[libraryguy]

Okay, so this is a video from our daily news paper. They're not owned by the university at all. They asked random students which they prefer...take a look. One guy is ill informed about the Mac...but he still likes it better.

http://www.dailyillini.com/feb03/feb.../photopoll.mov

[sworthy]

Well, I guess we have our results... PC's are easier to use!

[Rickster]

Well, PCs are certainly easier to find at the UIUC campus. And what's with the WILL guy and umlauts? Sheesh.

[FauxCaster]

You type an umlaut by typing option-u, then u (or opiton-u, then a). (�,�,�) Watch the video and you'll know what I'm talking about.

But I wonder if the mac character for umlauts is converted to a different character on a PC.

Anyone reading this on a PC? What are these: �,�,�

[Sarc]

really enjoyed the part where the black fellow starts talking about mac OS' (9 presumably) superior memory managment capabilities

[tkmd]

Its great because it truely shows how informed [sic] the general public is about the basic OS differences between the two platforms. Which, from the video, continues to exemplify that the public is indeed not very informed, however, I do suspect that the lab was probably running win9x and OS8 or9 because of the refences to "crashing".

This is why I believe those switch add's are working - because they appeal to the average "non-technophile" consumer.

[Developer]

Originally posted by Rickster:
And what's with the WILL guy and umlauts? Sheesh.

Yes, you type umlauts with an US keyboard using Option-U followed by the vowel. How is that easier on the PC?
If he's typing German he can switch to German keyboard layout and type each umlaut character with one key press.


They should make a switch ad out of it:

I switched to a Mac because Office for Macintosh is the the best Office on any platform, and the Mac makes typing umlauts so easy.



I'm the secretary of Donald Rumsfeld, and I had to type "Schr�der sucks!" quite often recently.

[andretan]

Originally posted by FauxCaster:
You type an umlaut by typing option-u, then u (or opiton-u, then a). (�,�,�) Watch the video and you'll know what I'm talking about.

But I wonder if the mac character for umlauts is converted to a different character on a PC.

Anyone reading this on a PC? What are these: �,�,�

Speaking of that, how do I resolve that problem?

My main machine is my iBook, and whenever I exchange document files with these symbols, the PC can't display them properly!

So whose fault is it? The PC or my Mac??

[Developer]

Originally posted by andretan:
Speaking of that, how do I resolve that problem?

My main machine is my iBook, and whenever I exchange document files with these symbols, the PC can't display them properly!

So whose fault is it? The PC or my Mac??

Which documents?
If it's a Word document, it's Word's fault (though it shouldn't happen).
If it's a PDF it'll work.
If it's an e-mail, it's the reading e-mail client's fault (Mail tells the encoding that is used for the mail).
If it's a "simple" text document, you need to specify the encoding. In TextEdit you can specify that in the Save dialog. Unicode will always work, but not every text editor can handle Unicode. For Windows you can specify Windows Latin 1 as text encoding. You can also change the encoding TextEdit uses to open a file in the TextEdit preferences, if it doesn't detect the endocing automatically correcty.

[andretan]

Originally posted by Developer:
Which documents?
If it's a Word document, it's Word's fault (though it shouldn't happen).
If it's a PDF it'll work.
If it's an e-mail, it's the reading e-mail client's fault (Mail tells the encoding that is used for the mail).
If it's a "simple" text document, you need to specify the encoding. In TextEdit you can specify that in the Save dialog. Unicode will always work, but not every text editor can handle Unicode. For Windows you can specify Windows Latin 1 as text encoding. You can also change the encoding TextEdit uses to open a file in the TextEdit preferences, if it doesn't detect the endocing automatically correcty.

When I saved a TextEdit document with some Sq Root symbols ? they were able to be viewed on Windows XP (my friend's PC).

However, when I use ICQ (Proteus) and IRC (iRC), that isn't the case.

[Developer]

Originally posted by andretan:
However, when I use ICQ (Proteus) and IRC (iRC), that isn't the case.

In Fire there's a menu to change the text encoding. Find that in your chat client and change it to Windows Latin 1.
Note that not all characters might have an equivalent in Windows Latin 1 (and vice versa, not all Windows Latin 1 characters can be mapped to MacRoman). That might be the reason you don't see the √ character.

Unicode is there to solve this mess.

[andretan]

Originally posted by Developer:
In Fire there's a menu to change the text encoding. Find that in your chat client and change it to Windows Latin 1.
Note that not all characters might have an equivalent in Windows Latin 1 (and vice versa, not all Windows Latin 1 characters can be mapped to MacRoman). That might be the reason you don't see the ? character.

