Any former Mac users here?

[sourceninja]

I was a windows user, moved to linux, then moved back to windows for games only with linux everything else. Then the xbox 360 came my way. That enabled me to drop windows all together and just use linux, and that led to me getting a macbook pro and using osx 10.5. Microsoft put themselves out of my computers by doing such a good job on convincing developers to stop making pc games exclusives and make 360 game exclusives.

My work notebook has ubuntu 8.04 and vista 64 bit on it. I am hoping to go mac there as well next capital cycle.

 

[loup garou]

I've had a MacBook for about a year. It was used, about a year old, with a dead motherboard which I replaced. Hooray, cheap Mac! Since then, the original hard drive died, and it is now sitting in pieces, again, as the system fan has died. I'm now waiting for an (expensive!) replacement system fan.

So from a 2 year old system, the motherboard, fan, and hard drive have failed.

I used Tiger with a Vista bootcamp partition when I first got it and thought it was pretty cool. Then Leopard came out around the time the HD died. I installed Leopard on new HD, with Vista VM in Fusion. Found myself constantly waiting to restore my Vista VM as I was using Vista more and more than OS X. Decided to go back to bootcamp. Tried to create new bootcamp partition, got stuck in a loop of partition starting to be created, kernel panic, restart, disk space for partition is gone, but partition not created. At the time, only "fix" anyone had found was to reinstall OS X and then go through bootcamp setup again. Said screw that, wiped OS X and just put Vista on and have been very happy, until the fan died.

All in all, I like the hardware as it is a good sized laptop, well designed and pretty sturdy. The quality of the components is questionable. I really don't like the OS at this point.

Next computer probably won't be another Mac. I gave it a shot.

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: Auryg
I honestly don't understand the 'OSX interface is so intuitive' comments here. I fairly recently just installed a 'hackintosh' partition on my laptop, as I'm sort of the local computer fix-it guy in my rural area and I was sick of trying to look like I knew what I was doing when I had to fix someone's Mac.

Anyways, I hate it. I hate how the top bar (forgive me, I don't know the names of these things) changes depending what program you're using, for that matter, I hate how a lot of programs aren't all that self contained. It's like every window in every program is all over the place and it's hard to keep track of.

I also hate the bottom bar - I have it set to auto-hide, otherwise it takes up 1/8th of the screen at all times. Can't say I'm a fan of everything needing huge pictures either - give me the Windows taskbar any day.

i agree with you here, especially hoe everything makes new windows for things, and the dock is a fucking POS compaired to a task bar (windows and linux) the Dock is cool for launching programs but thats about it


we used to have a mac, an old PowerPC back in the OS 7.x-8.x days, that was what 97-99 ish. it worked and was free but it really was crap. we got a PC in like '99 P2 i think and holy hell i remember how much better it ran starcraft and Diablo, been a Windows/nix person ever since

 

[sourceninja]

It's funny, before I ever used a mac I was configuring gnome to work like a mac. I just love the UI.

 

[Gooberlx2]

My desktop is Vista, but I'm itching for a macbook as my next laptop.

Between media center, the xbox 360 and zune/zunepass, however, I feel a bit entrenched in the windows platform for the time being.

 

[OdiN]

I was forced to use a Mac system in a couple graphic design courses I took in College for fun. What absolute piles of shit they were. Couldn't hardly use a Wacom at all - barely ran Photoshop.

After finally using one for graphics design after using Photoshop on my PC (since version 3.0), I couldn't understand how graphic designers were so adamant about the Mac being the holy fucking grail of graphic design systems. They absolutely sucked at it. My PC was 10 times faster than anything they had. Hell my AMD K6-2 300 that I had like 4 years earlier ran Photoshop better than that crap.

So I don't get what people see in saying it's so awesome for graphic design, or that it "just works" and crap. They don't "just work" and I had far more crashes and frowning dead Mac icons and rainbow wheels of death on Macs than I ever had BSOD's on my PC's.

