Let's talk attitude! - Part 3



Again, I found a good site with lots of Mac vs. PC information. I want to make it clear that I'm not in the PC bashing business. But I am in the "how do you deal with snide comments from PC users who are just downright ignorant about Macs but want to open up their mouths anyway" business.

When one of these Mac vs. PC incidents occur, one generally hears the same old remarks, time after time. Here's my list of common comments from PC users and how I deal with that comment:

1. I heard Apple went out of business. or I thought Microsoft bought Apple.

Oh, this one is especially good for us this weekend, the release weekend for the iphone. Apple's name has come up countless times this week on every news broadcast I've watched. People are camping out on the streets for days to be first in line to get one. Everyone is talking about the success of the ipod and Apple's increased sales in the computer market. But this furor will pass and some PC user will no doubt tell you they thought Apple was out of business. Merely ask them if they've ever heard of the ipod or the iphone. Or better yet, ask them if they've seen the Mac vs. PC commercials on tv. Ask them if they think Microsoft is paying to have those tv commercials run if Apple's out of business.

As to whether Microsoft bought Apple, ask them whether they've heard of the Microsoft ipod or the Microsoft iphone. Ask them if Microsoft bought Apple, why would those tv commercials be running? Ask them how many gozillions of dollars Microsoft made this weekend on the iphone.

2. I need a computer that's compatible. Macs aren't.

My first question to that statement has always been "compatible to what and why?" Generally, this results in stammering on the part of the PC User. Some will say they need to share files with someone else. Obviously, the next question is 'what kind of files". As a general rule, you'll find out they have some text they need to share with someone else, or the occasional spreadsheet. Most of the time these are MS Word or Excel documents, and those files can be read by Word or Excel on Mac easily. Graphic files such as tif, gif, and jpg are easily read by various programs on the Mac. in most instances, you'll find a Mac program that will open the average PC file. They don't need to run the same application someone does on the PC. They need to be able to read the data files. And in most instances, it's possible.

3. You can't upgrade a Mac like you can a PC.

Because Macs come with much of what gets upgraded or installed on a PC, most users won't have the need to upgrade their Mac except for possibly adding some memory. Macs use standard RAM that can be bought locally at most PC dealers. Some Macs, such as the Mini, aren't designed to be opened to add cards, etc. Other macs can be upgraded in many ways, many times using standard off the shelf "PC" hardware.

4. Macs are too expensive

My first retort to this statement is to tell them that Ferraris cost more than Volkswagens. The fact is, as a general rule, Apple uses a higher grade of hardware to build its computers than most PC manufacturers do. The Mac Mini can be had for less than $600, with refurbs going for even less. For desktop units, when you compare equivalent features, the newer Macs will be very competitive. If you go futher and compare equivalent quality components, the PC will be more expensive than the Mac. The days of Macs being more expensive are simply a thing of the past.

5. There's not enough software for a Mac.

This is my favorite. In fact, I've turned this one around on them now. Before they get the chance to bring it up to me, I drop it on them. I say "well, I'd think about buying a PC but there's just not enough software for them. Oh, you can't imagine the look of shock on their faces when they hear that from me. I then tell them that I can run all of their PC stuff on my Mac. And then there's the large library of unix software that can be tapped into. Then there's the Commodore 64 library of software that can be run on a Mac. And of course, there's all the Apple II software and even the Apple /// software can be run on a Mac. There's even a bunch of game machine emulators so you can play gameboy, nintendo, etc. on your Mac.

And, of course, Microsoft Office is available for the Mac. The first version of Microsoft Excel for any platform was in 1985, for the Mac. Word was first introduced on the Mac in 1984.

And last, but certainly not least, is the large amount of native Macintosh software available, most of which is more elegant and user friendly than Windows counterparts.

I generally end that conversation by saying "well, if all I did was play games on a computer, I might look at a PC. But since I do more than just that, and don't want to have to deal with 100,000+ viruses on a daily basis, I think I'll just stick with my Mac since it's not a toy just for games. Particularly with that lack of software issue on the PC."

