Poll: When did you switch over to a Mac?

Just ask in the Mac forums.

You'll find answers there

P

I can't help but wonder what Apple Tech Support told you about the Parental logs when you called them.
I also wonder what steps you took yourself to try to remedy the problem.
Corrupt preferences, incorrect permissions are just two problems that could cause your problem.

I cannot find any place on the Mac Forums here where you have asked questions about problems you were having.

In what way have you been trying to make your Mac work for you? That's a very generic statement and means nothing at all.
Could it be that you felt that the OS should act more like Windows, being that your an experienced Windows user, or what there something specific about the OS that you did not understand?
Maybe your son is ready to switch because of parental pressures. I note that his computer access is controlled, so I would think he would go with whatever platform you are offering him access to.

While I agree that the Apple Help could use some of its own, I have also found Windows built-in help to be equally frustrating. As for support on the Apple site, I have found that to be adequate, especially the Discussions Forums. What help did you seek there.
As a matter of interest, where did you easily find answers to your Windows problems? I suspect it was not from the Microsoft site, a place I find to be very less than helpful when I am looking for the answers to Windows problems while at work.

P

When I made my post today, it was after a frustrating search for answers to my problem. I was responding to Lee Koo's question, "When did you switch over to the Mac" and what was my experience. My post related to my experience in general and I am not looking to invest any more time resolving it. I have spent far too much time fruitlessly combing the Apple site, the internet and various other help and support sources to want to spend any more time on it. I have made a decsion to move this machine over to Vista which will be easier for me to support for my family and will at least be useful for me. There were not enough advantages to the Mac for me to warrant investing any more time.
I found your response typical of many Mac users responses whenever a Windows user expresses disatisfaction with the Mac OS, very defensive. Maybe we're just wired differently but the Mac has never been intuitive for me. At the end of the day, I was wanting to share my experience and frustration with the Mac and ask users for any tips, suggestions or bad experiences on the use of Boot Camp and Vista on a Macbook Pro.
Regarding your comments on my influence on my son's decision, it has little to do with parental pressures. It stems more from the usability issues he has had as well the cost of and lack of software titles that he wants to use. There are far more titles available for Windows, all at a more reasonable price.

After over 16 years with Windows, I?ve come the conclusion you like what your familiar with. I tried my friend's iMac 24? model, didn?t like the mouse, keyboard (keys are hard to read) or screen it seemed too large to sit close to. I chose a 22? screen for my PC.
As to using the Mac OS everything seemed harder to find. Did not like Safari or iPhoto, yes I know you can use other software. The iMac itself is an attractive design, but I didn?t care for the DVD slot.
Back to what?s familiar, after going through almost all the Windows versions, Vista is a great upgrade, had it now for a year and a half. It does need ram, my system has 3gb. The Media Center, Voice recognition are quite good.
As to the Mac ads on TV, they are irritating, much like attack ads for politicians. Reinforcing my negative feelings toward Apple. They have a good product, just show what it can do.

you may well be correct, but remember that the tide flows both ways.

As all the other software is available for the Mac OS, in the end, it all boils down to being able to play games on your computer.

I have yet to find anything that I cannot do on a Mac that I can do on Windows.

Software prices, unless you are "borrowing" (which I am sure you are not) between the Mac OS and Windows are now about the same.
Check out Office for Mac & Office for Windows.

As I said, good luck

P

I use 3 different Macs BootCamp for XP on two of them, BootCamp for VISTA on an iMac 24" plus a couple of different native Windows XP.
Rarely use the MAC software... usually just to play a DVD 'cause WMP wants codecs before it'll work right (really, really dumb). So most of my software is Windows stuff and it all runs great on all 5 machines. In fact, I sometimes think, it runs even better on the BootCamp underpinnings... Mac Pro uses XP and MacBook Pro 17" uses XP. Good hardware basically but really lacking in ports for all my peripherals... I gotta use USB hubs and even a db 25 to USB adapter for my old Motorola ModemSURFR for Winfax. So, I usually do faxing from my Windows machine using an internal faxmodem. Tried the USB Apple modem on OS x 10.4 but the software running it sucked. I keep it with my laptop MAC just in case I need to use dialup or fax something from the road as it were. The other MAC software I don't have much use for. Yes, there's workarounds for all my MAC "problems" but who needs to use 'em when I can just run Windows and great software that runs on it. And the SP1 enabled VISTA is working great so far for me.

