OFF TOPIC funny

On 3/3/09 6:00 PM, "Judy Bay" wrote:

Thanks, Ellice. It's nice to hear that, in this Microsoft world, that I
wasn't alone.


Oh, not at all. As a dedicaated Mac person, I lived through many
anti-Microsoft domination things. But, to be truthful, exDH was actually a
Beta tester for Microsoft for a couple of programs to be used on the Mac...

I have some great "Bill Gates is the Devil" humor somewhere in stash. It's
interesting how the market just sometimes forces superior products to end up
subsumed into better marketed ones ....

Ellice
"ellice" wrote in message
...
On 3/2/09 9:14 PM, "Judy Bay" wrote:

I feel like a dinosaur(!) I used Pagemaker from V3 to 6.something, for
page
layout and all the word processing ever needed. It wouldn't alphabetize,
though. Retired just before Indesign.

Ah, I used Pagemaker in the early stages, then went to Quark Express.
Don't
feel like a Dinosaur. Pagemaker linked with Persuasion, both of which
become overtaken/bought IIRC.

Ellice
"Susan Hartman" wrote in message
...
ellice wrote:



I think Quark is pretty much the publishing industry standard, though
some
people use InDesign. It's so much fun playing with layouts - but it's
easy
to kind of obsess.


It used to be Quark, but not any more....people have *flocked* to
InDesign. It's much cheaper, interfaces better with other programs, and
once you're over an initial hurdle, is easy to use. The most frustrating
thing about the changeover was that it calls things by different names
than Quark, and it was hard to look up something you didn't know the
name
for in help! But that didn't last long.

InDesign is SO much better in text flow. I used to spend hours fiddling
with Quark files to get the text "just so" (good Virgo that I am,
LOL!) --
lining up columns, getting past bad line breaks, etc. etc. - that
InDesign
does much better from the get-go.

Sue


--
Susan Hartman/Dirty Linen
The Magazine of Folk and World Music
www.dirtylinen.com

On 3/3/09 7:28 PM, "lucretia borgia" wrote:

On Tue, 03 Mar 2009 23:49:20 GMT, ellice opined:

On 3/3/09 6:00 PM, "Judy Bay" wrote:

Thanks, Ellice. It's nice to hear that, in this Microsoft world, that I
wasn't alone.


Oh, not at all. As a dedicaated Mac person, I lived through many
anti-Microsoft domination things. But, to be truthful, exDH was actually a
Beta tester for Microsoft for a couple of programs to be used on the Mac...

I have some great "Bill Gates is the Devil" humor somewhere in stash. It's
interesting how the market just sometimes forces superior products to end up
subsumed into better marketed ones ....

Ellice

They might do better, sell more, if they lowered the price. Everytime
I have considered it, I can't convince myself to spend that much more
for something that can run less software.

Well, the prices have dropped somewhat. What I've found, and likely what
most Mac users will tell you, they replace their machines far less often
than those buying less pricey PCs. And the machines come loaded with more
software than is typical for others, though the PC world has started
providing more. And the software issue has been moot for 3 years - since
the switch to Intel chips which will run Windows natively, and faster than a
PC (according to consumer reports). Therefore, any software that runs on a
Windows based platform can run on a Mac, as well as the Mac software. The
software issue honestly for many years has only been germaine to some gaming
software, and specialty business software - not any major, commonly used
software. For at least 19, 20 years I've been able to do work at home on
the Mac, that could be used at work on a PC.

Mac graphics are better, but that's about it. People like to talk
about virii etc. - well with a modicum of care there is no need to
suffer anything like that.

No, the Operating system is more reliable and robust. That's really the big
thing. If all you do is read e-mail, and do some word-processing, use
excel, no big deal. But, the OS is more robust, is more intuitive for the
use - much more plug and play. The system is more straightforward to use,
and "do things with" in particular for those that are not computer savvy, or
are intimidated in anyway. The other area that they've been in popular use
for 20 + years -science apps - the reason they do graphics well is the same
ability to process math functions well, quickly. Hence, they're commonly
used in science apps and front-ending for super-computers.

The virus thing is true, of course most people should still run an
anti-virus software as a precaution, but the firewall capacity inherent to
the Macs, and the fact that there hasn't been a large virus problem is worth
noting. I'm happy that my machine is set to look for software updates
weekly, and does that, and I've never had a virus problem.

Three, four years ago there was a window of opportunity if the price
had been in line with other computers, but they missed it.

