Apple decides what to do with $100 billion

[Aniron]

I assumed that question was a joke. Almost no one needs to "renew a DHCP lease manually". Certainly not people who are frightened of learning how to use computers.

This is a guy who just said he felt he had to take college level computer courses to learn how to read Microsoft's website about the various versions of Windows currently available. I wouldn't have answered his question either and would have considered it equally absurd.

[Questor]

I assumed that question was a joke. Almost no one needs to "renew a DHCP lease manually". Certainly not people who are frightened of learning how to use computers.

This is a guy who just said he felt he had to take college level computer courses to learn how to read Microsoft's website about the various versions of Windows currently available. I wouldn't have answered his question either and would have considered it equally absurd.

Bite me. That was a joke, but for reference:

Please tell me whether a standard user needs to do the following, and what they are, preferably in language a novice user could use.

1. Join a Domain
2. Network Backup
3. Multi-lingual support
4. Bit-Locker
5. Use windows XP only programs

For bonus points, What is the significant difference between Enterprise and Ultimate - Not that I expect someone who didn't realize this was a joke to have dealt with Enterprise.

Does the average user need A - Starter, B - Home Premium, C - Professional, D - Ultimate. Why?

As for DHCP, releasing and renewing DHCP is a pretty standard troubleshooting task when dealing with high-speed internet providers.

[phongn]

And Windows laptops are much cheaper. Android phones are pretty good in their own right as well, and may even be more open.

Windows laptops tend to be cheaper because they're often built terribly (ThinkPad/EliteBook/etc. being notably exceptions).

And the aesthetic argument is the same for me. I can understand someone just liking the Apple UI better, but to claim that companies put out shitty UIs or don't focus on it as much is a disservice. Both Android and Windows have pretty neat looking UIs, especially Android, which allows you to do more customization.

It's not a disservice. Android's UI is fragmented, inconsistent and ever-changing (and I'm just talking about the stock UI, nevermind customized ones that Samsung, HTC, et. al. produce). It's not that their UIs look neat or not, it's that they work badly. And the hell with customization, that's not an advantage when it serves to make things even more inconsistent.

[Dominus Atheos]

I assumed that question was a joke. Almost no one needs to "renew a DHCP lease manually". Certainly not people who are frightened of learning how to use computers.

This is a guy who just said he felt he had to take college level computer courses to learn how to read Microsoft's website about the various versions of Windows currently available. I wouldn't have answered his question either and would have considered it equally absurd.

Bite me. That was a joke

No it wasn't. It may have been hyperbole, but that's different from a joke.

Please tell me whether a standard user needs to do the following, and what they are, preferably in language a novice user could use.

1. Join a Domain
2. Network Backup
3. Multi-lingual support
4. Bit-Locker
5. Use windows XP only programs

None of those things.

For bonus points, What is the significant difference between Enterprise and Ultimate - Not that I expect someone who didn't realize this was a joke to have dealt with Enterprise.

Diddly. Their features are identical, but Enterprise can only be bought as part of Microsoft's Software Assurance.

Does the average user need A - Starter, B - Home Premium, C - Professional, D - Ultimate. Why?

A - Starter. That will allow you to play farmville, look at youtube clips of cats doing funny things, and view pictures of family gatherings. That's all 90% of people use a computer for.

As for DHCP, releasing and renewing DHCP is a pretty standard troubleshooting task when dealing with high-speed internet providers.

Windows 6.x (Vista, "7" and "8") releases and renews your IP automatically as part of the network troubleshooting wizard, there's no reason anybody would ever need to do it via command line.

[Questor]

No it wasn't. It may have been hyperbole, but that's different from a joke.

It was an attempt to use hyperbole for humerus effect. Wouldn't that meet the criterion for a joke? [/Data]

None of those things.

Yup

A - Starter. That will allow you to play farmville, look at youtube clips of cats doing funny things, and view pictures of family gatherings. That's all 90% of people use a computer for.

My thoughts exactly. Although I do recommend a bump to pro over Home Premium simply for XP mode if a person is not satisfied with Starter

Windows 6.x (Vista, "7" and "8") releases and renews your IP automatically as part of the network troubleshooting wizard, there's no reason anybody would ever need to do it via command line.

