I found this topic buried in another thread, and realized that I'd put up with quite a bit of it as well....
Indeed, I've encountered some pretty harsh hostility when professing that I've gone mac. I suppose this hostility springs from our computers working properly...
A few weeks ago in a postgraduate seminar, a professor giving a paper was trying to use a PC (and a compaq at that...) connected to a nice projector to project her powerpoint presentation. When the obligatory windows issues started up and the thing wouldn't project properly, she begged the for any knowledgeable computer user to help. This being a theatre/film seminar, 90% of us were mac users, and found this quite amusing. (Yeah we're knowledgeable computer users, so knowledgeable in fact, that we use macs...) beside me were sitting two fellow grad students, both PC users, and one reacted quite violently at the discovery that I used a mac. She was actually disgusted! I laughed, and (like everyone else was doing) tried to point out how if the computer in question were a mac, it would be playing nicely with the projector, and that we wouldn't have been delayed for 45 minutes while people were playing in "control panel" and restarting over and over...
Her defense was that mac's were so "strange" and "different" to use, and that pc's were just plain better, especially for word processing. At the mention of digital video she conceded that Macs were useful for that, but that they were useless if trying to write a paper. I told her that you can run microsoft word on a mac (if you so choose), and she flay out denied it! "No no, you can't! It's only works on normal computers!" I told her that I had Microsoft Office on my mac, and that it was produced by Microsoft, for macs. She just folded her arms with a "Well, hmpf..." as if she wasn't going to argue any further when she was so obviously right and the argument was thus pointless and juvenile. I tried to tell her that while OSX is different from XP, it's much easier and intuitive, and but she wasn't listening anymore.
Nor was she helping the struggling presenter, because she didn't know a lot about using pc's. She wasn't a PC-user per se, she was just a computer user, and her computer happened to be a PC because that's what happens. Most people don't choose to use a PC over a Mac, they just happen to end up with a PC because, like her, "Apple" sounds like some weird "other" that must be different and weird.
Eventually the 3 PC users who had been working on the Compaq gave up. It showed what it was supposed to on the laptop's LCD, but wouldn't project it properly. So she went on with her talk, without powerpoint. As she began talking she slammed down the lid of the Compaq; when she did, her powerpoint came to life on the screen and was projected properly. We all burst into laughter, the computer was acting entirely on it's own accord. Apparently somewhere in that PC, its strange brain decided that it would work for the next 30 minutes. There was no proper reason for this, and it'd freeze before she finished.
It makes me wonder about this anti-Mac hostility. It has hit me other times as well, but this girl was so convinced that word couldn't run on a mac, and that they were just plain strange, different and must be bad.
In my experience, it's those people who use PC's but don't know a lot about them who hate macs the most.
Indeed, I've encountered some pretty harsh hostility when professing that I've gone mac. I suppose this hostility springs from our computers working properly...
A few weeks ago in a postgraduate seminar, a professor giving a paper was trying to use a PC (and a compaq at that...) connected to a nice projector to project her powerpoint presentation. When the obligatory windows issues started up and the thing wouldn't project properly, she begged the for any knowledgeable computer user to help. This being a theatre/film seminar, 90% of us were mac users, and found this quite amusing. (Yeah we're knowledgeable computer users, so knowledgeable in fact, that we use macs...) beside me were sitting two fellow grad students, both PC users, and one reacted quite violently at the discovery that I used a mac. She was actually disgusted! I laughed, and (like everyone else was doing) tried to point out how if the computer in question were a mac, it would be playing nicely with the projector, and that we wouldn't have been delayed for 45 minutes while people were playing in "control panel" and restarting over and over...
Her defense was that mac's were so "strange" and "different" to use, and that pc's were just plain better, especially for word processing. At the mention of digital video she conceded that Macs were useful for that, but that they were useless if trying to write a paper. I told her that you can run microsoft word on a mac (if you so choose), and she flay out denied it! "No no, you can't! It's only works on normal computers!" I told her that I had Microsoft Office on my mac, and that it was produced by Microsoft, for macs. She just folded her arms with a "Well, hmpf..." as if she wasn't going to argue any further when she was so obviously right and the argument was thus pointless and juvenile. I tried to tell her that while OSX is different from XP, it's much easier and intuitive, and but she wasn't listening anymore.
Nor was she helping the struggling presenter, because she didn't know a lot about using pc's. She wasn't a PC-user per se, she was just a computer user, and her computer happened to be a PC because that's what happens. Most people don't choose to use a PC over a Mac, they just happen to end up with a PC because, like her, "Apple" sounds like some weird "other" that must be different and weird.
Eventually the 3 PC users who had been working on the Compaq gave up. It showed what it was supposed to on the laptop's LCD, but wouldn't project it properly. So she went on with her talk, without powerpoint. As she began talking she slammed down the lid of the Compaq; when she did, her powerpoint came to life on the screen and was projected properly. We all burst into laughter, the computer was acting entirely on it's own accord. Apparently somewhere in that PC, its strange brain decided that it would work for the next 30 minutes. There was no proper reason for this, and it'd freeze before she finished.
It makes me wonder about this anti-Mac hostility. It has hit me other times as well, but this girl was so convinced that word couldn't run on a mac, and that they were just plain strange, different and must be bad.
In my experience, it's those people who use PC's but don't know a lot about them who hate macs the most.