Unicode is there to solve this mess.

Ok, thanks!

[UNTeMac]

Is it just me, or did almost all of the interviewees seem to be...well...a bit dumb? I don't just mean the dude who launched into a misinformed speech about memory but nearly all of them just seemed....slow. These are UI college students?

[lawgeek]

Originally posted by UNTiMac:
Is it just me, or did almost all of the interviewees seem to be...well...a bit dumb? I don't just mean the dude who launched into a misinformed speech about memory but nearly all of them just seemed....slow. These are UI college students?

Is it such a surprise that most college students don't know jack about computers?

[fulmer]

Originally posted by lawgeek:
Is it such a surprise that most college students don't know jack about computers?

no surpise to anyone who has done tech support on college/uni campuses (myself included).

[UNTeMac]

Originally posted by lawgeek:
Is it such a surprise that most college students don't know jack about computers?

Well no...I know most people don't really spend the time to learn about their computers. I was referring to the general intelligence of the students. They just seemed, well...slow.

[Ghoser777]

Actually, I think there's quite a few macs on campus, thanks to the ICS division of CITES. They have a pretty even split between macs and pcs in the public labs. There a couple issues at U of I. One is that most students coming in are biased towards PCs already. In addition, most of the students who help running the labs are misinformed on macs and so pass that info (or lack thereof) onto students. In addition, they are still running OS 9. They're about ready to move, but I'm the only well accustomed OS X guru in ICS, and I'm student teaching 200 miles away this semester. Until they move to X, it will be difficult to argue for Macs as they seem to crash more reliably in Word than our pcs running 2000.

Matt Fahrenbacher

[Michaelm8000]

Clearly Macs can not minimize windows or use two button mice.

[MrBS]

Originally posted by Michaelm8000:
Clearly Macs can not minimize windows or use two button mice.

I just feel sorry for anyone who routinely uses window's task bar to minimize windows, and I hope for their sake they don't ever have more than 4 windows (total) minimized/open. Almost makes me think they deserve it.

~BS

[techweenie1]

Originally posted by Sarc:
really enjoyed the part where the black fellow starts talking about mac OS' (9 presumably) superior memory managment capabilities

Yeah that was a laugh.

[lawgeek]

Originally posted by UNTiMac:
Well no...I know most people don't really spend the time to learn about their computers. I was referring to the general intelligence of the students. They just seemed, well...slow.

Not surprising if they didn't talk to any of the engineering students...

[Superchicken]

I had a friend recently tell me that he was gona get a laptop for college, and that he was looking to get a compaq... he said and I quote "I hear it's a good multimedia computer" I felt like saying the only PC you can come close to saying that about aside from if you load in extra software is a sony... and even then.

It's like... yes you can run multimedia stuff... just like on any freakin computer!
unfortunately he lives in thunder bay and so I can't tell him to check out my iMac to see the difference... I acctually did that with a friend of mine and now he's getting an iBook for college, he IMed me the other day with "na na na na air port!"

So yeah I'm hoping the guy talks to me about it again... I got the best comment from Mac World mag "I tell all my friends when buying a PC, I will help you out with only 3 problems after that you're on your own or if you get a Mac I'll help you with as many as you get." which ultimately he says he'll have to help them less on the Mac
But anyway yeah I'm looking forward to showing off my power book when I get it at college hehehe I'm not sure if I wanna go into the "geek" dorm... simply cause... I dout at bible college there'll be many linux geeks and they'll mainly be windows drones... the two guys I talked to though were cool so we'll see.

Apple should just gimmie the best computer every year I could be a full time apple evangelist... then again I already am...

[Justin W. Williams]

My favorite people on Purdue's campus are the ones that turn around in a lecture and tell me how much they hate Macs.

[Mac Zealot]

Funny. The type of people who prefer mac seem to be what I expected, those who use PC are also what I expected.

Mac users: typical person, guy who got fed up even though he doesn't know much, someone who got lucky and was told about it,

PC users: some h4x0r guy who prefers pc just because he's used to it, asian girls and boys, someone who's used to it and doesn't get macs, and a guy who doesn't know how to use a mac.

[bradoesch]

Originally posted by FauxCaster:
You type an umlaut by typing option-u, then u (or opiton-u, then a). (�,�,�) Watch the video and you'll know what I'm talking about.

But I wonder if the mac character for umlauts is converted to a different character on a PC.