That's the way I view it anyway.

You are certainly entitled to your view. I think that you've missed it if
you think that Apple has missed the boat, except WRT yourself. That's why
their sales have grown forcing Microssoft into spending so much to counter
the Mac ad campaign with as close to a copy-cat as they could. I'd rather
spend a couple of hundred dollars more and have a machine that lasts and
works as it's supposed to than struggle with full of bugs OS, and machines
that force me to waste my time dealing with that, a puzzle to find controls.
Sure, they are more expensive, but it also requires some looking at the
details to be comparing apples to apples, not to lemons. Students, teachers
buy thru the education store, which is discounted significantly - and that
does help. They also have discounts for govt employees.

It is funny, there is truth in the humor about trying to get a Mac person to
switch - it just doesn't happen. Once people switch to a Mac, they almost
never switch back to a PC. I've known people to have policies changed at
work rather than be permanently switched. Or certainly tell the powers that
be "I don't care about IT support - I'll handle it myself" in order to be
able to switch. Me, I had a big Silicon Graphics workstation, for science,
along with my Mac. The joke at my office was that I had some PC for a
paperweight to do one specific thing that the software was specific to
Windows. DH has a Dell lap-top, that we regularly refer to as the Dell
POS, which replaced his 2 year old lap-top, and will have to be replaced
itself. It's slow, constantly having issues with both of them about the
drives working properly. But, it was cheap - oh, his is work issue, we'd
spend the extra $100 and buy a Macbook. Or a few hundred more and buy a
MacBook Pro which is so much faster and capable. Ah, well.

ellice

On 3/4/09 7:55 AM, "lucretia borgia" wrote:

On Wed, 04 Mar 2009 12:24:19 GMT, ellice opined:



No, the Operating system is more reliable and robust. That's really the big
thing. If all you do is read e-mail, and do some word-processing, use
excel, no big deal. But, the OS is more robust, is more intuitive for the
use - much more plug and play. The system is more straightforward to use,
and "do things with" in particular for those that are not computer savvy, or
are intimidated in anyway. The other area that they've been in popular use
for 20 + years -science apps - the reason they do graphics well is the same
ability to process math functions well, quickly. Hence, they're commonly
used in science apps and front-ending for super-computers.

Having looked at the guts of a Mac, same old...

The virus thing is true, of course most people should still run an
anti-virus software as a precaution, but the firewall capacity inherent to
the Macs, and the fact that there hasn't been a large virus problem is worth
noting. I'm happy that my machine is set to look for software updates
weekly, and does that, and I've never had a virus problem.

PCs update too you know

Yup.

Three, four years ago there was a window of opportunity if the price
had been in line with other computers, but they missed it.

That's the way I view it anyway.

You are certainly entitled to your view. I think that you've missed it if
you think that Apple has missed the boat, except WRT yourself. That's why
their sales have grown forcing Microssoft into spending so much to counter
the Mac ad campaign with as close to a copy-cat as they could. I'd rather
spend a couple of hundred dollars more and have a machine that lasts and
works as it's supposed to than struggle with full of bugs OS, and machines
that force me to waste my time dealing with that, a puzzle to find controls.
Sure, they are more expensive, but it also requires some looking at the
details to be comparing apples to apples, not to lemons. Students, teachers
buy thru the education store, which is discounted significantly - and that
does help. They also have discounts for govt employees.

I would love to know where you come by a Mac for a 'couple of hundred
more' - not happening here anyway.

May well be the difference of pricing in Canada versus here.

It is funny, there is truth in the humor about trying to get a Mac person to
switch - it just doesn't happen. Once people switch to a Mac, they almost
never switch back to a PC. I've known people to have policies changed at
work rather than be permanently switched. Or certainly tell the powers that
be "I don't care about IT support - I'll handle it myself" in order to be
able to switch. Me, I had a big Silicon Graphics workstation, for science,
along with my Mac. The joke at my office was that I had some PC for a
paperweight to do one specific thing that the software was specific to
Windows. DH has a Dell lap-top, that we regularly refer to as the Dell
POS, which replaced his 2 year old lap-top, and will have to be replaced
itself. It's slow, constantly having issues with both of them about the
drives working properly. But, it was cheap - oh, his is work issue, we'd
spend the extra $100 and buy a Macbook. Or a few hundred more and buy a
MacBook Pro which is so much faster and capable. Ah, well.

ellice

That's a comparison of apples to oranges, (no pun intended) the lower
range Dells are just that, lower range, priced for people who perhaps
just want to do email etc (perhaps some of Karens old people who are
coming online) and are not what people who do more buy. I have a Dell
laptop an XPS and although I don't do gaming, that sucker is very
speedy and does everything accurately, including photo editing etc. I
have to ask if you have ever had the use of a good PC ? Even this
machine, a desktop which is in the region of 8/9 years old, when XP
first came out anyway, is still running like a bird, very fast, huge
HD and lots of memory plus I opted to add a second HD and still it
came out at half the price of the Mac, I feel well served and
certainly do not feel deprived.

