Thread: iMac 20" Vs. Clone.

Thanks everyone for your input!

The young fella' has just bought himself() a Mac.

At the end of the day, when his own money was involved, he went for reliability and security!

I really appreciate all your comments and advice.

Glad to hear it

Just get a 20" I-Mac! 2GHz

Brilliant computer! he will love it functionality is great and they looks awesome!

(stares at own i mac momentarily...)

I see i was a little late...

And thats the key point isnt it...

The Macs Function....

No rooting around with drivers and such BS...


Sits back wistfully watching Quantum of Solace on MBP 17"

I've been away but only just came to this. Good call!

I work in IT and have done for nearly 20 years now. I use windows at work and have the whole time. My job is on UNIX systems though. They are just the best thing, and have been forever. Most of our machines at work go YEARS between re-boots and even then it's only when the server room looses power. We have been conditioned to accept MS foibles. I'm telling you there are 10 year old machines that have been re-booted probably less than half a dozen times (excluding initial setup).

Anyway I went to macs about 3.5 years ago now and after the first terrifying couple of nights (where is... everything) it was clear that the OS had all the UNIX stability with the flashest GUI integrated on top of it I've ever seen.

I have helped all my family into them (no more support calls... YAY) and a number of co workers (IT people) and all have been horrified that they stuck it out so long. My wife works in IT and has continual problems with her work Windows laptop. She was working with the support tech at work and said "why don't we go to macs?". The guy said that he had one at home and if they did he'd be out of a job so would not suggest it!

The thing that I find strange is the number of people that have never used one (for any time) that say they are expensive, not worth the money, don't work etc etc. Their professions are teachers, mechanics, nurses, carpenters etc and they all tell me I'm just plain wrong and macs are expensive rubbish!

Yet, if you told them that their new washing machine would need days of maintenance lavished on it yearly, it's design could issues expose all their laundry to the world, and at best it would be difficult to work for it's lifetime they would gladly pay a little more to bypass this. Not with computers though.

It's a funny game IT.

Originally Posted by Captain_Rightfoot

It's a funny game IT.

Absolutely!

And the most amazing part is this....

You call an IT service provider because your server has a problem.
They come to you for say $90.00/hr

They mess around for a couple of hours and say "all fixed" and head back to their office... You are now out of pocket $180.00

Later that day the server crashes again...

You ring Mr IT... He comes over again at $90.00/hr....

Tweaks the system again and leaves...


Its one of the only industries I know of where you pay for a product / service, and then when they didnt 'get it right' the first time - They can charge you again to come out and fix it!!!!!


Or how we the public will buy and put up with 'en mass' poorly written, poor performing OS software....
That then requires US to spend OUR money downloading fixes, patches etc to rectify (costing us download usage etc)...

Imagine buying a new car....

You get it home.. Only to find out its not working quite right...
Theres holes in the panels, the engine runs but needs restarting regularly...
Its slow because of all the 'bling' they piled onto it...

So you ring the car dealership...

They tell you that you need updates but you have to get them from the factory yourself and install them yourself...
A patch to cover the holes... ECU update to fix the engine stumble etc..
So you do these 'fixes' and whilst its not as bad, there seems to still be a problem.. Now your car is smoother, but slower and still regularly needs restarting....

Then they tell you that the front guards have been updated. You dont need the new guards, but its recommended...
So you get the factory to ship new guards and fit them yourself...
But now theres a brake issue... Its been discovered your brakes are vulnerable to outside forces and need updating... So you get "brakes 2.0" to fix the vulnerability... It takes ages to get them and once fitted, you need to restart the car to clear the ECU.

Life seems ok...

However you arent happy with the performance.. Everything seems to be slow and the car takes to long to get anywhere...
You run a diagnostic on it... It worked fine before.... But the diagnostic tells you that to improve performance you need 'extra horsepower' so you go to the manufacturer and replace your engine.
But its not enough.... You find other performance issues... Exhaust upgrade is done....


Wow.. What a waste of 5 minutes that drivel was!!!!


But back to Mac.... OS X is now a fully certified, recognised UNIX OS...

he is 17 and made a "rational decision"? lol! keep dreaming... what's the girl with the Mac's name?

IME, crashes are typically from people expecting old machines to run latest software like clockwork... it doesn't happen when you actually leave the thing alone and not install 101 pieces of shareware, anti virus software and pirated software which I'd say most home users do way too much. Risks are far lesser in macs from this regard - why? IMHO, less variety in skill levels of third party software development, less shareware, less beta releases etc etc

This whole "Macs are more stable thing" is like saying series landies never had problems - yes win 98 and win XP did have problems, mac OS of the time were more stable. Does that mean current models have the same problems? completely unrelated questions if you ask me. I've used vista since about 3 months after launch and call only recall 2 crashes in that time - both due to opensource shareware.

As an example, not to start a flame war, my dad has a current 17 inch iMac, it crashes on average 2 times an hour when running Skype, and only loads the logitech USB webcam properly every second or third attempt. He has to completely reboot the machine, not just restart the software to get it to run again. Is that user, software or hardware? He has used macs since they were introduced way back when in his graphics related work and has tried everything he can think of and his Mac user group recommends he refuse to use skype - some 'creative' thinking there guys, tell a guy he can't videoconference with his grandkids unless they go out and buy a mac and use mac certified software... idiots!