Fraggle Rocker
02-22-07, 03:50 PM
I've been a carefree Macintosh user for many years. The last time I had to set up a PC was in the era of Windows 95. I had to buy a PC to use on a contract. Either that or replace my perfectly good ten-year old PowerBook with a new $2500 PowerMac just so I'd have software that was compatible with what the company was using. (A Mac-compatible version is available but it won't run on my old machine.) Needless to say I spent $1000, got a ThinkPad, and kept my trusty Mac for my personal computing.
I could not believe how frustrating this was, and I cannot believe that the world puts up with it. Right out of the damn box... I plugged the thing in and pushed the "on" button. On a Macintosh, that means that within about two minutes perfectly toasted data will start popping out of what, in any reasonable universe, is just another appliance. But no, a PC is not an appliance, it is not even just a delicate laboratory instrument, it is a frelling little science fair project that haunts you every day of your life. The damn thing spent four hours "setting itself up." Just sitting there blinking at me with absolutely no user input. Can someone explain why the geeks couldn't have let it do that to itself before they shipped it? This wasn't even new from the factory, it was an off-lease refurb that presumably had already been gamma-tested (PCs never quite achieve the level of service that any other appliance would be required to give before anyone would pay money for it) for a couple of years.
Then I had to install MS Office. Piece of cake, I'm thinking. At my old job I watched them do that on Windows 98 so how hard can it be on XP? Really, really hard, because you can't buy Office 2003 any more (unless I had taken the time to drive somewhere and pay list price for the privilege of having a cardboard box to throw away) so I had to download a "free trial version" of Office 2007. Everything is different.
People's main complaint about Macs is that every time you upgrade your hardware you have to buy new versions of all your software, or vice versa. Okay, but at least you recognize the software when you get it running. (Not to mention that's a really good way to avoid having software that's been patched for ten years so it's full of ripple-effect defects and hacker back doors.) But no, Office 2007 is not recognizable. It might as well be Japanese software. All the menus have been reorganized, all the functions have been regrouped, it's like starting over. It took me two days to find the "Find" command (fortunately Ctrl F still works but my Mac-adapted fingers took a while to retrieve that kinesthetic memory) and my coworkers who have been using Word 2007 for months say I'm the first person who ever found it.
I had a job that had to be done by Monday and by now it was Saturday afternoon before I actually got to start working on it.
I guess I've been using it for three weeks now. I got my job done and several more. Still the company geek had to talk me through some pretty arcane setups before I could get onto their SharePoint site, something that the Mac figured out by itself. The computer still thinks it's on the West Coast and should be running Pacific Time, even though the same guy went through it with me and reset everything to Eastern Time. It no longer resets the clock to Pacific Time once a week without asking... but it keeps asking.
And the agony of daily use. MS Word, this spiffy new upgraded 2007 version, crashes on me once a day. Microsoft must have a special file just for the reports my computer sends it on MS Word. It seems to happen if I have more than three documents open at once. Gee, maybe I should get a job at Microsoft, I figured that out in only three weeks.
Once again, I'm forced to become a software mechanic in order to use my computer.
How do all of you PC loyalists put up with this? Why do you put up with it? I can see it in the corporate world, because as I discovered there's just more software written for Windows and it isn't all Mac-compatible. But why does anybody want a Windows box in their home? Games, yatta yatta, okay. So get the Intel Mac and run Windows for your damn games and use OS/X the rest of the time. I could just as easily say graphics, yatta yatta, virtually all artists use Macs for good reason. Corporations have to make exceptions to their PC-only policy in their advertising departments or they wouldn't be able to hire any top-notch graphic artists.
Moreover... In order to use a Windows box effectively, you have to have the aptitude, interest, temperament, and training opportunity to be a software mechanic. That's barely possible in big cities in the Western World. Do people really think we're going to "wire" the rest of the human race who don't have computers yet, by giving them Windows boxes? Can you imagine installing one in a school in Paraguay, a chief's hut in Botswana, or a tin shack in Myanmar?
