Windows 8

[Fabricated]

This is why Microsoft better be a bit less arrogant. This wasn't true even 4 years ago, but it sure as fuck is now:

I kinda chalk this up to every generation being dumber than the previous one. If you took that picture here I work you'd see something similar but you'd also see an equal number of shitty Beats headphones.

One of my best friends has been on an embarrassing whirlwind of dating and girlfriends who last a month and he finally broke down and told me he doesn't think he can date anyone younger than him now (he's very recently 30), since anyone he dated in their mid-20's seems to have terminal ADD and can't not look at their phone every 2 minutes. Guess I should be happy my tastes have turned to women my age.

[Malakili]

This is why Microsoft better be a bit less arrogant. This wasn't true even 4 years ago, but it sure as fuck is now:

I kinda chalk this up to every generation being dumber than the previous one. If you took that picture here I work you'd see something similar but you'd also see an equal number of shitty Beats headphones.

One of my best friends has been on an embarrassing whirlwind of dating and girlfriends who last a month and he finally broke down and told me he doesn't think he can date anyone younger than him now (he's very recently 30), since anyone he dated in their mid-20's seems to have terminal ADD and can't not look at their phone every 2 minutes. Guess I should be happy my tastes have turned to women my age.

Yea, it seems to be a very sharp divide too.  I'm old enough not to have grown up with cell phones, but not by that much.  But people just 4-5 years younger than me have had them their entire lives it seems.  On the other hand, I don't know that the younger generation is dumber, so much as just has developed a different set of skills.  They seem to be pretty good at dealing with high volumes of low information things (like tweets, texts, etc), but have a lot more difficulty with things even as long as a newspaper article.

[shiznitz]

Four or five weeks ago I called Dell to ask if I could get a Windows 7 laptop (for my son's birthday in May) then so I did not have to get Windows 8.  I was told that all their machines were Windows 8 already.  I hung up.  After catching up on this thread (mostly) I went to Dell's website today to look at Laptops again. By Jove! You can select Windows 7 or Windows 8 for any laptop.

Ouch.

[ghost]

Ain't no college kid, I don't care how white they are, gonna get any work done on a fucking tablet.

You probably could with a keyboard, but then you might as well have a Macbook Air.

We're trying to implement iPad use in the office and it's just so cumbersome.  First off, non-tech people just don't get it any more than they do with computers.  Second, non-tech people have had years of fucking stuff up on computers, so they are a little more savvy with a keyboard and mouse. 

I'm not anticipating a full fledged transition to tablets without a better user interface than a touch screen alone.

[calapine]

I wish we had an Airbus to Microsoft's Boeing.

I'd be totally ok with the EU (or anyone else, except the Chinese or Apple) taking up a few hundred million € of taxpayer money and creating an open-sourced, consumer friendly, security-focused, linux-based NewOS.  Which is than adopted by agencys and university/schools and licensed free to OEM PC sellers, thus insuring swift adoption.

I dream too much.  

Or an alternate reality in which IBM's awesome OS/2 never got abandoned and is still here thriving and offering an alternative to the Windows world.

[Paelos]

Four or five weeks ago I called Dell to ask if I could get a Windows 7 laptop (for my son's birthday in May) then so I did not have to get Windows 8.  I was told that all their machines were Windows 8 already.  I hung up.  After catching up on this thread (mostly) I went to Dell's website today to look at Laptops again. By Jove! You can select Windows 7 or Windows 8 for any laptop.

Ouch.

Yep, I'm pricing them now, and retailers who told me at Christmas that I couldn't get a Windows 7 machine are suddenly opening up to the idea. Gee, I wonder how their holiday sales looked? 

[naum]

Also I laugh at anyone who says that desktops are dead or will be dead in any reasonably short timeframe. Sorry, no one does real work on a tablet. I don't consider reading/answering email "real work" either (also email is for olds). No researcher, no business office user, no student, no professor here is going to be doing their actual work on a tablet. I don't see that changing in a lot of offices either.

True but that doesn't mean the desktop doesn't fade into being just power-user only equipment outside of work. I look at my kids and their friends and they all make do with old hand me down laptops (my daughter uses a 7 year old MacBook that I gave to her when I got a new one, 2 iterations ago for me). They wouldn't even pay for internet except for NetFlix and having the tablet(s) connected, making do with cell phone plan for texting / emailing / and even web browsing.

