RunningAHEAD - Topic: If you're planning to buy a new laptop... (page 3)

thomasruns

Insert witty title here

posted: 10/15/2008 at 9:43 PM

Quote from perfesserr on 10/15/2008 at 9:05 PM:

Actually I'm not a "fanboi" (I'm not familiar with that term) and don't read Mac forums or computer forums at all. I was talking about my friends and colleagues, most of whom are non-techie types not compelled to use either OS by their workplace, but just trying to get something done with a computer, and the overwhelming majority of comments that I hear on Vista are negative. Many have "downgraded" to XP. Not a statistically valid sample, I know, but in my experience it's a pretty universal reaction. Anyway, whatever works for you...

Fair enough. Just for the record I wasn't calling you or anyone else here a fanboi. Sorry if I made it sound that way.

ThomasRuns Blog
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"The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do." - [Walter Bagehot]

Trent

Good Bad & The Monkey

posted: 10/15/2008 at 10:46 PM

I don't read Mac forums either. I use XP and OSX. I have dabbled in Vista and am just happy as pie to stick with XP for my Windows related work. Should I google fanboi?

I'm running somewhere tomorrow. It's going to be beautiful. I can't wait.

Poor baby

TJoseph

posted: 10/15/2008 at 11:54 PM

I am not a fanboi or fanboy either. I thought most of those people were into video games. I do this for a living. I run Vista on my home desktop that my wife and daughter use. I run XP on my laptop that I use for work. Some of the compatibility issues haven't been just with obscure software. You can't use Quickbooks 2006 or earlier with Vista, you have to buy an upgrade. The Cisco VPN client still does not support all features on Vista yet. Most of the issues with XP seemed to get resolved within the first year. Vista seems to be taking longer.

Trent

Good Bad & The Monkey

posted: 10/16/2008 at 8:16 AM

Cisco VPN seems to work great on my OSX Wink

I'm running somewhere tomorrow. It's going to be beautiful. I can't wait.

Poor baby

MrFinn

Prince of Fatness

posted: 10/16/2008 at 8:50 AM
modified: 10/16/2008 at 8:51 AM

Quote from TJoseph on 10/15/2008 at 11:54 PM:

Most of the issues with XP seemed to get resolved within the first year. Vista seems to be taking longer.

I'm not sure about that. XP was released in late 2001 and had some major security issues, among other things, in it's first couple of years. Those issues really didn't start to get resolved until Service Pack 2 was released in 2004, almost 3 years after the release of the OS. Because XP is pretty stable now, and people are used to it, those early problems seem to be forgotten. Personally the driver and software compatibility issues that you have with Vista seem trivial when compared with the security issues you had with XP in it's early stages.

Not at it at all.

greenrunning

posted: 10/16/2008 at 9:54 AM

This thread is so all over the place. From what I can gather, everyone agrees that Macs and Windows have their place. Windows is a necessary evil in any enterprise environment. Macs are cool, but to be more widely adopted they are going to have to be less proprietary and less expensive. Maybe that will happen, in desperation, once Jobs is gone and the Ipod/Iphone insanity is over. If/when it does happen, quality will suffer. Unfortunately, that's how it works. As far as Vista goes, I haven't seen any problems with it. Of course there are the 32/64-bit issues (like the Cisco VPN client) but most casual home users don't care about that. The point is though, that there is absolutely zero reason from a business perspective to upgrade 3 or 4 thousand users from XP to Vista. Until that happens, forget about it.

thomasruns

Insert witty title here

posted: 10/16/2008 at 3:52 PM

Quote from TJoseph on 10/15/2008 at 11:54 PM:

I am not a fanboi or fanboy either. I thought most of those people were into video games. I do this for a living. I run Vista on my home desktop that my wife and daughter use. I run XP on my laptop that I use for work. Some of the compatibility issues haven't been just with obscure software. You can't use Quickbooks 2006 or earlier with Vista, you have to buy an upgrade. The Cisco VPN client still does not support all features on Vista yet. Most of the issues with XP seemed to get resolved within the first year. Vista seems to be taking longer.

For the majority of users Cisco VPN is obscure software. I use it at work daily, but most people have no clue what it is. Software from 2006, to me personally, is obscure or maybe outdated would be a better word. In other words, don't buy a new OS and then bash it when your old software won't work with it.

ThomasRuns Blog
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"The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do." - [Walter Bagehot]

xor

posted: 10/16/2008 at 3:59 PM

Office 2007 RTMed in 2006. Not exactly obscure nor outdated. (hard to get used to, perhaps) This thread really IS all over the place. As for Vista, I know more about Vista and the backstory to its development than anybody here. And it was a gigantic clusterfuck.