Folks, let me tell you. They have no comeback for that one. I've had diehard power user PC guys speechless when I dropped that one on them.

Tomorrow, we'll talk about viruses.

Let's talk attitude! - Part 2

The couple instances I mentioned in Part 1 happened in the early 90's. Yesterday, while doing some research for this article, I ran across a blog that had a Mac vs. PC thread from last year. This shows that the pc mindset continues unabated. Check out the message left by StrangeOne. To quote him:

"My personal opinion: Macs are okay if you are computer illiterate and want to stay that way."

First of all, look at his use of the term "computer illiterate". This is the mindset I'm talking about. What he meant was "Windows illiterate" or "PC illiterate", but he said "computer". In a subliminal way, he's telling you that if it's not a PC running Windows, it's not a real computer.

Admittedly, there are some Macs that aren't meant to be opened up and "diddled" with. The very first Mac was designed to make it difficult to open. You had to have a special extra-long torx screwdriver to get to the two upper screws holding the case together. But Macs did get upgraded. Add on hardware and upgrades became available. How many of you remember the MacCharlie? Named for the PC commercials using a Charlie Chaplin lookalike, this was an add-on unit that let the original Mac emulate an IBM PC. We're talking 1985 here, folks, yet the PC folks are still hollering about "compatibility".

Since the introduction of the Mac II, there have been current model Macs that were designed to be opened and upgraded/enhanced. For most of the models that weren't really designed to be opened and changed, innovation won out and methods to upgrade many of those models became available. The nice thing about Macs, though, is for most people's needs, the Mac has what meets those needs already built in. While PC folks are out shopping for sound cards, many of us Mac users are reminiscing about listening to sound files back in 1986, with no additional hardware necessary. When did PCs finally discover digital sound for the masses? 1990 or so? or was it after Windows 95 became available? Mac users had it from day one.

Back to the post by StrangeOne. I take exception to this statement of his:

"But, to get the most out of a PC, it is good to be above-average on the computer literacy scale."

I would say that to get the most out of a pc, it is absolutely imperative that one be above average on the "computer literacy" scale. Again, this person means "PC literacy" or "Windows literacy". Anyone below average is simply not going to be able to "get the most out of a pc".

He further says:

"Someone who just picks up a Dell or HP or whatever from the store and uses it out of the box will not fare as well."

I concur.

On the other hand, there have been countless thousands of Mac users that have picked up their Mac at the store and used it "out of the box" and fared quite well. There was even a Mac vs. PC challenge where a 10 year old boy beat out two pc pros in a contest to see which system was easier to set up "out of the box". For the record, the Apple guy offered to make it more fair the following year by bringing his 6 year old son to do the test that year.

So, Mr. StrangeOne, you do err, not knowing the facts. But I'm not suprised by your mentality about Macs. It's the same mentality that's been around for years and years.

Back in '1987, in the middle of some online Mac/Pc debate, one of the pc users, in some delusional belief that he'd dazzle me with sheer numbers, informed me that he could get a mouse for his pc with 64 buttons on it. I told him you could get the same thing for a Mac, but we called ours a keyboard. Why in the world would anyone need a 64 button mouse? That makes as much sense as a hemmorhoid transplant. . . . .from a technical standpoint, impressive. . . . . but why????????? Here's another perfect example of having the technology and ability to produce something that should never, for any reason, exist.

Tomorrow, I'm going to explain why one can get more accomplished with a Mac.

Let's talk attitude! Part 1

My first inclination when I thought of this article was to just start off teaching folks how to have the proper Mac attitude. That's the aggressiveness in me coming out. Preparation is everything, and to be prepared, we must know what we're dealing with out there. In this instance, we're dealing with the PC mentality. So first, we're going to learn something about that. Then we'll discuss the Mac side.

I'm a Mac fanatic. I've been in more Mac vs. PC arguments than I care to remember. In the beginning, PC guys offered up nonsense like "well, you can't drop to DOS" on a Mac. Well, duhhhh. On the other side of that coin, you couldn't "drop to the Finder" on a PC. I asked one guy, a PC consultant to tell me exactly what I needed to do at "DOS" level on a Macintosh. He rattled off something and I took him to the Control Panel that tended to that matter easily and graphically. So he rattled off something else. I told him on a Mac, that particular item was tended to automatically by the operating system and there was no need to fiddle with it. So he rattled off something else. For every one of his "needs" to drop to DOS, Macintosh had an easy graphical method for meeting that need. Of course, the guy didn't convert to Mac.

