Snow Leopard and Windows 7

[Andrew Steven]

http://windows7news.com/2009/06/21/windows...ing-innovation/

[yidakee]

This guy that wrote this clearly never used a Mac.

 

These days, comparing OSx with Windows is like comparing a digital calculator with an abbacus.

 

Mac does it right from the drawing board, Windows fails time and time again. There was a time that the plasticity of the Windows platform was great in setting up custom solutions for highly specific apps... still does and Apple is certainly catching up, but from a consumer stand point... geez !!

 

My hackintoshes (10.4 all the way up to 10.5.6) have always been miles better that with XP.

 

I am trying Windows 7. Had 32bit, now with 64 and I cannot wait for Snow to dump mirosoft again (bought new laptop 3 weeks ago) - It is absolutely shameful how bad it it, and I am not talking about bugs in development. Win7 is NOT overhauled, better slicker... it is just yuk to "drive".

[nZeus]

sorry, but seems you are a looser....

windows system always were better than mac/linux systems.

and win7 is really GREAT.

[Embio]

nZeus, please go away.

[sweatervest]

It is absolutely shameful how bad it it, and I am not talking about bugs in development.

 

Examples?

 

I have always felt that Mac OS and Windows target different demographics... Mac OS has the advantage of (well, save for what we do :angry2: ) running on hardware that was put together by the same people that made the OS... they also offer support and everything else... the whole Apple package takes a lot of the potential confusion out of setting up a PC yourself... but some people enjoy doing that themselves and that is what Windows (and to a much greater degree Linux) offers... support for a much wider collection of hardware and a high degree of customization to allow it to work for everyone that wants to use it.

 

That being said, all the awesome features that Snow Leopard is gonna have were implemented into Windows years ago... a 64 bit kernel and drivers, multi-core optimization, support for hi-res codecs... under the hood Windows seems to be at least a couple of years ahead of OS X.

 

But I am intrigued you have not liked 7... XP gave me some trouble (blue screens, stuff like that) and Vista was stable but a little slow and annoying... I have found 7 to be awesome though... I think it is the best Windows I have ever used... it has really impressed me that since I have started using beta or leaked operating systems my computers have been more stable and functional than they ever were before... also it is faster than even XP. I like OS X too which is why I am really excited to hopefully run Snow and 7 side-by-side, and maybe with Ubuntu thrown in for good measure! So I am just interested in what problems 7 has given you cause they may be resolvable!

[Atze de Vries]

Examples?

 

I have always felt that Mac OS and Windows target different demographics... Mac OS has the advantage of (well, save for what we do ) running on hardware that was put together by the same people that made the OS... they also offer support and everything else... the whole Apple package takes a lot of the potential confusion out of setting up a PC yourself... but some people enjoy doing that themselves and that is what Windows (and to a much greater degree Linux) offers... support for a much wider collection of hardware and a high degree of customization to allow it to work for everyone that wants to use it.

 

I always hear the argument of more drives, more hardware stuff etc etc. Linux has a very wide range of support hardware, maybe as much as Windows does, but i never hear BSOD in linux. Why is this, i ask..

I think is has something to do with a windows attitude, which is, sell a product en then be done with it.

There is no unpacking experince with any Windows products, the product support is as hell (expecpt when you pay lot's for it). M$ just wants to sell a product and after selling keep it as cheap as possible.

People always complain about customizing, and that fine for the few tweakers who like doing it, but a Apple computer is a fine machine as it is and there is no way you are working faster on a customized machine than on a Apple (leaving the OS out of it). Costomization is just a minority argument.

 

That being said, all the awesome features that Snow Leopard is gonna have were implemented into Windows years ago... a 64 bit kernel and drivers, multi-core optimization, support for hi-res codecs... under the hood Windows seems to be at least a couple of years ahead of OS X.

Well, windows was indeed a littlebit earlier that OSx with 64bit support, although Leopard has some 64bit support. The problem is that Windows64 is only usefull in a server enviroment, there is no end user who will be really happy using a 64bit, because of its driver and software hell. Snow will just be for everybody.

 

As far as i can see W7 is indeed the best Windows OS on the moment, but the real test still has to come. I like may Mac, don't need any antivirus (at least not yet ) no reinstall etc etc, it just does its job well.

