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Thursday 24 July 2003

Macs suck! [lurks]

Macs suck. You heard it here first. Well, OK maybe you didn't actually hear it first but I feel it falls to me just to point out what festering piles of shite they still are after all these years. I used to work with them, don't you know. Used in mag publishing they are on account of the fact the run Quark and there's no buttons and sharp edges for the art folks to hurt themselves on.
The thing is, I just cannot use anything on a Mac to write content (my job). The keyboard is stinky, the word processor is stinky, even the screen is stinky. So I wanna use my damn PC right. PC mag, wanna use a PC. It's not rocket science, I've done it for ages in my last publishing job. Only this time things are worse...
First of all, the company's file storage is that Appleshare shite rather than a decent cross-platform file sharing system. As far as I can work out, it's impossible for me to save my copy directly to the shared storage which is being used for the magazines. Despite the fact that the filestore itself is a Win2K box, it's running the lovely one-way appleshare shite.
Worse than this (because there is a long workaround to the former at least), Mac mail clients. They don't MIME-encode. Despite the fact that this is the world accepted standard in sending binary attachments, they don't do it. They decode it, they don't encode it. So I end up getting forwarded press releases which are helpfully reencoded into Binhex shit. Which I have to save out, rename to HQX, hit with Stuff It Expander and then rename one of the forks (let's just not GO there concerning the Mac file system eh) to have the proper extension and it works.
Absolute nightmare. I mean this G3 Mac I have, you hit a key to power it up right. However it just doesn't do anything. For a solid minute it's actually powering up but there's no screen and no noise, nothing. Then you get the little mac thing on the screen and a load of icons appearing telling you that the fucking thing has loaded a dll. Wahey!
Fucking thing runs some scanner thing just to shut down too. Then there's dragging shit to the wastepaper basket to delete ffs. What's the matter with having another mouse button and then having a context sensitive menu so you can quickly select what you want to do with the file. Hell, you could even make the DELETE key delete a file like on proper OSes but nooooo!
Don't even get me started on how stinky they are to multitask. Switching between apps is slow and painful from a performance and a GUI design point of view. Even the uber-app we're all using Macs for in the first place is stinky. Selecting fecking fonts from huge lists, no hot-keyed macros. It takes ages to do anything and there's fuck all in the way of effort saving short cuts.
I hate Macs.

30 comments:

  1. Does the fact I find this quite amusing make me a bad person?

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  2. Why don't you get the windows server to share the same directory using both applshare and windows file sharing?
    That's what the guys in the 'net cafe here do. Customers on the Macs and the PCs both mount the same directory on the win2k box using their own protocols and get read/write to it no hassle.

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  3. Because I'm not in charge of IT and in fact they clearly will not change a thing on my account. They've been doing things their own way for 15 years.

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  4. For accessing the file shares you need to, have a look at PC MacLan or TSSTalk :
    www.miramar.comwww.thursby.com
    Thursby at least know their stuff, although neither is free. If they can't be arsed to set up network shares for you I'd at least say you have a case for them paying for software for you to access what they have.
    If they're insistant you stick with the mac, here are a few pointers that maay make your life less intolerable :-
    Keyboards : You can use any logitech kb you like and most MS ones - drivers at web sites. Be sure to get the OS 9 drivers as it looks like that's what you've got. You have my sympathy in that regard. You might need a USB card installed first though.
    Scanner thing - presumably a virus scanner. I suspect the mac they've given you is so creaky it's taking an age to do effectively bugger all.
    I could look into mail clients if you're in continued need, but I don't know off the top of my head.
    Deleteing stuff with drag and drop - try ALT-delete or ALT-backspace (can't remember which). Multibutton mice will work with drivers but you'd need to have USB in there again. Otherwise it's control-click to bring up the context menu.
    OS9 multitasking is indeed stinky and always was.
    Startup - I'm guessing again it's just because it's a really old mac.
    I feel sorry for you, I do. By the sound of it they've given you the mac equivalent of a pentium 120 running windows 3.1. I think you have a fair case for them either buying the connection client or giving you a Mac built more recently than the ice age. If they're expecting you to do a job, they should provide you with the tools to do that job most efficiently, or they're wasting your time and their money.

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  5. It's actually OS 8.5 and 'Dave' requires OS 8.6 which means I can't even use the shitty Mac (it's a G3 allegedly) to pull the files off my laptop. Argh!
    I'm getting a new Mac but really I just wanted to prove I could work with a PC therefore they'd buy me one of those instead. Then I could stop using my own laptop...