Anyone reading this on a PC? What are these: �,�,�

To get a � on a PC, you need to hold the alt key and then type 129. I can't see how that is easier than pressing option+u and then pressing 'u' again. I also can't find a "key caps" program on Windows 98. I went into the add programs, yadda yadda ya but I can't find anything, and nothing was already installed. I just happened to find � by guessing a few things. I suppose the Windows way of special characters might be easier if you knew all 255 ASCII codes (that's how Windows does it, right?). But for me (and many others), I think the Mac way is a lot easier.

[CharlesS]

Argh, I can't believe that guy who thinks it's easier to type umlauts on a PC! Sure, bringing up the damn character panel and clicking on the character you want each time is soooooooo much easier than typing option-U!

[bradoesch]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
Argh, I can't believe that guy who thinks it's easier to type umlauts on a PC! Sure, bringing up the damn character panel and clicking on the character you want each time is soooooooo much easier than typing option-U!

How do you bring up that character panel? I couldn't figure it out.

[andretan]

Originally posted by bradoesch:
How do you bring up that character panel? I couldn't figure it out.

I think it's go to Start > Run and type in charmap

[Jerommeke]

You should be happy in a environment like you. Overhere when you say you are using a Mac they look like you say: I am stupid.

[ckohler]

With the exception Wei Qu, this video is nothing but a disheartening example of how eager the average computer user is to simply "pick a side" rather than reap the benefits of knowing more than one computer platform.

It breaks my heart.

[Simon]

OMG

I can't believe this. Is this real or just faked?

I mean how can somebody think a PC is easier to use? A PC may be cheaper, faster, uglier, more convient, etc. But easier??? WTF?

How can anybody think it's easier? (unless maybe if you have 20 years of PC experience and two minutes of Mac experience)

I can't think of many things that require less less work in Windows than on a Mac. Is there even anything that requires less effort on a Win machine than under OS X?

Wow, this movie really makes me go like then but finally with a bit of . This is for real? Crazy world.

[andretan]

I trashed the video immediately after I watched it. Crap.

Heh...

Edit: No offence but to a Switcher (like me), I feel that the video is crap. Why? Because the people are kinda biased...

[drmcnutt]

Originally posted by andretan:


Edit: No offence but to a Switcher (like me), I feel that the video is crap. Why? Because the people are kinda biased...

DRM

[malbicho]

The video was just sad
but it represents perfectly even italian campus reality..i mean i am into CS and most of the people in my class have strange ideas both about PCs and Macs..
Feel like crying

[mitchell_pgh]

This movie seriously depicts how it is on most campuses regarding students and their computer knowledge. You would think that most college students would understand the basics of computer operating systems, but it just isn't true. Most students don't know much more then how to launch M$ Word, IE and their MP3 player.

The more advanced know how to IM and use applications like Excel, Photoshop, Illustrator and Quark.

Beyond that... the learning curve starts to increase, and many stop there.

Almost nobody knows about IP addresses, routers, firewalls, programming and such.

Most college students don't even know how to place footnotes into a document.

[stew]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
Almost nobody knows about IP addresses, routers, firewalls, programming and such.

Why would they have to or should want to?

[Jerommeke]

Originally posted by stew:
Why would they have to or should want to?

Yeah, at least a little bit. Leaving your computer unfirewalled is simply not affordable on a campus, or even not on a campus.

[dampeoples]

I'm glad i didn't go to college, those people seemed intelligent

[villalobos]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
Argh, I can't believe that guy who thinks it's easier to type umlauts on a PC! Sure, bringing up the damn character panel and clicking on the character you want each time is soooooooo much easier than typing option-U!

Agreed. The way Windows handles special characters is archaic, annoying, slow! Someone should show that Will guy how easy it is to get the Umlaut on a Mac compared to the PC ASCII way...

Villa

[libraryguy]

Most of the "public" labs on our campus still run OS 9...so maybe that's why he's having trouble typing german characters. Does anyone know if it really does work correctly under 9...or is it just under X that it works right? I've been waiting forever for them to switch to X here on campus and I don't know when they will...but I hope it's soon. Hopefully they'll buy new comptuers to run it on for the big labs...so people can really experience X on new hardware instead of the older iMacs they have currently running OS 9.

[tooki]

Mac OS 9 handles umlauts (and most other common diacriticals) just as well as OS X. OS X inherited OS 9's input method for them, too.

