"Macs are for work, not for play"

[gnasher729]

I hear this a lot. It's like a mantra when topics concerning dated hardware comes up. I find this so incredibly confusing because I find computers fun. It's why I chose a career in computers and why, often times, work seems like play for me.

Wait until you start at a company that uses SAP, any you will dread using a computer

Now seriously: That looks like an interesting change in attitude. It used to be that "Macs are toys, for people who are two stupid to use a real computer, real work is done on PCs". (But then there were the people who said "I am a rocket science. I want to spend my time doing rocket science, not to figure out how to get a computer do what I want it to do, and that's why I use a Mac).

Today I think the situation looks like this (mostly): Places that use employees as paid slaves who are supposed to do their work, not to enjoy doing themselves while doing it, those places use PCs. In places where you need creative employees in a flexible environment, there is more a tendency to use Macs.

Macs are reasonably good for playing (there are a few nice games), but a Wii beats everything in that department anyway. And then there are "gamers"; I mean _serious_ gamers (which is a contradiction in itself, but they are not aware of that). They are not well served by a Macintosh, but a PS3 or XBox is probably better than any PC for gaming.

 

[Spikeanator6982]

Video games are still "low-brow" culture, and thus low status pastimes. "I don't play games" has a similar ring to "I don't watch tv". See also: certain music genres, movies, etc. We choose how to present ourselves even when we choose our hobbies.

So, it isn't really a matter of whether or not someone has the hardware to manage it.

(/shop talk off)

I understand just not playing them, I Just asked why he/she didnt. all he said was "no games" i didnt know if that meant no games on the mac or what.

 

[chelsel]

... I think this comes from the "spreadsheet mentality" that word processing, checkbook stuff, quickbooks, spreadsheets, and the like are what most people consider "work." The Mac, though, is capable of doing all of these things.

Well, one important accounting feature that you CAN NOT do with a Mac is use Quickbooks Pro and Assisted Payroll. I still have to fire up VMWare Fusion to launch Quickbooks... but I am finding my dependence on Windows narrowing... now if they would just make a MBP with a decent keyboard...

 

[dpaanlka]

Anyway this whole "maintain windows" crap is so tiring. Really. Just install AV and forget about it.

I must chime in on this. Installing Anti-Virus and "forgetting about it" does not really help anything. I know so many people right here on my campus with AV installed on their PCs, who have PCs in unbelievably poor condition. In fact I'll name some of them:

Justine D - Excessively loud 2006 HP notebook crashes at random. Fans are constantly on high the moment the computer is turned on. Almost a continuous stream of pop-ups reporting various errors. Closing them just causes them to pop-up again, moving them causes a trail of copies to follow wherever the window was moved. Must be mounted on a rack with air circulation underneath, otherwise it will shut itself off at random.

Evan B - 2002 Vaio takes fifteen minutes to boot and crashes when running more than one program. Don't even think about performing another task while burning a CD. Computer will also randomly try to dial into his old dial-up service, even though he's had a cable modem for two years now. Deleting the dial-up setting doesn't do anything.

Paul S - 2007 Gateway constantly gets advertisement pop-ups, even when no browser window is open. All of them pornographic or shady in nature. Norton reports issues found, but says it can't do anything about them.

Vince R - This 2006 Acer notebook is about as useful turned on as it is turned off. Computer is excessively slow even when not doing anything. By excessive, think 30 seconds for displaying the Start menu. Norton reports all kinds of stuff but can't do anything about it.

Eric D - Very noisy 2005 Dell notebook beeps from the system speaker very loudly every minute or so. Fans never seem to shut off.

Jake D - 2005-ish Dell desktop fans are excessively loud. Computer got progressively worse for no apparent reason over a semester, starting with very slow operation, lots of pop-ups and sound suddenly not working. Later, computer would not boot into anything but Safe Mode. Finally, it wouldn't boot at all.

Marilynn T - Various mixture of problems similar to many listed above. This is a 2006 HP desktop.

 

[product26]

Well, one important accounting feature that you CAN NOT do with a Mac is use Quickbooks Pro and Assisted Payroll. I still have to fire up VMWare Fusion to launch Quickbooks... but I am finding my dependence on Windows narrowing... now if they would just make a MBP with a decent keyboard...

correction... you CAN run quickbooks pro on a mac. all intel macs are capable of running windoze.

 

[product26]

it was using macs at work that made me use them full time in my personal life.

 

[Sun Baked]

correction... you CAN run quickbooks pro on a mac. all intel macs are capable of running windoze.

