RE: Good comparison article
Rod, You don't really think Mac World are going to publish anything that is not in Apples favour do you.??? It is bound to be biased in Apple/Macs favour, as that's the market segment where they derive their advertising income. Ted Burbidge -Original Message- From: WAMUG Mailing List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Rod Sent: Wednesday, 19 January 2005 12:14 PM To: WAMUG Mailing List Subject: Good comparison article http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/2005/01/miniapplesandoranges/index. php A good, balanced read. Send this to your Mac-bashing 'friends' :-) Seeya Rod! -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml Guidelines - http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml Unsubscribe - mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] WAMUG is powered by Stalker CommuniGatePro
Re: Good comparison article
On Wed, 2005-01-19 at 12:29 +0800, Ted Burbidge wrote: Rod, You don't really think Mac World are going to publish anything that is not in Apples favour do you.??? It is bound to be biased in Apple/Macs favour, as that's the market segment where they derive their advertising income. While true, I think that the arguments made there are actually /valid/ and /reasonable/. I'm not used to that from pro-Mac articles :-P I must confess the new mac actually has me a little tempted. As someone who is not a mac fan (though a mac would be my second choice behind Linux), I'm rather impressed. The only issue that it'd be a bit gutless for software development, even with upgraded RAM, and that's the main thing I'd want a mac for. Oh well, it's made to be small and cheap, not powerful. I wonder how well it'd run InDesign ... I do think the article's points on price comparisons are quite sensible, with the possible exception of the discussion of FireWire (costs almost nothing, and relatively few people not using Macs actually use it). It's also a bit silly to label a mac 'AirPort Ready' and the Dell with 'No wireless' when the Dell has perfectly good PCI slots - making it about as 'Airport Ready' as the Mac. Oh well, that's just a nitpick. -- Craig Ringer
Re: Good comparison article
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Wed, Jan 19, 2005 at 12:53:46PM +0800, Craig Ringer wrote: It's also a bit silly to label a mac 'AirPort Ready' and the Dell with 'No wireless' when the Dell has perfectly good PCI slots - making it about as 'Airport Ready' as the Mac. Oh well, that's just a nitpick. Maybe there's a built-in aerial or something.
Re: Good comparison article
Rod wrote: http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/2005/01/miniapplesandoranges/index. php A good, balanced read. Send this to your Mac-bashing 'friends' :-) Seeya Rod! quote from above url When you attempt to configure even the cheapest Dell comparably, it’s no longer cheaper than the Mac mini /quote Um, it isnt possible either, I've tried ;) Cheers Paul
Re: Good comparison article
Paul Kitchener wrote: Rod wrote: http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/2005/01/miniapplesandoranges/index. php A good, balanced read. Send this to your Mac-bashing 'friends' :-) Seeya Rod! quote from above url When you attempt to configure even the cheapest Dell comparably, it’s no longer cheaper than the Mac mini /quote Um, it isnt possible either, I've tried ;) OK I have bitten my tounge long enough ;) ok a few pertinant points: #1 MOST brand name PC's do not sell for list price which is what is used in this comparison, they ALWAYS have discounts and vouchers flying around. #2 I can build a white box pc and it will be FAR cheaper than a Mac and just as reliable as a Mac, the downfall of PC's is the OS and that is a M$ problem, run a *nix (Debian, RedHat, FreeBSD etc) and the box will run for years on end with no problems (my servers which run my firewall, email, web, ftp, net sharing, file and print sharing etc all have uptimes of over 60 days and that is only due to western power haveing a power cut that lasted longer than the UPS had battery life (over 4 hours as they were re stringing the lines in the street) #3 I can upgrade a PC easier than I can a Mac, I can buy new and secondhand cpu's etc usually local, BUT for mac it either has to come in from over east or O/S #4 Each Machine has its purpose, I have NEVER seen a Mac used as a process controller (usually due to no real i/o bus) but I have seen many PC's used in plastic injection and cam systems. #5 Lack of Ports, the Mac has never had (correct me if I am wrong but I believe this to be the case) parallel ports, I know new laptops are loosing these and that is a problem as the USB to Parallel adaptors only work for Printers and not other equipment (eg programming interfaces eg Jtag I/F, Scanners etc) Now I am not slamming the Mac, far from it, but I think each has its place, if I wanted to do DTP, I would not use anything other than a mac as it has ALL the software I need, and it works well, but for serious engineering work, the mac is lacking, I can not find any Xilinx tools for FPGA work, Eagle is still in beta for EDA work and they still want au$1200. Regards, Kat. -- --- K.A.Q. Electronics Website: www.kaqelectronics.dyndns.org IM: Yahoo: PinkyDwaggy MSN: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For Everything Electronics Phone: 0419 923 731 --- -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.7.0 - Release Date: 17/01/2005
Re: Good comparison article
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Wed, Jan 19, 2005 at 04:21:53PM +0800, Kathy Quinlan wrote: #5 Lack of Ports, the Mac has never had (correct me if I am wrong but I believe this to be the case) parallel ports, I'd always assumed that SCSI and PCMCIA in Macs were parallel interfaces. The problem is that Macs haven't had a built-in IBM printer port. I'm imagining that, historically, the market found the easy option was to be compatible with the IBM printer adaptor, and hijack it as a general-purpose communications interface with indefinite popular longevity. I assume it's also a fairly simple and hackable interface (unlike USB or FireWire), so it's cheap to get prototypes off the ground.
