OS X vs. Windows XP Pro - Pros and Cons

[MojoRising022]

OS X is fairly mature now having has 2 major updates and XP has its first Service Pack.

I am curious as to how the 2 stack up when some thought is put into their relative merits.

Let's hear it....

[Spliffdaddy]

If OSX can do it, then XP can do it better...

and you can play 3D games, too.

[Zimphire]

Actually XP is really NT 5 with a new GUI.

Its NOT a totally new OS.

And Spliff XP isn't a designers or printers OS I am afriad.

[passmaster16]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
Actually XP is really NT 5 with a new GUI.

Its NOT a totally new OS.


I can agree with this. I don't understand how Microsoft does it. They release a product over and over again, adding a few features, and call it innovative. And guess what? People still buy it. XP is Windows 2000 with a new GUI. Windows 2000 was Windows NT 4.0 with plug and play and direct X 7.

[OreoCookie]

OS X has a nice GUI. Both are stable. OS X is more secure (with a firewall installed) because it is �Unix' and doesn't belong to those 90 + x %.

XP has Access Control Lists.

If you need �Unix', OS X will be perfect.

But I'd rather go for the nice GUI.

[El Pre$idente]

I think they are neck in neck now. But before 10.2 I think OSX still had major problems. Performance wise Windows is still better and will stay that way, not because of the hardware but because Quartz simply isn't for modern hardware. OSX will only feel fast enough in a year or so unless it gets fatter!

[sushiism]

I can't quite see what these apprently "major problems" are, I've ran it without a single problem for a while now and its much faster than 2K and has far less problems, XP is only better if you enjoy those boring FPS games that are the same old crpa over and over, and well if your into that your prolly some silly kid and would appreciate osx anyway.

Also you dn't get digital rights management bullshit in osx like you do with xp, I mean upgrade your computer 7 times and **** time to buy a new licence hhaah oh and all those WMA files you ripped with godawful WMP well you cant play them either thanks to DRM.
Theres no competition between osx and xp, osx wins totally hands down

[MacGorilla]

Pros: it runs on x86 hardware
Cons: Digital Rights Management, EULAS that give MS carte blanche access to computer and Product Activation. Soon: Palladium.

[rjc3]

A major difference, in my opinion, is the fact that XP reports all sorts of personal info back to Redmond for some mysterious reason. What they do with this info is anybody's guess, but I'd rather not have Big Brother Bill keeping tabs on me.

Another easy target: XP is very easily infected with viruses. X is not.

[CatOne]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
Actually XP is really NT 5 with a new GUI.

Its NOT a totally new OS.


Yeah but so?

Microsoft made the "jump" between old and "new-style" OS back with the release of NT 3.5.1 -- around 1995. The core of NT is quite good -- stable, preemptive, multithreaded, etc. Later releases tweak the GUI and give much greater support for plug and play, etc.

Apple finally made this "jump" about 1.5 years ago with the release of 10.0. When they come out with 10.3 and 11.0 or whatever will you say "Nothing's new... still based on BSD?"

[KeilwerthSX90R]

I am running XP on my desktop and OS X 10.1 on a Ti400 powerbook. I'm about to ditch XP and get a new Powermac. I don't have any attachments to either platform my choice of platform centers around usabililty and enjoyment. In XP I get errors in my browser, outlook and outlook express don't always open and there are major errors that cause restarts a bit too frequently. I have reformated and reinstalled the OS frequently and still these problems persist. OS X isn't perfect and on my powerbook it is slow but it is much more hassle free than XP plus you don't have to make a phone call in order to reinstall software on a machine you own after you have changed the hardware and want to reinstall the OS.

[passmaster16]

Originally posted by CatOne:


Yeah but so?

Microsoft made the "jump" between old and "new-style" OS back with the release of NT 3.5.1 -- around 1995. The core of NT is quite good -- stable, preemptive, multithreaded, etc. Later releases tweak the GUI and give much greater support for plug and play, etc.

