smurf you, Daniel.

No thanks, I've got that covered.

sounds like you took the comment of "go smurf yourself" literally.

All right, that's enough...

HR: I'm actually considering buying a Mac for college.

Oh, how I suffer for my art...

You could just get an entry-level HP computer, and put, say, Kubuntu on it. That would cut your costs in half.

Oh yeah, it would also earn you far more cool points than a Mac.

I'm JBroms and I approved this message.

Amongst normal people, using an open source operating system wins you no cool points.

Not horrifying at all: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/30...apple-products/

This is my school:

In the words of a poster on another forum I read in a discussion about new computers:



Now granted I'd try and be less abrasive in what I'd post in response to this line of conversation, but my sentiments are pretty much the same.

Chloe is going to Carnegie Mellon. Need I elaborate further?

Kidding. ...sort of.

Good Point.
Also:
Normal people don't have any cool points to give out.

As someone who spent the better part of a day trying to set my toshiba up for the tcu wireless network, and another day every time my network password changes (4 times a year), I'll be the first to call shenanigans. I also enjoy the fact that within 30 minutes of getting my macbook, I had it set up exactly how I wanted it with all of my files from my old computer loaded. And I think it's fair to say that people who do not "know nothing about their computer" would be able to spend a bit more of their time outside if they used macs, which run better, don't require tweaking to get full performance, and are far more intuitive. As for my knowledge, I know enough to diagnose generally what is wrong and I know that on my macbook, restarting it fixes 99% of my problems. But hey, if you feel that it is important to know everything about how your system operates, feel free to condemn your chances of ever mating. That's cool with me.

LISTEN TO ME, PEOPLE, AS I AM JUST ABOUT THE ONLY PERSON HERE THAT IS NEITHER AN OPEN-SOURCE SOLDIER, A WINDOWS IDIOT, OR A MAC WANKER:

YES, Macs have a fairly navigable OS. This is because the OS is built from the UNIX kernel.

YES, PCs running Windows typically suck nuts, because Microsoft is the worst entity ever.

NO, Macs do not have better hardware. A Macbook runs the same silicon, gold and steel as an HP, Dell, Toshiba, or any other IBM-based computer.

NO, PCs are not always fail; neither are Macs always the best.

What is the problem with a Macbook?

YOU PAY SO GOD DAMN MUCH FOR A smurfING IBM COMPUTER WITH A PRE-LOADED UNIX DISTRO.

Do you want a good computer, with that lovable Mac feel, and without paying $1,999 for a working set of hardware?

Buy a PC, download Elive, and for the love of all that is good in this world,

STOP PAYING TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS FOR A MID-RANGE COMPUTER WITH A smurfING APPLE ON THE FRONT OF IT.


Okay? Okay.

*bows to Widget!*

First of all, no one who pays 2 grand for a mac does it for the little "apple". They would just as soon spend the same amount on a PC if they didn't require so much smurf time and money to update and maintain. I gladly pay the premium for a mac because it means I don't get a dialog box that says "Windows has finished installing your updates and will restart in 3 minutes unless you click 'restart later'", in which case the box will come back in five minutes. Or because I can take it to a store that's actually owned by the company that made the computer in the rare event something goes really wrong, rather than calling some college dropout who took computer repair classes at DeVry, who will probably spend more time telling my why I need to upgrade to DDR2 ram or partition my hard drive or how his system runs WoW so much faster than his friend's does.

I'm glad you can find a way to claim superior reproductive ability as a logical concluding point to prove the superiority of your preferred operating system. Stay classy, dude.

But really, your continued (though unnecessary) style of posting helps prove my point, so I'm glad you've stepped up to the plate to help me out. If you have a mentality like CaptainK, then by all means, a Mac is made for you. It's not all that difficult to understand how these things work, and if you wanted to, you could figure it out with a little bit of effort. If you had so much trouble with your computer each time the network key changed, perhaps some investigation (or, logging what fixed it) into what happened might ensure you don't need to spend another day fixing it. But, if you can play a few basic games, listen to some music, and use Word, and don't mind paying more for the ease included and don't want to know much more, then perhaps you should buy a Mac. The power of these machines limitless, but if you don't care, then it doesn't really matter what you get so much.

Now, you make claims about your experience. That's probably a common experience, and not one we can really fault you too much for. Now, for the things you don't know, but make claims about? Those are a bit more concerning. A Mac doesn't need tweaking to reach full performance? Your Macbook didn't come out of the box overclocked. It comes out of the box opening MS Word and Internet Explorer fast enough to satisfy you, that's not full performance. They are more intuitive devices. Yes. That is an option with benefits and challenges, not an automatic plus. My 80 year old grandparents run them quite happily, but what happens when something goes wrong? They take it back to the Apple store, because they haven't a clue how to fix it. That's generally how the process works for most users. Just like an automatic transmission is more intuitive and easier to use than a manual, but you're missing a fair bit of the experience there.

