Windows

I think I could (and do, whenever I use it) use and view OSX objectively. I'm not sure what would indicate that I wouldn't. Like I said before, I don't have too many criticisms of the OS itself- I think it's technically pretty good. I've only just said that I haven't seen or heard of anything that would compel me to switch to it. I don't think that means I'm not being objective.

Sorry if those came off as condescending; I couldn't resist throwing in those last few jabs about Apple's idea of innovation (usually putting a nicer UI on stuff that's been around in one form or another), after I heard that line about the guy last year telling Microsoft to get out their copy machines. It's all in good fun.

What I mean by "complete decision" is you'd be very unlikely to use OS X objectively. No matter how many times you say you would. I also like your condescending comments. All I can do is just :) and shake my head.

I don't think I'm too interested in using it, though. I did download it and set it up in VMWare, but I quickly deleted it afterwards, because it doesn't really offer me anything that I can't already do in other operating systems that I prefer.

As for business practices, I don't see MS as being worse than Apple. I think we've covered this argument enough before, though.

I'm not sure what a "complete decision" really means, but I'm OK with my opinion of Apple right now. I've tried OSX all that I really care to for now, and it hasn't impressed me. That's not to say I don't give it a fair shake, just that there's no compelling reason for me to spend time looking into it further right now.

Maybe once they release Leopard I'll give it another look and check out all the "innovative" new features, like Virtual Desktops. Or I could just look at Linux distros that have had virtual desktops for nearly a decade. :) "Break out those copy machines", as Apple said last year.

At least in Leopard they've improved on the Volume Shadow Copy technique for a versioning filesystem (which MS has had available for a while now) by adding application integration to it. I'll give them kudos for that one, unless they refuse to open it app to use by other developers in an open manner, or course.

I assume that's your knowledge of the system because that's all I've heard of recent. Either way you should download OS X and install it on some kind of box and actually work with it for a while, I really think you'd like it for productivity and it has all the "unix" power you'd want. Yes, it's not truly open but it's better then the other OS.

Business practices: Wow, there are worse companies out there then Apple, that's for sure. M$ is one of them. But I do see what you're saying. If I had to choose between the two companies based on business practices I would personally pick Apple. Not because of there products, this was solely based on "business practices".

Of course we can have an opinion without full knowledge. I'm referring to a complete decision before review the facts or seeing for yourself. Maybe that's an assumption too, maybe you would try OS X, I'm not positive but it sounds like you wouldn't give it a real try. I'd assume you would start to find faults rather then find it's pros.

Re: backups - I never suggested weekly backups at any point in time that I can remember.

Interesting how you assume that all the info that I know about Apple is collected from "two podcasts", a "few articles", and limited personal experience. Not sure how you came to that conclusion, but you'd be incorrect.

Do I use OSX daily, or even with any regularity at all? No, but then again, I rarely criticize the operating system itself. Most of my criticisms of Apple are regarding their business practices and policies, whether technical or otherwise. This type of evaluation does not depend on me having in-depth personal experience in using their products, any more than not shopping at Walmart would disqualify me from criticizing the way they run their business, or pointing out that slavery is jacked up even though I've never owned a slave.

You could feel free to discuss anything you want, including programming languages, and I wouldn't dismiss your opinion about one of them on the basis of your experience at all. A person can form an opinion about something that they do not have a full and complete knowledge of; it happens all the time. They may even be correct, where a person with more knowledge or experience could be incorrect. I occasionally form these kinds of opinions with Apple, and am certainly willing to accept the fact that I could be wrong in any of my assumptions. I can't think of a time recently where that has happened, at least not in a way that affects the point I'm making, but when it does I think I usually own up to it in as humble a manner as possible (hopefully).

BU: What? You can make backups of Driver installers. A lot easier to do then weekly backups of your OS.

I want you to comment, never would I not want that. It's just the same old drabble sometimes. Like the two podcasts that you've listened to or the few articles you've read. But at least I can try to clear your "inaccuracies in criticisms" of the OS.

