How has the Mac madce your life easier?

[Solafaa]

This is simple, you can list 1,2 or 10 things that mac has done for you to make your life easier/better or what ever. I cam with this question after i talked to my friend how said that after getting a Mac he spends more time on it then ever before. He is now in forums/chatting gaming, editing and many new things.

Me - The Mac made my life easier by allowing me to allowing me to do what io want faster. I dont need to update my laptop everyday, i dont have to scan every file incase i am infected and updating is very easy.

[paxtonandrew]

After spending some time on the dark side (mid 90's), i can safely say that my Mac has offered so much that Windoze 98 couldn't.

Firstly, there was the constant virus scanning required. This to anybody technically inclined should be something that doesn't need to be taken out daily. My wife (not at the time) had used windows all her life, so the virus and spyware scanning was almost non trivial, and became more of a chore than anything. When in 1999 I bought my iMac, I tried to download a virus scanning tool, thinking that Apple was as secure as my old Pentium 2 box, but fortunately, it was more secure and then some.

Secondly, 'It Just Works' My experience with my Dull Latitude at the moment, and with my P2 box then, shows that M$ are lying about the Plug and Play capabilities of Windoze, especially with my Latitude 'Blue screening' when I plugged my Thumb Drive into it, which was just scary, and I lost about a days work when it took the system down. The stability of the Mac is another plus, where i have had constant crashes and the like with Windoze XP, needless to say it is better than 95-98.

The Mac is just so good of a computer, that I can't see myself ever switching back to anything Peecee.

[Jo-Kun]

* No virusses

* longer lifespan than PC's... I did run OSX Panther on a B&W 300 without a real glitch couldn't run XP on a P2 450 without crashing
same with Photoshop: 7 on the PC = ****** slow B&W ran CS...

* they look great ;-) my G5 is a beauty... but I'm still not convinced by the looks of the iMac G5... it's the second mac of wich the looks I don't like (eMac was the first...)...

[HiRez]

Solafaa, there's a few things that really matter a lot like the stability and security and fantastic multitasking. Try this on a PC and see how well it does (not just having everything open, but having the apps actually doing things, like render 3D animation):

http://home.earthlink.net/~benstahl/misc/images/multitask.jpg

I can almost guarantee that would choke even the fastest PC and grind it to its knees. I know because I have to use PCs for graphics work often. It could be done, but it'd become very, very slow and unstable. Yet that's a typical scenario for me on my 800 MHz PowerBook.

But for me it's mostly in the small things. Things like Exposé for finding a particular open document quickly when you have 10 apps and 30 windows open (see above). Having near-instant wake-up and sleep on a laptop. My friend's brand-new Dell laptop takes about 10-15 seconds to fully wake up from sleep. Installing apps can often be accomplished by dragging a single file from a CD to your Applications folder, and uninstalled just as easily. Ability to save PDFs directly from any document in any application. If one application crashes, it doesn't crash the whole computer and require a restart. I like the Mac menu bar being in the same place, all the time, for every application, instead of hunting around for it in the window of each document. AppleScript can automate many tasks and when Tiger comes out, Automator is going to make it even easier. Handling of text input and display is universal across the operating system, which has consequences like: global spell-checking, wherever you type anything; type non-English characters anywhere, such as Japanese Kanji; and apply a "service" to any selected text, for example open it as hexadecimal representation or send selected text as an email. Fast and easily accessible hard-drive searching. And as the other person mentioned: true plug and play. It's still not there yet on the Windows side (although better than it used to be). Plus there's OS X itself and all the great apps like iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iChatAV, Safari, and QuickTime. There's also a complete set of amazing developer tools included free, and real UNIX terminals you can open if you want to. Finally there's really detailed stuff that's hard to describe, like how well the open and save dialogs work (jump to last 10 recent folders for example), and how much nicer the OS looks in general, user interface elements that actually line up, popup boxes and tool tips that don't cut off their content if they're too close to the edge of the screen, consistently antialiased text, and icons that weren't designed with crayons by a random mob of fifth-graders.

The hardware is also amazing. Yes, you pay a premium for it, but it's elegant in both design and function. It is a machine with a soul that is lacking in any PC I've ever used. PC owners typically hate their PCs; Mac owners typically love their Macs. Why is that?

[Flynnstone]

OS X benefits
- not feeling like a target. Don't worry about email virus'. Now always open mail on my Mac first, and only open on my PC if necessary.
- simple install/remove of programs.
- security for my kids. I have Net Nanny on a PC for the kids and Net Barrier on the Mac. My son figured out how to bypass Net Nanny, HUGE security hole in windows. Net Barrier works great and none obtrusive.
- look, feel, UNIX ...

I wish more engineering programs were on OS X.