Apple finally made this "jump" about 1.5 years ago with the release of 10.0. When they come out with 10.3 and 11.0 or whatever will you say "Nothing's new... still based on BSD?"

He only says that because MS touts their OS as new and innovative. The problem is XP support for things like plug and play still blows. Guys tell me at work all the time they try to use stuff and it screws up their systems. My one coworker pluged an intel "XP certified" webcam into his XP box, and it shut his system down. I will agree that the NT kernel is fairly stable though.

[fat mac moron]

Originally posted by MacGorilla:
Digital Rights Management, EULAS that give MS carte blanche access to computer and Product Activation. Soon: Palladium.

That actually frightened me enough to switch to a Mac.

If you read about what Microsoft is trying to do with DRM, Product Activation and Palladium, you get the feeling they're already pre-treating you as a criminal.

[TheTraveller]

I use XP 2-3 times a week for hours at a crack, and the rest of the time, I use my Mac and 10.2. I've seen XP freeze, lock-up, and blue screen several times in the past couple of months. This is amazing, because for the much of 2000 and 2001 I ran Windows 2K day in, day out, and never once did I get a freeze or a blue screen.

I've had problems with Mac OS X, too - but far, far fewer than with OS 9 (really), and fewer too than with XP. XP probably has more features, and it certainly has more software and it can run on superior hardware.

But I love OS X - I am into it in a way that I don't think I will ever be for XP.

[kmkkid]

Oh God, not this topic again *sigh*

Most of you are just talking BS about XP, have you even used it?!?! XP is more than a new GUI ontop of 2k, it offers alot more. Oh, and XP also has a built in firewall, if you dont use it, dont blame the OS :) And this "reinstall 7 times and you have to buy a new license" is crap. MS has made Activation even more lienient with SP1, and no matter what, you dont have to buy a new license, you just get a new activation code from MS for free. A hassle I agree, but free nonetheless ;) Once Apple's userbase get to MS' size (probably never will), I can guarantee
Apple would be putting in the same anti-piracy features. And as for plug and play, it is great in XP, I have never had a problem. Sure sometimes a device will crash your computer if there are conflicts, or if a suitable driver isnt installed, but most of the time thats the users fault.

Chris

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by CatOne:


Yeah but so?

Microsoft made the "jump" between old and "new-style" OS back with the release of NT 3.5.1 -- around 1995. The core of NT is quite good -- stable, preemptive, multithreaded, etc. Later releases tweak the GUI and give much greater support for plug and play, etc.

Apple finally made this "jump" about 1.5 years ago with the release of 10.0. When they come out with 10.3 and 11.0 or whatever will you say "Nothing's new... still based on BSD?"

What I am say is, XP isn't THAT much different than NT4.

OS X is a big difference compared to OS 9.

The transition is different.

[fat mac moron]

Originally posted by kmkkid:
Once Apple's userbase get to MS' size (probably never will), I can guarantee Apple would be putting in the same anti-piracy features.

Probably not, because even *if* you pirated Apple's OS, you still had to buy the hardware to run it. :) The OS is pretty much a fraction of a percentage compared to the hardware, unlike Microsoft, who's sole income is mainly the operating system and an office suit.

edit: whoops, that made no sense.

[eno]

I can't stand Mac zealots.

I love Macs, but at least I don't prance around saying the Microsoft is the devil and that Apple's **** doesn't smell.

It seems that you all think Apple's "dog food" is nothing but caviar.

[asmujica]

After having partially switched to macs a few months ago, I ditched my 1.8ghz p4, 80gb hd, 256 ram, 64mb geforce 3 computer for a 640mb 700mhz combo ibook because it was simply better and more reliable.

The xp box annoys me every 10 minutes with a new security update, crashes more than I would like it too, and it is NOT faster than my ibook except for games. I feel my ibook is just as fast or a bit faster than the xp pro box.

The xp machine is still in the house, but now my mom is using it (aint I the evil one).

I trully see the only difference is games, but I have a gamecube for that. I would rather buy a game console every year than buy a new computer or new parts for a computer every 3 months to stay on top.