[/quote]

Neat! I've never looked for new ways of doing it. It's still a silly thing to leave out of the GUI for IP addresses though. Does it show you the address you get?

[Dominus Atheos]

Neat! I've never looked for new ways of doing it. It's still a silly thing to leave out of the GUI for IP addresses though.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, but when you open the status box for your connection, it has a diagnose button that starts the troubleshooter.

Does it show you the address you get?

Why would it need to? If you get a 169 address, it just says "problem with router, try turning off and on again". Almost no one needs to know what their exact IP address is.

[Questor]

Neat! I've never looked for new ways of doing it. It's still a silly thing to leave out of the GUI for IP addresses though.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, but when you open the status box for your connection, it has a diagnose button that starts the troubleshooter.

I meant I've had no need, since the old methods still work, to go poking around, and so hadn't seen that yet.

Why would it need to? If you get a 169 address, it just says "problem with router, try turning off and on again". Almost no one needs to know what their exact IP address is.

That's what I was asking.

[HMS Conqueror]

I assumed that question was a joke. Almost no one needs to "renew a DHCP lease manually". Certainly not people who are frightened of learning how to use computers.

This is a guy who just said he felt he had to take college level computer courses to learn how to read Microsoft's website about the various versions of Windows currently available. I wouldn't have answered his question either and would have considered it equally absurd.

Bite me. That was a joke, but for reference:

Please tell me whether a standard user needs to do the following, and what they are, preferably in language a novice user could use.

1. Join a Domain
2. Network Backup
3. Multi-lingual support
4. Bit-Locker
5. Use windows XP only programs

For bonus points, What is the significant difference between Enterprise and Ultimate - Not that I expect someone who didn't realize this was a joke to have dealt with Enterprise.

Does the average user need A - Starter, B - Home Premium, C - Professional, D - Ultimate. Why?

As for DHCP, releasing and renewing DHCP is a pretty standard troubleshooting task when dealing with high-speed internet providers.

You've totally detached from the subject of the thread at this point, and "Rah rah I work in tech support!" isn't a very impressive claim even if it were relevant.

[Questor]

Excuse me, Mr. Thread Police, I was not aware that you were the only one allowed to follow your idiotic tangent.

As for your inane comment about tech support, I suppose having to deal with both platforms on a daily basis leaves me completely unqualified to have an opinion on the usability or non- of any of the platforms.

[HMS Conqueror]

You're evaluating them on the basis of how to do some obscure support task that almost no one does, while hand-waving the massive incompatibility issues that are actually important to most people.

And while I don't mean to insult tech support, who like garbage men do a vital job for society, you are being a dick about it.

[Questor]

No, I'm evaluating your ability to read and finding it rather wanting.

What exactly about my nice long post on the last page makes you think I see MacOS as a suprerior platform?

As for iOS, consistent enterprise manageability and UX are not exactly obscure features. Heck, before the iPhone 3G, I'd have said Blackberry was the best, and before that, probably Windows Mobile.

[JointStrikeFighter]

I myself hate being locked into the ap store.

More apps than anyone else! Horrible! Horrible! And having to payoff them! It's my fright as a consumer to pirate them!



Shep there's dozens of apps for iPad that let you load PDF via local network to iPad. How about some research before your next ignorant statement.

[MKSheppard]

Shep there's dozens of apps for iPad that let you load PDF via local network to iPad. How about some research before your next ignorant statement.

Well excuse me for going off personal experience in trying to load PDFs onto my dad's iPad from my laptop several months ago; with no iPad experience at all other than a few minutes of playing with it.

[Alkaloid]

The fact that 3rd party software can be made fix a problem with an iPad isn't evidence that there was no problem to begin with.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Windows has shit support for all kinds of things that require third party support. Stop being a retard.

[DaveJB]

This is actually not true either. There's a whole host of music and video editing software that don't require you to come within ten miles of an Apple PC or OS. As a casual artist, I have no idea why other artists bother with the hassle and expense.