And I don't know if he understood what I meant when I said it was just much easier to point and click than it was to go deal with arcane directory lists or system commands. That guy was a die hard PC fan and probably still is.

One day, while reading the newspaper, in the computer ads I noticed an advertisement for a PC consultant. Being in "one of those moods", I thought I'd have a little fun. So I called the guy and told him I was looking at buying a computer and asked if he could help. Of course, he said he could. So I let him ask me a few questions such as what I was going to do with the computer, etc. Once he got a few answers, he told me he could put together the perfect system for doing those things. Of course, it was a PC. So I let him run through all the technical jargon about megahertz and megabytes and baud rates and all that stuff, knowing at some point, he'll have to shut up and then it's my turn to talk.

That time arrived and I said, "well, that's mighty impressive. . . but what about Macintosh?"

He said "There's not much software out there for Macintosh." I said, "I read that there were over 30,000 programs for a Mac. How many do I need?" (One must be able to speak without snickering to make these type calls.)

Taken aback, he said, "well, you'd need to be compatible with the 'standard programs everyone used'." So I asked him which programs those were and of course he mentioned Microsoft Word and Excel, etc. So I said, "the article I read said those programs were available for Macintosh and you could share the files you create with people using PCs."

So he said that Macs weren't as compatible on most other programs and that the PC had many more programs available, for instance, he mentioned there were over 60 word processing programs for the PC.

Naturally, I asked, "How many word processing programs do I need?" He said, "one." I asked if there was one available for Mac. He said "yes". So he mentioned spreadsheets. Same routine, I asked how many I needed, he said one, yada yada yada.

I said that everything I had read said the Mac was much simpler to set up and use than a PC and if I could do everything I needed to do, that sounded like the direction I would go.

So, this PC consultant, who thinks he's talking to a potential customer, in his infinite wisdom and mired in the quagmire of the PC mindset says to me, and I quote:

"Well, if you're looking for a computer that's easy to use, I guess a Mac might work for you."

I thanked him and hung up.

Based on that statement, I guess that guy just presumes that there are at least some people out there that might be looking for a computer that's hard to use. He was almost implying that discovering someone who wanted a computer that was easy to use was a thing strange to him.

I'll have more on this tomorrow in Part 2 of Let's talk attitude!

In the beginning. . .

You're reading a pro-Macintosh computer blog. I thought I'd clear that up right off the bat so you wouldn't be confused as we proceed. While we might make the occasional foray off into the Apple II realm and even less occasionally visit the macabre days of the Apple ///, this is a Mac blog. We're not going to discuss iphones or ipods or itunes, unless their connectivity to a Mac is involved.

The Mac I'm using to type this article in is my 54th personal Macintosh, so this isn't my first rodeo. I do have just a tad of experience with owning, using, repairing and upgrading Mac computers. But we're not going to begin this journey at the end. We're going to begin at the beginning.

In the beginning, I wanted a computer. This was in the dark ages, around 1981 or so. I would visit the local Radio Shack and drool over their offerings. But I had no justification for purchasing one. Finally, in 1984, I found a justification I could live with. . . I needed to handle a large mailing list for a business venture I had begun. By this time, computer stores were cropping up on every street corner. I visited them all. Several times. Amazingly, no matter which store I went in, they had exactly what I needed. And could give me a list of reasons why only their product would work for my particular need. I looked at the Radio Shack offerings, some Kaypro CP/M machines, an IBM PC, a TI 99/4a, a Commodore 64, an Apple IIe, an Apple /// and a LISA. The LISA had an incredible amount of RAM and storage space. While everything else out there had 64k to 128k of RAM (except the Apple /// which had a whopping 256k), the LISA had a meg. That's up to 16 times more than everything else I saw. Not only that, it came with great software and had a graphical user interface. Nothing else had that. On the downside, the LISA cost 4 times more than I was going to spend, which made it completely out of the question.