And on the other end, the elderly gravitate to more simplistic tablet computing experience. My mom rarely ever touches her desktop anymore since she got an iPad (but now retired, spends most of her time playing single player (puzzles) and multiplayer (dozens and dozens of ongoing Words with Friends games as well as some others) Facebook games.

[ghost]

I wish we had an Airbus to Microsoft's Boeing.

I'd be totally ok with the EU (or anyone else, except the Chinese or Apple) taking up a few hundred million € of taxpayer money and creating an open-sourced, consumer friendly, security-focused, linux-based NewOS.  Which is than adopted by agencys and university/schools and licensed free to OEM PC sellers, thus insuring swift adoption.

I dream too much.  

Or an alternate reality in which IBM's awesome OS/2 never got abandoned and is still here thriving and offering an alternative to the Windows world.

You might see that more often, on a smaller scale, now that Microsoft has gone off the deep end.

[Surlyboi]

This is why Microsoft better be a bit less arrogant. This wasn't true even 4 years ago, but it sure as fuck is now:

I kinda chalk this up to every generation being dumber than the previous one. If you took that picture here I work you'd see something similar but you'd also see an equal number of shitty Beats headphones.

Ah, good old Apple hate. Never goes out of style.

[Venkman]

Heh. Mac has dominated the college scene since we were calling the internet "VAX" 

Notice what all of the tablets have in common?  You can't easily replace the batteries.  After 2-4 years, you'll only be able to use them 'tethered', which will be even more inconvenient than a laptop in the same condition.

The real issue isn't batteries, it's that there's no such thing as "upgrade" at all. Sure, consumers don't upgrade laptops any more than they did desktops. But the difference is that tablets are theoretically priced at CE device levels so consumers don't mind replacing them faster than they'd replace a laptop.

Which is delusional bunk. Want an iPad Apple will support? $500 every 2 1/2 years. Or you can buy a laptop for the same amount and get 5 years out of it easy, 7 if you stretch it. No idea on Android tablets, but I would bet if Amazon is serious about non e-readers, they'll follow suit. And MS? Heck, I'm surprised they haven't dropped support already.

I spent $850 on my iPad. I will not buy another one, nor any other tablet. Whatever my company doesn't give me I can more than live without until something interesting happens on them again. More than happy to watch Netflix on my iPhone if my iPad finally kicks.

[Engels]

If you think that apple sales are limited to AV geeks and wealthy college students, you may want to think again. Six years ago we had one, out of 30 or so, professors using a mac at my engineering school. Fast forward to today, and its at least 7, including the chair of the department, who exclusively use a mac. This is despite the fact that tons of engineering software has to be run in Windows because there is no mac correlate. They simply have us boot camp their laptops or have a grad student run the windows stuff. They are tired of the security anxiety and the complexity and just want to get on with it. Also, even for older proffs macs have a 'cool' quality that Windows has lost long long ago.

Don't get me wrong, it'll all end in tears, but this -is- happening.

[Paelos]

My 96 year old grandmother has an Ipad and follows my blog.

Just saying.

[Fordel]

My grandmother would curse your grandmother for using blackmagic. 

[Venkman]

If you think that apple sales are limited to AV geeks and wealthy college students, you may want to think again.

The vast majority of Apple's revenue and unit sales are CE devices. Then laptops, and a rounding error of desktops. Their installed base as percentage of total computers out there hasn't actually changed all that much over the years. It's not just AV geeks and wealthy college students. But it's not like they've skyrocketed from the 9% position they had 10 years ago on the backs of Mac OSX users.

My own primary device is a Mac with MS Office in VM ware. Goddamn thing hard locks once a day and unlike actual protected memory, there isn't an equivalent Task Manager keystroke to recover from. I mostly live in VMware except for Adobe stuff.

[Lantyssa]

My grandmother would curse your grandmother for using blackmagic. 

What's cursing then, green magic?

[Fordel]

Half a bottle of moonshine I think.

[Fabricated]

Ah, good old Apple hate. Never goes out of style.

