Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Gone to the dark side

At the risk of teasing you Peter ?

Once you go to the shiny overpriced side you don't need half as much support.

Just for balance my main machine at home is a monster homebuild using Windows 7 and I never even thought of purchasing a MacPro for this role. I also used to work at Sun Microsystems for four years so have been through the mill on most of these operating systems.

Like the colour you choose for your Mog, its all a bit personal.

Peter, to pick up Alistairs comment, the reason my employer is trialling Apple Macs is to see if low support requirement is a real or "one of the internet myths".

They rolled out iPads abut 18 months ago and the support load was much, much lower than expected.
The ofered iPhones to replace Blackberries and again support load fell.

The view is they either work or don't work, wheras PCs have 2 states, "working", not "working" and "doing odd things".

We have grown, since PCs appeared in the late 80s, to depend on "support". IS departments, having grown up running main frame and similar computers, all support intensive, were happy that Microsoft based PCs also needed support. It kept them important.

Steve Jobs developed a product that is largely support independant. The IS Support maffia found every reason to advise against it. But the tide is turning: desk/office computers shouldn't need support departments. Most other computerised machines don't need the level of support that PCs do.

If the trial is successful the justification of the high initial cost of the Macs is more than offset by culling about 100 IS support people. Hard, but that is the way of the world.

Interesting view re support. Never looked at it that way.

Hmm. Android, IMHO, is every bit as good, if not better than, Apple ios on Mobile devices. Support requirements zero and a wealth of choice of style and manufacturer. You are not locked in to one system. As far as apps are concerned I doubt there is much difference and if there is something that is available on ios that is not available on Android, or vice versa, it is probably not important anyway.

Regarding Windows 8. I can't see what it is that people object too. I was a fairly early installer of Windows 8 as the new PC I bought came with an upgrade offer. I made a couple of tiny tweaks which can easily be found on the internet but that is a matter of personal taste. There was less of a learning curve to transfer to Windows 8 than there would be with Apple or Linux.

The main complaint about Windows 8 is the Metro screen which is really just a visual alternative to the menu system and, once you get used to it, works quite well. Some say it is just another upgrade to Windows 7. I think it is a little more than that but, as some have said, it is not difficult to have Windows 8 with the more traditional Windows 7 interface.

I run mainly open source software which is downloaded free on the net and works perfectly: Mozilla Thunderbird for email, Firefox web browser, Libre Office, etc. I also have some other software collected over the years which runs perfectly on Win 8. In addition I have a suit of accounting software which only runs on a Windows platform. I also run a free antivirus software and I don't believe for one minute that any OS is immune to virus attack. It is just that there are more Windows systems out there so it is more likely that a virus will be created for a PC. Even in this MS have implemented systems which make virus attack more difficult.

Windows 8 problems; zero, support requirements (ie. stuff I can't do myself; zero, speed; fast enough and no sign of it getting any slower.

Other stuff such as connecting to the smart TV, cloud storage, home networking, etc. etc. does not seem to be a problem.

Apple have one big advantage over the Windows systems: they control both the hardware and the software so they should have systems that work seamlessly. The Windows platform offers much wider choices of style and manufacturer and that is a strong point in favour, but, since Microsoft can not control all the hardware and software, it can also be a weak point.

Anyway, I guess after that long rant, you can see I am happy with both the brand of PC I have chosen (Asus) and my OS choice.

End of rant

I speak too soon. At present neither sound card not printer will work and of course there are lots of other things than cant be connected like the gps, the weather station, the tablet, the phone etc etc.

Ask for help and you get someone telling you to type in sudo this and sudo that.

I suspect I am going to have to go windows 8.1

Yes. Migrating to Linux requires a very steep learning curve if you want to do more to do more than the basics of internet and office.

well now have been using the mac for 24 hours and must say getting to grips with it. more user friendly pleased i did not go for windows 8