My co-workers say macs are not configurable help me out!!

[jc0481]

First off I did a search for a similar post on these forums but could not find anything close to it. I work with a guy that is very good with Windows OS and a little bit on the mac. He set up a mac mini for his mother. Last week he stated that macs are good machines but can't configure them to the extreme like you can with Windows in general. That's pretty much long story short. I know he is wrong but have no ammo to back it up with. He did say one positive thing. He says that macs are very intuitive. I really hope you guys can help me out with this issue. Thank you.

JC0481

 

[Chundles]

He's right about the mini. Internally there's not a great deal that can be done, you can add a boat load of external storage though.

The Mac Pro is a different story though you are limited to a certain few graphic cards.

 

[Eidorian]

Generic $500 Brand X PC minitower is infinity more configurable then any Mac short of the Mac Pro.

 

[Cerebrus' Maw]

First off I did a search for a similar post on these forums but could not find anything close to it. I work with a guy that is very good with Windows OS and a little bit on the mac. He set up a mac mini for his mother. Last week he stated that macs are good machines but can't configure them to the extreme like you can with Windows in general. That's pretty much long story short. I know he is wrong but have no ammo to back it up with. He did say one positive thing. He says that macs are very intuitive. I really hope you guys can help me out with this issue. Thank you.

JC0481

Configurable? Configurable as in what? Hardware, software? Compatibilty?

If he's talking about the OS (eg Leopard V Vista) I dont see how you can say one is far more configurable then the other. Hundreds of tabs, with loads of little checkbox does not make a machine more configurable, just less intuitive.
Ask him to give a few examples, of what he considerd superior on the Windows machine...



I'm glad I was able to reply nearly first to this thread, cause now I can sit back and wait for the extreme Mac hadcore fans to come and basically flame your friend to oblivion

To be that little boat in an ocean of insanity....

 

[NT1440]

Yea if hes talking OS's which clearly he is otherwise he wouldnt be talking about Windows, hes a dolt.

 

[jc0481]

Configurable? Configurable as in what? Hardware, software? Compatibilty?

If he's talking about the OS (eg Leopard V Vista) I dont see how you can say one is far more configurable then the other. Hundreds of tabs, with loads of little checkbox does not make a machine more configurable, just less intuitive.
Ask him to give a few examples, of what he considerd superior on the Windows machine...



I'm glad I was able to reply nearly first to this thread, cause now I can sit back and wait for the extreme Mac hadcore fans to come and basically flame your friend to oblivion

To be that little boat in an ocean of insanity....

Yeah I missed that part. When I meant configurable I meant software wise. He was talking about the Windows operating system vs the Mac operating system. He never mentioned the hardware itself. I should ask him to elaborate next time I see him.

 

[Matek]

I'm a MacBook owner, not a windows zealot, but I must say I simply agree with him, no point in arguing about it. OS X has some clear advantages over windows, but it also has some clear disadvantages. It's not absolutely superior, so you shouldn't try to defend it at all times .

If he's talking about the OS (eg Leopard V Vista) I dont see how you can say one is far more configurable then the other. Hundreds of tabs, with loads of little checkbox does not make a machine more configurable, just less intuitive.
Ask him to give a few examples, of what he considerd superior on the Windows machine...

Erm, actually, having a lot of checkboxes and sliders that change settings DOES make the machine more configurable. I agree it's less intuitive, but that's what Apple is going for. If you give less options to the user, he has less chances to mess things up. Everything in OS X is designed to be very simple and straightforward. Unfortunately that sometime means less room for tinkering for advanced users.

 

[gnasher729]

First off I did a search for a similar post on these forums but could not find anything close to it. I work with a guy that is very good with Windows OS and a little bit on the mac. He set up a mac mini for his mother. Last week he stated that macs are good machines but can't configure them to the extreme like you can with Windows in general. That's pretty much long story short. I know he is wrong but have no ammo to back it up with. He did say one positive thing. He says that macs are very intuitive. I really hope you guys can help me out with this issue. Thank you.

You don't actually want to "configure" your computer, you want it to just work. Again and again I have been asked by friends to fix their Windows PCs, and the first thing you have to do is undoing all the "configuring" that turned their computer into an unusable mess.

Ask him to show you some of the "configuring" that he can do on his PC. Then ask yourself: Why would I want to configure this? Wouldn't I just want the computer to come set up in the best possible way, or pick itself whatever is best?

If he's talking about the OS (eg Leopard V Vista) I dont see how you can say one is far more configurable then the other. Hundreds of tabs, with loads of little checkbox does not make a machine more configurable, just less intuitive.

