Glenn was out here until 3 AM last night trying to get my computer sorted out, and the decision after many hours of labor and crunching is the computer is probably on the verge of dying and I’ll need a new one.
Meanwhile, Verizon assured me that the line noise problem on my fax line would be resolved by late afternoon. In a sense, they were right. There’s no longer any line noise. There’s also no dial tone. The line is now completely dead. In the words of Henry Jones, Sr., “Our situation has not improved.”
PAD
• 
Hacked? Could some punk-ášš teenage hacker be reading the scripts to “Tempest Fuigit”, “Starpoint Academy”, “New Froniter” & “Madorx” as we speak? Can I get in touch with that kid? The mind boggles!
While they can be a “bear” financially, the upshot of new computers is that they are almost always *really cool*.
I know from Kathleen’s previous comments that you are partial to and use a Windows based PC Peter– but I strongly suggest a 17″ or 20″ G-5 iMac.
I plopped one of the 20″ G-4’s in front of my 73-year-old Dad (he had never sat in front of an Apple machine before) and he was whizzing around (almost) like a pro in less than 3 hours.
Since then, he’s had a tech come out once in 11 months (and that was just to make sure that he hadn’t done anything major to mess anything up). Otherwise, the machine has needed zero servicing (other than regular disk utility maintenance.)
Before that, Dad was having a tech come out once ever 7 to 10 days to fix some “conflict” or “bug” on the old machine. (That’s not an exaggeration.)
I have nothing against Windows based machines– as I have been on both sides of the track with all kinds of computers. I just know that Apple’s product is more stable and very straightforward.
So, for what it’s worth– I hope that you at least take a look at the new iMacs. They’re certainly worth a glance. (The 20 inchers are especially “sweet” because you can have [2] documents up on the screen at the same time– makes comparisons/revisions a “snap”!)
In the meantime, best of luck with all your problems.
I spent 2 straight weeks trying to debug a computer once– when a technician finally said, “You know, I’m not trying to sell you anything but you can go to the store right now and for $1,500. you can get a top of the line machine and every single one of these problems would be solved.”
At the time I didn’t have the money but I still grabbed my shoes and was out the door in less than 3 minutes.
“I just know that Apple’s product is more stable and very straightforward.”
Also read as dumbed down and far less functional.
Sorry, but can’t help but get a shot in at Mac nuts. The days of a mac being more stable than a PC has come and gone with Windows XP. Now they are just a lot more money for a lot less computer. Not to mention often butt ugly design.
And yes I use both.
“Hacked?”
Possible, but unlikely. From Peter’s description, it sounds to me that the computer is just old. I have a 2000 Compaq Presario that probably won’t see the end of 2005.
Old comps eventually die; that’s why they keep making new ones.
Hooray! There’s nothing I enjoy more than pricing out a new PC!
…right up until the bill comes. Then it’s not so fun.
Mike wrote:
“Also read as dumbed down and far less functional. Sorry, but can’t help but get a shot in at Mac nuts.”
Don’t believe I came off as a “Mac nut” there Mike.
Stating, “So, for what it’s worth– I hope that you at least take a look at the new iMacs. They’re certainly worth a glance.” is hardly the hard sell now is it?
You are hardly as open-minded as you would pretend to be and you’re certainly not civil. Acting like a close minded, playground bully doesn’t polish your rep.
Sorry, I just couldn’t help but get a shot in at an out-of-line chump.
oh man… you ara one of the greatest writers ever.
i’m one of many people who still sad thet you left captian marvel, it was one of you’r best pices.
p.s
are you gona come to israel??
Mike…
Y’all sound like someone who hasn’t touched a Mac for ten years. Don’t get a Mac/PC war started…it’ll make the right wing/left wing ones look like a friendship club.
I’ve worked with both Macs & PCs. I’m just more used to the PC style, I can never wrap my head around Mac shortcuts. That and I can play illegally downloaded media on my PCs much easier.
Shìŧ, did I just type that last part?
Yes you did. Can you find me a couple of Cmoking Popes songs? 🙂
*siigh* Smoking Popes.
It’s been a long day, guys.
“Also read as dumbed down and far less functional.”
Really? When did Windows XP sport UNIX? You can drop down into UNIX on a XP machine? All XP boxes ship with movie editing software, iTunes, a better browser with no security holes, and desktop CD creation out of the box?
Who knew?
Golly, it’s starting to sound like a Mystery Science Theater 3000 host segment in here:
Tom Servo: …Now, let’s see if we can get this on… Um, (typing) CD, slash, W P 5 1, return… Ah criminies! Stupid clones! I really miss my Mac. Hey Crow, what’s this mean, “Too many parameters, hyphen, W P 5 1?”
Crow: What? Oh. Oh…Oh, you used a forward slash instead of a backslash.
Tom: A what? Oh, oh, okay. (typing) CD *Backslash* W P 5 1, return.
Joel: Hi everyone, welcome back to the Satellite of Love. Tom Servo and Crow are in the middle of another “user interface war.” Let’s watch!