Well, since I shoot and edit videos for a living and can draw on more than just "I don't think it's better, therefore no-one should think it's better," allow me to give you an idea. Better stability overall, especially under heavy load. No drive letters, thereby avoiding clusterfucks when you get an external hard drive that tries to use a letter already occupied under your system. A surprising amount of plug-ins and other tools that either don't have Windows equivalents at all, or have greatly inferior Windows versions. Plus the overall user interface being better-suited to the type of workflow involved.

I will admit that there's no single overriding feature (apart from possibly the drive letter thing) that makes OS X a better environment than Windows, and that many of the advantages would in fact apply to Linux as well. However, since you can count the number of professional-grade Linux video editors on the hand of one man who's had a horrific chainsaw accident, and Windows 8 is absolutely 100% NOT taking a step in the right direction for this kind of work, OS X remains the best, and will probably continue to do so for quite a while.

[Ryan Thunder]

Well, since I shoot and edit videos for a living and can draw on more than just "I don't think it's better, therefore no-one should think it's better," allow me to give you an idea.

Cool.

Better stability overall, especially under heavy load. No drive letters, thereby avoiding clusterfucks when you get an external hard drive that tries to use a letter already occupied under your system.

As somebody who actually uses Windows for software development, I can tell you that this nonsense about stability, yes, even under heavy load, is just a myth. You're probably confusing issues with drivers or hardware for issues with Windows itself. That's an easy mistake to make if you don't know any better, and I don't mean that as a knock.

As for drive letters... I don't know what the fuck you've been doing that would cause something like that to actually happen, but even if you did for some unfathomable reason manage to plug in 27+ external hard drives (the only thing I can think of) the letters would just double up, AFAIK. Like AA, AB, etc.

A surprising amount of plug-ins and other tools that either don't have Windows equivalents at all, or have greatly inferior Windows versions.

Now this is a legitimate complaint. But I have to wonder why they wouldn't have Windows equivalents. There're no hardware issues that I can think of, and if anything, Apple's the one that's a bitch to program for. I guess its possible that Apple's popularity with artists has become tautological; they have apps because they're popular because they have apps because they're popular, and so on.

Eh?

Plus the overall user interface being better-suited to the type of workflow involved.

I'm genuinely curious; how so? I personally find it pretty clunky for just about any purpose I can conceive of, so I'd really like to know how I'm supposed to be using it because its evidently unintuitive to somebody who's used to a sensible UI...

[DaveJB]

As somebody who actually uses Windows for software development, I can tell you that this nonsense about stability, yes, even under heavy load, is just a myth. You're probably confusing issues with drivers or hardware for issues with Windows itself. That's an easy mistake to make if you don't know any better, and I don't mean that as a knock.

As somebody who uses the time-honoured tradition of using a MacBook to carry out the actual editing work, and a cheap quad-core Windows box for the final output (and any 3D rendering), my experience has always been that OS X, even the relatively old v10.5 which I use, has the edge in the stability department. It's not so much that Windows is horribly UNstable under normal use (at least, not since Win7 came out) as the fact that OS X still stays stable and responsive when an app goes horribly wrong and jams both cores at full load, making it easy to kill the app. By contrast - and even working with the same cross-platform versions of the same apps - Win7 tends to become really choppy and unresponsive and sometimes can't even kill the app, requiring a hard reset.

As for drive letters... I don't know what the fuck you've been doing that would cause something like that to actually happen, but even if you did for some unfathomable reason manage to plug in 27+ external hard drives (the only thing I can think of) the letters would just double up, AFAIK. Like AA, AB, etc.

That's not what I'm talking about. To illustrate my point, drive letters C through F on my Windows box are all occupied by one thing or another, and that's without any external hard drives involved. Now, say another editor sends me an external hard drive containing part of a project, but on their system the drive is set to use the letter F. I can't alter the drive that's assigned F on my system since that'd screw things up big-time, so the external drive shows up as G.