Thanks for sharing your Vista experiences. This is not a primary PC for me so the peripheral issue isn't really a problem.
Just out of curiosity, why Apple equipment but Windows software?

Few things come to mind...

1. Got my MacPro desktop at a time when I was fed up with looking at the Windows GUI in the Home Office after work on a straight Windows Machine all day. As it turns out I still spend most of my time on the Windows platform even in the Home Office.

2. Had thoughts of "Everyone should own a MAC at least once in their life, if for nothing else to see first hand what all the fuss was about." Enables one to talk half intelligently about the two Systems.
As it turns out there's not a whole lot of difference although I am really enjoying the styling and glossy screen of the iMac running VISTA. And it's very fast (3.06 GHz) like my Gateway.

3. More money than brains comes to mind as well. I'm very, very pleased with a Gateway duo core machine I've been using with XP for over two years now.

4. The fact that Steve Jobs switched everything over to Intel chips and had his software people create BootCamp for free was a huge factor in my decision. I can run both OS's perfectly now so I have added capability even if it is rather a nebulous capability at this point. That whole move by Apple was a stroke of genius to enable them to move more hardware.

5. I wanted to support another complete and viable system for the average person to use.

6. If I absolutely had to I could do everything I do in Windows on an OS X machine... with the exception of a high end graphics suite I can use only on a Windows machine. It smokes anything MAC will run and I've even used the Windows versions of some MAC graphics software. This will come as a surprise to many MAC users I know. They used to be (emphasis on used to be) the only game in town... that's long gone for a couple of years now. They're not the only game in town - and they're not the best either from a hardware or OS or other software side. They may be just as good in some cases - but not better.

There's a difference between a Mac and a MAC.
- A Mac is a computer made by Apple
- A MAC address stands for Media Access Control address, which is a unique 12 digit hexadecimal number assigned to a piece of network hardware to uniquely identify it.

Please don't mix the two, it just gets confusing.

K... I knew that Not many other people knew that though. Kinda puts you in an elite class... just like Mac owners! ;&gt You must be a Windows guy for that to get confusing. VBG & a ;&gt Just kidding!... case you didn't get it.

I might call myself an elite class. Experience with all the major OSes (Windows 98 through XP, some Vista), Mac (Tiger and Leopard), and Linux (kernel 2.6), and 8 programming languages over the last 4 years... You learn some really whacked stuff after a while. Oh, and no Visual Basic... I will not go near a Basic compiler ever.

Not sure what leather products you're writing about, but I don't expect you will ever buy an Apple either. This restriction probably will prevent you from owning any computer or cell phone IF you do you home work because somewhere in the product lines, there is sure to be some leather involved.

I'm very passionate about technology and CNET, but apparently other people who really like technology get ****** off when they meet someone who's strict about what they buy because they're vegan.

If I never have to own a computer because of that reason (Believe me, I ALWAYS do my homework,) then that's fine by me.

http://www.apple.com/search/?q=leather

Having read your other post about Mac's, I seriously doubt that you would ever buy a Mac for whatever reason.

Claiming that the reason you would not buy one is because Apple sells leather products and that you would not support the selling of leather products because you are a "very strict vegan" really does not hold water.

Why? Glad you asked.

The computer you used to post in this forum is obviously not a Mac.
However, your computer uses a multitude of plastic parts in its construction, no matter who the manufacturer is.
The manufacture of plastic is aided by a product called Stearic Acid.
Stearic Acid is obtained from the treatment of animal fat.

Thought you, as a "very strict vegan" should be aware of that.