[stew]

There's hardly any difference.
Both OS X and XP are stable and have a wide selection of applications. Don't get scared by anyone trying to frighten you with horror stories about DRM and Palladium - you can watch as many illegal DivX movies on a Windows PC as on a Mac, so where's the problem?

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by stew:
There's hardly any difference.
Both OS X and XP are stable and have a wide selection of applications. Don't get scared by anyone trying to frighten you with horror stories about DRM and Palladium - you can watch as many illegal DivX movies on a Windows PC as on a Mac, so where's the problem?

Er Palladium isn't out yet.

I wouldn't switch over to Windows until I knew 100% what was going on.

[Nebrie]

Originally posted by stew:
There's hardly any difference.
Both OS X and XP are stable and have a wide selection of applications. Don't get scared by anyone trying to frighten you with horror stories about DRM and Palladium - you can watch as many illegal DivX movies on a Windows PC as on a Mac, so where's the problem?

I use a fairly nice 2.5ghz Windows XP computer at work and I have a decent 1ghz Windows XP computer at home, but I end up using my 500mhz iBook more than both of them combined because for some reason I actually enjoy using it (I don't get that same feeling on Windows XP machines). More attention to detail, along with a more efficient/easier way of doing things is one reason I suppose. I haven't even bothered to look up what Palladium is allegedly supposed to do so I'm not worried about that. XP is way more stable than that hellhole 98 but over the past few months, OS X seems to still crash less for me. There is a difference; unless you're one of those people who actually buy into those Hundai ads that tell you their cars kick the crap out of a Mercedees.

[drmcnutt]

Originally posted by Zimphire:


What I am say is, XP isn't THAT much different than NT4.

OS X is a big difference compared to OS 9.

The transition is different.

Right it happened several years later.

DRM

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by drmcnutt:


Right it happened several years later.

DRM

What happened several years later?

[drmcnutt]

Originally posted by fat mac moron:


Probably not, because even *if* you pirated Apple's OS, you still had to buy the hardware to run it. :) The OS is pretty much a fraction of a percentage compared to the hardware, unlike Microsoft, who's sole income is mainly the operating system and an office suit.

edit: whoops, that made no sense.

Right about the hardware, which adds a lot to the price of Switching to Mac. If they ever do get into porting to the Intel machine expect that to change. It's funny how a company protecting it's product is seen as a bad thing. With digital piracy so common place I expect Adobe and Macromedia to follow suit to protect their products more deligently especially as upgrades become less mandatory and less attractive.

DRM

[drmcnutt]

Originally posted by Zimphire:


What happened several years later?

OSX happened several years after NT.

DRM

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by drmcnutt:


OSX happened several years after NT.

DRM

Er.. ok, and What does that have to do with anything? heh

[passmaster16]

Originally posted by kmkkid:
Oh God, not this topic again *sigh*

Most of you are just talking BS about XP, have you even used it?!?! XP is more than a new GUI ontop of 2k, it offers alot more. Oh, and XP also has a built in firewall, if you dont use it, dont blame the OS :) And this "reinstall 7 times and you have to buy a new license" is crap. MS has made Activation even more lienient with SP1, and no matter what, you dont have to buy a new license, you just get a new activation code from MS for free. A hassle I agree, but free nonetheless ;) Once Apple's userbase get to MS' size (probably never will), I can guarantee
Apple would be putting in the same anti-piracy features. And as for plug and play, it is great in XP, I have never had a problem. Sure sometimes a device will crash your computer if there are conflicts, or if a suitable driver isnt installed, but most of the time thats the users fault.

Chris

XP is more like Plug and Pray. And yes I use windows on a regular basis as I do nt/2000/xp client development. XP is not a bad OS, but I wouldn't say it's as great as you make it sound. I think overall XP and OS X are pretty neck and neck. I do think multitasking on X is superior to XP. And XP is a GUI on Windows 2000. Windows 2000 is NT 5.0 and XP is NT 5.1. From working with all three of the OSes I can tell you that 2000 and XP are very much alike. In fact our development for 2000 usually translates over to XP without any problem. As far as stuff crashing windows, that's the reason why people like Mac. I can plug my digital camera in and it works. I don't have to fight windows for an hour downloading drivers and configuring before I get my pics off my camera.

