I'm curious to know, what platform does everyone work on? i've noticed that we have a large number of engineers, and other technical people, so, are you all more PC oriented?.. or Mac Oriented?

i'm a little of both, PC while at home, and Mac at work, so i get to see both ends of the spectrum on abilities of both machines.

Only Linux at work, mac and Windows at home.

What is it you do for a profession caedes?

I'm a grad student in Physics. I have teaching and research assistantships.

2 X PC's 1 running XP the other running ME

Oddly enough the ME one is more stable...

Never played on a Mac.

nothing odd about it

unix/linux for work
windows for play
mac for target practice

nothing odd about the Me running better than Xp?.. thats freeking amazing!.. i can't keep Me running stable for anything more than 2 weeks without it having issues
course.. xp's not much better at the 2 month cycle either..

I never really had probs with ME, XP always has probs. The most stable windows I've used is 2000 server addition.

im using XP and got to agree ME is more stable than XP also has the added bonus that you can install the os as many times as you like (XP likes being reinstalled after a major hardware upgrade and the activation code only works a limited number of times)

Pat

Use Macs at clients - use Macs and Intel Xeon servers in my own office mainly because they each do what they do the best - Macs for creative stuff - pc's for file/mail serving, security, post etc.

I fail to see what how a mac is better for "creative stuff". Maybe no one has ever really explained this to me properly. I'm not seeing what you can do on a mac that you cant on a pc.

I've always been a PC person. I can remember in the eighties when nobody seemed to know which way it was going to go - a friend of mine was convinced Amigas were the best thing ever. I liked PC's because they were multi-purpose.

I too am curious about Macs. Are they really that good? As someone who likes to see past the obvious, I would welcome an explanation. Is it the way the hardware is put together? I'm presuming they are geared towards graphics in some way, as people keep raving on about them.

the macs are alittle more friendly to someone such as myself, who uses the quick keys and whatnot, alot of the programs have been set up with control, option, and command keys to trigger different alternate tools, illustrator for example will rotate bettween the last few tools you've used with just those keys, and then using modifiers such as the shift key to change subtools

i think the macs are just more design friendly, and they have a slightly different color tables, so your images are going to look a little different

windows has hotkeys as well, so do many other pc operating systems, that doesnt explain why you would use a mac. color on a pc monitor can be adjusted as well. ... :/

bah.. that damn windows key doesn't do much aside from piss you off, control alt and shift, don't do the same things as the other keys on the mac.
if they did, that'd be a different story,
and yes, granted the monitors can be adjusted, but i've always found that macs tend to have a bit more vibrant color base

pretty much all software has an assortment of hotkeys for windows. If you look at alot of multiplatform software it lists hotkeys in the manuals as ex: "Alt + H (Windows) or Control + H (Mac)"

I dont think a "better" hotkey system or "a bit more vibrant colors" are really convincing arguments to change from pc to mac, no?

maybe I'm just being a pain :p

Really the only difference between the Macs and PCs are the type of processor and motherboard interfaces. With a Mac the last two memory spaces are reversed which allows a slightly faster processing time when it comes to graphic, hence the more "vibrant" colors. With a Pentium or AMD class processor the last two spaces on the chip are left alone allowing more streamlined data and multimedia output.
As for the hot keys, Widows has quite a few more hotkeys that Mac computers can allow. This is because of the limitation of the hardware in the Mac type computers. I’m fuzzy on this part but someone once told me that Mac style computer can't process the same number of keystrokes per second that a conventional PC can, again because of the processor difference.
As for myself, I like windows PCs because alot more programs are supported and I don’t have to worry to myself "Now which program was Carbonized again?" I’ve never really like Mac type computers because of the limitations it has when it comes to the variety of things that can be done on it. Aside from playing cute little games it pretty much useless in my eyes when it comes serious work based computing.
Also you can't case mod Macs the same way you can PCs. It seems i got a little off the subject , but oh well.

I havent embrassed macs for 3 reasons:
1.I cant build my PC (I love my mut)
2.Software incompatibilities (more like lack of mac compatable software)
3.I'm attatched to windows (I'm sorry, I want to kill me too)

Oh, man... I'm getting another headache.

raptorfalcon: I think that most of what you speak of only really applies to Macs before OS X came out. I certainly agree that they sucked back then. The reason that I bought an ibook is that I needed a very small laptop and it was one of the cheapest out there. I also liked the new OS because I'm able to use a lot of my Linux knowledge when hacking about in its Unix internals. After using the computer for a few weeks I also came to appreciate the refined "feel" that I got when using it. All the components of the system (hardware and software) work well together because they were designed together as a whole. All the components are higher quality that I was expecting; Eg. the cord on the power adapter has a supple feel that really contrasts to the rigid feel of most "black" power cords. I'm currently developing this website using only the ibook (I installed Apache web server, Perl, and MySQL database).