P

I became vegan relatively recently, and this computer is a few years old. I'll keep the fact about stearic acid in mind if and when I shop for a new computer.

I recently looked up "stearic acid" in Wikipedia (which I know some people hate because "it can be edited by anyone" but it's MODERATED for goodness sake, and they have very strict policies about the kind of articles you can write or edit), and this is what came up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stearic_acid

As you can see, stearic acid does not just come from animal fats, but also from vegetable fats and oils. I'm sure it will be hard to find computers that are vegan, but I will try my hardest. If I never buy another computer, then that's perfectly dandy.

From the link you posted above, I found a list of iPod and iPhone products that are made with some leather, but none of them were Apple-branded. There may only be a couple of real Apple, leather products out there, and those are probably some sort of iPod sleeve that they used to sell. And things like that may be fake. Apple sells other products in their stores to provide a compatible and healthy environment for their customers. If you want people to use your products, they are going to want to add on to them in one way or another, which is where software and other accessories comes in. Some of Apple's partners make leather products, so Apple has to sell them as part of a deal, I'm sure. Are you going to shun their computers because Apple has to conduct business with other companies? That's a terrible reason to avoid buying an iPod or Mac.

I'd bet Apple could care less about leather, and as I said, they may sell some of those products because their business partners ask them to. Apple focuses on bringing the user the best experience they can, which is what OS X is about. Nothing to do with leather here, really. If you have problems with this, then you probably will never be able to buy any product on the market. I'm inclined to doubt that you care about what OS you are using or what your computer can do.

And two things:
1. Steve Jobs (Apple's CEO and co-founder) has been known to be a vegan/vegetarian/pescetarian, depending on what he feels like I suppose.
2. Many scientists believe that red meat allowed our ancestors to develop the powerful brains that we use today. One could argue that without it, humanity would be less advanced and intelligent. This would mean that Apple and every other company out there, and the geniuses behind them all, would not exist in the same way they do today. This discussion would not be taking place at all if this was the case. Just saying.

You don't have to buy Apple products, but if you do, buy them because you want to use them, not because they are "leather-free".

-BMF

I'm not even going to begin to argue whether people should be vegan/vegetarian or not. Research on both sides abounds, and I'm sick and tired of arguing with people over this issue. It doesn't matter whether Apple manufactures or sells the leather; they are still gaining profit from it, and I don't want to support that. There are actually tons and tons of resources online to help vegans and vegetarians avoid buying from anyone who gains some kind of profit from selling animal byproducts, and even if that DOES mean that I never buy any kind of product again, then fine by me, I'll take the Freegan route if need be.

http://www.quotegarden.com/a-rights.html

I could care less if other people choose this lifestyle or not. If that's what some people want, fine, more power to them for it.

However, I think going around and saying that these companies are wrong for (re)selling leather products, fake or not, isn't going to help you out much; as mrmacfixit said, a lot of companies are tied to animal byproducts in one way or another, like some of those manufacturing processes. The way I see it, Apple has made some very environmentally smart decisions; they're computers are supposed to be very eco-friendly. I also doubt that they may make any large profit off of any leather iPod cases they may have. If you want a new computer, there are plenty of great reviews out there, as well as some nice posts in this thread and forum. A Mac may be as close as you can get to a new machine without crossing your line.

Just my thoughts. Good luck with your search then. And if you find you like a Mac, enjoy it.

-BMF

I never even said,"Apple is wrong for selling or reselling leather products," nor did I mention any other companies. FAKE leather is another thing. I'd be very happy if Apple offered only fake leather, but this isn't the case: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MA398G/A
That's not reselling. It doesn't HOW much of a profit they make from leather products, it's STILL a profit.

And actually, according to Greenpeace's newest edition of "Guide to Greener Electronics," which, from what I've found, is the only guide of its kind, Apple is doing pretty crappy environmentally-wise, as it has dropped to 14th position out of 18 companies ranked in the guide: http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/apple