[Thath0r]

sorry, but seems you are a looser....

You actually realized, that this is more like a Mac forum?

And: What the hell? Windows better than Unix? Where are you living? On Mars? Seriously, Windows may be better for gaming but the rest sucks!

[fletch33]

nZeus, please go away.

 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!

 

well said

[Andrew Steven]

The guy already deleted his Mac bashing post to merely a comparison between Mac and Windows..a click on the above link shows page not found page...this is much friendly and acceptable....here is the new link to the friendlier post I guess http://windows7news.com/2009/06/22/windows...s-x-comparison/

[yidakee]

Ok, let me explain further my view.

 

For one, hats off to M$ for building software that can be tailor tweaked for any application, from heavy duty iron melting industries to home based accounting.

 

I've been using M$ since DOS 3.1. Had Amiga's, Atari's, IBM's, never ever had a Mac. Saw a Classic once, and hated it, looked alien. Couldn't grasp the GUI. Overpriced, ugly, extremely limited end user spectrum of application. Apple was a renegade, outcast familiy of hardware and software. Since forever I've been used (and love) to go under the hood to take a peak, albeit I have no Linux/programming skills. But tweak, mods, configs, crakin' and wackin' around until I grasp thinks is something I adore.

 

Two years ago I was "forced" to switch to Mac due to a carrer change. And behold, a like Plato came out of a cave, I entered the heavens of simple, direct, efficient GUI (to start off with).

 

This is when I first arrived here, as I could not afford Macbook Pro

 

Within TWO days I had all my documents efficiently organized, fotos, music library, contacts, cellphone (I have a Nokia which forever was a PAIN to sync in XP) bla bla...

 

So never touched Vista! Heard all the storied, yes I saw it around, ugly as hell... so I stayed with my sig machine.

 

By the way, it really really REALLY felt like I had bought a Macbook, not because of the screen, but the PERFORMANCE ! oh my... And let me tell you, when I install any XP for myself, I go through a 2,-5 HOUR tweaking bonanza to squeaze every service out the way, gain performance, maximize ram usage, optimize pagefiling, registry and page more stuff.

 

Out of the box, same machine, same software (in some cases) and I laughed myself silly.

 

I got a sweet (almost porn) deal on a fantastic laptop 3 weeks ago that came with Vista Home Premium 32. Its an C2D P8400 2,4ghz 1066 fsb 4GB dual ddr3, NVidia 9600m GT GDDR3 !!! Check my signiture and compare with my hacky.

 

Went out a bought a seagate 7,200 rpm with 16mb cache SATA to keep the warranty install and try out Win7 since its rc1. Anyways, had Vista 2 weeks, 1 week Win7_32rc1 and 1 week Win7_64rc1.

 

I felt I had to start learning how to meander through the new OS, although all the functions are the same, some new, everything is reorganized and I find it really hard to go some places twice. Performance SUCKS... GUI wise. and please do NOT say its because or it being RC. It is not a smooth OS. Basic install is again a PAIN and 20 million thing I do not need are up and running. Feels half the machine. General usage is still MILES smoother in my hacky.

 

Had a chance to try some heavy duty stuff. On a side note, GTAIV runs at a smooth 30fps almost all high, so the machine IS rockin'. I benchmarked everything to check for consistancy, only had to update my BIOS to take full clockage of my memories. Even still;

 

Win 32 vs 64 .... there si a huge difference. 32 really feels like a sturdy XP so far, although I find 7 to be annoying as hell because you finish setting up everything about a weeks later (from backgrounds to user control settings, etc).

 

Win 64 is {censored}!!!!!!!!!!!! bugs, firefox hangs on wake, drivers ... uuuuuuug !!

 

Withing 1 week of heavy Win7 32 bit testing, installing everything in sight, I really felt the "growing wondows belly" syndrome, and you feel the OS having to weight-push itself around.

 

It feels like I hacked a PPC to run a virtualized crippled Windows hahahaha

 

1 year of monstrous Leopard abuse and my system boots up like clockwork. No optimizations, no tweaking (except for *cof* the educational install on x86 machine) and the system is wonderfully light, responsive, efficient AND effective.

 

Windows is neither. Efficient nor effective...