Re: Good comparison article
James Devenish wrote: In message [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Wed, Jan 19, 2005 at 04:21:53PM +0800, Kathy Quinlan wrote: #5 Lack of Ports, the Mac has never had (correct me if I am wrong but I believe this to be the case) parallel ports, I'd always assumed that SCSI and PCMCIA in Macs were parallel interfaces. The problem is that Macs haven't had a built-in IBM printer port. I'm imagining that, historically, the market found the easy option was to be compatible with the IBM printer adaptor, and hijack it as a general-purpose communications interface with indefinite popular longevity. I assume it's also a fairly simple and hackable interface (unlike USB or FireWire), so it's cheap to get prototypes off the ground. Bingo :) Regards, Kat. -- --- K.A.Q. Electronics Website: www.kaqelectronics.dyndns.org IM: Yahoo: PinkyDwaggy MSN: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For Everything Electronics Phone: 0419 923 731 --- -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.7.0 - Release Date: 17/01/2005
Re: Good comparison article
On 19/1/05 7:21 PM, Kathy Quinlan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Now I am not slamming the Mac, far from it, but I think each has its place, if I wanted to do DTP, I would not use anything other than a mac as it has ALL the software I need, and it works well, but for serious engineering work, the mac is lacking, I can not find any Xilinx tools for FPGA work, Eagle is still in beta for EDA work and they still want au$1200. I couldn't agree more with what you said. I had someone ask me recently to find an OS X solution for controlling a Step Down Motor for an engineer and couldn't find anything under thousands of dollars yet there were plenty of cheap PC based solutions. Another point you didn't mention was the lousy game support for Mac's. I know there's a few good ones but not many. Most Mac games stink. Probably due to most Macs having under powered graphic cards. As soon as I get more time I'm going to build a Linux box as you described (it's one of the few platforms I haven't used yet). I started on computers around 20 years ago on a DEC VAX Mainframe using punch cards and tape backups. Over the years I've run Amiga's/Commodores, Windows PC's, etc till I got my first Mac in 1994. Now I run around 16 Mac's and will probably add a few more this year. The funny thing is most of these old computers still hold a place in my heart for the fact they could do some things my Mac's couldn't. To me computers are like any other tool. Sometimes to get a job done properly you just have to swap the tools your using to get things done the way you want it to. -- All the best Greg Sharp President/Webmaster [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australian Mac Users Group (AUSMUG) http://australian.macusersgroup.org
Re: Good comparison article
On Wed, 2005-01-19 at 12:59 +0800, James Devenish wrote: In message [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Wed, Jan 19, 2005 at 12:53:46PM +0800, Craig Ringer wrote: It's also a bit silly to label a mac 'AirPort Ready' and the Dell with 'No wireless' when the Dell has perfectly good PCI slots - making it about as 'Airport Ready' as the Mac. Oh well, that's just a nitpick. Maybe there's a built-in aerial or something. I expect so. I just don't see how it makes any difference whether one is installing a mini-PCI card to connect to a built-in antenna, or a PCI card with its own. I would view systems expandable both ways as equally wireless ready. Yes, I'm splitting hairs, and not hairs very amenable to splitting at that. Let's just write it off as an attempt to counterbalance the surprise at actually agreeing with the article ;-) -- Craig Ringer