It fits what you need, but don't pretend that means that there's nothing beyond your understanding that your machine can do. You are a pretty standard Mac user and happy with your purchase. If using a Mac makes you feel like you have a better sex life, then I can certainly understand why it is so appealing. However, there are other uses for a computer that are simpler than you might think.

Um yeah my brother helped me decide:

"Dan...do you think a mac would be better for the art stuff I'll be doing?"
"...Nah. Just get a PC."
"But-"
"You're getting a PC."
"But-"
"NO SISTER OF MINE-"
"okay."

When you pay two grand for a Mac, you're paying about a thousand dollars for that damn Apple logo. There are no two-ways about it, if you want a Mac and a PC to be on-par for hardware capabilities you will always pay four hundred to a thousand more dollars for the Mac. Why? Because it has an Apple on the front of it.

Why do you pay more for Nikes? Because they have a swoop on them.

When you pay for a Mac, you mostly pay for the logo.

Automatic updates? Yeah, dude, um, you can turn that off.

Computer support? Wonderful. That's so nice that you can go to the store and get them to deal with it. Is that free? Because the Linux community runs reliable, free software support.

If your hardware breaks? Well, that was probably you doing something stupid, so you can't complain too much. I'm being serious, a standard user has no reason to run into hardware problems for anything other than end-user error. Maaaaybe three or four people on this board have any reason to overclock their processor, and I'm pretty sure everyone is fairly careful about keeping their computer safe and cooled. (If your laptop is keeping your jollies nice and toasty, you probably need to get that looked at, yo.) So, no standard user has any reason to run into hardware problems.

If you run a PC intelligently -- that is, you run Firefox, or Chrome, or Opera, or anything but smurfing Internet Explorer, and listen when it tells you not to continue to a site, you run an anti-virus program (There are many open source programs that are free, and work much better than any proprietary anti-virus out there.), and you refrain from running ELEVENTY BILLION THOUSAND GAJILLION AND ONE programs at once -- you don't have to spend a whole lot of time or money updating or maintaining. Or, actually, any time at all, really.

Oh, and, yes, you bloody well should upgrade to DDR2 RAM.

Yeah your brother's a BAMF.

I've never really gotten why people think macs are better for artsy stuff. I've never experienced any difference in running photoshop on a mac and running it on a PC. And I've had a lot more luck getting my tablet to work properly on Vista than Panther or Leopard or Spock or whatever the Mac OS is called. Then again, I do not like Macs because I've never seen the reason for spending money I don't have to, so yeah.

Also, Christ, chill the hell out everybody. We cool, we cool.

There you go again, taking my sarcasm waaaay too seriously....

On a more serious note, windows just plain complicates things. I suppose if building computers were a hobby of mine, I might find windows appealing. However, I usually treat my computer as a tool, not a toy. I'm sure I could get much better speed, storage etc for less money with a pc, but I'd rather have a computer that turns on every morning and works. Macs can run office, play wmv files, and do everything else a pc can, but in a cleaner and more stable package. Yeah, my macbook has locked up before, but that only happens when I'm running a 3D rendering program in addition to safari, mail, itunes, skype and maybe a few other apps in the background. Yeah, it's not perfect (I'm not a huge fan of the integrated graphics on the Macbook), but it does what I want it to do without consuming all of my time (like my toshiba does when running word and ie. seriously, slowest computer ever...)

Put another way, I wouldn't want my car enthusiast neighbor to tell me that a used civic with new headers and a high-flow exhaust could outperform my subaru but cost $10000 less when the subaru reliably gets me where I'm going just fine. I'd rather not spend the extra time and effort to tune and keep up an older car. Just because some people make a hobby out of wringing every last drop of power out of whatever doesn't mean those that don't are idiots for not doing the same.

As frequently as that argument is used, though, I don't feel bad that I mistook sarcasm for seriousness.

I just bought a Mac the other day for college. Go ahead, make fun of me, whatever. I get it all the time from people on PCs. I mean, you can say what you want about the population of hardcore Mac users, but at the end of the day, hardcore PC users are way more pretentiously dickish than hardcore Mac users. Ian, you want to squeeze out every last drop of power from your machine, overclock it, whatever. Great. You want to game on it. I simply smurfing don't. I don't care if I can't run Call of Duty. You want to say I'm bad with computers because you just built your own? I built my first computer when I was smurfing 12. It's not that hard. Get over yourself, man.

Brendan, you are being wholly reasonable. I agree that I could run Linux and have a great experience with that, but, like Kevin, I'm not interested in going to that effort. I didn't pay $2000 for my laptop. For the price I paid, I could get a tablet laptop PC with lower specs, or a PC with similar specs. Trust me, I looked around. Maybe if I looked really hard, I could have gotten a slightly better PC.