 

I could go on for hours... please stop me !! Eveyone knows this, this is soooo cliché, so soon, already...

 

Why the heck did I just spend so much time explaining what 99,9999% of people found out for themselves, right here?

 

Why ARE you here?

 

 

 

Sorry... about the rant.

 

To get back to topic. Leopard is way better that Win7, so Snow Leo will shame Windows 7, I know this already first hand how obvious this is. Try it yourself, its a free legal download lol.

 

If you go technical down to the code used... I have no grounds to say, but if they say Win7 is more advanced... ok, I'll buy that.

 

Burning petrol is more advanced than solar energy, so lets stick with that, shall we?

[tdtran1025]

I have used Microsoft OS since the DOS days. Win7 might be the first OS they will launch with very little defect. All of the machines in my my household have been running on Win7 as the secondary OS (more later) for weeks now (build 7229) without an incident. One would think that this is great but it is to be expected by any OS, regardless. The reason for Windows as a secondary? The primary OS os Leopard on all hacks plus real Macs. Windows is just there because it is legacy. It is clumsy, super paranoid such that you can install on USB drive or two windows on 1 drive, multiple windows on multiple drives, not on drive with more than 4 primary partitions...and yet I still have to keep it around because it is legacy. Most games are made for this platform. But that is quickly changing.

My kids are growing up fast and graduating from playing games to using more net centric applications.

And this where the iPhone reins supreme- it integrates seamlessly with OS X. Thsi is when there should be no more reason to keep Windows around other than fro testing purposes. Funny how I say it. I used to test OS X on hacks. Now I am tesing Windows. Wait, Windows is not even fun to test.

Snow leopard would be a great platform to develop games. This should be a compelling reason for teenagers to switch and I hope they do. We should all chip in efforts to reduce the world's depedency on Windows and MS to about its rightful place of 25%.

I'll toast to this!

[sweatervest]

That's interesting that everyone is saying they had a lot of trouble on Windows 64, which has not been my experience at all.

 

I already had 64 bit platforms when I was using XP. I briefly tried XP 64 but that was a load of trouble, mostly because of almost no driver support.

 

When Vista came out I didn't even deal with 32, I went straight for 64. As far as I can remember the whole thing worked out pretty well from the get-go... at least now I'd say 64 bit is as well supported driver-wise as 32, if not more (I was trying to hunt down a wireless card driver for my friend a couple days ago for 32 bit and was annoyed to repeatedly find links to a 64 bit version!)... I know NVidia, ATI/AMD, HP (for their laptops) and Creative all support Vista 64 officially, and on my current laptop (Compaq Presario V6000) Windows 7 x64 already contains drivers for my wi-fi card and Windows Update finds drivers for everything else.

 

All in all, my experience with x64 has made it so that when my friends complain about slow annoying windows installations, the very first thing I ask them is "are you running 32 or 64 bit?"... if the answer is 32, then I immediately suggest a reinstall to Vista 64 (nowadays Win 7 64)... in fact I attribute my lack of noticing Vista being "sluggish" to the fact that I have never used Vista 32.

 

The only trouble that I have gotten from being on Windows 64 is that Win16 support is gone... which is only a problem if you like running programs (for example, old awesome first person shooters like Shogo: MAD) from the 16/32 era... Shogo had a 16 bit installer and so would not run on Vista 64... I found a rather involved solution of virtualizing Windows 98, installing it there and moving the install to Vista (since the game itself was a Win32 program)... drivers have not really been a problem for me... there was one case when it took some work to get a USB wi-fi key working but if I remember correctly that was due to a lack of support for Vista altogether... either way I got it to work after hunting down the chipset driver.

 

I don't think I have used Firefox on Windows recently but I find it interesting that it would crash in Win 7 64 but not Win 7 32... the WoW compatability layer should be compeltely transparent and has been in my experience... of course most of the programs I use on Win64 are Win32 programs but they have always worked fine for me.

 

Of course I don't want to be a fanboy either way, I think Windows is powerful, well supported software-wise and I know it really well, while OS X is simple and elegant (and Linux is as customizable as one could ever want)... which is why I was excited however many months ago it was to discover that I could run all of them side-by-side! It hasn't exactly worked out for me (AMD processor, IDE optical drive, bleh... for some reason my laptop's boot into Leopard seems to depend critically on finding the PS2 devices, which it only does sometimes when a USB keyboard/mouse is present) but if all goes as planned I'm scapping this Compaq and getting a newer HP (with a Core 2) which should make things much simpler!