Absolutely I've had the use of a "good" pc. And have found that by the time
you pay to bring most of the PCs up to the actual processing speed, the
price difference isn't much. The wasy processor speeds are published/
measured by PCs is different than the standard used for Maxs, which is why
it's good to read Consumer Reports. They actually normalize so that the
same task speed is actually measured. The guts aren't actually quite the
same. And I'd rather have the Mac OS. In the old days, people with PCs,
especially older guys at work would carry on about PCs being real computers,
and Macs being for idiots - which was kind of funny. My take then was I
don't need to type a couple of backslashes in DOS to feel like I'm really
doing computing. With my Mac, I can run Unix, or stay in the OS window.
Having worked with really high end workstations, like the Silicon Graphics
and Sun machines, as well as PCs. FWIW, DH's Dell is actually pretty top of
the line, his prior one was the top of the line. They still aren't the
same. But, there are different markets. What's interesting is that Windows
was written to emulate the Mac OS, which it does, but more bulkily.
Similarly, a lot of the software which has been available for PCs - like
Photo editing, graphics, even the Powerpoint version which took over
Persuasion - came from the Max world and were finally able to be modified to
work with Windows.

IIRC, about 1989 - I actually designed and installed at work the first
integrated Max & PC LAN. It was awesome - we had standard PCs (from IBM),
some really high-end ones, Macs with displays that could rotate 90 degrees
for the secretarial staff, and 2 big Mac workstations with 23" monitors, and
a couple of standard Macs, plus a lovely little guy that was our group
server. Everyone got what they wanted, and the PCs were mostly with the
older guys who just did e-mail, wrote a little, and ran some excel - the
boss got a Mac, and the secretaries could do the correspondence,
presentations, clear up the papers, etc on the Macs which were much more
intuitive for them.

It sounds like you've been lucky with your PC. I don't know anyone else
still running a PC older than a few years (4 or so) happily. Or claiming
it's really fast. But that also has to do with our lack of patience, and
expectations of speed.

I think Mac's have indulged in a bit of cultism and that part has
worked !

I don't think I would call it cultism. More like happy users who don't
switch. Clearly the advertising campaigns have played to the quirky, you
don't have to be part of the mainstream blind masses. OTOH, the advertising
campaigns now for HP and Windows have clearly tried to emulate that. There
are people who similarly won't switch their car type, or their hockey
skates, and follow those. Heck, we probably know people completely
dedicated to some particular brand of floss - is that a DMC or Anchor cult?
Heck, people are even dedicated to what type of golf club they use, what
kind of tennis racket, what breed of horse/dog they prefer, what type of
saddle/boots, etc.

Honestly, I think people should have the things that suit their needs in all
aspects - financial and performance. I just get tired of hearing the old
saw about "software not being available" as that is a load of crap. For my
part, in 24+ years of Macs the only problem I've ever, ever had was because
some Microsoft guy in tech support (in Toronto - not Asian) told me to do
something that was completely wrong, and caused a partial fatal error -
locking up one part of my older Mac. Which was then 7 years old and working
just fine - but this forced it to only be able to run the older system (more
like a PC) and the cost to replace the board wasn't worthwhile.

I understand that PCs are cheaper. OTOH, for some folks I know that really
do struggle with computer stuff, even finding set-up daunting - if they can
afford the extra $$, which here really is evidently not as great as where
you are - then I'd seriously recommend an iMac. It's so easy to set-up,
comes with software to do most of what you want (calendars, e-mail,
photo-editing, word processing, net browsing, web-cam & mic), good supports,
and if you have an old machine/hard drive, the Mac stores will transfer your
data onto the new machine at no cost. Anyhow, it's quite straightforward
for those that are feeling uneasy or confused. You're a smart, capable
person so that is clearly not your situation. But how many people do we
know that aren't WRT computer stuff?

Ellice