 

[ivan2]

Originally posted by: OdiN
I was forced to use a Mac system in a couple graphic design courses I took in College for fun. What absolute piles of shit they were. Couldn't hardly use a Wacom at all - barely ran Photoshop.

After finally using one for graphics design after using Photoshop on my PC (since version 3.0), I couldn't understand how graphic designers were so adamant about the Mac being the holy fucking grail of graphic design systems. They absolutely sucked at it. My PC was 10 times faster than anything they had. Hell my AMD K6-2 300 that I had like 4 years earlier ran Photoshop better than that crap.

So I don't get what people see in saying it's so awesome for graphic design, or that it "just works" and crap. They don't "just work" and I had far more crashes and frowning dead Mac icons and rainbow wheels of death on Macs than I ever had BSOD's on my PC's.

I believe it has something to do with the color space aware programs and the little things like the default set of fonts that comes with the system. And once they've learn the shortcut in mac nothing will seem right in windows. I had the same problem with flash between the mac in school and windows at home.

have them all, loyal to neither.

 

[OdiN]

Originally posted by: ivan2

Originally posted by: OdiN
I was forced to use a Mac system in a couple graphic design courses I took in College for fun. What absolute piles of shit they were. Couldn't hardly use a Wacom at all - barely ran Photoshop.

After finally using one for graphics design after using Photoshop on my PC (since version 3.0), I couldn't understand how graphic designers were so adamant about the Mac being the holy fucking grail of graphic design systems. They absolutely sucked at it. My PC was 10 times faster than anything they had. Hell my AMD K6-2 300 that I had like 4 years earlier ran Photoshop better than that crap.

So I don't get what people see in saying it's so awesome for graphic design, or that it "just works" and crap. They don't "just work" and I had far more crashes and frowning dead Mac icons and rainbow wheels of death on Macs than I ever had BSOD's on my PC's.

I believe it has something to do with the color space aware programs and the little things like the default set of fonts that comes with the system. And once they've learn the shortcut in mac nothing will seem right in windows. I had the same problem with flash between the mac in school and windows at home.

have them all, loyal to neither.

Who cares about color space and fonts if you can't use the freakin program?

Most of the shortcuts are similar. Replace Alt with Command or whatever. I believe all the single key shortcuts in photoshop are the same, but don't quote me on it.

 

[nakedfrog]

Do they still hide the reset button in a secret spot to hide that fact that you sometimes have to reset a Mac?

 

[OdiN]

Originally posted by: nakedfrog
Do they still hide the reset button in a secret spot to hide that fact that you sometimes have to reset a Mac?

It used to be right on the keyboard.

 

[nageov3t]

Originally posted by: nakedfrog
Do they still hide the reset button in a secret spot to hide that fact that you sometimes have to reset a Mac?

I always thought you restarted macs by buying a new one.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: OdiN

Originally posted by: ivan2

Originally posted by: OdiN
I was forced to use a Mac system in a couple graphic design courses I took in College for fun. What absolute piles of shit they were. Couldn't hardly use a Wacom at all - barely ran Photoshop.

After finally using one for graphics design after using Photoshop on my PC (since version 3.0), I couldn't understand how graphic designers were so adamant about the Mac being the holy fucking grail of graphic design systems. They absolutely sucked at it. My PC was 10 times faster than anything they had. Hell my AMD K6-2 300 that I had like 4 years earlier ran Photoshop better than that crap.

So I don't get what people see in saying it's so awesome for graphic design, or that it "just works" and crap. They don't "just work" and I had far more crashes and frowning dead Mac icons and rainbow wheels of death on Macs than I ever had BSOD's on my PC's.

I believe it has something to do with the color space aware programs and the little things like the default set of fonts that comes with the system. And once they've learn the shortcut in mac nothing will seem right in windows. I had the same problem with flash between the mac in school and windows at home.

have them all, loyal to neither.

Who cares about color space and fonts if you can't use the freakin program?

Most of the shortcuts are similar. Replace Alt with Command or whatever. I believe all the single key shortcuts in photoshop are the same, but don't quote me on it.

