying degrees of transparency, or go to full opacity if you're in a safe place. Also, the other nifty thing would be augmented-reality applications. Think seeing things like the Terminator, but without the horrid Austrian accent and the bad attempts at humor.

Systems like this are already in prototype stage for the Future Warrior program in the US Army.

[Guest coach]

any notebook over 12" is overkill - you're simply destroying its portability

Depends on what you are using it for.

[Guest endymion]

Whatever this "spotlight" thingy is does not help me when I am, for example, trying to find the files on the Mac from across the network. For doing that, I need to know where they are and/or what they are called.

FYI: yes, it does and no, you don't. And you wouldn't believe what sharing data like music and photos over Bonjour is like.

Which again illustrates that fundamental concept. The Mac is about your personal information, and about giving you access to it in a slick and painless way. When you play music on Macs over a network you don't go hunting around for a file in a file browser on a network disk. That's so 1997. No, to play music off of another Mac you open iTunes, which finds the other Mac with Bonjour by magic, and you pick a playlist on the other iTunes music library and play it. It's as simple as an iPod.

You have full control over that process but only the things that you give a crap about. Like whether or not you're sharing to other people (off by default) and which playlists or whatever you're sharing. All of the options about crap that your valuable mental CPU cycles are too expensive to be concerned with, like buffer sizes and IP addresses, gets buried behind the titanium panels where it should be. I don't want to have to tweak the settings in my fuel injectors before I drive to work and I don't even want the option there distracting me on my car's dashboard every day. That would be a waste of my valuable time.

[Guest pod]

It's kind of like your car having a big "Go" button.

And also being able to look at what makes it go if you want to.

[Guest coach]

Heh, don't even get me started on how much I can't stand iTunes. My belief is still that it is what you know, what you are used to.

[Guest pod]

iTunes will take some getting used to for me. On my old MP3 player, I could just drag and drop.

[Guest endymion]

It comes down to a personal choice: do you want to trust Apple to manage your stuff for you or not?

They do a damned fine job so I let them. But if everybody used Macs and just trusted them and there was no competition then they wouldn't be so driven to do such a good job. Faith that you can make sales no matter what crap you turn out on the market is what makes Microsoft products suck so much. So I'm glad that you're still using WinAmp and Outlook because somebody has to.

[Guest pod]

Outlook not so good.

Damn 8-ball was right.

I'm trying to get the PC users here in the office weaned off of Internot Exploder and Outlook, but no dice.

[Guest Adam Singer]

Outlook is actually a very solid email product - this is ONE thing microsoft does right

I don't care what you mac losers use, Outlook integration with your PDA, desktop and notebook is so seamless its rediculous...there's no mac product that can consolidate email communications so well...and work across every platform without any kinks

if macs were better for this function they would be used in the corporate world - they're not, outlook is essential for digital communication

[Guest coach]

WinAmp and Opera.

[Guest pod]

Thunderbird integrates just fine with everything I use. And Mac folk tell me that Mail and Entourage do just fine. Most mail programs will kick out addressbooks and shit in a standard format, so most PDAs will recognize it.