TJoseph

posted: 10/16/2008 at 4:05 PM

Quote from thomasruns on 10/16/2008 at 3:52 PM:

For the majority of users Cisco VPN is obscure software. I use it at work daily, but most people have no clue what it is. Software from 2006, to me personally, is obscure or maybe outdated would be a better word. In other words, don't buy a new OS and then bash it when your old software won't work with it.

Some software can be very expensive to upgrade. Backwards compatibility for old software is a major issue for some buyers. Especially if that software costs thousands of dollars. If you were a web developer using Adobe Creative Suite and Quickbooks to run your business and bought a new computer with Vista on it, you would probably be pissed to find out you need to spend another $1500 - $2000 to upgrade your software to be compatible with Vista. It might be a lot cheaper to downgrade the OS to XP if the software you have is working fine for you.

greenrunning

posted: 10/21/2008 at 4:19 PM
modified: 10/21/2008 at 4:30 PM

So what do you guys think about the lack of a Firewire port on the new macbooks? They are catching lots of hell for it, but I'm kind of on the fence. On one hand, Jobs is right that USB 2.0 is the way to go and Firewire was just invented to get around the shortcomings of USB 1.0, but there are still a ton of Firewire devices out there (including older Ipods.) I like to see a company step up and set a new standard though, unlike Microsoft who has bloated Windows beyond recovery by trying to support every piece of hardware and software ever created. At some point the old stuff just needs to go away. Users Rage over Missing Firewire on New MacBooks MTA: Additional article, regarding Apple's killing of old technologies

jEfFgObLuE

I've got a fever...

posted: 10/21/2008 at 4:45 PM

Quote from greenrunning on 10/21/2008 at 4:19 PM:

So what do you guys think about the lack of a Firewire port on the new macbooks? They are catching lots of hell for it, but I'm kind of on the fence. On one hand, Jobs is right that USB 2.0 is the way to go and Firewire was just invented to get around the shortcomings of USB 1.0, but there are still a ton of Firewire devices out there (including older Ipods.) I like to see a company step up and set a new standard though, unlike Microsoft who has bloated Windows beyond recovery by trying to support every piece of hardware and software ever created. At some point the old stuff just needs to go away. Users Rage over Missing Firewire on New MacBooks MTA: Additional article, regarding Apple's killing of old technologies

Good question. Anyone remember the outrage when Apple didn't include a floppy drive on the original iMac? Looking back, it seems silly. Perhaps this will be the same thing. However, it is a little different considering Apple was instrumental in development of firewire. However, I'm personally disappointed. While it's true that most new HDD camcorders use USB2.0 to upload, there are a lot of not very old camcorders (mine included) that can only upload via FW. Also, it eliminates the ability to boot up the MacBook in Target mode, which allowed it to be seen by another computer as a FW disk drive. Very handy for file transfer. But the truth is, in a few years, it won't matter, much like the floppy. Tech sure moves fast.

On your deathbed, you won't wish that you'd spent more time at the office. But you will wish that you'd spent more time running. Because if you had, you wouldn't be on your deathbed.

Trent

Good Bad & The Monkey

posted: 10/21/2008 at 5:05 PM

What will they do about Target mode booting? That is an awesome feature.

I'm running somewhere tomorrow. It's going to be beautiful. I can't wait.

Poor baby

dgb2n

Dave

posted: 10/21/2008 at 5:15 PM

Quote from Trent on 10/21/2008 at 5:05 PM:

What will they do about Target mode booting? That is was an awesome feature.

Fixed that for you. One more reason to buy a MBP. I think the decision was a lousy one for users. It would be a trivial cost to them to build it in and they chose to use it as a way to differentiate the "Macbook Pro" product line.

I ran a mile and I liked it, liked it, liked it.

dgb2n@yahoo.com

modal

posted: 10/21/2008 at 5:49 PM
modified: 10/21/2008 at 5:52 PM

The Apple OS 9 software (mostly audio applications) I had did not work properly on OS X. Soooooo I've been unhappy with Apple INC. OS since OS X. I run XP mostly, but I do use CYGWIN, or a VM with Linux every so often.

Vim

jEfFgObLuE

I've got a fever...

posted: 10/21/2008 at 5:58 PM

Quote from modal on 10/21/2008 at 5:49 PM:

The Apple OS 9 software (mostly audio applications) I had did not work properly on OS X. Soooooo I've been unhappy with Apple INC. OS since OS X.

Dude, live in the now. OS X has been around for since 2001. Wink

On your deathbed, you won't wish that you'd spent more time at the office. But you will wish that you'd spent more time running. Because if you had, you wouldn't be on your deathbed.

If you're planning to buy a new laptop... (Read 1145 times)