 

As for reducing the world's dependecy on Windows, that's already happening... lots of the major government and private businesses in Europe and switching to open-source platforms.

[yidakee]

I find it inadmissable that Win7 64 behaves differently to 32...

 

In 64, perfect base install with 100% supported drivers + fully updated... the OS reacts differently to 32 bit.

 

Programs refuse to pin to taskbar, but are ok in 32. WHY ?! Grab a window and move it really quick and it feels like you see the screen refresh at 5 fps. On wake up, I had a coupple app hang on me. Widgets are a joke compared to OSx. The aero thing is really hyped up, but it an OSx knock-off, some things are really cool though (love the drag-window-to-side thing)

 

Look, dont get me wrong. Win 7 really feels like a sturdy XP (32 bit... 64 is not rockin' here....)

 

I am just saying that in regular use, speed, slickness, effectiveness and efficiency... Last years's Leo is better that Win 7 !

 

What is it about 7 that everyone is on about?! What is there that is really new and usefull about Windows ?!

 

Did ANYONE see the WWDC keynote ?

 

I am not talking about the speed to calculate Pi to the 100th decimal number.

 

I am talking about real life!

 

Windows 7 has a nice new look I'll give it that.

 

What is special about Windows 7 that doesn't exist in XP ?

[Superhai]

Can you people stop complaining about bugs in OS's that are still in beta???

 

Anyway I run Snow and Win 7 in 64 bit, and both are better than their 32 bit counterpart. Your luck will of course depend on drivers and other device specific control.

[Takuro]

I'd have to say that Windows 7 may not as amazingly great as everybody is clamoring about. The reason for this is... and you might want to get your pitchforks and torches out... I honestly didn't think Vista was that bad. I think that the taboo surrounding Vista was so large that any small improvements between it and Windows 7 would be magnified 100-fold in the eyes the large, single-minded flocks of Vista-haters that always seem to unite under a common opinion. So now, the latest trend is to proclaim Windows 7 was a total rebirth of Windows as we know it. Is Windows 7 better, less prone to viruses, and prettier looking? Yes. But considering the milestones between XP and Vista, Vista to 7 isn't quite as large a jump. Not that anything's wrong with that. It's solid as a rock, and I've never gotten so much as a small bit of adware after using it for 6 months. Not bad.

 

Now on to Snow Leopard. Similar to Windows 7, it represents a refinement more than a major upgrade. Currently, it's a bit less mature than Windows 7 in its development cycle and has had little exposure to the public because of Apple's tight-lipped NDA with developers. This is a pretty big contrast to 7, which has been openly available for the public for months. There's nothing in the current incarnation of Leopard that I'm wild about, and performance increases seem to be only moderate so far, although some announced technologies during WWDC 09 promise to make the OS super snappy. But for the moment, I just don't feel it's worth updating a system to SL. After September, yes, but not now.

 

It's a pretty neck-and-neck situation between 7 and Snow Leopard. Both build upon their predecessors and offer various improvements in performance, with a sparse set of new features. At the moment, I'd have to say I slightly prefer Windows 7 over Snow Leopard, only because it feels closer to a finished product and has no issues whatsoever with backwards compatibility. Snow Leopard, on the other hand, is still a bit of a diamond in the rough, and seems to run a little slower and buggier than Win 7's interface. However, the final product may perform better than 7, so my opinion is open to change.

[sweatervest]

I find it inadmissable that Win7 64 behaves differently to 32...

 

In 64, perfect base install with 100% supported drivers + fully updated... the OS reacts differently to 32 bit.

