Posted by Henry Butz on November 15, 2006 at 12:41:50:
In Reply to: The Switch To Apple Continues posted by Henry Butz on November 06, 2006 at 12:58:43:
I've got literally hundreds of software applications and dozens of peripherals for the PC. I figured switching to Apple would be a long, painful experience. Not so. So far, it's been a wonderful experience. Here's an example.
About ten years ago, I purchased this awesome joystick. It's got a jet fighter yoke with a "tophat" joystick on the yoke, buttons for every finger, and multiple fire buttons. Since you can't see the layers of dust on it, let me say that it has a 15-pin joystick connector typically found on sound cards with a USB adapter on top of that. I've tried with a few different Windows games, but never could get all the buttons to work. Some games would work with patches. Other games (notably Microsoft Flight Simulator) would recognize a few of the controls, but not all of them. I got so disgusted that just unplugged the joystick and threw it in a pile of other "junk."
Yesterday, I downloaded this awesome flight simulator game, X-Plane for Mac. Actually, I just downloaded the "demo" which a mere 1gig. The full game is 60gig. Being a "perpetual" student pilot, I've always had an affection for flight simulators. The PC simulators (notably Microsoft Flight Simulator) just weren't realistic. I'm still playing with the demo making sure it can handle the computer and the joystick controls before plunking down the coinage for the full program. Although I've got a quite zippy 1.8ghz processor, the program scaled back a few features, like "live weather" and scorned me to buy a faster computer! Gotta love game writers. Guys, they don't make a 3ghz Mac Mini!
But, I digress. I plugged in my 10yo "ancient" joystick and checked the Mac's USB devices. It was correctly listed. Hmmm. I entered the game and calibrated the joystick and assigned some buttons. No problem. It just worked. I almost fell out of my chair. Under Windows, this would have been a 3-day task ending with me purchasing a new joystick, probably with the name "Microsoft" engraved somewhere on it. Nope. No problems.
The only problem I have with X-Plane now is that they've stuck me in this huge large body commercial jet airliner and I can't find the damn throttle! This thing has about a hundred buttons, switches, knobs, and dials. I'm going to try defining a Cessna 172 with a stick, throttle, and rudder and see what that does. The demo only allows me 8 minutes at a time, so it's a bit annoying until I cough up about $70 for the sucker. But, if works, it will be worth it.
I'm still getting over some Windows withdrawals. Already, I'm hunting for the "close" button on the left (Apple convention) vs. the right. The USB connectors are all upside down compared to the PC. And, iFinder (the Apple version of Windows Explorer) doesn't like to display hidden files. Hidden files are fine if you only want to run OS X, but I've got Unix shell stuff to do. Like, opening and editing the Apache server configuration file is a chore. I'm still downloading third-party software like Text Wrangler, which has an "Open Hidden File" feature.
Microsoft yanked much of its support for Mac, like Internet Explorer, Media Player, and Office. On my favorite news site, I read how Microsoft acquired Mozilla Firefox, was disabling all third-party software, as well as charging for plug-in's. I was horrified. As I surfed around for more on the story, I realized it was all a hoax. (whew!) It was just believable enough to be true. AOL acquired Netscape, so why not Microsoft buying out Firefox? Microsoft has always been at odds with developers who don't use "signed" drivers and software - something which comes at great expense. And, Microsoft's joke of a firewall and anti-virus features have gone head to head with third-party developers. The company is just evil, they make crappy products, and use their money to have lawyers shove it all down our throat (or other orifice).
With every version of Microsoft Office, they bloat the software with unnecessary features, bump up the revision, and make it incompatible with everyone else in the world. This forces everyone else to upgrade and, of course, pay more money for the upgrades. They've also gotten nasty and have begun monitoring usage through anti-piracy activation. "Activation" is like buying a car, but having to ask your parents for the keys to drive it. Yea, right. And, just like cars can be hot-wired, so too can "Activation" be bypassed. Me? I've switched to Open Office which reads and writes Microsoft Word documents. Mind you, Microsoft throws in bugs and quirks to keep Open Office "off balance" most of the time, but a team of developers is attempting to keep on top of it.
I digress. The browser wars have begun again! With Apple's Safari and Mozilla's Firefox, Microsoft has seen their market share drop a few points. On hbutz.com, Internet Explorer accounts for only 76% of the browsers used! It used to be closer to 95%. Wow. A 20% drop in MIE this year. Sweet. If this keeps up, they'll have less than half the browser market.
Oh yea - but, we forgot who we're talking about here. Microsoft unleashed MIE7, which doesn't work correctly on about 1/3 of the major websites, disregards network policies for IT managers, and was tagged as a "Critical Update." It's now being shipped with all new PC's. People who are unfortunate enough to have "Automatic Updates" enabled will suddenly have their favorite browser ripped away from them and replaced with MIE7 - to the tune of about a million people per day for three months. Been doing on-line banking? Shopping on-line? Enjoying music or streaming video through your browser? Well... you could wake up one day and find that your life style has changed. And, of course, once MIE7 is installed, there is no way to get rid of it. It's permanent.
It's crap like this that makes the Apple computer so wonderful. I've regained control of my computer, my life, and my business. I use the browser of my choice. I install the software, upgrades, and patches of my choosing. And, if Apple exhibits any "corporate asshole" behavior, rest assured that some hacker will find a way to "fix" it. For example, when Apple declared that iChat will only work with their firewire iSight camera, a hacker came along and fixed it work with any USB webcam (for half the price).
There was no better feeling than when I plugged in my joystick into my new Mac and it "just worked." No "Searching for new hardware." No "Unsigned Driver" warnings. No patches and upgrades. It just worked. Wow.