Supporting Apple's stuff has only increased my belief that Macs are overpriced garbage for bitch idiots.

If you think that apple sales are limited to AV geeks and wealthy college students, you may want to think again. Six years ago we had one, out of 30 or so, professors using a mac at my engineering school. Fast forward to today, and its at least 7, including the chair of the department, who exclusively use a mac. This is despite the fact that tons of engineering software has to be run in Windows because there is no mac correlate. They simply have us boot camp their laptops or have a grad student run the windows stuff. They are tired of the security anxiety and the complexity and just want to get on with it. Also, even for older proffs macs have a 'cool' quality that Windows has lost long long ago.

Don't get me wrong, it'll all end in tears, but this -is- happening.

I work at a fairly enormous engineering university and the rate of Macbook Pro purchases has gone up, but we still only have a small handful of Mac Desktop users and that's mostly limited to the odd business office person or prof who doesn't do research anymore. The fact that the majority of our engineering software doesn't have a Mac version is a killer, and some of our Mac diehards have complained to our vendors about it.

Best response we got from one of our vendors: "No one does real work on a Mac."

[tgr]

Best response we got from one of our vendors: "No one does real work on a Mac."

I'll bet that didn't piss anyone off, at all.

[Engels]

Best response we got from one of our vendors: "No one does real work on a Mac."

I grow hoarse telling this to the engineering students that come in asking me to install software X on the computer lab machines because they all own macs. I tell them that they should have bought a computer for engineering work.

And its mostly the girl engies that are driving this madness.

Unfortunately, the ability to instantly ssh from terminal to a unix machines makes some engies think that they -are- getting a serious machine. I tell them that if by 'serious' they mean that they don't have to spend the 3 minutes it takes to install X-Win-32 with xforward on their Windows PC and then ya sure, they are dead serious.

[Fabricated]

Best response we got from one of our vendors: "No one does real work on a Mac."

I'll bet that didn't piss anyone off, at all.

Yeah, the response wasn't good. Then most of those people bought optiplexes so they could use said vendor's software since for some reason none of our Mac users want to bootcamp.

Best response we got from one of our vendors: "No one does real work on a Mac."

I grow hoarse telling this to the engineering students that come in asking me to install software X on the computer lab machines because they all own macs. I tell them that they should have bought a computer for engineering work.

And its mostly the girl engies that are driving this madness.

Unfortunately, the ability to instantly ssh from terminal to a unix machines makes some engies think that they -are- getting a serious machine. I tell them that if by 'serious' they mean that they don't have to spend the 3 minutes it takes to install X-Win-32 with xforward on their Windows PC and then ya sure, they are dead serious.

My favorite cry is, "But they have a Mac version of Matlab! Why isn't anything else available!?".

Like outside of I think Matlab, TecPlot (nevermind you're just running effectively the *nix version via X11), and some AutoDesk stuff (which is scrub-tier compared to the stuff most people here use) I don't think a single one of our more used engineering programs have a native Mac port. Yeah, you can run a lot on clusters but for doing work on your own PC? Nope.

FFS just use PuTTY (or SecureCRT which we provide free) and XMing/Cygwin-X if you're going to just SSH all the time and save some money. You don't need a $2600 tricked out iMac to SSH into a cluster, so don't be mad if the Dean (or your adviser if you're a grad student) doesn't feel like spending the money. If you want your dumb Mac shit, spend your own funds.

[Hammond]

I have 3 Mac users and they are all electrical engineers. The hoops they jump through to make some of their software is funny to watch. Being engineer types they just will not ask for help from us IT / IS types. Thankfully nothing else in our company runs on OS X so I highly doubt we will have many more popping up. We have quite a few Iphone users but I honestly don't care to much about them. We just force them to setup their own Itunes account if they want any kind of apps so to us its just a glorified email checking device to us.

[ghost]

My practice management software is mac based.  It's fucking awesome to deal with.  The lack of software development in my industry is really staggering.  There should be more that you can do with iPads, but nobody is even trying, really.  It's all remote desktop stuff, which sucks to deal with.  I'm assuming it's the same way in the rest of the business world.  People are either thinking:  a)  this shit works, why fuck with it (XP) or b) this iPad is fucking awesome, now what the hell do I do with it?.