Tom: Oh, this is rich! “Bad command or filename.” Why, they expect you to be a machine to operate this machine!
Crow: Oh, and I suppose you’d prefer a little animated clown, who would juggle over to the little file cabinet, and then wink at you, and point to the right drawer?
Tom: Yeah, sure! At least I don’t have to have a photographic memory to get my Mac to work!
Joel: Both user interfaces work perfectly well, it’s really just a matter of the individual’s personal preferences. We think the joke will be on Tom Servo and Crow.
Tom: Now here, the problem with the IBM and compatibles is that they lack the elegance and intuitive nature of the Mac. Mac products are reliable, proven and they *always* work!
Crow: Oh yeah? What about System 7?
Tom: IT’S COMING! IT’S COMING! OKAY!? THERE WERE A FEW BUGS IN IT, OKAY!? Boy!
Joel: You can have a *lot* of fun with people hopelessly mired in computer nuances. Watch this….Hey, has anybody seen the mouse for my Amiga?
Tom andCrow: AMIGA!?! AMIGA!?! Oh, come on! There’s a machine for you!
Oh man, go for a Mac. I used to be a Windows nut and as fervent an anti-Mac person as you could find, but two years ago when my PC died I finally just threw my hands up and said, “Screw it. I’m going to try to something different!” so I bought a Mac.
Let me tell you, as a writer (albeit an unfamous and poor one), I cannot believe, even to this day, how awesome OS X is for pure stability and ease-of-use when it comes to doing my job. I spend about 10 hours a day writing (software/hardware manuals and service manuals for PCs, and, er, D&D books, and stuff) and my Mac never gives me a single ounce of frustration. Microsoft Office 2004 is rock solid, as is the OS X system. It’s also powerful. Even on my two-year old powerbook, the apps still work great. The only thing you can’t do on a Mac is game on it. Otherwise, you can find any type of program on the Mac that you can find on the PC, and more often than those programs work better on the Mac. MS Office does.
I almost forgot: With a Mac, you will literally never get a virus. They don’t exist. Also, with the way access permissions are set up, and with the built-on firewall, you’ll almost certainly never get “hacked.”
The reason you won’t find that many viruses on Macs (the number is small, but nonzero) is because they aren’t that popular. Trust me – if Macs were selling in the same numbers as Wintel machines, some kid in Germany would be figuring out how to screw up as many of them as possible, and Steve Jobs would be frantically trying to spin the news coverage of the whole thing…
Well, PAD, if you feel like looking at PC’s in a store with an insanely knowledgeable sales staff, might I suggest the Best Buy in Levittown, Long Island? You’d be hard pressed to find people who are better at their job than they– well, let me put it this way: I work there. 😀
Oh, by the way, if it looks like this whole thing is caused by viruses, may I suggest Firefox as your web browser? It’s much more secure than Internet Exploder, and the tabbed-navigation feature (so that you don’t have to have a bunch of windows open to browse different sites) is real spiffy.
-eD
Oh, and, with the line-noise thing, did you have the DSL-filter hooked up to the line your fax machine was running on? ‘Cause I had that problem myself a while back (with a phone, but it’s close enough) and that took care of it.
Just a thought.
-eD
The reason you won’t find that many viruses on Macs (the number is small, but nonzero) is because they aren’t that popular.
For OS X, the number of viruses is exactly ‘0’ – zero. (Viruses are not the same as ‘malware’, which pretty much ask the user up front to authorize their ‘installation’ by entering their admin password, and then they run amok – although even then there are limits because said user didn’t login as root/superuser.) And using the “well macs aren’t popular so nobody writes viruses for them” is a strawman argument. Who cares? Macs work, they’re affordable, and they’re still on the market. If the company were extinct, then I suppose the whole “they’re not popular enough to warrant the attention of script-kiddies” bleating might be a compelling reason to not purchase one.
eD-
Thanks for the suggestions. The fax line is designated as such. The DSL line runs off the office line. We did check for the filters on all the connections to the office line just to make sure we didn’t miss something.
To the rest of the gang-
I am a user of Apples and will probably be for the rest of my life. Yea, you can’t program them as easily but it is not impossible.
In terms of game use, well these are our working machines. We have a playstation, a playstation II and an X-Box for games so our game software consists of solitaire.
I have been using Firefox for about a month and like it better than MoZilla. The only thing I liked better about MoZilla is that I could find the IRC Chat on it. I also haven’t figured out easy ways to view newsgroups.
It isn’t that I don’t like or understand PCs. I was the MIS person at the Borders I worked at and did the Y2K compliance for the system. I also helped a lot of people at Ballantine with their various computer problems when I worked there. I just like Macs better.
Kath
The reason you won’t find that many viruses on Macs (the number is small, but nonzero) is because they aren’t that popular.