[ReggieX]

OS X runs natively on my hardware, for XP I'd have to buy a whole new machine. And that ain't gonna happen.

OSX 1, XP 0

[stew]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
Er Palladium isn't out yet.
Exactly. Why should I worry about something that doesn't exist ATM?
I wouldn't switch over to Windows until I knew 100% what was going on.
Apple doesn't give you any roadmaps at all - you know 0% what's going on. Who tells you 10.3 won't come with DRM?

[wataru]

Originally posted by stew:

Exactly. Why should I worry about something that doesn't exist ATM?
lol. So I guess we shouldn't be worried about things in the future. Just wait for the ship to sink before jumping overboard...

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by stew:

Exactly. Why should I worry about something that doesn't exist ATM?


Well it DOES exist, and MS HAS said what it plans on doing in the NEAR future, so it is something that should be of concern to you.

Apple doesn't give you any roadmaps at all - you know 0% what's going on. Who tells you 10.3 won't come with DRM?

Actually Steve said he was a big supporter of personal use laws, meaning you'll be abke to make copies of your own personal CDs you own.

[Drizzt]

-NT's Kernel Multasking code gives the OS a weaker multitasking than any Unix out there.. including MacOS X
-NT's Kernel TCP/IP Stack is 2 times slower than BSD's stack
-NT's Kernel has a problem with task ownership that leads to a huge security hole.. that M$ just can't fix!

That's 2 things that makes NT as a Server OS quite irronous..

[iJed]

Originally posted by CatOne:


Yeah but so?

Microsoft made the "jump" between old and "new-style" OS back with the release of NT 3.5.1 -- around 1995. The core of NT is quite good -- stable, preemptive, multithreaded, etc. Later releases tweak the GUI and give much greater support for plug and play, etc.

Apple finally made this "jump" about 1.5 years ago with the release of 10.0. When they come out with 10.3 and 11.0 or whatever will you say "Nothing's new... still based on BSD?"

Apple had a a little known preemptive tasking OS way back in 1983. It was known as the Lisa Office System and it ran on the proprietary Lisa hardware. This however is not the only so called "modern" OS that Apple has produced. They also had a unix style OS called A/UX [not to be mistaken for IBM AIX] and later released Mac OS X Server 1.0 a few years before OS X 10.0. NeXT also released a preemptive tasker way back in 1989. This, as we all know, is the foundation for Mac OS X. By claiming that Microsoft made this jump in '95 you could also say that Apple made the jump back in '83.

[CatOne]

Originally posted by Drizzt:
-NT's Kernel Multasking code gives the OS a weaker multitasking than any Unix out there.. including MacOS X
-NT's Kernel TCP/IP Stack is 2 times slower than BSD's stack
-NT's Kernel has a problem with task ownership that leads to a huge security hole.. that M$ just can't fix!

That's 2 things that makes NT as a Server OS quite irronous..

Ummm... say what?

I'm not sure on the multitasking... but I've used NT/2000/XP for 6 years every day and it multitasks just fine for me.

The TCP/IP stack on Windows is quite fast. There is NO WAY it is 2 times slower than BSD's stack... My company's products run on TCP/IP and Windows benchmarks WAY faster than UNIX (Solaris, for example). I haven't benchmarked on OS X (we don't have a port to it).

And on the security issues... dunno.

Oh and learn to count... you had 3 points and not 2... or maybe you knew the second one was full on BS?

[iJed]

Originally posted by Drizzt:

-NT's Kernel TCP/IP Stack is 2 times slower than BSD's stack


Did Windows NT not originally use the BSD IP stack?