[Paelos]

Most doctors I deal with run some variant of Quickbooks to manage their day-to-day stuff.

[naum]

Sorry, the lack of a *real* Unix terminal makes for not a "serious" machine. PuTTY, Cygwin, SecureCRT, Hummingbird (or whatever it's morphed into now) is not the equivalent of a real *nix session.  

Yes, there is esoteric and/or specialized software that is Win-only. OTOH, there is a preponderance of *nix/Mac software (one example: things like Scrivener and typesetting tools without suitable Win counterparts) without available or inadequate equivalents on the Windows platform.

The irrational Mac hate in this thread is beyond stupefying.

And if you need Windows there are VMs and/or Boot Camp.

[Engels]

Yes, there is esoteric and/or specialized software that is Win-only.

I don't think you are aware of the extent to which engineering software is Windows/Unix only. This is not esoteric. I'm referring to stuff like ArcGIS, SAP2000, MSC Marc/Mentat and Abaqus to name a few off the top of my head. They don't have Mac equivalents and these are widely used across many many fields. From GeoTech to hydrology for ArcGIS, from podiatry to aeronautics for Abaqus.

Nevermind that nearly every single small program designed for a specific engineering use, be it water chlorinization solvers to road construction budget calculators are all Windows based.

Yes, we all know that Mac is great for typesetting, and movies, and audio.

We're talking about the fact that DESPITE the fact that Windows dominates the scientific market, Apple is gaining a foothold in a place it has no business in BECAUSE Microsoft are being such horrible asshats about their OS.

This isn't about Apple hate; quite the contrary, its about how MS is fumbling about with its dick while Apple's already slipping it to the sexy engineering grad with all sorts of false promises, simply because it -just works- and is simple (for the most part)

[ghost]

Most doctors I deal with run some variant of Quickbooks to manage their day-to-day stuff.

Yep.  And Quickbooks for Mac sucks ass.  Although I'm a big fan of Quickbooks online now, which works like a champ on any OS.

[Paelos]

The irrational Mac hate in this thread is beyond stupefying.

What industry do you work in?

[Paelos]

Yep.  And Quickbooks for Mac sucks ass.  Although I'm a big fan of Quickbooks online now, which works like a champ on any OS.

Yes, I forced one of my lawyer clients off of it because his partner used QB on Win7. I told him he should stop doing the books, period. In the end, they got a good bookkeeper who runs QB on her own PC.

[naum]

Yes, there is esoteric and/or specialized software that is Win-only.

I don't think you are aware of the extent to which engineering software is Windows/Unix only. This is not esoteric. I'm referring to stuff like ArcGIS, SAP2000, MSC Marc/Mentat and Abaqus to name a few off the top of my head. They don't have Mac equivalents and these are widely used across many many fields. From GeoTech to hydrology for ArcGIS, from podiatry to aeronautics for Abaqus.

Nevermind that nearly every single small program designed for a specific engineering use, be it water chlorinization solvers to road construction budget calculators are all Windows based.

Yes, we all know that Mac is great for typesetting, and movies, and audio.

I would deem engineering software as *specialized*.

And Apple is just as zealous focusing on CE user v. power user, ignoring them just as Microsoft -- from rumors of Mac Pro demise to entire focus on iPad / iPhone / iMac / Macbook. Completely oblivious to the audio / video / programmer geeks that fueled the Mac resurgence in the last decade.

It seems they both are lusting over the touchscreen to the detriment of *serious* computing needs.

But then that market is tiny compared to the unwashed masses slobbering over new tablets and smartphones.

Further up on this thread, Darniq claimed that Mac user base really had not grown. I think that a faulty assumption and it gave me impetus to check server logs and analytics for sites I manage, both personal and organizational -- even for conservative non-profit, with elderly visitor set tilt, Mac users account for nearly 1 in 7 visitors, MS is barely above 50%, and iOS & Android together make up nearly a third. On my most frequented personal site (a Tumblr blog with ~50K followers), Mac users make up over a third, with Windows just a few points higher (the rest mobile/tablet users, with a 2% Linux too :))

The workplace might be outfitted with a lot of Windows boxes but off-work use is heavily tablet/phone and/or laptop.