Ummm actually, it’s not that Macs are unpopular, it’s that they’re not as cheap. Let’s face it, You have about ten different computer companies from Dell to Gateway to Sony and you can mix and match any component with one from another vendor. You’ve only got one Apple. And every major innovation in computers design, function and use since 1984 has been developed by Apple interestingly enough which includes the PDA, the mouse, GUI, wireless networking, USB and firewire ports. If it wasn’t for Apple your lap top would probably weigh about nine pounds. And even though PCs boast a faster clock speed, they’re only marginally faster than the fastest Mac. That has to do with the way Macs and PCs read computer instructions via their chip design. Macs are RISC- based while PCs are CISC-based.
Sorry, slipped into geek mode.
“And using the “well macs aren’t popular so nobody writes viruses for them” is a strawman argument.”
Actually, it’s not. A strawman argument is where you accuse your opponent of taking a position they didn’t take, and then tear that position down rhetorically.
PAD, I won’t push you to choose one platform over another, because if you’re genuinely more comfortable with Windows, then stick with it.
But don’t just make that choice because it’s what you’ve always used. Look at it critically, just as you would buying a new car. Ask yourself: Does you often end up using Kathleen’s computer (or possibly another one) for relatively routine tasks because yours isn’t working/fast enough/robust enough to do what you want? If so, you may do better to get one like Kathleen’s just so you can get work done faster. And before the PC vs Mac nuts come down on this, it’s a matter of best use of money: Sometimes it’s better to pay more for something you’ll use more rather than less for something you can’t.
Of course, if you just have to have that little unreliable sports car because you think it’s cool, even if it’s in the shop quite a bit, then go for it. Sometimes for a little more comfort you have to throw logic out the window.
“And using the “well macs aren’t popular so nobody writes viruses for them” is a strawman argument. Who cares? Macs work, they’re affordable, and they’re still on the market. If the company were extinct, then I suppose the whole “they’re not popular enough to warrant the attention of script-kiddies” bleating might be a compelling reason to not purchase one.”
CJ, this is indeed a “straw man”. I did not say that this was a reason not to buy one; I merely asserted that this was a reason why there aren’t a plethora of virii eating away at Apple-built systems. Nobody’s going to spend hours and hours of time, no matter how weird they are, constructing a virus to destroy about 10% of the worldwide computer market. This, in fact, could be considered a reason to buy one, just as it’s a reason to download Firefox, Opera, or any of a number of other third-party browsers.
However, the number of virii is not a good reason not to purchase a Wintel box, as most infections can be avoided by simply updating your virus-protection software and practicing safe hex (don’t download software you’re not certain of, be very careful opening attachments, all that sort of thing).
My bad on the misuse of “strawman” 🙂 I’ve been living abroad for the last 3 1/2 years and I tell ya, you’d be surprised at how fast your English can degenerate when you don’t speak it every day with other native speakers.
Posted by Mike at December 18, 2004 03:20 PM
“I just know that Apple’s product is more stable and very straightforward.”
Also read as dumbed down and far less functional.
—
Sure. If you actually knew what you were talking about then we’d have an arguement on our hands. But since you make comments like this.. we can’t have a battle of wits because you’d loose.
I’d take a Ferrari over a Firebird any day.. and that’s what we have here. We have a UNIX based system with a dámņ nice UI vs, a trojan inviting, virus catching pile o’ shite.
*sigh* We Mac/Linux/Unix users may be zealots but at least we know what were talking about instead of ášš*u*ming things.
Same old bûllšhìŧ strawman arguement that’s been beaten more to death then any other. Your arguement fails because OpenSource has been proven to be more secure the closed and OSX is FreeBSD w/ a nice GUI.. and it’s funny how Firefox is getting recommended and IE condemned. So when Linux/OSX have 50% of the market as well as Firefox having 50% of the market.. will you still be able to say the samething. No. You won’t. Because there aren’t as many people out there that can write a virus that can hack root for itself and then infect. While there are thousands of script kiddies out there that can write a vb script that millions of morons will click on in Outbreak.
“The reason you won’t find that many viruses on Macs (the number is small, but nonzero) is because they aren’t that popular. Trust me – if Macs were selling in the same numbers as Wintel machines, some kid in Germany would be figuring out how to screw up as many of them as possible, and Steve Jobs would be frantically trying to spin the news coverage of the whole thing…”
PAD. I don’t know how familar you are with Mark Millars infamous problems with computers, but he bought an iBook and hasn’t posted a “help me” in his forum for months. The same arguements were made when he was deciding.. they lost and he’s been a happy camper ever since. He was getting infected by various virus and trojans monthly. Hasn’t happened since.
Let’s just remember that MacOS X is built on a BSD UNIX foundation, which is over 20+ years old and has been time-tested into stability and security. This is the same UNIX that is used by no-nonsense groups like NASA, the CIA, Boeing, MIT, and other impressive-sounding TLAs.
The current incarnation of Windows is a mutant variation of Windows NT, which was itself a mutant variant of Digital’s VAX/VMS. Which is currently used by… well, nobody, really.
Says it all, doesn’t it?
–R.J.
Still using both myself since I got the iBook this past summer/fall. I like the Mac, no arguments. I’m not prepped to go evangelical about it, though. Too busy learning how to play and work with it.