Also, the reason most people get bad first impressions of Macs is that, at most university computer labs (which is where lots of people have their first real computer exposure at all), the systems are run by PC people (sometimes they have a Mac guy, who is then usually recruited to help with PC issues), so the Macs get set up badly, and then get no maintenance, while the PCs are given more care to begin with, and are routinely re-imaged, etc. So you end up with decaying, crash-prone Macs.

tooki

[bojangles]

I agree with Tooki completely. At Purdue University (West Lafayette campus), the chemistry building is almost exclusively Macintosh, but you can�t use the old ones for more than about half an hour without crashing. Why? Well, first of all, they were still using Mac OS 8.0 (not even 8.1!), as of early 2000. But more importantly, a quick peek at the Extensions folder will tell you that somebody just threw every extension they could find in there, hoping the computers would use the ones they need and ignore the rest. There�s so much crap in there it�s a wonder they boot at all! (I cleaned mine out every morning and rebooted�and did the same for anyone who asked�but they would all revert to the programmed default every night at midnight.)

[rytc]

Originally posted by tooki:
Mac OS 9 handles umlauts (and most other common diacriticals) just as well as OS X. OS X inherited OS 9's input method for them, too.

Also, the reason most people get bad first impressions of Macs is that, at most university computer labs (which is where lots of people have their first real computer exposure at all), the systems are run by PC people (sometimes they have a Mac guy, who is then usually recruited to help with PC issues), so the Macs get set up badly, and then get no maintenance, while the PCs are given more care to begin with, and are routinely re-imaged, etc. So you end up with decaying, crash-prone Macs.

tooki

I agree, at my old uni the PCs were set up well with alias' etc to all the apps people needed on the desktop, plus logins so people couldn't screw with them . Compare this to the Macs which had apps installed in places like the system folder, no security, weren't even set up to be able to print etc etc. For someone just wanting to use Word or the Internet the PCs were a lot simpler to use.
Oh actually there was security but that consisted of locking, yes that's right, locking the system prefs of applications so that people couldn't mess with them.....The guy who 'set up' the computers didn't know Jack about Macs..'nuf said.

[Hi I'm Ben]

for me mac is like the the expensive car of computers.

It looks nice, it drives nice too.. but i could just as well save my money and buy the cheap car (the PC) and it would still do everything i needed it to do and i could make it run just as fast all for less money.

[Mskr]

Originally posted by libraryguy:
Most of the "public" labs on our campus still run OS 9...so maybe that's why he's having trouble typing german characters. Does anyone know if it really does work correctly under 9...or is it just under X that it works right? I've been waiting forever for them to switch to X here on campus and I don't know when they will...but I hope it's soon. Hopefully they'll buy new comptuers to run it on for the big labs...so people can really experience X on new hardware instead of the older iMacs they have currently running OS 9.

Yes, and as an OS X developer here in Champaign/Urbana, I SERIOUSLY hope that they U of I can get on with upgrading their ancient Mac hardware in the computer labs and start using OS X. Since I'm not on campus very much, I don't know about the Engineering campus or CS department, but does ANYONE use Mac OS X on campus? I do like that the Campus Store is right in the student Union, and is going to be getting a 17" Powerbook, so I can go take a look at it!

[Nai no Kami]

What is Jabba the Hutt with a red scarf doing in that video?

[absmiths]

Originally posted by Nai no Kami:
What is Jabba the Hutt with a red scarf doing in that video?

Wow - that was exceptionally mean.

[Hi I'm Ben]

Originally posted by absmiths:
Wow - that was exceptionally mean.

i love making fun of people..

[mikerally]

My University Library has about 1,000 PCs and 50 Macs.

Applications are distributed to both the PCs (running Windows 2000) and the Macintoshes (running Mac OS 9.1) using Novell Netware, this is also how users login and are authenicated (via Netware on both platforms).

The hard drives on all the Macintoshes are entirely blank, they all boot off a pair of dedicated Netboot Servers and work excellently (no lagging or slowness in the OS). I can't say the same for the Novell Netware Application Server which serves the Mac applications seems to get bogged down causing Applications to launch slowly.

The Netboot Image and Application Server are read only, users can save their work on the internal hard drive (which is wiped with an Applescript on log out - users are warned of this before logging out - the same thing happens on the PCs) - All that Macs are G4 towers with internal Zip drives with USB Floppy Disk Drives padlocked to each machine.

The Mac setup there is quite well done, only weakness being the Application Server not being able to take the load - and Mac OS 9, it would be great if they could update the setup to use Mac OS X.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by libraryguy:
Most of the "public" labs on our campus still run OS 9...so maybe that's why he's having trouble typing german characters. Does anyone know if it really does work correctly under 9...or is it just under X that it works right?

Dude, Mac OS 1.0 allowed you to type umlauts. Option-U. I'm not sure it could even be done at all with DOS at that time.