I've said this to Ian before, and I'll say it here again. Only in the world of technology is ease of use something that makes a product inferior. Macs are simply easier to use than PCs. I'll agree that I would prefer a PC as a desktop, but on a laptop, this Mac is far easier to use than any other I've used (and I've used quite a few). At the beginning of my ownership of this computer I looked pretty hard for any complaint I could make about it, and found a few. Then I realized that there were some really, really easy solutions to my few tiny problems. I don't think these will be my last complaints, but I have never had an easier time adjusting to an operating system. Hell, I've had harder times adjusting to the keyboards of other PCs than I did adjusting to this entirely new OS.

Lastly, Ian, go ahead and lump me in with your 80-year-old grandparents if you want. Honestly, they seem like reasonable people who know what they want and get it. As I said, I don't want this laptop for gaming. If you're looking for gaming, I don't really know why you would ever buy a laptop. From my laptop, I'm looking for a few simple things. I want to be able to take notes in class and create documents. I want to be able to do research. I want to be able to chat online and generally surf the web. I want to be able to maybe make a few videos and do some image-editing. I want to listen to music and maybe tinker around with some sound-editing software. For all of those things, this Mac is as good or better than any PC I could have gotten.

I can just as easily lump the hardcore PC supporters in with their compatriots, the people who waste away their lives playing computer games instead of finding better applications for themselves. Some of my best friends fit into this category. They are the ones who mocked me for getting a Mac. They are also the ones who rarely leave their houses and I honestly feel don't live as full lives as they could because they are tied to maxing out their PC's capabilities and always seeking out a better game. Given the choice between that and your 80-year-old grandparents, I know which side I'll choose.

I'm sorry I started this argument, everyone.

Hah, I'm not really angry or anything, just had to say something.

YOU SUCK

Sorry, I"m late to the flame war.

The only war where nobody wins!

Hey wait a seco--

PS: Moving day tomorrow!
UC: Not entirely packed...

Moving back to school, or out of school?

wow...mines not until the 28th O.o

No, I have no interest in saying that whatsoever. And I haven't, nor will I, because I don't believe that. Building a computer doesn't have anything to do with an OS (Hell, I could run OS X on my computer if I wanted to), and using a Mac doesn't mean that you don't understand computers, it just means that you won't be using that knowledge if you do have it.



It's ease of use is both an asset and a liability. It's not a symbol of inferiority, it's a choice made that incurs a cost and a benefit.



And 99% of users of either OS would land somewhere between those two. The point of my grandparents was just stating that there's a level of self-reliance that PCs allow you to exercise that Macs usually don't. Most of the PC users I know do take some interest in what they're dealing with, though they aren't hermits. You're happy with using Mac, and it's not like I'm going to put a strike against your character because of it, but it does say something about the way you want it to work, and that shouldn't offend anyone.

Our conversation last night was not at all hostile, so although this post was directed at me, I have a feeling the sentiment behind it is probably more directed at you friends, but that's just a guess.

Actually, both. I'm moving about 800 feet to my dorm for the fall.

Ouch

When do classes start for you?

Classes start the 24th. I fly home monday for two weeks or so, then back to fort worth around the 22nd. On the plus side, I can actually move into my room (originally they were like, "your room wont be ready until the 9th, so you'll have to store your stuff elsewhere")

Oh so that's good, you get some summer back home.

yeah, except I will be in Ames August 6th-8th, and in Indiana from the 12th-15th. So, summer all over the midwest?

Well you'd get bored of Kansas pretty soon anyway

haha, prolly true...

We are together in our disliking of Kansas, Mac, Windows, and Linux alike.

Ames isn't exactly better.... :/

PS: iMatt is "Schmoopsie Poo" apparently....

So I have a circle of best friends called "The Gang" collectively. Among them are two who were once bf/gf and whatnot. It is a circle of awkwardness.


We have recently announced that we're to be married (the girl of the two) in 11 years. We have begun with calling each other pet names and stuff, somewhat for the pure stupidity of it, and another part because it makes the guy get a bit like... uncomfortable.


We're terrible people.


Oh right: being terrible person is a PS.

That reminds me how I was married to Sam on facebook for about a year, then someday she randomly divorced me and I got a ton of wall posts about it and how everyone was depressed and I posted on her wall like "Why did you do it Sam" and she just posted something like "bad sex" and it was funny and I don't know why this reminded me of that I'll shut up now.

Super AF: That was... that was a nightmare. This is about to get messy.

Care to elaborate?

yeah dude. hook us up with some deets.

That was basically my exact thought process upon waking up. It uhh relates to girls. Don't want to go into too much detail publicly.