 

Programs refuse to pin to taskbar, but are ok in 32. WHY ?! Grab a window and move it really quick and it feels like you see the screen refresh at 5 fps. On wake up, I had a coupple app hang on me. Widgets are a joke compared to OSx. The aero thing is really hyped up, but it an OSx knock-off, some things are really cool though (love the drag-window-to-side thing)

 

I would find that inadmissable as well but that has been exactly my experience. I have never had any trouble like that with any build of Win 7. I started on build 7000, then used 7048, 7068, 7100, 7229 and now 7232 (just to keep up with them). The only bug I have experienced is that my desktop has a dual monitor setup where one monitor is a television getting a composite signal, and the NVidia drivers reset the picture adjustments for the tv output so everytime I restart I need to open up the NVidia panel and hit the "+" button on the picture size four times. Of course that probably has nothing to do with the OS, it's probably a driver bug NVidia has not discovered yet.

 

Other than that, I have never had problems with pinning programs, using gadgets, or anything else on either my desktop or laptop PCs running Win 7 x64, and I have installed 7 x64 on three or four of my friends' laptops and they have all said they love it (one of them had trouble finding a working driver for his printer but he figured it out). Instability on that level would seem to point to a bunk installation process, but then I don't know what could cause that.

 

I have noticed that Windows is incorporating more features from OS X but to me that is just what innovation is: emulation and imitation. Someone takes a good idea and reuses it and hopefully improves upon it. No need to reinvent the wheel. It goes the other way too. One may consider SL's 64 bit kernel and Grand Central to be Windows knock-offs!

 

Also Takuro raises some very good points. People's complaints about Vista seemed to be concerned mostly with User Account Control, which is very similar to the Unix permissions layer found in OS X and Linux which, unlike UAC, cannot be disabled. The other big complaint is that Vista was slow which is what people should have been complaining about. Vista for me was way more stable, functional and easy to use but it was also slower than XP (using Vista 64 made that much less of a problem). Vista got most of the stuff right but it was a little annoying (like with UAC, but just turn it off!) and most importantly it was slower than its predecessor. These are exactly what Win 7 addresses. Benchmarks have shown that Win 7 is faster than not only Vista but XP, and the whole Security Center and UAC deal is less obnoxious (read easier to turn off). The thing I like the most about 7 though is the new taskbar interface... the program pinning, the way multiple windows for one program (including explorer) can be previewed side-by-side, I have noticed that those UI improvements have made me a more efficient PC user.

[krazybutt84]

sorry, but seems you are a looser....

windows system always were better than mac/linux systems.

and win7 is really GREAT.

 

sorry man.. i think you are dead wrong.. i have used every version of windows since windows 3.1. Windows is a wonderful os. It supports a wide range of devices and it can be easily customized for specific user groups, but for everyday common man's tasks its complicated and confusing...

 

i saw my first ever mac osx last year.. and since then i have trying to put it on my pc.. thanks to iatkos team i managed to do so... i cannot believe how easy and intuitive it is to use mac.. i simply wish microsoft copied the user interface from mac while still retaining devices compatibility.. but i guess its a wishful thinking

 

but for now, i'm not planning to install windows again, cuz osx is giving me all that i need and its never been easier than this before...

[StormPCs]

Since Macs run both OSs natively, who cares which one is better? If you have a brain in your head you will be running both on a Mac. The only valid reason not to run a Mac is if you have hardware you absolutely need to use that will not work on a Mac. If you don't the Mac is the best choice.

 

I run OS X 10.5.7 and XP SP3 because it gives me the widest range of software compatibility. The truth is that the best OS is the one your programs require to run.

 

And all you M$ Fanboys that come in here and post flame-bait threads like this can kiss my arse! If OS X was not the best OS on the planet then you would be fine with rock solid Windows or Linux. Instead people are willing to go through hell just so they can run a couple of Mac apps on their PCs with a hack that is anything but solid. So give us a break!

[HMiller]

Anyone who has been around computers a while knows every system has its good and bad. Apple hardware is stunning for sure, but less diverse, with fewer options, and very expensive so where you put your money is a personal choice.

 

I support Windows professionally, and most of the time even much-hated Vista x64 is very stable. Windows 7 is clearly a big improvement.

 

It's a myth that x64 drivers are hard to obtain or that hardware support is poor. That may have been slightly true a couple years ago, but not any more. People who claim this are probably thinking of XP x64 which was badly supported, but that's old news now.

 

My Hack is better at "personal" uses--home videos, photos, all the iLife stuff. I like Plex on a Mini a lot better than the media computer I had running Windows 7 Media Center. The mini was actually cheaper than a comparable mini-itx PC, not to mention smaller and quieter.