Let's use Occam's razor here. Which do you think is more likely to be true?
A. Your experience is typical; despite this, graphic designers purposely chose the inferior platform and live with the issues that make their job impossible.
B. Your experience is atypical; possibly caused by user error.

 

[djdawn]

I started off with a mac in the 8.x era, then went to windows 95. I wasn't a fan of either, they were just "there". Currently I have a macbook that I use for work related mac testing, but outside of that I don't really use it. At home I use Vista for gaming and general whatever on my desktop, XP on my laptop for travel, and Linux on laptop#2 for in the house browsing.

 

[ViviTheMage]

screw macs imo!

They are not even good for graphic editing....Friend had one on his MAC and I was playing with it, and it was slower/crashed even...just hung there and spun.

POS.

Used them back in elementary school I think, played sims tower, oregon trail, and math blaster. That was it...

 

[OdiN]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: OdiN

Originally posted by: ivan2

Originally posted by: OdiN
I was forced to use a Mac system in a couple graphic design courses I took in College for fun. What absolute piles of shit they were. Couldn't hardly use a Wacom at all - barely ran Photoshop.

After finally using one for graphics design after using Photoshop on my PC (since version 3.0), I couldn't understand how graphic designers were so adamant about the Mac being the holy fucking grail of graphic design systems. They absolutely sucked at it. My PC was 10 times faster than anything they had. Hell my AMD K6-2 300 that I had like 4 years earlier ran Photoshop better than that crap.

So I don't get what people see in saying it's so awesome for graphic design, or that it "just works" and crap. They don't "just work" and I had far more crashes and frowning dead Mac icons and rainbow wheels of death on Macs than I ever had BSOD's on my PC's.

I believe it has something to do with the color space aware programs and the little things like the default set of fonts that comes with the system. And once they've learn the shortcut in mac nothing will seem right in windows. I had the same problem with flash between the mac in school and windows at home.

have them all, loyal to neither.

Who cares about color space and fonts if you can't use the freakin program?

Most of the shortcuts are similar. Replace Alt with Command or whatever. I believe all the single key shortcuts in photoshop are the same, but don't quote me on it.

Let's use Occam's razor here. Which do you think is more likely to be true?
A. Your experience is typical; despite this, graphic designers purposely chose the inferior platform and live with the issues that make their job impossible.
B. Your experience is atypical; possibly caused by user error.

Well, taking my experience with computer systems into account, and the fact that I didn't use just a single machine, but used many of them in an effort to find one that worked properly. I'd have to go with option A, as out of those two choices, if I had to choose one, it would be much more likely than user error.

 

[Shlong]

Originally posted by: OdiN

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: OdiN

Originally posted by: ivan2

Originally posted by: OdiN
I was forced to use a Mac system in a couple graphic design courses I took in College for fun. What absolute piles of shit they were. Couldn't hardly use a Wacom at all - barely ran Photoshop.

After finally using one for graphics design after using Photoshop on my PC (since version 3.0), I couldn't understand how graphic designers were so adamant about the Mac being the holy fucking grail of graphic design systems. They absolutely sucked at it. My PC was 10 times faster than anything they had. Hell my AMD K6-2 300 that I had like 4 years earlier ran Photoshop better than that crap.

So I don't get what people see in saying it's so awesome for graphic design, or that it "just works" and crap. They don't "just work" and I had far more crashes and frowning dead Mac icons and rainbow wheels of death on Macs than I ever had BSOD's on my PC's.

I believe it has something to do with the color space aware programs and the little things like the default set of fonts that comes with the system. And once they've learn the shortcut in mac nothing will seem right in windows. I had the same problem with flash between the mac in school and windows at home.

have them all, loyal to neither.

Who cares about color space and fonts if you can't use the freakin program?

Most of the shortcuts are similar. Replace Alt with Command or whatever. I believe all the single key shortcuts in photoshop are the same, but don't quote me on it.

Let's use Occam's razor here. Which do you think is more likely to be true?
A. Your experience is typical; despite this, graphic designers purposely chose the inferior platform and live with the issues that make their job impossible.
B. Your experience is atypical; possibly caused by user error.