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  6. One thing we do to make the macs more useful, is to run RDC to a windows server on em. I know, I know, but it's better than nothing :)

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  7. RESULT! This thing works fucking brilliantly. Straight onto the server and not only that, I'm sharing a dir on my laptop for the Macs. Superb! Now I don't need to touch the festering piles of excrement except to sub shit in Quark!

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  8. Retarded question, perhaps, but why is it that there isn't a *nix/Windows version of Quark? Would increase their potential customer base, surely?

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  9. There is a Windows version, or was at least. It was shite compared to the Mac one. Old, less features. I think there was a golden handshake going on with Apple.

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  10. Money hat eh? Makes it all the more surprising that Quack were one of the last to jump onboard with an OS X release.euro.quark.com
    I notice that QuackExpress 6.0 also comes in XP and 2000 flavours. Maybe they've filled the features gap in the new Windows releases?

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  11. We run quark on both windows and mac. They're pretty much identical feature wise, main headache is the font differences.

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  12. Sounds like they have. Although whether such a version exists or not isn't really the issue. See when a license costs more than a PC... well, let's just say that explains why someone's new Mac that turned up pre-installed with OS X got downgraded to OS 8 point something...
    Right, now I really need a proper copy of that that PC Mac Lan thing. I've tried to be a bit devious and 'review' it but haven't had much of a response from the distributor. Anyone got any nifty ideas in how to convince work to A) buy me a PC and B) a copy of PC Mac Lan?

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  13. I don't understand the downgrading of osx thing. See, osx is pretty barable these days. I know quark hasn't got an osx verson, but it does run on osx in classic mode.

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  14. You need the latest Quark. The upgrade license has expired here too. So it's like full copies or something. Ninja money. One of the designers has started to quietly evangelise InDesign by Adobe (I think), which is said to be better and half the price.

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  15. I've got Quark 5 running in classic mode on osx. Pretty much everything that runs in classic seems to run on that emu ok. I've *cough* got InDesign *nudge* somewhere *wink* if you want to look at it?

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  16. Only relaying what the Mac peasants tell me. I've really no inclination to muck about with InDesign or anything like it. We use Quark so I have to use Quark. It's just I'll do as much as possible on the PC. Hence PC MACLAN.

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  17. You summed it up well bro -- MACS SUCK 100% I feel for you.

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  18. I use Macs and PC's, both Windows and Linux. Mainly I just use the Macs for fun because I like to play with different comp=uters. I would never think of using them for serious work. For C++ development work, I use Linux and Windows and for word processing, it is Windows.
    I have photoshop on one of the Macs but I have never learned ot use it. Maybe someday when I get some time.
    I have never used OS X. Maybe it is a useful OS. As for OS 9 and below, I find it easier to do word processing in DOS. For the life of me I can not understand why Apple has such a crappy keyboard and such a stupid approach to keyboard shortcuts.
    The worst thing about working on old Macs is the ridiculaous design features. Obviously they do not want their customers to work on their own computers. Although I have seen some really stupid PC designs, nothing compares with Macs. I do have a Power PC that is very simple to work on so obviously Apple knows how to make a decent case. I wonder what took them so long?
    Things I like about Macs? They are very stable on the Internet. There is very little spyware written for them. My LC/520 has a really nice CD drive. Unfortunately it is not much more than a CD player.
    It is funny when I hear my friends that use Macs who swear by them. They usually have no idea how to use a PC.Guys at work that were forced to use them in school and then learned how to use PC's hate them passionatly.

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  19. This pro-Mac arguement (which also gets used on Linux) comes out now and again: There's no spy-ware, viruses or other malware. Well no, but that's because there's no market on those platforms to bother with. People get spyware because they download some free shareware thing off the Internet, install it and get a malware tag along. That application just doesn't exist for the Mac. So what's better, having a possibly problem that could occur with all the free great stuff you can get or having no free great stuff at all?
    That said, I'd agree the malware issue has gotten pretty critical given that 95% of the market has no clue whatsoever and needs to be protected from themselves. To that end MS aquired an anti-spyware company and then bundled this application into Windows, releasing it through Windows update. Doubtless people will still somehow blame spyware and all that stuff on Microsoft. Despite the fact that they're the only people actually doing something about it.
    I haven't looked at this application yet though, has anyone else?