[stew]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
Well it DOES exist, and MS HAS said what it plans on doing in the NEAR future, so it is something that should be of concern to you.
Show me how it hurts me, then. Show me how it'll kepp vlc from playing DivX movies, show me how it'll keep my music applications from reading a CD's raw data. I predict it'll be as effective as the encryption of DVDs and copy protection for audio CDs: Zero.

[Zimphire]

Stew the Software will have the ability to control the hardware in that level.

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by CatOne:


Ummm... say what?

I'm not sure on the multitasking... but I've used NT/2000/XP for 6 years every day and it multitasks just fine for me.

The TCP/IP stack on Windows is quite fast. There is NO WAY it is 2 times slower than BSD's stack... My company's products run on TCP/IP and Windows benchmarks WAY faster than UNIX (Solaris, for example). I haven't benchmarked on OS X (we don't have a port to it).

And on the security issues... dunno.

Oh and learn to count... you had 3 points and not 2... or maybe you knew the second one was full on BS?

I originally wrote 2 and thought of a 3rd thing..

BTW, the speed of a certain networking software has no link to the speed of the TCP Stack.. just compare Internet Explorer with OmniWeb and you'll know what I mean..

Solaris doesn't use BSD's implementation btw..

Multitasking is weaker on NT, end of the line.. saying "I've use it and it doesn't look like" is no point.. here's a little test for you.. Get 2 heavy dutty programs, put one on higher priority than the other, see the other one get almost no CPU time.. that's BAD.. really bad..

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by iJed:


Did Windows NT not originally use the BSD IP stack?

ZLib for PPP compression, yes.. BSD Stack.. who knows?!

[coolmac]

I use Windows XP Pro at work, I also have an IBM Thinkpad and a Powermac and iMac.

I MUCH prefer using OS X, if feels like a much more complete OS, much more elegant.

Believe me it would have been much chaeaper for me to have stayed with Windows XP as I have a ton of software for it, but I spent a bundle for Mac software as I enjoy using my Mac's.

[unfaded]

Originally posted by MojoRising022:
OS X is fairly mature now having has 2 major updates and XP has its first Service Pack.

I am curious as to how the 2 stack up when some thought is put into their relative merits.

Let's hear it....

Luna = ugly
Old Windows Theme = ugly
OS X = not ugly

OS X wins.

[Sophie]

Thank you for a very enlightning thread of differences between XP and X. Btw I use an Ibook 700 with OSX and an old pc with a PII266 with windows 2000 and maxed out on memory. I could tell you that my ibook is not that much faster than my older pc when for example browsing the internet but then I don't think it matters much in this thread as it does not have XP on it. I use both OS, the Ibook is more used due to it's portability and having airport. I would use it exclusively if it had a better external resolution to monitor.

I have only used XP plug and play when I plugged in the usb cord of a Canon S400 printer and the system installed it without more input. So what was the problem?

[iAdmin]

OS X is a joy to use but I also use NT, W2K and XP. I also use linux and BSD.

I prefer the direction OS X is going but I use W2K most of the time for work and web browsing. Web browsing is faster on a PC. I don't care what anyone says, we have all the latest and greatest power macs, xserves,emacs and imacs where I work and a 4 year old thinkpad blows them all away in terms of speed. Sure, I use Chimera, mozilla, Phoenix(on intel), IE and simply, web browsing is faster on a pc.Despite that fact, once in a while, I still surf on the mac because we have watson (now Sherlock 3).

Multimedia, PC wins again. iTunes is third-rate in my IMHO. the DVD player on MacOSX is third-rate (no VCD, no DTS, no 5.1). I don't know who wrote the DVD player app for mac OS, they should be fired. Apple should buy out intervideo winDVD or cyberlink PowerDVD. There is too much artifacting (blockiness)in the video even on the newest G4 platform. My Thinkpad T20 blows them all away. Yet despite, this fact, I occasionally use my Ibook for watching DVD because of longer battery life.

Only thing that mac does better is at DVD creation (IDVD). Video capture and editing is fater on a dual-athlon system. It is not as intuitive or elegant as the mac but it is definitely faster. I like Final Cut Pro and wish they ported to PC because the mac hardware is very slow for high cpu stuff like video.

