My professor brought up Mac Vs. PC in class

[Mav451]

I couldn't believe my ears. Of course, this guy is easily 50-60 years old, so maybe he has the experience to speak about this, just maybe

Of course, he then said the standard line that "those who have used Macs have always said that it is the best most superior operating system".

My class deals with history, technology, and the way society has been influenced by technology by the way...

Hehe, here's the kicker. He "switched" back to PCs. I'm like wtf? After giving a line like that? Well anyway, class adjourned after that "food for thought", so I guess i'll ask him next time.

 

[Sun Baked]

Re: My professor brought up Mac Vs. PC in class

Originally posted by Mav451
Of course, he then said the standard line that "those who have used Macs have always said that it is the best most superior operating system".

From the user standpoint, yes.

But before OS X, the previous OSs were seriously lacking in features that quite a few people need -- protected memory, SMP, stability, etc.

OS X has solved quite a few of the "problems" people had, though quite a few applications and pieces of hardware got left behind.

And it was diferent enough that people had trouble in the transition.

It's understandable that a pre-OS X user would switch back to PCs, because there were many reasons NOT to be a Mac OS user.

 

[bousozoku]

Sure, when Win95 came out, a lot of reasons to have a Mac were thrown out. I'm not saying that it was superior to Mac OS at the time, but it wasn't that much worse, either.

Still, even without pre-emptive multitasking, Mac OS was still more stable in many ways.

It's just one more argument in a series of rivalries.

 

[Mav451]

haha, the only reason i bring this up is that this is the first time i've heard it in the class room. Funny that he brings it up the same day that I had my first Mac (edit: with OSX) experience in the library computer lab (and sitting next to a student using Photoshop lol).

I just couldn't believe that the G5 was sitting there being unused. I almost laughed when i saw that there were 2-3 people standing around, waiting for the Dells to open up. I told them the Mac was open to use (because i was leaving), and they gave me a blank stare.

 

[bousozoku]

People are so afraid of the unknown, and colour, too. Why would you want to sit at a Mac? It doesn't have...viruses!

The instructor who taught my Intro to Java programming class talked all about how Java worked the same everywhere, but he himself couldn't figure out how things worked outside of Windows. Everything he mentioned was "Windows does...", so it provided very little insight as to why Java was needed.

 

[Mav451]

Hey! I also took a Intro to Java class, except the teacher was, i believe, either a Mac user or Linux user. Anytime he felt like digressing (which he did frequently), he would talk about how much he hates Bill Gates, the viruses, and the "sloppy OS" as he referred to it.

He also kept on hyping the Sun Desktop OS--i believe some MR guys here found some strange videos of the desktop (notes on the back of the broswer i believe, if my memory serves me correctly).

*Ok, now i remember. My friend, who was not waitlisted for the class, had told me that on the very first day he had wrote on the board that Mac OSX is "cool and nifty" on the board...

 

[Counterfit]

My Mechanical Design professor brought up a point about Macs last week, but it wasn't so much a Mac vs. PC thing, it was more "Macs are for print and video, that's why we don't use them for CAD" kinda thing. I felt like telling him that most pro audio studios use Macs too, but I was tired and it wasn't really necessary...

 

[bousozoku]

Talk about starting off with a lead balloon.

The former head of the department dislikes Microsoft in a huge way. I think he's even worse than I am, even though I've been dealing with them much longer. Sometime, during most classes, he would come up with some reason that Java (the environment, the language) did something better than Microsoft. It became humourous and I would usually inject something that he didn't know.

They're such an easy target. I actually thought that once or twice they were going for quality.

 

[Westside guy]

Originally posted by Mav451
He also kept on hyping the Sun Desktop OS--i believe some MR guys here found some strange videos of the desktop (notes on the back of the broswer i believe, if my memory serves me correctly).

Oh, yeah, CDE is so wonderful - that must be why Sun is dumping it in favor of Gnome (one of the primary GUI Linux desktops that's now been ported to Solaris).

I think CDE is probably second only to TWM in the quality of user experience.

And I also think that 99.5% of the people reading my post are thinking "okay, what is this dork talking about anyway?"

 

[Sun Baked]

Originally posted by Westside guy
And I also think that 99.5% of the people reading my post are thinking "okay, what is this dork talking about anyway?"

You're probably closer to five nines there, since you are using geek speak.

 

[yamadataro]

Well, I thought that religious topics like this were prohibited in schools?

 

[Opteron]

Originally posted by bousozoku
People are so afraid of the unknown, and colour, too. Why would you want to sit at a Mac? It doesn't have...viruses! B]

I would say my computer is more dynamicncolourful than any mac will ever be.

PS: I've used windows or nearly 10 years (since 95) and have nevr had a virus

 

[laserbeahm]

Originally posted by Mav451
I just couldn't believe that the G5 was sitting there being unused. I almost laughed when i saw that there were 2-3 people standing around, waiting for the Dells to open up. I told them the Mac was open to use (because i was leaving), and they gave me a blank stare.

The same thing happens at computer labs in my school. The funny thing is that a lot of people are afraid to use the Mac for typing a Word document or even going on the Internet.