[naum]

The irrational Mac hate in this thread is beyond stupefying.

What industry do you work in?

Web developer for nonprofit + contract software development.

Mix of machines here, and there is specialized software that runs on Win only here too, but long term arc for it is all going to be web app bound.

[Fabricated]

Sorry, the lack of a *real* Unix terminal makes for not a "serious" machine. PuTTY, Cygwin, SecureCRT, Hummingbird (or whatever it's morphed into now) is not the equivalent of a real *nix session.  

Yes, there is esoteric and/or specialized software that is Win-only. OTOH, there is a preponderance of *nix/Mac software (one example: things like Scrivener and typesetting tools without suitable Win counterparts) without available or inadequate equivalents on the Windows platform.

The irrational Mac hate in this thread is beyond stupefying.

And if you need Windows there are VMs and/or Boot Camp.

Uhhh, scrivener is available for Windows, and last time I checked actual bigboy writing/documentation was done in latex of which there are a shitzillion editors/etc for.

Also I spent the last 2 years using both a Mac and PC at work (Mac as primary computer, with an RDP session to a headless PC for SCCM). I got rid of the Mac a couple months ago finally since it pissed me off.

I would deem engineering software as *specialized*.

And Apple is just as zealous focusing on CE user v. power user, ignoring them just as Microsoft -- from rumors of Mac Pro demise to entire focus on iPad / iPhone / iMac / Macbook. Completely oblivious to the audio / video / programmer geeks that fueled the Mac resurgence in the last decade.

It seems they both are lusting over the touchscreen to the detriment of *serious* computing needs.

But then that market is tiny compared to the unwashed masses slobbering over new tablets and smartphones.

Further up on this thread, Darniq claimed that Mac user base really had not grown. I think that a faulty assumption and it gave me impetus to check server logs and analytics for sites I manage, both personal and organizational -- even for conservative non-profit, with elderly visitor set tilt, Mac users account for nearly 1 in 7 visitors, MS is barely above 50%, and iOS & Android together make up nearly a third. On my most frequented personal site (a Tumblr blog with ~50K followers), Mac users make up over a third, with Windows just a few points higher (the rest mobile/tablet users, with a 2% Linux too :))

The workplace might be outfitted with a lot of Windows boxes but off-work use is heavily tablet/phone and/or laptop.

I dunno man, engineering encompasses everything from chemical to mechanical engineering and like 99% of that shit is Windows only. Also last desktop OS numbers put OSX right at the 7.5ish % they've been at for years (XP/Win7 making up most of the rest, with Win8/Linux at some insignificant percentage).

Also, I think the Mac Pro is going to get an update and actually be made in the US! I vaguely recall hearing that after Apple mentioned opening up manufacturing here.

[naum]

Uhhh, scrivener is available for Windows, and last time I checked actual bigboy writing/documentation was done in latex of which there are a shitzillion editors/etc for.

Scrivener on Windows (unless this has been now remedied) missing features of Mac version, plus buggy and crashy.

Yes :) bigboy writing/doc in LaTeX but doing it in Windows is just like running Cygwin (or PuTTY) instead a real *nix terminal.

[tgr]

Sorry, the lack of a *real* Unix terminal makes for not a "serious" machine. PuTTY, Cygwin, SecureCRT, Hummingbird (or whatever it's morphed into now) is not the equivalent of a real *nix session.

I can only assume that this is a troll. Right?

And if you need Windows there are VMs and/or Boot Camp.

And if I wanted to run any operating system I can think of, including mac os x, I'll just download virtualbox and install macosx on a VM there. In fact, I'm doing that right now just to run kdevelop.

So why would I pay extra money to do the exact same thing, only on a mac? Is the hardware any better? Are the dealers any less assy? Is there more things I want to run on OS X which isn't available on windows, than vice versa?

[Fabricated]

Yes :) bigboy writing/doc in LaTeX but doing it in Windows is just like running Cygwin (or PuTTY) instead a real *nix terminal.

Real pros write their latex in Notepad (or notepad++). 

[Numtini]

Totally amazed at the number of Scrivener users here. Windows version is usable as long as you format in the editor, not through the compiler. I don't have crashing problems though.