[Mechcozmo]

I have a 5 hour and 30 minute battery life. I use that battery life. My friend's laptop cannot go for more than 2 hours w/o a high capacity battery. I can do anything I want on my PowerBook. I can edit a movie while sitting in Study Hall. I can listen to music while working on an essay in Humanities. I can do all these things with no trouble. On a Windoze box, I worry that I will lose my data when it crashes. On my Mac, I can work for hours without saving.

It just works so freakin well. It is so freakin fast.

Heck, I have a 6 year old PowerComputing Power Tower 225 Pro. That is a great guest computer. No need to do any maintenance on it. Just tell people "that is your computer." And they figure it out, even! (OS 8.6 on it BTW) I'm hoping my PowerBook will last that long. Heck, even longer maybe. :rolleyes: :)

I love my PowerBook, too. It looks so nice. That is a nice side effect but the light-up Apple on the back makes it stand out.

[nerd]

"How has the Mac madce your life easier?"

Spellchecker. (j/k)

[Apple Hobo]

• No viruses or crapware swamping my system.
I always notice people bitching about the "latest" virus or how to remove spyware from their Wintels.

• It just works.
Again, I hear a lot of crying from Wintel users when they have to reformat or their computer doesn't work because of some insane DLL or driver screw-up.

• The Darwin guts have allowed me to have lots of fun with geeky Unix stuff. :D

• Slick Aqua GUI. No crummy, clunky Fisher-Price® GUI like Windoze.

[AmigoMac]

It has been harder to forget windowz. Looking at it and thinking everything I missed because of it.

[Solafaa]

"How has the Mac madce your life easier?"

Spellchecker. (j/k)

Sorry mate English is not my first lang, i never went to school to learn it either so it cant be as good as your, but i will try better next time :(

[stevehaslip]

Sorry mate English is not my first lang, i never went to school to learn it either so it cant be as good as your, but i will try better next time :(

hey, he was only joking - he wasn't trying to have a go :)

i have to say that my mac(s) have made my life easier by not slowing me down. You know when you go to do something and the app you're using used to crash just at the moment that you thought about saving. Then no matter how frequently you saved you would have to re-do a little bit. Now i don't have to re-do anything because my computer doesn't misbehave all the time!

But seriously some things are vastly quicker on the mac, for instance cd's don't auto run when you put them in, they just wait til you want them. Where as on my Windows machine they always used to pop up and cause everything to freeze while it started some pretty intro to something i never wanted.

The way that everything just works because Apple have the chance to do things themselves. I honestly believe that the reason that Windows is often unstable is because there are so many third party applications and drivers and stuff. Where as here everything that runs on my mac has been tested or checked, i don't have a piece of hardware that throws up conflicts or causes my computer to crash when i try something. Yes you could get that on a windows machine but its a hell of a lot harder to find.

My point is that everything just works. (i know everyone says that but ITS TRUE!!)

[yellow]

This is simple, you can list 1,2 or 10 things that mac has done for you to make your life easier/better or what ever.

Supporting them pays me a pretty decent wage. Nothing makes life easier then that! :)

[obeygiant]

Being a mac user has made it
really easy to deplete my bank account

[James Craner]

Being a mac user has made it
really easy to deplete my bank account

I know exactly how you feel, given I have just ordered the new Photo iPod!

[Palad1]

Spellchecker integrated to the OS.

love it :)

[7on]

Spellchecker integrated to the OS.

love it :)

Indeed, especially with me being a bit of a dyslexic. Also the text to speech isn't bad either.
On Windows I most always had to type in Word and then copy and paste into forums.

Also the ability to do more things at once on a slower machine. I found that amazing. PCs may be better at running one task faster, but start multitasking and the Mac takes a noticeable lead.

Also the CMD+OPT+8 Zoom feature is great to present movies embedded in html to a group of people (so that the movie takes up the entire screen)

[jefhatfield]

the mac, and computers in general have saved me from using up so much paper

before the computer, i got newspapers, periodicals, and news magazines...and i am a serious news and political junkie...these days, i get all my news fixes through the internet and i have no magazine or newspaper subscriptions...ok, i have one...macworld ;)

[Flynnstone]

Originally Posted by nerd

"How has the Mac madce your life easier?"

Spellchecker. (j/k)

Sorry mate English is not my first lang, i never went to school to learn it either so it cant be as good as your, but i will try better next time :(

HOWL ... It's funny how we read things differently! I missed the joking part and thought ... yeh, its got a Spellchecker that actually useful.


Being an electrical engineer, and not too great at spelling, we invented computers to be spell checkers. But computers have digressed through the years on this point. Look at Windows spellchecking, only good if you bought MS Office and then only good for MS stuff. The Mac ... spellchecker for every one!

P.S. It got me wondering on how to spell check these messages in MacRumors. If you are using Safari goto Edit -> Spelling. How easy ! :)

[Palad1]

And Firefox gets SpellBound : http://spellbound.sourceforge.net

right click => check spelling..

ohhhh I got a nice idea for a simple firefox extension: url check : checks that any url entered in a form is not a 404...