The best case of this scenario - which I should point out is common enough that I've had to endure lengthy rants from its victims - is that all the project stuff is in one directory, meaning that it should take no longer than a few minutes for my software to update all the file links. Worst case however is that it's scattered all throughout the drive, meaning I have to spend a good while manually trawling through the project, updating the file links by hand. OS X (and Linux) avoids all that by using drive names rather than letters, meaning the problem is far less likely to occur.

I'm genuinely curious; how so? I personally find it pretty clunky for just about any purpose I can conceive of, so I'd really like to know how I'm supposed to be using it because its evidently unintuitive to somebody who's used to a sensible UI...

I don't know that I really could do that unless you were in the same room as me. However, the best arguments I can make are that OS X allows previewing of a lot of audio-visual file types in the GUI without having to open a third-party app (something that was actually in Win2k, but didn't make the transition to XP for some odd reason), better usage of screen real-estate, and being able to have different desktop workspaces without having to resort to third party software or multi-monitor solutions. There are a couple of things I wish were handled better in OS X (such as its complete inability to merge folders properly), but on the whole I find myself thinking "I wish this OS X feature were in Windows 7" much more than the inverse.

At the end of the day though, it really comes down to personal preference. I prefer to use OS X for my day-to-day work stuff, and so do the majority of the other editors I know. But if you prefer Windows for your work, hey, I'm not gonna try and dissuade you. Time is money, and you should use what works best.

[phongn]

I'm genuinely curious; how so? I personally find it pretty clunky for just about any purpose I can conceive of, so I'd really like to know how I'm supposed to be using it because its evidently unintuitive to somebody who's used to a sensible UI...

I'm genuinely curious here: what do you consider a "sensible UI" (and I don't mean "Windows", I mean, how elements are arranged, interaction of elements, etc.)?

[evilsoup]

I suspect he's complaining about the 'toolbar on top' thingy. Which is annoying if you have multiple windows open, doing multiple things; but for stuff like video editing, where you want as much space as possible and are only really using one application at a time, it is actually useful.

[Simon_Jester]

A surprising amount of plug-ins and other tools that either don't have Windows equivalents at all, or have greatly inferior Windows versions.

Now this is a legitimate complaint. But I have to wonder why they wouldn't have Windows equivalents. There're no hardware issues that I can think of, and if anything, Apple's the one that's a bitch to program for. I guess its possible that Apple's popularity with artists has become tautological; they have apps because they're popular because they have apps because they're popular, and so on.

Eh?

I wouldn't be surprised. Artists and people who make tools for artists might gravitate to Apple. Which would be the same reason that gamers gravitate to Windows and not, say, Linux: there are a hell of a lot more Windows games, and even if a game is ported to Linux, it will take a long time to get there.

At some level, all the major operating systems on offer do most of what almost all people need, and do it well enough to get by. So it's partly arbitrary, and certain industries might wind up bound up with certain platforms by default and by historical accident.

[phongn]

I suspect he's complaining about the 'toolbar on top' thingy. Which is annoying if you have multiple windows open, doing multiple things; but for stuff like video editing, where you want as much space as possible and are only really using one application at a time, it is actually useful.

I don't have a problem with it for multiple applications but it does have problems over multiple monitors. There's also the advantage that the single-menubar effectively has infinite height (much as Windows 7's corner start menu icon gets effectively infinite area).

[MKSheppard]

Windows has shit support for all kinds of things that require third party support. Stop being a retard.

Um. I can plug my Kindle into my computer via the USB/charging cable and it shows up just fine; and I can move and delete files from it through the windows interface; I don't need to load up Amazon's special software, or get an app from the app store to do this BASIC FUNCTIONALITY task.

[Stark]

So?

I mean I know your post is from 2003 whining about iPod not having drag and drop, but seriously. Everyone just emails PDFs to themselves or loads them into a reader. Clearly nobody really cares about this 'fundametal issue' which is really just 'why doesn't everything work the same'.

[MKSheppard]

Whatever, Stark. I don't feel like having to explain myself again.

This kind of dumbassedry isn't limited to Apple though; witness Samsumg and it's persistent belief with the Galaxy Tab line that it's still 2000 or whatever, and proprietary charging/connection jacks are the way to go!