As for "creative" types being traditionally Mac people: I think it stems from a few factors. One, Apple once push their products very hard in schools, so acedemic types were more likely to use them. Two, the machines and OS just look a whole lot nicer out of the box than most Windows PCs. If you don't think this is important then just consider how many people choose a car based almost solely on its apperance.

I think also Mac based software solutions tend to gel better together especially in Panther more so than windows. When I say this, I would point to how Adobe's CS suite functions. Also it wasn’t until recently (in development terms) that Intel platforms were able to approach Macs in comparable performance in image handling. Inevitably - by this point you almost become a slave to the system you are used to and rarely crossover to the dark side. As I said - I try and integrate both systems together to extract the best from both worlds. I don’t see where the "software compatibility" bunkum still comes into play. Both platforms are just so similar now in specs and software versions they are edging towards the almost inevitable CHRP standard. Microsoft certainly doesn’t see any such problem and often release there own products on Mac before windows - most notably Office - currently running on v.2004 on Macs.

Well, that has answered some of my questions. I don't think I'll buy a Mac just at the moment, though.

I may (possibly) be building a new PC in the not too distant future. Can I just open the can of worms that is the Linux vs. Windows debate?

Anybody got any opinions? *runs and hides in bomb-proof shelter*

If I put Linux on a new PC would I still be able to run the software I run on Windows (I was presuming 'yes')? Also, could I still create a network with my Current (windows) PC and my new Linux one? I'm just thinking hypothetically here. Sorry if my questions are a bit stupid, I don't know much at all about the subject. Doubtlessly I could look it up on the web, but I would value Caedes users' knowledge.

I keep meaning to dip my toe in this linux thing.

I got SUSE-9.1-personal-x86.iso & just ain't sure if I wanna slam it on my system & play with it.

CH to my knowledge you can run a PC with both a windoze OS & a linux one partitioned on the same drive, though my knowledge on the hows & wherefors of this could be written on a matchhead. However it would seem there are enough resident geeks in here (A compliment BTW not an insult) so I am sure answers & assesments will be forthcoming.

/grabs a 6 foot riot shield & baton in case any one gets rowdy

If you're just interested in trying Linux out without a major committment then I'd suggest looking .into what's called a "Live CD." It is a complete Linux installation that you can run directly off the bootable CD, you don't even need a hard drive. I've tested Mandrake's "Mandrak Move" live cd and found it to work pretty well. Here's the page about it. Note that they sell copies of the CD, but you can also download it for free.

Thanks for that. I will look into it. Partitioning the harddrive would be good - I'll have to look on the web.

I have two PCs running XP and 4 macs running OS X. Just the time spent on maintenance, updates, security issues, on the two PCs takes up 5x as much time then I spend on keeping all 4 Macs purring along. With the Macs I don't have to worry about shelling out $50 per unit for virus protection every year. Adware is not an issue with the Mac OS. I stay away from I.E. or Outlook because they can be easily exploited to wreak havoc on any machine. With Macs, the whole layout of the desktop environment is better thought-out and easier to navigate then any version of Windows. I like having all mounted drives appear on my desktop. Macs tend to last, one of the Macs I use is over 8 years old and still running strong. I have a Mac that I don't use, but it still runs fine, a Mac 128

Mac OS I have heard good things about, but its not the operating system keeping me from switching. There are a great deal of operating systems for PCs other than windows, I wouldnt trade out my hardware because I dont like windows. I'm considering building a new machine running dual opterons

You'll be running Linux on it then I assume?

no microsoft has released a quick IA64 hack for windows 2003 server edition. So I'll be sticking with old unfaithful read here

Well I knew that windows "could" run on opteron. I don't think that the whole OS has been recompiled as 64bit binaries though (I could be wrong, I can't stomache to read much of that link that you gave :-) ).

haha, its ok, I'll probably go with linux, or at least both partitioned. I've been trying to use linux more than windows considering the other students and staff, and even the labs here at school are all geared towards unix.

btw caedes: for a physicist I'm impressed with you knowledge of computer science... an on going hobby? or a lot of reading sparked from website programming?

It's mainly a hobby although my work in high energy has given me the oportunity to delv into IT stuff more than physicists normally do. I administer all the computers for our group including our 80-cpu computer cluster.

oh nice *obscene male grunt*
I have not yet gotten to work with a large cluster, sounds fun/expensive. Any computer science knowledge I have is from extensive reading and playing in high school, and the very beginners computer science courses that are required for electrical engineering majors (begginners JAVA,FORTRAN very dissapointing).

Oh, man... I'm getting ANOTHER headache

..wow.. and i thought i had almost created a flamewar..
thanks to our fearless leader, i think any crisis has been averted

Well... you gave it a good shot. ;-)

..i wasn't TRYING to make a flamewar..
(although.. at first it could appear that way)