 

But for MS Exchange connectivity, Snow Leopard's Mail/iCal/Address implementation is still not nearly as good as Outlook 2007 and probably never will be as good. Snow may support Exchange out of the box, but the features of the client software are just missing compared to Outlook. And I specifically got Snow running to test Exchange support because for me that is an essential feature...back to Entourage.

 

The strongest argument for Mac is the sense among Mac users and developers that Macs should be "Mac-like". There's a kind of understood functional aesthetic that guides how things should work. Many PC users are either like "this one goes to eleven! d00d!" or else they are like "Which one is cheapest? I want half the speed to save $50." You could say that Microsoft panders, Apple empowers.

 

At the end of the day, I earn a nice living helping PC users who can't install an application, connect to a network share, or stop themselves from nuking their OS with the viruses that came along with their new cat screen saver. Windows 7, no matter how "simple", is so different from the XP they know and love that I'll have a job for a long time to come. If everyone switched to Macs, that would be very bad.

[Giorgio_multi]

No operating system is the best.

 

Depends on the needs and the preparation of the people using.

 

Giorgio

[Jarepa]

I'm 44 years old and I can tell you I worked with MS DOS on the early stages.

I recall having IBM Junior PC (that came on a briefcase) some where on my garage.

I also worked with CPM/80 which was the OS of preference at the time until IBM hit the shelf with the PC. I also worked with Unix machines and SCO Xenix (thanks God).

So I can tell you that Microsoft version of DOS is the worst of all.

Even Digital Research or DR DOS on that time was far superior than Microsoft version, it had multitasking features when Microsoft had not clue of what was that.But DR DOS did not had the marketability that Microsoft gained by then with the IBM association.

Microsoft operating system always being inferior. At the time that they got the IBM deal they were just doing language programming and applications.

Up to today's date they should stick on that. The office suite its good.

Windows 7 cannot compare to OSX Tiger 10.4 Windows 7 its far inferior. Never mind trying to compare it with Snow Leopard 10.6

Just take for example the security level at Windows 7, that's a joke how it handle the permissions on running applications, it says that need authorization but you never have to type a password at the end it goes on with just a click. Again that won't happen on Unix neither OSX because is Unix based.

Bottom line, stop comparing the 2, its unfair to Windows 7 to have it compare to OSX. Big handicap for Microsoft.

 

Mike

[stopthebus]

Hi,

 

I read through all these threads and what's I've learned is that Mac users are .....

Mac is better because....?

Mac trashes Windows because.....?

Mac is more advance than Windows because......?

Yeah, exactly where's the proof, how about some examples.

In what area/software is Mac better....heck, define better.

The only concrete number I see/know is that Windows is use by over 90% of all consumers and businesses and Mac is less than 10%. Don't get me wrong, I am in here reading about Mac, but you got to said it like it is. I bought a couple of iPhones (cost me $300 to get out of the contract and back to VZW and Winmobile), iPod, 2 airport extremes. I am using an Apple keyboard and mouse, so I don't mind using Apple's products. If you guys are so smart and advance as you claim to be, how about some facts.

 

Here's some stuffs I use everyday, how about give me some facts, I love to switch.

Outlook.....mac is better because....?

DVD backup.....mac is better because.....?

Presentation.....mac is better because.....?

Web.....mac is better because.....?

Graphic(Adobe).....mac is better because.....?

Movie/Picture/Music.....mac is better because.....?

Compatible with co-workers....mac is better because....?

Documents....mac is better because.....?

Movie (watching)....mac is better because.....?

Overall performance/Look/Feel....mac is better because....?

 

OK I'm ready, lets rock.

[Adrian Fogge]

Here's some stuffs I use everyday, how about give me some facts, I love to switch.

 

Outlook.....mac is better because....?

Mac isn't better here. Outlook is the only viable client for enterprises. You can run Outlook via Wine on both Mac and Linux though to allow for support of Zimbra, Zarafa and other Open Source Exchange implementations. Entourage works well for anyone who is not currently using an Exchange-style mail server or using an Exchange server.

 

DVD backup.....mac is better because.....?

Handbrake. Yea, it has cross-platform support, however OS X is it's original platform and generally gets updates prior to Windows or Linux.