There are decent cross-platform double entry accounting and payroll apps.

The AIO personal finance packages to manage your money, stocks, pay bills online, etc. do fall a bit behind the curve a bit.

 

[contoursvt]

sounds like you live for the crowd you're trying to fit into. Let me guess...no hamburger for you but only steak and no beer either because its for the common people...only wine for you

Video games are still "low-brow" culture, and thus low status pastimes. "I don't play games" has a similar ring to "I don't watch tv". See also: certain music genres, movies, etc. We choose how to present ourselves even when we choose our hobbies.

So, it isn't really a matter of whether or not someone has the hardware to manage it.

(/shop talk off)

 

[fourthtunz]

All experiences vary, and mine sucked. I used windows for a few years. I wasn't always an Apple fan boy.

Right on! And some anti-virus programs do not play well with audio workstations. If you want to spend time learning anti-virus programs and the underlying OS good for you. I just want the computer for work and play and to do what I bought it to do. My experiences with the pc world have not been good, I will not go back.

 

[fourthtunz]

correction... you CAN run quickbooks pro on a mac. all intel macs are capable of running windoze.

You're right, but I can't imagine purposely installing the worst virus of them all

 

[dpaanlka]

correction... you CAN run quickbooks pro on a mac. all intel macs are capable of running windoze.

That isn't really much of a solution. At least with VMWare or Parallels, you can still use your important Mac applications while using Windows. But the need to have Windows, a full, second operating system installed just to run one thing is hardly an acceptable solution, especially for a small or home business.

 

[krunk]

Well, one important accounting feature that you CAN NOT do with a Mac is use Quickbooks Pro and Assisted Payroll.

I'm confused, can you elaborate:

Quickbooks Pro for Mac: http://quickbooks.intuit.com/product/accounting_software/pro_mac_financial_management_software.jhtml

And from the FAQ:

Q: Can I use QuickBooks for Mac to run my payroll?
A: Yes.<explanation follows>

Is it that the mac quickbooks versions lack features compared to the windows? (I know quicken for mac has this issue...not to mention "The Quicken Tax" on online bank management.)

 

[contoursvt]

Right...god knows what the users have downloaded or installed. Heck it may have P2P stuff in there and you dont even know, maybe the users were using older slower computers and in hopes of speeding them up, they disabled the antivirus in which of course allowed them to become infected..etc.

Again, we have 100+ PCs in our work environment and I've been there for 4 years and in that time, there has been zero cases of any infection or the problems you've listed. My father has had his XP for 3+ years and he doesnt know diddly but its all good. Heck on my machines I dont even run AV !! I just exercise safe surfing and dont go looking for free warez or stuff from P2P or bittorrent. Students will install that which is essentially permission given by the student by installing to ruin the machine. Heck I'm sure I can install a back door program for OSX (I'm sure they exist) and then later complain the computer is running funny or I got hacked...but I'm the one that allowed it!

I used to work in a company that had a mac training lab and let me tell you that it doesnt matter if its OSX or windows, when students are using the machines, you will end up rebuilding them or reimaging them.

Anyway you will believe what you want to believe but I work in both environments and its not a system issue, its a user or lack of knowledge issue ... always!

I must chime in on this. Installing Anti-Virus and "forgetting about it" does not really help anything. I know so many people right here on my campus with AV installed on their PCs, who have PCs in unbelievably poor condition. In fact I'll name some of them:...

 

[krunk]

Anyway you will believe what you want to believe but I work in both environments and its not a system issue, its a user or lack of knowledge issue ... always!

100% correct. However, "user issues" have minimal to no impact on osx systems.

The one thing I am curious about is why you'd ever have to re-image an osx box. With the lack of a centralized registry, virtually all "user issues" on osx (or *nix) is localized to.....the user. You can even give users full access to a compiler so they can install programs in /Users/<username>/local without effecting total system integrity in the least. Thus, almost every "how'd I screw my system up" on osx is solved by creating a new user account (if you don't want to trouble shoot it).

What sorts of problems do you see in *nix's that are due to issues that cannot be solved in this manner?

 

[dpaanlka]

yadda yadda yadda its all the users fault

The difference is Mac users can download all the porno and illegal music they want and pretty much never have to worry about negative effects.

"It's the user's fault" is not a good excuse. You can believe what you want, but you can't seriously think that the same percentage of Macs get royally screwed up by users as PCs.

I mean most of the crap I listed I've never even seen on any Mac.