Scobleizer - Latest Comments in Hell’s weather report: cold and colder. Beattie switches to Windows

Re: Hell’s weather report: cold and colder. Beattie switches to Windows

Tetra — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 06:31:07 -0000

Ah, the usual cast of zealots and zombies are attacking in full force. I don't think I've ever heard of this Beattie fellow before and, if his blog is any indication, I'd rather not hear of him again.

"...but I just can’t deal with not being able to be on the bleeding edge anymore."

Oh, for crying out loud. I'm checking IMDB right now to make sure he wasn't a screenwriter for Hackers. The blog entry reads like

"Even just using Macs for the past year, I’ve found myself farther and farther away from the mainstream and that’s a very bad thing."

The mainstream? What does that even mean? Do we want the computing experience of a housewife in Pittsburgh?

You know, Switch stories are nothing more than testimonial ads for a product. And Ellen Feiss trounces this guy any day of the week! Hyuck.

Re: Hell’s weather report: cold and colder. Beattie switches to Windows

Reg Muffet — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 19:58:42 -0000

Scott, the "Yonah-based Apple 'books" may give softies even more benefit than that...

As well as the dual-booting that will be possible on the x86 hardware, there's now talk of them running Windows .exes in the same window layer as regular OS X apps.

Just as the "blue box" allowed antique Mac System 7-9 programs to run by booting OS 9 as a separate process, and the techie's X11 (Unix is good for partitioning things off like that), Windows XP could be there ready to run an .exe.

Think Virtual PC without boundaries, and with no performance hit.

Microsoft would be pleased as users doing this would bring an extra Windows license, and perhaps even a Virtual PC one too.

As for the hardware, if the specs on the just announced Yonah-based Acer are anything to go by, and the package is as nice as say Apple's existing 12" aluminum PowerBook, these laptops should be sweet indeed.

Re: Hell’s weather report: cold and colder. Beattie switches to Windows

Scott — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 10:28:10 -0000

Brandon,

I'm using a Dell laptop at work and my iBook at home. I notice a lot of performance differences between the iBook and the Dell in favor of the iBook. I've only got 512mb RAM on my iBook and 1GB of RAM on the Dell, but the dell (running Windows XP Pro SP2) takes a lot longer to start up programs. I don't have any benchmarks, it's all anecdotal. I'm looking at my dock on my iBook right now and almost every icon on it has a black arrow underneath it showing that it's running. I've got 4 desktops active. Including 12 tabs in Safari, 2 projects in Xcode, NetNewsWire, Mail, TextMate, 2 PDF's, and Locomotive. I find that if I have 2 or more solutions open in Visual Studio that my system bogs down.

For kicks and giggles I just decided to open up iTunes, iPhoto, and one of my old presentations in Keynote. I only have 755 photos in iPhoto right now, but when I use the app I only notice a tiny bit of slowdown when I zoom in on a picture.

Right now, the only arguments for Wintel (or should that be WAMD laptops?)laptops are "Apple hardware is expensive", "Everyone runs Windows", and "PPC isn't as fast as x86". Two out of three of those arguments are going to go away this year (I think). You'll start to see more Softies walking around campus carrying dual-boot Powerbooks to go with their iPods. ;)

Re: Hell’s weather report: cold and colder. Beattie switches to Windows

Guzzard — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 08:32:14 -0000

I am not an OS-Trend-Hopper. I simply look at the market. I have had so many vendors using the LAMP methodology on their Servers, that I would be ignorant and a bad business person to ignore it. I started out on the IBM PC-JR, then went to AMIGA, then it was MAC for 10 years at home/PC at work. I will continue to use the Wintel platform at work, at home, my wife constantly bitching about the Slow-as-hell Windows-XP machine, do I want to fork out another $500 for another machine? No. I need to reinstall Windows-XP becuase it has become almost unusable, why does the hard-drive spin forever? Why? What the hell is it doing? Why can't I open my email. Why can't I burn a CD? Why doesn't Microsoft release a new OS? It's hard to explain these issues to my wife. She wants to go online, do some stuff, get her email, that's it. i am not getting the happy shiny feeling from MS, I have been hearing that Windows-Vista may ship in 2007, is this true? Are they waiting for the hardware manufacturers to lower their price points on new faster hardware? Why can't a HUGE corporation like MS get their act together? I have been using VS 2005 for a few weeks now, I am NOT IMPRESSED. This software has so many bugs, try installing SQL Express on a remote server, go ahead try!