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  20. Yup. I've looked at it. It took bloody ages to do a full scan, but picked up two Scumware instances that were missed completely by my regular Adaware scans.

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  21. I've got it arse about. The latest thing that installed on Windows Update is tje 'malicious software removal tool' which I took to be the same thing but it's not, I think it removes stuff like Blaster. The Microsoft malware detection thing is a full system tray jobbie and hasn't been released on Windows Update yet.

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  22. MSN anti-spyware is quite good for home users, although it's a little over zealous in what it picks up (e.g VNC.exe and kazaa.exe from kazaa lite), these kinds of things can be added to an ignore list.
    The real-time protection is something that neither spybot or adaware have, as far as I know. It has a nice autoupdating feature and the default options set off a full scan every night at 2am.
    It's only beta 1, and is set to expire 31st of July.
    I still wouldn't recommend using IE6 even with this thing installed, IE6 is still vulnerable to more dangerous threats than simple spyware.
    Connecting to potentially untrustworthy hosts and requesting content from them with an application that runs with administrative priviliges is just asking for it. Right now there are 20 unpatched vulnerabilities in IE6.
    You're average person browsing with Windows XP, Antivirus and IE6 (most of the world) is riddled with spyware, dialers and keystroke loggers. If they're not already spam zombies or have had all their money stolen from a phishing fraud. It's quite frightening. A colleague of mine recently received a $500 phone bill from two calls her PC made in the middle of the night to some tiny African state.

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  23. Jesus fucking Christ, Lurks, you hate Macs cause you're using a shitty G3? It's no wonder! Take a PC that old with Win '95 and you'd be fucked off using it too! Is there no way you could bring in your laptop and hook it up to the system?

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  24. That's a reasonable comment. The blog is more of a moan about what I was forced to use back then at work. I did actually use a laptop of mine and then later got them to buy me a PC.

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  25. I love my mac!!!

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  26. You love teh suck?

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  27. God, what a bunch of morons.
    There's tons of freeware for the Mac. Tons of shareware. Tons of people are developing for it. It works better than Linux as a desktop OS. My 5 year old, 500 MHz Mac performs as well or better than my 2.4 GHz P4.
    Thank God I have a Mac on my desk next to my PC, cause Windows isn't stable enough to be a productive office tool. Every time I try to view a pdf windows hangs. Every time I shut down Windows hangs (and I have the latest XP Pro). I use Control-Alt-Delete a dozen times a day if I want to run more than three apps at the same time.
    Every time I put my USB flash drive, the fucking thing says "New Hardware Detected: USB Mini Cruzer. Click here to install software." Well, why the fuck do I need to install different software for USB support? What happened to plug and play?
    On Mac systems you put in a USB Flash disk and it immediately mounts the file system, LIKE YOU WOULD EXPECT A MODERN OS TO DO.
    Of the software that matters, Macs get 95% of what PC users get. For the wretched malware, Macs get none (so far). Not that people haven't tried. They have. Free BSD keeps those little Visual Basic script kiddies away from anything important.
    All you Mac-bashers are Bill's little punks and you've been owned for so long it's not even funny.

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  28. Although OS X does do alot of things really well and is superior to XP in a number of ways, this is a website that is generally geared towards games.
    A $4000 powermac that is specced to the hilt does not come even close to a $1000 PC in terms of gaming performance (for the few mainstream titles that are available for OS X). So it's all very well trawling the web finding mac haters to bash, but watch where you pick your fights.

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  29. Strikes me as big Skills Related Issue here. Obviously this 'grevious' chap is a bit too dim to maintain a Windows-based PC. Clearly the rest of us don't have those sorts of problems he does because we're not brain-dead nancy-boy types that want all the sharp edges rounded off their computer in case they hurt themselves.
    I love that this flatlining mac-fanboi says crap about USB flash disks needing drivers. Jesus, we've been using them for years and they don't need drivers. I deeply suspect you're using a copy of Windows 98 and are too stupid to know the difference.
    As for a 500MHz Mac performing as well as a 2.4GHz P4. Haha. Yeah right. That's like saying you think as hard as anyone else on this web site. Quite clearly not.

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  30. I use ctrl-alt-del on my pc about once every three months and regularly run 5 to 7 apps simultaneously. Try paying for a real copy of Windows instead of some warezed shit and you'll be really quite amazed at the difference.
    Moron.

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