These people need appliances and a Macintosh is an appliance.
If I'd had any inkling this was going to be so damn painful, I would have spent the $2500 and gotten a Mac anyway. I guess I deserve this for being so stupid.
I could not believe how frustrating this was, and I cannot believe that the world puts up with it. Right out of the damn box... I plugged the thing in and pushed the "on" button. On a Macintosh, that means that within about two minutes perfectly toasted data will start popping out of what, in any reasonable universe, is just another appliance. But no, a PC is not an appliance, it is not even just a delicate laboratory instrument, it is a frelling little science fair project that haunts you every day of your life. The damn thing spent four hours "setting itself up." Just sitting there blinking at me with absolutely no user input. Can someone explain why the geeks couldn't have let it do that to itself before they shipped it? This wasn't even new from the factory, it was an off-lease refurb that presumably had already been gamma-tested (PCs never quite achieve the level of service that any other appliance would be required to give before anyone would pay money for it) for a couple of years.
Then I had to install MS Office. Piece of cake, I'm thinking. At my old job I watched them do that on Windows 98 so how hard can it be on XP? Really, really hard, because you can't buy Office 2003 any more (unless I had taken the time to drive somewhere and pay list price for the privilege of having a cardboard box to throw away) so I had to download a "free trial version" of Office 2007. Everything is different.
People's main complaint about Macs is that every time you upgrade your hardware you have to buy new versions of all your software, or vice versa. Okay, but at least you recognize the software when you get it running. (Not to mention that's a really good way to avoid having software that's been patched for ten years so it's full of ripple-effect defects and hacker back doors.) But no, Office 2007 is not recognizable. It might as well be Japanese software. All the menus have been reorganized, all the functions have been regrouped, it's like starting over. It took me two days to find the "Find" command (fortunately Ctrl F still works but my Mac-adapted fingers took a while to retrieve that kinesthetic memory) and my coworkers who have been using Word 2007 for months say I'm the first person who ever found it.
I had a job that had to be done by Monday and by now it was Saturday afternoon before I actually got to start working on it.
I guess I've been using it for three weeks now. I got my job done and several more. Still the company geek had to talk me through some pretty arcane setups before I could get onto their SharePoint site, something that the Mac figured out by itself. The computer still thinks it's on the West Coast and should be running Pacific Time, even though the same guy went through it with me and reset everything to Eastern Time. It no longer resets the clock to Pacific Time once a week without asking... but it keeps asking.
And the agony of daily use. MS Word, this spiffy new upgraded 2007 version, crashes on me once a day. Microsoft must have a special file just for the reports my computer sends it on MS Word. It seems to happen if I have more than three documents open at once. Gee, maybe I should get a job at Microsoft, I figured that out in only three weeks.
Once again, I'm forced to become a software mechanic in order to use my computer.
How do all of you PC loyalists put up with this? Why do you put up with it? I can see it in the corporate world, because as I discovered there's just more software written for Windows and it isn't all Mac-compatible. But why does anybody want a Windows box in their home? Games, yatta yatta, okay. So get the Intel Mac and run Windows for your damn games and use OS/X the rest of the time. I could just as easily say graphics, yatta yatta, virtually all artists use Macs for good reason. Corporations have to make exceptions to their PC-only policy in their advertising departments or they wouldn't be able to hire any top-notch graphic artists.
Moreover... In order to use a Windows box effectively, you have to have the aptitude, interest, temperament, and training opportunity to be a software mechanic. That's barely possible in big cities in the Western World. Do people really think we're going to "wire" the rest of the human race who don't have computers yet, by giving them Windows boxes? Can you imagine installing one in a school in Paraguay, a chief's hut in Botswana, or a tin shack in Myanmar?
These people need appliances and a Macintosh is an appliance.
If I'd had any inkling this was going to be so damn painful, I would have spent the $2500 and gotten a Mac anyway. I guess I deserve this for being so stupid.