Oh, he is right that Windows is more configurable. However, that is not a Good Thing.

 

[Sun Baked]

It is unix, you can hack it to the extreme of non-usability.

 

[Matek]

You don't actually want to "configure" your computer, you want it to just work. Again and again I have been asked by friends to fix their Windows PCs, and the first thing you have to do is undoing all the "configuring" that turned their computer into an unusable mess.

Ask him to show you some of the "configuring" that he can do on his PC. Then ask yourself: Why would I want to configure this? Wouldn't I just want the computer to come set up in the best possible way, or pick itself whatever is best?

I agree to an extent, but this isn't a fact for everyone. What you said is true for a number of users, but there are still people who know what they're doing and want to be in control. What's good for most people isn't necessarily best for everyone.

 

[kaiwai]

I agree to an extent, but this isn't a fact for everyone. What you said is true for a number of users, but there are still people who know what they're doing and want to be in control. What's good for most people isn't necessarily best for everyone.

Mate, I'm the most boring person on the planet. I don't tweak my OS one bit - and when I mean that, I mean, I don't mess around with the operating system installing hacks and other things. I'm not a computer engineer - I know a bit about computers but I'm not going to leap to the conclusion as some on here do that they are smarter than Apple engineers.

I tend to believe that Apple engineers know alot more than I do about things, especially the operating system they've designed and written - so therefore, I'm not going to turn around tweaking and in the same breath, claiming I know more than them.

As for the original post - why is he even configuring it for his mother? his mother just wants a computer that works - the guy who bought the mini-Mac is just an idiot looking to justify his hatred of Mac's. He hates them because he needs to prove he is an expert - not through the acquiring of knowledge but throw how much crap they can tweak on an operating system.

 

[belvdr]

You don't actually want to "configure" your computer, you want it to just work. Again and again I have been asked by friends to fix their Windows PCs, and the first thing you have to do is undoing all the "configuring" that turned their computer into an unusable mess.

Ask him to show you some of the "configuring" that he can do on his PC. Then ask yourself: Why would I want to configure this? Wouldn't I just want the computer to come set up in the best possible way, or pick itself whatever is best?



Oh, he is right that Windows is more configurable. However, that is not a Good Thing.

That's debatable. Each person has their own idea of what the perfect computer and OS is. You expect an OS to just pick whatever is best for the user? What if the user is in the enterprise; is it going to know that? Seems like a joke to me.

Also, OS X doesn't always "just work". People keep fanning that flame, but if it just worked, we would have a forum-load of users having problems.

As for the original post - why is he even configuring it for his mother? his mother just wants a computer that works - the guy who bought the mini-Mac is just an idiot looking to justify his hatred of Mac's. He hates them because he needs to prove he is an expert - not through the acquiring of knowledge but throw how much crap they can tweak on an operating system.

How do you get that point of view? If the guy hated Mac's, I think he most certainly wouldn't have bought one and especially not complimented the OS as being intuitive.

Come on, you're just looking for something to argue about.

 

[portent]

OS X is Unix. You can configure the bejeezus out of it, if you're comfortable with the command line. It is orders of magnitude more configurable than Windows.

However, if you're the typical Windows junkie, you'll be lost on a Mac. That's not a lack of configurability, it's a lack of knowledge.

 

[mason.kramer]

You can't install your n30 matr1x hacker theme
You can't skin your winamp with 50 cent posters
Umm.. what else? You don't get a transparency slider for your menus

Anything that's important usually just works. I see a lot of problems with Mac, but I don't see this one.

 

[MisterMe]

...

Also, OS X doesn't always "just work". People keep fanning that flame, but if it just worked, we would have a forum-load of users having problems.

...

Not true. A very large percentage of the problems reported on this and other forums were caused by users messing-up their systems. If they just setup their accounts and then allowed their computers to "just work," then most of these people would have been fine.

How do you get that point of view? If the guy hated Mac's, I think he most certainly wouldn't have bought one and especially not complimented the OS as being intuitive.

...

You assume that buying the Mac was his idea. Do you have any evidence to support this point of view?

 

[belvdr]

Not true. A very large percentage of the problems reported on this and other forums were caused by users messing-up their systems. If they just setup their accounts and then allowed their computers to "just work," then most of these people would have been fine.

True, but the claim they always just work is just downright false. I mean, even Apple's Time Machine has issues with speed right out of the box.

Also, that same statement would apply to Windows as well. It seems users cause most of their problems no matter what they use.

You assume that buying the Mac was his idea. Do you have any evidence to support this point of view?