Well, taking my experience with computer systems into account, and the fact that I didn't use just a single machine, but used many of them in an effort to find one that worked properly. I'd have to go with option A, as out of those two choices, if I had to choose one, it would be much more likely than user error.

I agree, I didn't like back when I used it years ago. Mac OS (before Tiger/Leopard) wasn't all that great. Also it felt slow when they were using PowerPC chips. With the recent hackintosh hobby (and custom configured hardware), I tried it again and now I love it.

 

[OdiN]

Originally posted by: Shlong

Originally posted by: OdiN

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: OdiN

Originally posted by: ivan2

Originally posted by: OdiN
I was forced to use a Mac system in a couple graphic design courses I took in College for fun. What absolute piles of shit they were. Couldn't hardly use a Wacom at all - barely ran Photoshop.

After finally using one for graphics design after using Photoshop on my PC (since version 3.0), I couldn't understand how graphic designers were so adamant about the Mac being the holy fucking grail of graphic design systems. They absolutely sucked at it. My PC was 10 times faster than anything they had. Hell my AMD K6-2 300 that I had like 4 years earlier ran Photoshop better than that crap.

So I don't get what people see in saying it's so awesome for graphic design, or that it "just works" and crap. They don't "just work" and I had far more crashes and frowning dead Mac icons and rainbow wheels of death on Macs than I ever had BSOD's on my PC's.

I believe it has something to do with the color space aware programs and the little things like the default set of fonts that comes with the system. And once they've learn the shortcut in mac nothing will seem right in windows. I had the same problem with flash between the mac in school and windows at home.

have them all, loyal to neither.

Who cares about color space and fonts if you can't use the freakin program?

Most of the shortcuts are similar. Replace Alt with Command or whatever. I believe all the single key shortcuts in photoshop are the same, but don't quote me on it.

Let's use Occam's razor here. Which do you think is more likely to be true?
A. Your experience is typical; despite this, graphic designers purposely chose the inferior platform and live with the issues that make their job impossible.
B. Your experience is atypical; possibly caused by user error.

Well, taking my experience with computer systems into account, and the fact that I didn't use just a single machine, but used many of them in an effort to find one that worked properly. I'd have to go with option A, as out of those two choices, if I had to choose one, it would be much more likely than user error.

I agree, I didn't like back when I used it years ago. Mac OS (before Tiger/Leopard) wasn't all that great. Also it felt slow when they were using PowerPC chips. With the recent hackintosh hobby (and custom configured hardware), I tried it again and now I love it.

Yes these were PowerPC chips. Granted they were not the top of the line at the time, but they were using a few versions old of Photoshop too so it wasn't like they were putting the newest stuff on and expecting them to work.

Apple was also big into advertising how superior they were at Photoshop and I never found that to be true. Even today they aren't magically faster than PC's at it.

They later replaced that whole lab wth PC's.

 

[sourceninja]

I don't care about what is theoretically fastest. I care about what gets my job done the easiest. Unix + nice gui + high quality commercial applications + good hardware with no setup is why I currently use a mac. The power of unix, the big names of software (gaming withstanding), and high quality hardware.

 

[codyz2035]

Mac sucks!

 

[AmigaMan]

Originally posted by: codyz2035
Mac sucks!

wow, insightful post there buddy!

Originally posted by: sourceninja
I don't care about what is theoretically fastest. I care about what gets my job done the easiest. Unix + nice gui + high quality commercial applications + good hardware with no setup is why I currently use a mac. The power of unix, the big names of software (gaming withstanding), and high quality hardware.

Exactly! I love Linux as much as the next guy, but once I switched to my MBP back in 2006, it was like I died and had gone to developer heaven. Finally the ability to coexist peacefully with Windows users on the business side, with the power of the Unix shell at my fingertips. While I'm not too keen on the reliability of the hardware (come on, 3 frickin batteries crap out in 2 years!?!?!?) I don't think I could go back to using Windows on a full time basis. OSX just rocks!