I've said this before but I think it's wierd that you can be so avidly against Apple without using it to the extent that you have the other OSs, namely windows. I've used Windows much more then OS X and I'm interested in my, "inaccuracies in criticisms" since most of the time it's experience that I've posted about.

Wouldn't it be wierd if I disliked Java and with the little experience I had with the language, I went to your site and started comparing it to other languages like C.

Backups: have fun reinstalling Windows and re-downloading the same old drivers again and again. :)

Both the pro and anti Mac crowds can be pretty crazy, and while I certainly fall into the anti camp, it's not like I deny that they have anything good to offer. Just because I point out some inaccuracies in criticisms of Windows doesn't necessarily mean I'm a MS apologist or a mac basher, though. I've always said that I think they make a very good product (hardware, at least).

I have heard some interesting comments recently from quite a few long-time mac users / developers (like the one I referenced in my last comment), which I just find interesting, so I bring them up occasionally. On that same show I referenced, they go into the negative aspects of the "mac culture" quite a bit, which is a whole other subject, which I didn't want to bring up since it seems a bit off topic.

I'm not trying to convince you to use Windows or not to use Apple, because that isn't going to happen, nor do I have any interest in making it happen. The comments I made in this post were totally on topic, since the whole point of this post was you talking about issues that you perceive with the Windows process and contrasting it to that of the Mac. I'll avoid commenting on posts that you write about those issues, if that's what you want.

Backups,
I disagree with your back strategy, it's too hard and assumptive that you're running your system primed week to week.

Drivers,
We'll, your experiences are different then mine and I highly regard my experiences more then the 'collective others'. Not saying it doesn't interest me when someone says you should give this or that a try again. But Windows is an exception to that, I've worked with it enough, high and low. I wont use it unless I'm forced to and no pain and always will be for me, maybe not for you but for me it will always be a hassle.

Thought,
When I hear non-apple users bash Apple it sounds to political and predetermined for some reason. And it makes me laugh when they call all Apple users zealots when they themselves are zealots against. Nothing against you, Jared, I'm just saying I hear more great things from Apple users and a whole lot more crap from the non users. And I want to do is use a system that works for me, linux or OS X and share the good things about it. Maybe you should post about the great things you did on Windows and then I can bag on you on your blog, no that would be a change.

Don't take it too seriously, I love our talks but the OS battle is getting old and we are not going to convince each other any different.

If you do backups correctly, they are a much better option than reinstalling from scratch. The registry bog down does not hapen if you are always updating and backing up clean images. If catching up on the patches is so much of a pain for you, then you could always back up more frequently. You also should be running in a secure manner that will prevent you from getting rootkits, spyware, etc.

Regarding drivers not working because of security updates: I've never seen that happen. IF it ever has, I'd suspect that it's probably due to the driver manufacturers relying on undocumented or buggy features in their original design, because MS is generally pretty good at providing compatibility with their documented interfaces. At least it isn't like the problem Apple developers have when Apple decides to change their APIs, because Apple legally prohibits you from linking and including working versions of the components you need in with your system. So, not only does Apple break apps, they make it impossible to code in such a way that they won't be broken. The Linux Action Show (episode 7, I believe) goes into this issue in more detail, if you're interested.

I'd agree that most modern Linux distros (or at least the ones I've used) do make it pretty easy to setup. You will really see the kinds of hardware issues that you're talking about with Windows even moreso on Linux, but that just goes back to my point that I don't think that's a show-stopper, and I'd still recommend most people use Linux over Windows or Apple.

On systems with more standard or mainstream hardware, both Linux and Windows will probably autodetect and run most hardware you put in there. Any "non-standard" or oddball stuff will probably still come with a CD with Windows drivers on it, and probably be unsupported by Apple and Linux, so then you have to evalutate and find an alternative product that works with whatever operating system you choose, or find people in the various developer communities who are working on unofficial drivers and use those.