The guy complimented OS X. If someone hates something, why would they compliment it? Besides, why read negative into the person's motives initially? Nobody responding knows nothing of this guy's motives, so we shouldn't be getting defensive about his alleged hatred for Macintosh computers.

 

[BobZune]

First off I did a search for a similar post on these forums but could not find anything close to it. I work with a guy that is very good with Windows OS and a little bit on the mac. He set up a mac mini for his mother. Last week he stated that macs are good machines but can't configure them to the extreme like you can with Windows in general. That's pretty much long story short. I know he is wrong but have no ammo to back it up with. He did say one positive thing. He says that macs are very intuitive. I really hope you guys can help me out with this issue. Thank you.

JC0481

Issue? Sounds more like a religious discussion.

For subjective matters, it is better let people think what they want to think. Does his grandma want configurability or ease of use? Any OS is sufficiently configurable given the right configuration tools (and OS X has enough of them to suit most peoples' needs). Like others pointed out, you can spend customizing infinitely and not get any work done.

If he or you or his grandma have *specific* problems, I am pretty sure you can help here. Have fun!

 

[DaveF]

Last week he stated that macs are good machines but can't configure them to the extreme like you can with Windows

What matters is whether you care: do you want to configure your computer "to the extreme"?

Mac's have a variety of settings to adjust the Dock and icons and backgrounds and hot keys and screen hot spots, etc. And there are theme tools to change all your windows.

But maybe OS X can't be tweaked as much as Windows. But do you care? If so, then dig deeper and see if OS X gets Xtreme enough for you. If not, ignore your friend

 

[No1451]

You don't actually want to "configure" your computer, you want it to just work. Again and again I have been asked by friends to fix their Windows PCs, and the first thing you have to do is undoing all the "configuring" that turned their computer into an unusable mess.

Ask him to show you some of the "configuring" that he can do on his PC. Then ask yourself: Why would I want to configure this? Wouldn't I just want the computer to come set up in the best possible way, or pick itself whatever is best?

Oh, he is right that Windows is more configurable. However, that is not a Good Thing.

You sir, are an idiot. We all have different needs from our computers, and the idea that any one setup is perfect is wrong. OS X can be customized and altered, just the same as Windows, and YES IT IS A GOOD THING. Some of us like tuning our computer to display/play a certain way and not having that option is just catering to people who want a carbon copy of everyone else's machine.

 

[synth3tik]

I don't see why you bother. I would just tell them "good for you" and leave it at that.

If you must though, just show him a copy of Apple's level three UNIX certificate. I am sure you can find a copy of it on the internets.

 

[Aea]

Most of the "configurability" you have on a Windows machine pretty much revolves around trying to get the damn thing to work again. Tweaking under the hood all the time signifies a lot more then options the user has, but a severe deficiency in the engine.

 

[TH-Gunner]

Windows is about as configurable as OSX when it comes to the desktop... Unless you're talking about the masks that you can put on the windows GUI to change the look, like windows blinds. Windozers call that "customization." UNIX/Linux users laugh.

 

[dotdotdot]

Most of the "configurability" you have on a Windows machine pretty much revolves around trying to get the damn thing to work again. Tweaking under the hood all the time signifies a lot more then options the user has, but a severe deficiency in the engine.

Actually, most of the "configurability" is that you can have a machine that is so customized that even windows experts would need to take a step back to see all the changes someone made.

You can completely replace explorer (equivalent to finder except when you shut down explorer the entire GUI is shut down) in the most extreme customizations. You could never change OS X as much, ever. Not that that's a bad thing, but its a fact.

 

[MisterMe]

...

The guy complimented OS X. If someone hates something, why would they compliment it?

You infer a lot based on the sketchiest of evidence.

Besides, why read negative into the person's motives initially? Nobody responding knows nothing of this guy's motives, so we shouldn't be getting defensive about his alleged hatred for Macintosh computers.

Who read negative into the man's motives? Despite the fact that he came here to complain about the Mac's lack of configurability, I read nothing into his motives. By way of contrast, you read positive motives into his rants.

 

[belvdr]

You infer a lot based on the sketchiest of evidence.

Infer? Sketchy evidence? It's a pointed statement the OP made. How am I inferring anything based on this:

He did say one positive thing. He says that macs are very intuitive.

Who read negative into the man's motives? Despite the fact that he came here to complain about the Mac's lack of configurability, I read nothing into his motives. By way of contrast, you read positive motives into his rants.

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=6619123#post6619123

Kaiwai said he had a hatred for Macs. I didn't read anything other than what was written originally. The guy complimented Mac/OS X. If someone compliments something, I believe anyone would be hard-pressed to say they hated it.