What do I like about OSX? A: OroborosOSX, XDarwin, Fink, and all the open source stuff.

Its nice to have a multiport KVM switch so you can use what you like. Bits and pieces from each OS/platform. I will probably ditch Linux on the desktop and relegate it only on the server. Its lost its usefulness since Jaguar.

[stew]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
Stew the Software will have the ability to control the hardware in that level.
Care do give me any detail how that answer relates to my question? How will software that has "the ability to control the hardware in that level" affect vlc playing a DivX movie?
I'd love to be proven wrong, but I get the impression as if you had no clue about DRM or Palladium at all.

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by stew:

Care do give me any detail how that answer relates to my question? How will software that has "the ability to control the hardware in that level" affect vlc playing a DivX movie?
I'd love to be proven wrong, but I get the impression as if you had no clue about DRM or Palladium at all.

Stew.. you are the one that doesn't know..

With Palladium, if your DivX Movie isn't certified, the application doesn't open it. Moreover.. if vlc isn't certified, the OS won't open it..

Everything get's to be certified by Microsoft.. and if it's not, it doesn't work "at all"..

[kbata]

I like the way you can install programs in OS X. It doesn't get any easier than just dragging the application into the applications folder. Multitasking is great in OS X. Os X is also so much nicer looking. I like the way the preferences are laid out with OS X. Another huge advantage for OS X is the Unix underpinnings. It opens up a whole new world of software and users to the Mac community.

[stew]

Originally posted by Drizzt:
With Palladium, if your DivX Movie isn't certified, the application doesn't open it. Moreover.. if vlc isn't certified, the OS won't open it..

Everything get's to be certified by Microsoft.. and if it's not, it doesn't work "at all"..
Care to give me a link to prove that? How on earth would that be possible that Microsoft certifies all the zillions of Windows applications? How would I develop software? Compile my source code, send it ot Microsoft for certification, get it back and then run and test it - for every change I make to my code? Hello? Reality check?

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by stew:

Care to give me a link to prove that? How on earth would that be possible that Microsoft certifies all the zillions of Windows applications? How would I develop software? Compile my source code, send it ot Microsoft for certification, get it back and then run and test it - for every change I make to my code? Hello? Reality check?

Do your own homework and have a look at slashdot and google..

There will be the possibility to run uncertified code for developers.. but when running uncertified, you cannot work on certified networks and with certified applications. This is their plan to kill open source.. since uncertified can't talk to certified, and that it costs $$ to become certified (and the fact that M$ will have a look at what to certify, and what not to certify.. but that is unofficial.. of course).

Get out of your reality bubble.. and realize that you don't know everything :P

[Scarpa]

Palladium as Drizzt is describing it will never make it as a consumer product. People WON'T buy it.

It may make inroads into the corporate environment because of their ball&chain licensing scheme. Besides, corporations love control so it will sell well.

What WILL happen is that Microsoft will partner with the MPAA/RIAA so that digital media produced by them will require Palladium to run. Microsoft provides the bit so big media can hold the reins.

This is all dependent on the general public not buying said Palladium-only digital media content. Unfortunately, as most Mac zealots know and cry about at night, the majority of people will be too ignorant or apathetic of all this and buy into it anyway.

But maybe they won't.

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by Scarpa:
Palladium as Drizzt is describing it will never make it as a consumer product. People WON'T buy it.

It may make inroads into the corporate environment because of their ball&chain licensing scheme. Besides, corporations love control so it will sell well.

What WILL happen is that Microsoft will partner with the MPAA/RIAA so that digital media produced by them will require Palladium to run. Microsoft provides the bit so big media can hold the reins.

This is all dependent on the general public not buying said Palladium-only digital media content. Unfortunately, as most Mac zealots know and cry about at night, the majority of people will be too ignorant or apathetic of all this and buy into it anyway.

But maybe they won't.

Yes.. this is our job to tell everyone that M$ wants to get all the knifes out of the kitchen because there was some murder with butcher knifes..