 

[virividox]

more time for you to use them while they line up for the dells

 

[janey]

heh...my cs prof this semester is reasonable...

hes smart too, i showed him something i did on my powerbook, and he instantly recognized the fact that mac os x was based on unix (without knowing which OS i was using-even though it is plainly obvious I was using X, he was a primarily Windows-oriented guy)...he was happy to learn new stuff too, which was absolutely awesome.
He had no idea as to wtf GCC was. bah.

 

[Engagebot]

Originally posted by Opteron
I would say my computer is more dynamicncolourful than any mac will ever be.

PS: I've used windows or nearly 10 years (since 95) and have nevr had a virus

then how did you post this message?

i'm confused, because you must have been connected to the internet to read this board, yet you have never had a virus on your windows machine... :0)

i'm just kidding, i'm a pc & mac guy, but yeah we get viruses on our network all the time.

 

[Engagebot]

we actually talk about macs and pcs all the time in my classes. but then again, i'm in software development.

it may be surprising, but most of my computer science professors like macs because the university's CSC system is unix, and all our programing assignments must be able to compile with GCC in unix. this is the same version of the GCC compiler thats built into XCode.

 

[caveman_uk]

Originally posted by Westside guy
Oh, yeah, CDE is so wonderful - that must be why Sun is dumping it in favor of Gnome (one of the primary GUI Linux desktops that's now been ported to Solaris).

I think CDE is probably second only to TWM in the quality of user experience.

And I also think that 99.5% of the people reading my post are thinking "okay, what is this dork talking about anyway?"

Sadly I know what you're on about. I always thought KDE was better than Gnome...

 

[bousozoku]

Originally posted by Opteron
I would say my computer is more dynamicncolourful than any mac will ever be.

PS: I've used windows or nearly 10 years (since 95) and have nevr had a virus

You're one of the lucky 10 people in the world who have never had a virus on Windows.

What colour is your computer's case?

 

[janey]

Originally posted by bousozoku
You're one of the lucky 10 people in the world who have never had a virus on Windows.

hah. i've only really gotten one virus ever since Windows 3.x, the rest of the "infections" that the antivirus apps warned me about were caused by me storing source code and samples of miscellaneous viruses on the computers

i have gotten several copies of MyDoom lately though...but havent gotten infected, so eh.
it takes some effort to get your PC infected with a virus...you have to be sooo careless.

 

[Mav451]

bousozoku - i can tentatively also say that i haven't had a virus, certainly none of the mainstream MSblast/work viruses over the past 2 years mostly because i already disable DCOM and patched early.

In 95, you actually coudln't tell if you had a virus or if it was the OS to tell you the truth! VxD errors all day...good lord.

Thankfully, 98SE solved most of my VxD woes.

Originally posted by laserbeahm:

The same thing happens at computer labs in my school. The funny thing is that a lot of people are afraid to use the Mac for typing a Word document or even going on the Internet.

Laserbeahm: My first experience with BOTH of these, using M$ word and Internet browsing were both started on a Mac! The company my parents worked at exclusively used Macs so my parents in turn could take a few home for doing email/work at home. In fact, many a book reports were typed out (in 3rd-5th grade i might add) on an old school Mac. Back then my typin speed was pretty bad, but that was also before IM got popular Too bad i have no idea what model it was...but it was an old school one. Of course, back then Netscape was all that was used...i remember wondering if the icon was supposed to be liked to falling comets haha.

 

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by übergeek
...

it takes some effort to get your PC infected with a virus...you have to be sooo careless.

Or be a big target.

According to most figures by IT departments on our campus, when Nachi/Blaster were hitting the campus network non-stop, it took all of 4 seconds for an un-patched Windows machine to get infected. 4 seconds.

That means, by the time you get to the desktop from boot up you've got a virus.

 

[bousozoku]

I know, but you do have to pay attention and know a few things to stay out of trouble. The average person probably runs into many viruses that were easily handled by someone aware.

At my last permanent job, they would send out virus alerts and the subjects would be all in UPPERCASE like some of the viruses, so it was almost a joke to open the warnings.

Of course, there was one office in the Boston area, which opened the mail and double-clicked on the attachment, thereby e-mailing 50,000 people right away. There were only 30 or so people in the office but they all did it. Then, the next week, after they had been verbally warned, they did it all over again. (I think I just picked on someone who wasn't in Floriduh!)

 

[bryanc]

Viruses...

My most recent virus experience was while installing WinXP for my parents. After the install, I went to Microsoft's site to download the 17 critical patches (why the hell does a newly installed OS need that many critical patches?!?) and by the time I had the patches downloaded, the system had already picked up a virus.

I keep hearing about how OS X doesn't have viruses because it's such a small market segment that the maleware writers don't bother with it. However, I've seen lots of discussion in the hacker community that suggests successfully hacking an OS X box would be perceived as a major coup by these people. It's not that they aren't trying...it's just a lot harder to write a virus for a well designed system.

Cheers

 

[virividox]

i hope those script kiddies just stick to attacking wintel machines. i like running my mac virus scanner free.