It's all because of those godd*mn Macs!

[thegreatluke]

Okay, I was talking to my uncle the other day.

He works in advertising and has a lot of Mac-using customers.

He came downstairs yelling "I just wasted a whole afternoon on GODDAMN Macs!" I asked him what happened and he said that Macs caused all of his trouble because of extensions.

Apparently, his customer named the image he sent him "somethingorother img.jpg" and sent the image to my uncle. Apparently, Windows messed up and thought the image was named "somethingorother.img.jpg" and kept crashing every time he tried to open the image. Also, he said he reinstalled Windows TWICE because he thought something was wrong with the system.

I asked him how he could possibly think that this was a Mac problem and he replied "Well, Macs suck so much they allow the image to be messed up!" I really didn't want to argue with him so I stopped it there.

He has really weird views on Macs. It's kind of hard to take his Mac-related opinions seriously, especially since he claims Macs have more viruses and malware than Windows XP.

Discuss: really ignorant PC users.

 

[janey]

s/really ignorant PC users/Mac advocacy/

Rather, both. Why do you care? Just let him believe whatever he wants to believe.

 

[gekko513]

Rather, both. Why do you care? Just let him believe whatever he wants to believe.

In this case I'm with thegreatluke.

An OS shouldn't need to be reinstalled because a filename has a space in it. Not that I think that it need reinstalling here. It's just the result of an incompetent user with a tendency to blame anyone or anything else for his problems.

 

[thegreatluke]

In this case I'm with thegreatluke.

An OS shouldn't need to be reinstalled because a filename has a space in it. Not that I think that it need reinstalling here. It's just the result of an incompetent user with a tendency to blame anyone or anything else for his problems.

Yes, that sounds very much like him.

I know Mac users can be worse, it's just that I think it's pretty funny that he's so stubborn he won't admit it's a Windows problem that he can't open a simple .jpg file.

 

[janey]

Well, I highly doubt Windows would crash because of a space in the filename. I'll go try it out on my machine when I get back home. (I mean, if it crashed despite reinstallation multiple times, there's either a serious id10t error going on, or it's a bug)

And it theoretically could be a Mac problem, not in that it has a space in the filename (why didn't you just rename it then?), but maybe in that the image was corrupted.

 

[thegreatluke]

Well, I highly doubt Windows would crash because of a space in the filename. I'll go try it out on my machine when I get back home. (I mean, if it crashed despite reinstallation multiple times, there's either a serious id10t error going on, or it's a bug)

And it theoretically could be a Mac problem, not in that it has a space in the filename (why didn't you just rename it then?), but maybe in that the image was corrupted.

I asked him, and he said he thought the PC thought it was .img.jpg, so maybe there was something wrong with using two extensions?

It opened perfectly on my MBP by the way...

I know Windows doesn't like spaces for certain files, but I don't think that was quite it. The point of the article was not to point out the Windows bug but to point out how stubborn he is in realizing maybe Windows has some problems of its own

 

[janey]

well if he went so far as to reinstall it twice (which does take a significant amount of time...), obviously he felt that part of the blame fell on Windows

 

[gekko513]

Well, I highly doubt Windows would crash because of a space in the filename. I'll go try it out on my machine when I get back home. (I mean, if it crashed despite reinstallation multiple times, there's either a serious id10t error going on, or it's a bug)

And it theoretically could be a Mac problem, not in that it has a space in the filename (why didn't you just rename it then?), but maybe in that the image was corrupted.

No Windows handles spaces just fine. That's one of the reasons why I stick to "the incompetent user with a habit of blaiming others" theory.

No OS should crash because of a corrupt file. Especially an image file. That means it's vulnerable to a denial of service attack or at worst arbitrary code execution from a maliciously crafted image file.

 

[janey]

No OS should crash because of a corrupt file. Especially an image file. That means it's vulnerable to a denial of service attack or at worst arbitrary code execution from a maliciously crafted image file.

Well, there's that thing where anything WebKit based (Safari, Finder, Preview, etc.) crashes with certain images...You can find it, as well as the explanation and LOTS of angry comments, a reference to a few maybe related security links to it, and a radar number about it iirc, on drunkenbatman's blog...running Safari atm so I'm not about to go look for it though.

 

[gekko513]

Well, there's that thing where anything WebKit based (Safari, Finder, Preview, etc.) crashes with certain images...You can find it, as well as the explanation, on drunkenbatman's blog...running Safari atm so I'm not about to go look for it though.

And that needs to be fixed. Things like that aren't good, but at least it doesn't take the whole OS with it. What makes it scary is that the ability to crash a program sometimes points to a vulnerability that can be exploited to run code, and even if nobody in the public domain figures that out, someone else still may do just that.

 

[thegreatluke]

He's actually a good friend with this particular client.

The customer wouldn't do that.

 

[bousozoku]

No Windows handles spaces just fine. That's one of the reasons why I stick to "the incompetent user with a habit of blaiming others" theory.

No OS should crash because of a corrupt file. Especially an image file. That means it's vulnerable to a denial of service attack or at worst arbitrary code execution from a maliciously crafted image file.

Windows should definitely handle a single file better. Since Win95, I've been pretty careful about exchanging files with Windows, though.

It's obvious that the user should have been awake enough to rename the file, substituting the space with an underscore, at least. He apparently doesn't think much. That's sad.