Okay, I'm off to XUL land :)

Cheers,
Palad1

ps: am I the only one to find that firefox is just sluggish compared to safari? I got a 1.5 rev.c pb with 1Gig of ram and it seems to lag behind :/

[Solafaa]

hey, he was only joking - he wasn't trying to have a go :)



I know i was joking with him :D its ok you guys can make fun.

[5300cs]

It just works, would be my #1 reason. I had to fix my mother-in-law's NEC laptop last nite and it was a nightmare. I'd like to add NEC to the list of crap pc makers :mad:

Also, you can use a Mac right out of the box. Fire up Software Update, install a few updates, restart and you're good to go. What steps do you have to go through with XP? And what's the eXPerience they're talking about? Frustration? Headaches? Anger?

Also, Apple has excellent design. pcs don't. Don't even talk to me about alienware pcs. I'm serious. Don't.

[slooksterPSV]

1. Security
2. Expose - That was a beautiful picture. I almost started to cry with relief. Thats how you are supposed to look at windows. =D
3. Ease of use
4. Ease of internet connectivity - OMG I just plug in my Ethernet, weather my computer is on or off and I'm online.
5. Everything is setup, I don't have to change anything, installing things is so much easier. Don't have to worry about placing it in the exact right place.
6. Labeling folders different colors.
7. PERMISSIONS IS A BIG ONE. I have files I don't want others to see, it has personal information, so I change the permissions so I can only get to it. OMG I love Mac

[OldManJimbo]

Battery life - the 12" Rev B gives me coast-to-coast juice compared to the DELL Latitude that required me to carry a spare battery for long flights.

Stability - can't remember the last time I shut it down for anything other than installing a new app.

Gives me a sense of superiority - OK, that's a metaphysical benefit, and quite vane, but I do consider the "coolness" of opening a Mac around all those Win machines somewhat of a benefit.

[slooksterPSV]

I'm going to buy a brand new mac with panther, and go into a windows class and when they have a ton of windows open and when I do, I'll say "Hey look what I can do. Does Microsoft have that? I don't think so."

[Palad1]

7. PERMISSIONS IS A BIG ONE. I have files I don't want others to see, it has personal information, so I change the permissions so I can only get to it. OMG I love Mac

NT has had permissions for as long as the NTFS filesystem was first introduced. Most windows users don't know how to use it hough, but saying that OSX has permissions and Windows doesn't is not true.

On the other hand, most users run as Administrator, which has the right to do anything with the filesystem.

The real killer is FileVault here, just encrypt your home dir and no one will ever be able to see it

Cheers,
Palad1

[tdhurst]

#1. My 15" pbook is LIGHT and truly a desktop replacement. No way I could give up the easy portability. My buddy has a pc laptop that he lugs from class to class and his computer is heavier than my entire bag.

#2. Ease of use. Everything just makes sense and it's damn easy to customize.

#3. It looks cool. Other may not like this, but I honestly find it easier to be creative with a tool that not only is easy to use, but just looks elegant.

#4. Stability. Touched on in other replies, it's a great thing to be working on a paper, close the powerbook to move somewhere, open it and have the document up within seconds. I don't have to worry about losing my data nearly as often.

#5. Longevity. It's great knowing macs seem to last twice as long as PCs. My 266 G3 is still plugging along (albeit with jaguar, not panther) with only pci cards and a new hard drive in the past seven years. I even plugged a random video card I received from a buddy in it and this thing power another monitor with zero setup. No driver issues, nothing.

#6. Fan base. I love being able to talk macs with anyone I see.

#7. The little things. Rendevous instant messaging makes it simple to connect with anyone who has a mac within range. It makes for some quite interesting conversations with the hot girl in the back of my class.

#8. Not having a huge line up of the newest, best games. Some would think of this as a negative, but for me, I love it. I see my powerbook as a tool rather than a portable game station. It's easy to get work done without fighting the urge to play some game on it. I have my PS2 for that when I get done.

#9. Pride. Everyone loves looking at Macs. I have been fortunate never to have owned a PC (family included) because my dad was in the graphic design business for the first half of my life and we all fell in love with our machines, so viruses/spyware/malware have never been an issue.

#10. Ease of troubleshooting. My parents (who are fairly computer literate but are nowhere near troubleshooters) can call me with any problems and it takes seconds to explain the solution to them and it just makes sense. They never have to ask me the same question twice, the solution is so simple they just remember.

[slooksterPSV]

NT has had permissions for as long as the NTFS filesystem was first introduced. Most windows users don't know how to use it hough, but saying that OSX has permissions and Windows doesn't is not true.

On the other hand, most users run as Administrator, which has the right to do anything with the filesystem.

The real killer is FileVault here, just encrypt your home dir and no one will ever be able to see it

Cheers,
Palad1
I have jaguar on my powerbook and on this computer I'm using now (Windows XP) my mom figured out how to access my stuff. Without logging into my name. Mac, its harder, its not as simple.