Re: Hell’s weather report: cold and colder. Beattie switches to Windows

Brandon Paddock — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 02:20:10 -0000

"I’m sorry but overall the price/performance issue is fairly moot point. It doesn’t fly if you do the comparisons. "

Wait... you mean comparing PCs (lower price, more performance) to Macs? It very clearly does fly. In the laptop market, it's flying like never before.

Of course, with Apple switching to Intel it's likely that will change. But for the moment, it's not even close.

Re: Hell’s weather report: cold and colder. Beattie switches to Windows

Comic Strip Blogger — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 23:23:16 -0000

Well, Apple is not making Tablet PC notebooks at all (I have 2 of them already) and Microsoft does, so Microsoft delivers some features that Apple don't, so people who criticize Microsoft miss the point.

Regarding Beattie: he is using computer for writing emails and making PowerPoint slides - for this any computer would suffice, any. I think that Apple's Mac OS X is too complicated for him, so that's why he switched. And being simple is not a sin.

Re: Hell’s weather report: cold and colder. Beattie switches to Windows

Sam — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 23:09:06 -0000

"I’m appalled that Microsoft, a convicted monopolist felon, still stoops to painting itself as an alternate to “religious” third-party offerings instead of marketing its own products as useful tools. "

Microsoft is not a convicted monopolist felon. They lost a civil suit, and thus are not "convicted" of anything, and it certainly was not a felony, so they are not a "felon." I'm a Mac fan and generally think Windows is the lowest-common-denominator junk, but let's not fall prey to excessive hyperbole.

Re: Hell’s weather report: cold and colder. Beattie switches to Windows

anon — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 21:40:33 -0000

I prefer windows for the enterprise

Windows is unusable in the enterprise (insecure and unsecurable), unless you consider your target market the cubicle dweller who only fetches email and writes one-page memos the "enterprise".

Re: Hell’s weather report: cold and colder. Beattie switches to Windows

robert — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 20:40:44 -0000

I'm sorry but overall the price/performance issue is fairly moot point. It doesn't fly if you do the comparisons.

Re: Hell’s weather report: cold and colder. Beattie switches to Windows

Joe — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 19:04:22 -0000

I love what Apple does, but there's no way I would pay
for overpriced hardware.
And on the enterprise side, they don't have much to offer, I prefer windows for the enterprise and for my
home machine's as well.

Sorry Apple.

Re: Hell’s weather report: cold and colder. Beattie switches to Windows

Kevin — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 17:47:14 -0000

Now, someone needs to get Russell an Audiovox 2125 and Silicon Valley may have something to focus on other than the Nokia 770 (http://www.russellbeattie.c...

-kevin

Re: Hell’s weather report: cold and colder. Beattie switches to Windows

Scott — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 17:39:03 -0000

Shelly,

I'm hardly one to help. I've got 4 different machines running 4 separate OS's. hehe. When I run out of old computers lying around, I'll start dual-booting. :)

Re: Hell’s weather report: cold and colder. Beattie switches to Windows

Ross — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 17:27:37 -0000

He *has* had a change of mind .. amazing how time mellows people :)

http://www.russellbeattie.c...

I have no problems admitting that I hate all things Microsoft. ... There is NOTHING to like about that company.

Re: Hell’s weather report: cold and colder. Beattie switches to Windows

Shelley Powers — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 17:05:40 -0000

Ah, Scott, I did that once, but my Powerbook weaped, cried out, "What have I done to you?" so I relented and banned my Windows back to its own box.

I told it to behave, too. But it keeps wanting to play bad. Sigh.

But I bet Russell would love your help putting all three in one laptop. That way he doesn't have to go into work and demand a new machine ;-)

Re: Hell’s weather report: cold and colder. Beattie switches to Windows

anon — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 16:12:51 -0000

All I see is him fawning Microsoft on his blog. He's not a Mac "switcher": it sounds like he was a Windows user for many years and tried a short stint at switching to a Mac mini (Apple's low-end of the line) for a few months for religious reasons.

Robert, where are the links of him describing Microsoft as "evil incarnate"?