 

Presentation.....mac is better because.....?

Both Keynote and Powerpoint have a presenters display on the Mac. Powerpoint does not have this on Windows.

 

Web.....mac is better because.....?

Safari is currently regarded as the most standards-compliant web browser and is the first to implement HTML5, CSS Transitions, Effects and the like to allow for a true flash replacement. Safari's webkit engine is rapidly being adopted by other web browsers.

 

Graphic(Adobe).....mac is better because.....?

This is pretty much even on Windows and Mac. Mac laptops have multi-touch trackpads which allow for some ease of use things and combining some tool functions.

 

Movie/Picture/Music.....mac is better because.....?

Final Cut Pro is currently the standard for video production.

 

Compatible with co-workers....mac is better because....?

As for compatibility, the most that you can hope for is direct duplication of all functionality. Mac allows for direct compatibility with both Windows and Linux users. Linux also has this. Windows only has Windows <-> Windows compatibility.

 

Documents....mac is better because.....?

As above, the most that you can really hope for is compatibility, and Mac achieves this.

 

Movie (watching)....mac is better because.....?

Hmm... Pretty much on-par with everything else as the truly great media players are cross-compatible. However, many media players had graphics card acceleration on Mac prior to Windows or Linux.

 

Overall performance/Look/Feel....mac is better because....?

Oracle has significantly higher operations per second under OS X than they have under Windows or Linux.

As for Look and Feel, this rests firmly in the realm of personal preferences. I prefer the look and feel of Linux with Gnome + Compiz, however the lack of application compatibility on Linux is enough to keep it on my Tablet and Dell only and have never bothered to set up a dual-boot on my Mac.

 

I hope that this clarifies some things for you. I don't really consider myself very biased as there are definitely environments where Windows is ideal. I would much rather support Windows for the vast majority as more people are familiar with it. You can find a hundred Windows Server Admins if you need one to solve an issue. You can also find 40 Linux Server Admins just as easily. Try finding an OS X Server admin.

 

OS X is great as it is a very stable OS with native software compatibility and support.

Linux will run for a decade strait (and I still have one server with 3808 days of uptime), but software support is very limited.

Microsoft used to recommend re-installing Windows yearly, however they have since changed that story.

 

~Adrian

[Full Metall]

Hey, please, you're talking like two noobs fanboys! Look the real. Don't think in a Hack, think in a iMac with Leopard and a top PC with Windows Vista. They're different systems, right? So, the Mac is good in he "area" and Windows too! Simple! And a...all theses "benchmarcks", whatever, they LIE to us all.

[Cup of Cocoa]

Since many of the finer elements of application support, feel and performance have been covered I'd like to add a point of my own to this fine discussion. I have tendency to draw on (and maybe sound a bit like a {censored}) a bit so have patience or carry on reading something else.

 

The topic is: Networking Technologies.

 

A disclosure: I am a fairly new Mac user (got my lovely ScummBucketofLove - my Macbook Pro last year) but have worked proffesionally with Windows systems until I deciede to do something more worthwhile with my life. My point is: Windows networking sucks.

The reasons for this lay primarily in the fact that Microsoft have done little to promote mDNS or any discovery technology beyond UPnP services on Windows networks. For a home user this is a complete disaster and the mere fact that it can take tens of minutes before Windows attempts to find any computer near itself, or even beyond it's own "Workgroup" (a concept that is fine on paper but is a punishment in and of itself) is laughable! How about some zero-config love? To find a printer or a visiting friends share on the network without having to mess around with workgroups, computer names or addresses? I would call that a weight of my heart.

 

I don't think I have to introduce Bonjour or it's open source implementation Avahi which both are a blast to work with and use: just mark "share" or add the resource to the avahi config file and it will show up on the network for any zeroconf compatible system. Awesome!

 

OSX have had this since the age of myth so it's more relevant here to speak of the improvements done in Win7. I like how much speedier discovery works and how much less one needs to work with permissions. Also they seem to have implemented some kind of "zeroconf" like system - I have yet to dissect all of it. What I can say is that Win 7 is a big improvement on a much needed front, regardless of other stuff under the hood covered by others in the thread. However, that it took nearly 10 years to come to the point of recognizing something as basic as this is crime in and of itself.