I had just about made up my mind to buy the Apple /// because of a particular piece of software that ran on it (/// Easy Pieces, the predecessor to Appleworks for the Apple II series), when that dealer received his first order of Macintoshes. Smaller, not nearly as powerful, but sporting the graphical interface, it was just tempting. Unfortunately, MacPaint and MacWrite, being the only software titles available, just wouldn't do the job for me, so I bought the Apple ///. Two years later (I'll tell my /// story later) I decided to upgrade, and this time, when I looked around, nothing was as powerful or as slick as the current Mac model, the Mac Plus. And that's what I bought.

This time, I had some money to spend so I bought the best Mac system I could afford. I bought the Mac Plus for $2200, a Laserwriter Plus printer for $4400, a whopping 80 meg external Jasmine brand hard drive for $1410 (delivered), and a MacScan sheetfeed black and white scanner for an additional $1800. I already owned a 1200 baud modem (about 70% of the online community of that day were still using 300 baud modems), so I had a hot Mac system. I joined the local Mac user group and was immediately treated like royalty, being the proud owner of such a powerful system.

(Note: check out our featured item for sale. That system is virtually identical to my first Mac, with the exception of this one not having a scanner and my original system not having the System Saver.)

Eight days later, the Mac SE and Laserwriter II were introduced. I now owned a dinosaur.

Actually, two. I hadn't sold my Apple /// yet.

After the shock wore off, and having a previous experience similar when the /// was discontinued, I began to just learn the Mac way of doing things. While those new Mac SE computers had internal hard drives, they were only 20 meggers. I still had 4 times that much in my 80 meg drive. The SE ran at basically the same clock speed my Plus did, so there wasn't a noticeable performance difference. And most importantly, my Plus ran the same software the SE could. Nothing else mattered.

I owned that Mac Plus for a couple years. It got me started in a desktop publishing/typesetting/graphic arts business. After a few months into that business, I bought a Mac II with a 19" grayscale monitor. I haven't used a monitor smaller than 19" since 1988. As the years passed, I owned another Plus, an SE, the Mac II, a IIx, a couple Centrises, several Quadras, several PowerMacs, a Starmax, a Mac Portable, several Powerbooks, an iMac, a couple G3's, a couple G4's and the G4 I'm using right now. We do have an Intel Mac Mini here, but i let my wife use it because of space constraints on her desktop. On my desk right now, I have a G3 and the G4, one running OS9, one running Tiger, respectively.

I worked myself out of the desktop publishing business as most of my customers were print shops who started buying their own systems. I decided that I'd sell them the systems and provide training and support. As they became more proficient with their systems, they needed me less and less, so I began to buy and sell Macs online. Between aol, usenet newsgroups and ebay, I became a player in the used Mac game. I'm sure I've owned at least a thousand Macs over the years. Throw in a few hundred Apple II's for good measure and you get the idea that I might be a bit partial to Apple products. You would be correct.

And now, here I am 21 years after buying my first Mac, hoping you enjoy the site I'm building. This initial article is dry, and fairly lifeless. I assure you, it will get better. But you need to know a little about me for credibility's sake. So now you know the basic story. In the next few days, I'm going to be adding Mac stories of my own and of other folks. I'm going to tell you about my conversation with a PC consultant letting him explain to me why I should not buy a Mac. I'm going to tell you about the 64 button mouse you could once get for a PC. I'm going to tell you the #1 reason to give to justify you buying a Mac and not buying a PC. A reason they don't have an answer for, I don't care how well versed they are.

Yeah, occasionally, I'm going to mention a Mac system I have for sale. Or some Mac peripheral. And yes, I hope you buy it. But I promise I won't call your mother and tell if you don't.

In the meantime, run a virus check on your Mac. And check for missing dll files. If you find a virus, let me know. I haven't seen one on a Mac since I found one back in '95. If you find a dll file, tell all your PC friends it is theirs and you're holding it for ransom.

More later.

Rod