I really don't know about security updates on older versions, I think so but I'm not positive. Even so it's still way more secure then a patched windows box.

Technical people? I think I'm a technical Windows user, I've used it for 85% of my computer life and I know that there is no way around updates. Current backup images of systems aren't very good in my opinion when restoring a system, a fresh start is always best for windows (I'm talking OS level, not file backups and such). The registry gets to clogged to just roll back to last weeks backup. That's why I create an image of the system right after I install all my programs with all the current updates then in 6 months I roll back to that update, I still have to install 6 months of security updates which turns out to be a million downloads but I don't have to worry about root kits or spyware that passed by unknowingly, slowing down my computer.

It's windows fault when the drivers don't work because of security updates or service packs and like I said you can't go online with a computer that doesn't have a working network card.

I have to say in my experience with fedora, Red HAt, Ubuntu, Open SuSe, SLED and the other distros I've installed they're a lot easier to install and configure. Well maybe not easier but a lot quicker.

Do they still offer free updates to all previous OSX versions? (I have no idea) If so, then I have no problem with them also coming out with new versions that you have to pay for. If they don't offer free updates to those other OSX versions, then I'd have a problem with having to buy new versions that often to keep up with security.

When people buy "new" Windows machines, they're generally up do date as well. I will give you that the restarts are annoying, but it's not that big of a hassle unless you are working with a freshly installed copy and going back and installing all the previous updates from the last 5 years. But, for technically qualified people like you, you should have a fairly up to date backup image of your system at all times anyway, so that should never be an issue. Also, non-technical people who don't do that are also much less likely to be reinstalling Windows on their own very often (if ever).

Weird about the drivers - I've never seen that. Any decent hardware manufacturer will provide drivers with their products that will work, in addition to having a web site where you can go and get updated drivers even if you don't have the CD. I've never used hardware where this wasn't the case, but even if it were, it would be the fault of the manufacturer of that device, not Windows.

You may be correct about them being "easier", at least in some people's perception; that's just not a huge selling point in my mind, because I think most modern operating systems are easy enough for the average user that it doesn't really matter.

You're so full of 'I don't like apple'.

Like Major updates to an OS every 18 months or so is bad. At least we've had Vista's features, 'look and feel' for years. You've heard this already from me so many times so let me bring up...

At least when I either buy a new Mac it's already updated and when I do a reinstall of a .0 release the updates are in packages. so I don't have to update, restart, update, restart and rinse. I also don't have a pesky window telling me to restart every 10 minutes; which happens to be in the middle of a meeting where my desktop is being projected to everyone in the room.

Yeah, but for some strange reason when windows won't take those network drivers on that CD you can't go online and get the latest drivers to install. I had this happen twice with older systems.

But Yeah no wonder Macs are so much easier, they don't have to put up with all that crap. That's why out of the box Macs are better and easier.

I had setup the entire system with the programs how I wanted, setup a raid, migrated a ton of files in a quarter of the time it took to install WMCE (45 minutes), updated the OS (4-5 restarts and hour plus) and installed a few programs (2-3 more restarts and a few more hours). It's just said, wha wha, when my new mac has ran more on windows then OS X.

How do you spell "whaaa" as in whining? :)

How many security updates do you have to install when you install a five year old version of OSX? Oh, wait, I forgot that with Apple you have to *buy* a new OS version every year to keep up to date. My bad.

As for drivers, considering the fact that there are SO many more products that require drivers that are available for XP, it's no wonder that Apple has a pretty easy time providing out of the box support for the limited subset of things they actually support. For windows, though, I've never bought any hardware that requires a driver that didn't come with a disk with that driver on it; doesn't seem too hard to me.

Yeah, right.

You should give Vista a try. Have been running it for a month now - I never installed a driver, everything works out of the box.

i spent forever trying to find something that was free and would write a wmv to a movie dvd. finally did it with a macbook. it just worked.