We just can't wait and see.. but still it can become a reality quite fast (think about it.. it's virus-free Windows!)

[stew]

Originally posted by Drizzt:
Do your own homework and have a look at slashdot and google..
Slashdot - your neutral source of information about Microsoft software :rolleyes:
I know how to use google, and that's where I find information like this:
12. Scary stuff. But can't you just turn it off?

Sure - unless your system administrator configures your machine in such a way that TCPA is mandatory, you can always turn it off. You can then run your PC with administrator privileges, and use insecure applications.
from the FAQ on http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html,
second hit from google on palladium and Microsoft.

What is it all aobut: Anti-Piracy? I have no problem with that, all the software I use is legal and I pay my rent from writing software.
DRM for DVDs and CDs? As long as CD players have digital outputs there is not way to stop people from copying them, and any DVD that will play in a current DVD player can be copied to. In order to invent somewhat effective measures they'd need to be incompatible to previous players, which is something that won't happen. No one will buy a new CD player just to play a new protected CD. And even if - where does that leave the Mac? Either we won't be able to watch those DVDs play those CDs on our Macs or MacOS X.x will come with RIAA sanctioned DRM enabled playing software.

The major problem I see is not Palladium or trusted computing but the DMCA - and that is someting that was not invented at Microsoft and will affect both Windows and MacOS.

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by stew:

Slashdot - your neutral source of information about Microsoft software :rolleyes:
I know how to use google, and that's where I find information like this:
Maybe not neutral, but usually truthful.

from the FAQ on http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html,
second hit from google on palladium and Microsoft.

What is it all aobut: Anti-Piracy? I have no problem with that, all the software I use is legal and I pay my rent from writing software.
DRM for DVDs and CDs? As long as CD players have digital outputs there is not way to stop people from copying them, and any DVD that will play in a current DVD player can be copied to. In order to invent somewhat effective measures they'd need to be incompatible to previous players, which is something that won't happen. No one will buy a new CD player just to play a new protected CD.
tThere is more to it than that, read furthure. MS will also have the ability to control what gets installed and what doesn't. Also basically killing GPL software.

And even if - where does that leave the Mac? Either we won't be able to watch those DVDs play those CDs on our Macs or MacOS X.x will come with RIAA sanctioned DRM enabled playing software.


The major problem I see is not Palladium or trusted computing but the DMCA - and that is someting that was not invented at Microsoft and will affect both Windows and MacOS.

Not if Apple doesn't make thier computers with a built in DRM scheme that inhibits such a thing. And so far Steve is against stopping fair use.

[ginoledesma]

Here's one gripe I have: sharing files with MS Windows computers. Apple prides itself with the ease of use and high-level of integration and compatibility of Mac OS X, but why is it so difficult to share files with MS Windows computers?

When enabling Windows sharing, the folder that's shared by default is the user's home folder. Its password protected, which the OS asks when you first set it up. But what if you want to change the password? What if you want to share another folder? Out of the box, there is no other solution except to edit manually the configuration files using a text editor. While it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand the configuration file, it shouldn't be THAT difficult to share a folder.

Where are the days when you could simply click a folder, select File, then say "share THIS folder." Windows imitated that when Macs had LocalTalk in the old days, and now its nowhere to be seen in Mac OS X. There are 2 good apps that help make it easier: Diablotin and Samba Sharing Package, but that should have been integrated by now by Apple.

Once a dormmate of mine used my computer to surf the net. He downloaded a simple document which he wanted to share so that he could read it from his computer. He spent almost 30 minutes trying to figure things out until he eventually gave up in frustration. When I stepped in the room, he simply remarked at how difficult it was to do such a simple thing. He tried the Help program, but it didn't do much. And I personally knew that no matter how well or how easy I try to make it look, it simply is NOT as easy as doing it in either MacOS 9.x or MS Windows.

Sigh!

Ironically, I sometimes find ME/XP/2000's network neighborhood navigation a bit... slightly more complex as compared to MS Windows's 98 relatively straightforward interface.