I'm appalled that Microsoft, a convicted monopolist felon, still stoops to painting itself as an alternate to "religious" third-party offerings instead of marketing its own products as useful tools. I laughed out loud at that part about him running the "unofficial" patch for the zero-day WMF exploit.

Fact is, all the cheap commercial junkets in the world wouldn't convince me to switch from a secure OS to an insecure platform like Windows.

Re: Hell’s weather report: cold and colder. Beattie switches to Windows

J. Random Poster — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 15:13:21 -0000

Congratulations! You finally have a mac-to-windows switcher that wasn't picked out of stock photo catalog.

And for Beattie, there's a nice, fresh, zero-day exploit to remind him what he's been missing for the last year.

Re: Hell’s weather report: cold and colder. Beattie switches to Windows

Christopher Coulter — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 15:01:45 -0000

Why a big deal about a switch? Windows has apps I use, Mac has apps I use. No wars needed, peaceful co-existence. This is just a geek blogger updated version of Usenet 'Mac or Windows sucks' flames of many years past. Monoculture is a bad thing, think of the task at hand, not the 'medium' used to get there. A common shortsighted view amoung the techie elite, but for their customers, many routes on a map. It's not a religion.

Re: Hell’s weather report: cold and colder. Beattie switches to Windows

Alexa — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 14:55:32 -0000

#10...that was priceless. Personally, I would like a totally new type of OS but for now, it's the Mac for me.

Re: Hell’s weather report: cold and colder. Beattie switches to Windows

Scott — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 14:27:28 -0000

"You know, if Russell was a woman, and could actually handle multiple operating systems, he could use both Windows and Mac machines, like I do (one Windows/Ubuntu dual-boot and two Powerbooks).

But he’s just a man, and therefore has limited capabilities. Tsk."

If Shelly were a man she would have all three of those OS's running on a single laptop. Tsk. ;)

Re: Hell’s weather report: cold and colder. Beattie switches to Windows

John W. Redelfs — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 14:07:10 -0000

I've recently moved from Windows 98 Second Edition to XP. What an enormous improvement! I'm tempted to take back all the angry things I've said about Microsoft over the years. But half my hard drive is running Ubuntu Breezy Badger. If I can ever get my nVidia card to run properly, I'll probably actually use that half of my hard drive. I'm not holding my breath though. At least I can get a 1024x768 display on my Windows XP setup. Ubuntu doesn't seem ready for prime time.

Re: Hell’s weather report: cold and colder. Beattie switches to Windows

Colin — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 12:47:54 -0000

Hmm. Right-Angle-brackets don't work in this environment do they? I'll try again:

>> I’m running it on a Tablet PC and
>> it’s getting to be pretty interesting.

Mal: Define "interesting".
Wash: "Oh god, oh god, we're all gonna die"?

Re: Hell’s weather report: cold and colder. Beattie switches to Windows

Colin — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 12:45:42 -0000

>> I’m running it on a Tablet PC and it’s getting to be pretty interesting.

Re: Hell’s weather report: cold and colder. Beattie switches to Windows

Brad — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 12:39:56 -0000

Sounds like the main reason (besides price-performance) he switched was because he has a business need to stay on top of the latest developments in the tech industry. This wouldn't be a reason for most other computer users.

Re: Hell’s weather report: cold and colder. Beattie switches to Windows

Shelley Powers — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 12:01:16 -0000

You know, if Russell was a woman, and could actually handle multiple operating systems, he could use both Windows and Mac machines, like I do (one Windows/Ubuntu dual-boot and two Powerbooks).

But he's just a man, and therefore has limited capabilities. Tsk.

Re: Hell’s weather report: cold and colder. Beattie switches to Windows

IT guy — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 11:48:23 -0000

Having just spent the morning preparing for the next onslaught of Windows malware (Windows Metafile vulnerability), for which there is no Microsoft patch or anti-virus protection, I say good luck Russell. If Windows was a car, there'd be a safety recall. If it was a plane, you wouldn't fly in it. If it were a restaurant, it would've been closed by the health department. If it were a building, it would be condemned. It's a submarine with screen doors. It's a Brinks truck with a rag top. It's a gun that shoots backwards. It's the '73 Ford Pinto of OS's.

There. I feel much better now.