On the other hand, I've tried to read a Windows XP-created CD-R on Mac OS X and had it clobber the operating system, so that I had to use the hardware reset switch on the front of the PowerMac.

 

[FocusAndEarnIt]

Tell him to use a iMac G5 and/or intel running Tiger and see if it doesn't do what he wants it to do.

Frack those fan boy windows users.

 

[jamesi]

Okay, I was talking to my uncle the other day.

He works in advertising and has a lot of Mac-using customers.

He came downstairs yelling "I just wasted a whole afternoon on GODDAMN Macs!" I asked him what happened and he said that Macs caused all of his trouble because of extensions.

Apparently, his customer named the image he sent him "somethingorother img.jpg" and sent the image to my uncle. Apparently, Windows messed up and thought the image was named "somethingorother.img.jpg" and kept crashing every time he tried to open the image. Also, he said he reinstalled Windows TWICE because he thought something was wrong with the system.

I asked him how he could possibly think that this was a Mac problem and he replied "Well, Macs suck so much they allow the image to be messed up!" I really didn't want to argue with him so I stopped it there.

He has really weird views on Macs. It's kind of hard to take his Mac-related opinions seriously, especially since he claims Macs have more viruses and malware than Windows XP.

Discuss: really ignorant PC users.

ahaha he reinstalled windows twice? what a tool

 

[JMG]

i doubt it was even a windows error. more of a user error

 

[Lollypop]

So if most of your clients use product X and you have problems using product W, what does that say? Change to product X! Yello! Sounds to me like he doesnt know how to use a PC, my windows box have a few things with double extensions, works fine-ish.

 

[ReanimationLP]

Well, I highly doubt Windows would crash because of a space in the filename. I'll go try it out on my machine when I get back home. (I mean, if it crashed despite reinstallation multiple times, there's either a serious id10t error going on, or it's a bug)

And it theoretically could be a Mac problem, not in that it has a space in the filename (why didn't you just rename it then?), but maybe in that the image was corrupted.

I tried it on mine.

No problems or crashes.

Opens fine. Your uncle must just have tons of spyware or something OP.

Quite honestly, I never have any problems with XP. If you know what your doing, dont buy total crap hardware, and take good care to not click pop-ups, sites that love installing spyware, or obvious junk emails, you'll be fine.

Sure, Windows is a pain in the ass, but it isnt all bad and dee-dee-dee like everyone says it is. I'm pretty sure that if you were dumb enough, you could **** up Mac OS X pretty badly.

 

[jdechko]

...a few things with double extensions, works fine-ish.

Agreed. I use double extensions all of the time when I rename backup files to drawing files. I end up with drawing.bak.dwg but theyre fine. Heck I can even do drawing.old.dwg and it's fine. I find that extensions are pretty much useless. There indicators of file types, but they aren't file types themselves. I want to create a bunch of whack files like .jdechko files. That would be fun as hell to send to people. It would open just fine as long as they knew the real filetype.

 

[annk]

Agreed. I use double extensions all of the time when I rename backup files to drawing files. I end up with drawing.bak.dwg but theyre fine. Heck I can even do drawing.old.dwg and it's fine. I find that extensions are pretty much useless. There indicators of file types, but they aren't file types themselves. I want to create a bunch of whack files like .jdechko files. That would be fun as hell to send to people. It would open just fine as long as they knew the real filetype.

I've almost never had to deal with double file extensions, but the few times I've had them, I've gotten error messages. Interesting to hear that others haven't had trouble, next time I won't give up so easily.

Tell your uncle the problem usually resides between the chair and the keyboard

...then run

 

[SC68Cal]

Problem exists between keyboard and chair

 

[G99]

I can't believe how Windows users are so unaware of mac's virtues.
At school, NOONE thinks much of a mac. The general opinion is that it's slow, dodgy or gay (I don't know where that came from).
I guess crashing every once in a while, and endless virus sweeping is the sign of a good OS...

 

[janey]

I guess crashing every once in a while, and endless virus sweeping is the sign of a good OS...

Yes, as kernel panicing regularly is the sign of a good OS...

Not all Windows installations were created equally. Ditto to Mac OS X and the gazillion other OSs out there.

 

[G99]

Yes, as kernel panicing regularly is the sign of a good OS...

Not all Windows installations were created equally. Ditto to Mac OS X and the gazillion other OSs out there.

I agree Mac OS X isn't perfect, but don't you think it's better than windows? I'm not trying to say OS X is amazing, and Windows is rubbish. All I'm saying is that many people are unaware of the virtues of OS X.

 

[janey]

I agree Mac OS X isn't perfect, but don't you think it's better than windows?

I don't care. I use Mac OS X, Windows XP SP2 and Gentoo Linux every day, as all three of them meet my (different) needs in different ways the way I like it. I'm not sticking with one OS to do everything, because it's a given that another one would work out to be better for something else I need to do.

 

[G99]

I don't care. I use Mac OS X, Windows XP SP2 and Gentoo Linux every day, as all three of them meet my (different) needs in different ways the way I like it. I'm not sticking with one OS to do everything, because it's a given that another one would work out to be better for something else I need to do.

Yeyeye, I know Windows is better than OS X for gaming, amongst other things, but my opinion is that OS X is better overall. I don't use multiple OS', and prefer to have one OS that I think is better than the others overall to use on a daily basis.