DAVE under Mac OS 9 had a nice way of accessing/sharing files with Windows. Sharity on Mac OS X is slightly better than Apple's (standard Finder way of navigating computers/shares), but not that as easy yet.

[El Pre$idente]

Add Palladium to the list of obscure technologies and security measures that were eventually dumped because they were hacked with a few patches.

[Its_me]

I have a 500MHz iBook (Jaguar), an 800MHz Quicksilver (Jaguar as well), a Compaq Evo N400c subnotebook (Win2000 Pro) and a self-built PC (AMD 1800+ CPU, ASUS 333MHz motherboard running Win XP).

Guess what....I use the iBook far more than the other machines combined! Why do I use it more?

- Is it because of portability?...The Compaq notebook is far smaller and lighter
- wireless surfing?.....the Compaq has BUILT-IN wireless LAN as well
- Speed?.....both the PowerMac and (especially) the AMD PC can run circles around my iBook

So why do I use the iBook more?

I find that there is just something intangible with OSX. Both my wife and I love the iBook. The combination of OSX and iBook is just perfect.

The only reasons I use the PowerMac are for home video editing, and using it as my "digital media hub" (i.e. to store and manage my digital photos and music).

The Compaq is from work, so at home I only use it to access our corporate systems. It's certainly not fun to use.

The PC is mainly used for Kazaa ;)

The iBook is for everything else. So which is better, OSX or WinXP? Feature wise, OSX and WinXP are more or less similar but OSX just has a certain quality that can just not be duplicated in WinXP. I just do not know how to quantify it. Suffice to say that OX wins hands down.
:)

[godzookie2k]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
And Spliff XP isn't a designers or printers OS I am afriad.


Pffffffffttt... Like OSX is?!?

[theolein]

I support NT, 2k and XP machines every day. I have my Dell laptop running XP and it's very good(and fast as fu�k I might add). I have almost no problems. XP is definitely a step up in the MS gravy train. NT is a fu�king royal pain in the but and every second day I have some user's machine flying to pieces as NT manages to fu�k something up again. NT is a desaster for complex software installations and especially manges to get some pretty bad screwups with graphics stuff. I have some yoyo's in my company who insist on using Corel Draw and Corel seems to have a special ability to mess with Excel files and eventually cause the system to break. Win2k is better but also seems to suffer at the hands of morons. The only MS OS in our place that actually seems to be able to handle rough treatment is XP. On my system I have over 200'000 files and it has yet to bluescreen on me. Everything runs well, Netware admin tools, Navision financial software client, the whole Adobe palette of software (including Pagemaker which is a POS), Office and all my Java tools which are blindingly fast compared to OSX.

In short I can work. If I had my way of course we'd all be using OSX for the simple fact that it is much more robust that MS stuff in general (although I have yet to try out 10.2), but not having that choice XP is ok. I try to make sure that our licences are ok and then MS has no reason to bug us. As far as our servers go, I'd say Novell is king. Has uptimes of ages and never crashes, and I am still waiting for some other software company to come up with a automatic printer driver installation utility like Novell's NDPS where the driver is automatically fetched from the server and installed on the client when a new printer is attached.

I welcome the day when I will be able to show my boyy an OSX machine being able to run all the little utilities like telephone software and finanial stuff that Windows does. When it does happen I know that Mac OSX and Apple will have arrived in the mainstream of businness computing.

[noisefloor]

On the machines I use, XP is even MORE dog slow than X, believe it or not.

[Nonsuch]

Originally posted by theolein:
If I had my way of course we'd all be using OSX for the simple fact that it is much more robust that MS stuff in general (although I have yet to try out 10.2), but not having that choice XP is ok. ... I welcome the day when I will be able to show my boyy an OSX machine being able to run all the little utilities like telephone software and finanial stuff that Windows does. When it does happen I know that Mac OSX and Apple will have arrived in the mainstream of businness computing.

Maybe I'm behind the times here. Theolein, didn't you switch from Mac to Windows (or Linux) a while back?