Macaganda

My attention was drawn to the new Apple^® ads. So I took a look. Aside from the immediate impression that Apple believes that trendy young guys wearing jeans are intrinsically better than bespectacled middle-aged overweight men with glasses, there are a few other issues…

1. First off, a Mac is a PC. A PC is a Personal Computer and the distinction is a misnomer. Granted, it is a more expensive PC, but it’s a PC nonetheless. The ads use PC as a metaphor for Windows (a key point in their ads). It’s just silly.
2. They give the impression that upgrading Windows software is a pain – and yes, indeed it can be a great pain. But they don’t touch on the pain and expense of upgrading (or replacing) Mac hardware, which is invariably more complicated and expensive on a Mac. And Apple tells you (in the license agreement) what hardware you are allowed to use.
3. The ads go a long way to say “Macs really are popular. They are. No really, they are.” It’s painful to watch. If they are, then it’s self evident. They shouldn’t need to try so hard to convince us.
4. A Mac has a camera and some cutesy software. Well ringading ding. For the extra money they cost, they should come with a built in jacuzzi.
5. It is implied that Macs don’t get viruses. Not true. Computers owned by people who open files they shouldn’t get viruses. Yes, there are more viruses that target the Windows market… for now. Maybe everyone should just switch to Linux.
6. It’s suggested that a movie made on a Mac will inherently be better than a movie made on a ‘PC’. A movie made by someone with no creativity will be just as tragic on a Mac.
7. Mac can run Microsoft Office (and this is news???). Apparently this is supposed to be scary? I don’t get it.
8. Macs have a magnetically connected powercord. Cute. But I’ve never seen anyone knock their computer off the desk by tripping on the power cable. Where are these people running their power cables anyway?
9. On a Mac you can run Windows… if you buy Windows. Um… yeah. MacOS can run on a PC too, but you’re not allowed because ‘Apple says no… [cough]‘
10. Apparently Macs are more ‘fun’ than PCs, because they can do more video editing stuff. No mention is made about games… I wonder why. Of course, that’s not really fair… I’m sure that the 3 games available for the Mac are very good.
11. They even go as far to say that Macs are better. Maybe the video editing software ‘out of the box’ is better. But music? Clicking a ‘play’ button is no more difficult in Windows than it is on a Mac. And don’t get me started on iTunes. Groan.

In conclusion…

Livin’ La Vista Loca

As some of my readers may know, my blog has been unavailable for much of the last few days. (Actually, I don’t think I have enough readers to warrant referring to a subset of them.)

The reason for the outage has been that I decided to buy a copy of Windows Vista to see what all the hype was about. Rather than queue up for hours with the supergeeks I ordered it online a couple of days after the release, and had it a day after that.

The first thing that struck me was the unnecessarily elaborate packaging – a fold-out plastic case with a typically useless ‘Quick Start Guide’. Maybe if they didn’t spend so much on wasteful packaging they could make the software not quite so rediculously expensive, though the upgrade pricing isn’t quite as bad. Microsoft could probably sell it for ten bucks, and still come out with a profit.

I had previously run the Vista Upgrade Assessor, so I knew in advance – and much to my chagrin – that my McAfee AntiVirus and Firewall would not be supported, nor would my HP scanner. Groan.

I initially decided to upgrade my existing XP installation to Vista rather than a clean install. So the setup process thrashed away at my hard drive for what seemed like hours (with the polite Microsoft message at the bottom of the screen “Your upgrade may take several hours to complete”. Hmmm… comforting.) And when the setup process said “Please wait while Windows checks your computer’s performance”… well I just don’t believe them. Ever since they said on previous versions of Windows that it was installing “Start Menu items” while it was really installing Internet Explorer, I’ve learned to take the installation programs with a large chunk of NaCl.

While on the face of it, the new interface appears very different, it seems that the changes are largely CPU-intensive window dressing (pardon the pun). Windows Explorer is quite different; some good, and some bad, but I haven’t decided overall just yet. The first thing I did notice after the upgrade was that some of the system folder names have been renamed (and about time too). ‘Documents and Settings’ has been done away with, with its contents redispersed throughout various locations. The contents of the old ‘All Users’ folder has been shuffled away to a hidden ‘ProgramData’ folder. It was nice though, to see a logically named ‘Users’ folder, and it was also good to see that Microsoft has finally seen the triteness in prefixing everything with “My”. (In light of the EULA, it seems that very little of it is actually mine anyway.) Which reminds me of another annoyance – there is an item in the Control Panel with a nice easy link to upgrade. Even though I’ve just bought the Home Premium version, they want me to give them more money. Of course, in their [supposedly] ‘frequently asked questions’, the most obvious question that people would care about is suspiciously absent: “What’s it gonna cost me???” It seems that Microsoft (moneybags) has lost sight of such petty fiscal concerns.

Initially I was restricted to a resolution of 1024×768 (which ain’t too flash on a widescreen display), and couldn’t put it higher until I upgraded the display drivers. One of the most annoying ‘features’ of the new version is the painful “User Account Control”, which stuffed up the installation of my Apache 2 service, so in a flurry of retribution, it got turned off. (I really do think that Novices should leave the User Account Control on though.) So after much configuration, I had things back to almost normal, including the blog.

But the upgrade process had left a number of remnants referring to the old folders (‘Documents and Settings’, etc.). And these, I did not like. So I decided to back up my data, and run through the painful process yet again, but with a nice clean installation.

The analogue clock on the ‘SideBar’ is interesting (okay, not that interesting). The second-hand jumps just past where it should be, and then back again, simulating the escapement of spring-driven clocks. It’s a nice touch, with a certain irony. And being able to check the weather on the SideBar without the inconvenience of browsing to a website (or just looking out the window) has got to be worth something.

One thing I haven’t figured out is why the product ships with ’sample’ videos. The sample pictures I can kind of understand, because people might like them as background ‘wallpaper’ (the next person I hear calling it a ’screensaver’ will be injured). But why do I need sample videos? I’m already familiar with the concept. Maybe there actually are people who adopt these ’samples’ as their favourite cinematic experience and watch them over and over again.

Anyway, to make a long story short (don’t you just love it when people say that after a long story?), the blog is back and running as happily as ever.

If anyone else has some opinions on Vista, I’d be happy to hear them.