I have not liked Apple for a long time. This article is to allow me to have a place where I can refer others, so that when people ask me why I’m “still using Windows”, I have a place to direct them and say, it’s not just because I don’t like Apple, they had a chance, and blew it.

I did some iPhone Application development back in university and bought a Mac Mini which I used for a year and a half, so please before you criticise me and think this is just overheard nonsense, and made up, bear this in mind, I did own a mac and I did enjoy it for about a year.

After using this device for that period I came to the following conclusions, but please do be aware that this was a while ago, and some of the problems I had may no longer be an issue:

• Some websites wouldn’t work properly
• Office was not full-featured on the mac – I constantly had to use my PC in order to complete my timesheets for work because the formulas didn’t work.
• Couldn’t play games – I know this is not much of an issue any more, but PC’s do have more games than OS X.
• Had issues with photoshop
• Struggled to use NTFS devices
• A few of the NTFS devices I was actually able to use, were corrupted, and when they were plugged in to a Windows PC were just viewed as a RAW device
• My Logitech Keyboard and Mouse (although the were made for pc), they didn’t work fully, (as in all buttons)
• The Hardware costs roughly double the price, and upgrading yourself voids the warranty, (I am unsure of how true the warranty void is, if you know better than me please comment below)
• Also upgrading yourself was not an easy task
• The user interface relies on keyboard short cuts and delving through menus, and the menus themselves seem almost deliberately different to windows.
• I had to learn to use the command key, which when going to work proved to be annoying as we used PC’s there
• I dislike being forced to use iTunes, and absolutely despise that I can no longer just install iTunes without Quicktime. I don’t use either of those products and having to install them just so I can use my iPod seemed like massive overkill.
• Mac peripherals were all more expensive
• My 64 bit hardware was not supported by the OS until a year after I got it. I then had to pay for the OS upgrade to support the 64 bit chipset, which made next to no performance increase anyway
• My favourite, it never slows down, starts up in a second, all that drivel, my mac slowed down over time and never started in just a second.
• I love checking out forums and finding out how to “fix” things that aren’t meant to break because they’re superior. My mighty mouse scroll ball had started sticking, and I had to go and find out how to clean the damn thing. My mouse I had before I used the mighty mouse, has never been cleaned, never been maintained, I may have wiped it down once or twice, but I have never had to maintain it.
• Apple has started using proprietary connectors on their new hard drives, meaning you’ll have to buy their product no matter what.
• I have never had to use a mac to do something I couldn’t do on a PC, I had to at least once a week (my timesheet for work), use a PC because I couldn’t do it on a mac.

In the end, the only thing I liked about my mac mini was how quiet and cool (temperature)  it was. This was not enough justification for me to buy another Mac product. The device has since been donated to my parents and is running Windows, because the one site that they used used some active-x controller that wasn’t supported on the mac, and wouldn’t play back anyway. So in the end Snow Leopard couldn’t even be used just as a bloody web-browser.

Further to this Apple as a company consistently have shown to be a crooked company. They constantly seem to be ripping people off and people just keep flocking to them. My favourite claim by Apple is that they never get viruses.  Never? Yeah right, just this week there was a new one, Mac Defender, and you can find out about it here, that has now brought malware to the mac. But this is not the first, and in fact Apple had the title of the most security vulnerabilities last year, (I am unsure of at the moment),  here is the evidence, and they were actually able to overtake Oracle who was reigning champ since 2006.

But luckily with all the Apple stores, you can just take it to one of the “geniuses” and get some help, WRONG, Apple in fact has instructed their geniuses NOT to assist customers, but hey, just have a read of the article here.

And finally it is the air of pretension that seems to come with owning  one. I was sick of hearing how great it was. Oh it’s so good it does this, everything just works, this that and the other. I get asked all the time to assist people with their computers, some are macs and you know what, sometimes it doesn’t just work. I was trying to map a drive last week, went and found the guide on the apple website and every time I rebooted the machine it would lose the mapping. So don’t come here and feed me this “it works” crap, it doesn’t, it’s a computer, born with vulnerabilities, bugs and issues.

I will give Apple is that they have the best style. They make beautiful machines, pity they seem to have based their design on Braun, so even that is not unique.

Innovation is probably their best quality. The magnetic power connectors, laptops without vents underneath so you can leave them on your bed is genius. The way they pushed forward the touch-screen phone, the mp3 player, and established the tablet market. These are all things they did, but sadly not enough for me to want to fork out double the price of a PC, just so I don’t use windows most of the time, I could get Linux for free and do that.

Video game characters live in a three-dimensional world, but gamers have only been able to experience two dimensions… until now. The 3rdSpace® Vest from TN Games takes gameplay beyond sight and sound, creating spatial awareness of the world your characters inhabit. Unlike traditional force feedback devices that rumble or buzz, the 3rdSpace Vest gives you precise impact where it happens, as it happens. Get pounded with body slams, crushed with G-forces, and blasted with bullet fire.

Buying the vest online includes FPS Gaming Vest, air compressor, USB cable, power supply and 3rd Space Incursion game disc. They come in two sizes and also come in two colours, camo and black. They are currently shipping for US$169 and is only available on pre-order. The current expected shipping date is November 2007.

So as you can see, some hardcore gaming enthusiasts know exactly what they’re asking Santa for Christmas.

If you are interested make sure you check out the official site.

A few weeks ago I had a laptop, and all was fine. It had been for over a year now. Then I go to boot my machine and BAM, NTLDR is missing. There were no warning signs. There was nothing I could do. I was in tears. I had stuff on there that I needed, (which I could get off, but it was beside the point), however I needed to rebuild the machine from the ground up. Annoying. Well I jumped on my PC, and low and behold my saviour of so many times before, provided me with a cure:

ntldrismissing.com (if that is down try this).

They provided me with a disc image and steps to repair my windows, it was incredibly painless and highly recommend it.

The microsoft website also has it’s own solution. It also appears quite easy and painless, so that may be worth checking out too.

Download Here

Threat (0 is low, 10 is high): 1
Effects: Error Reporting Tool Service, Dr. Watson.
Status: ‘dwwin.exe’ is critical.
Path: c:\windows\system32\dwwin.exe

dwwin.exe is Dr. Watson for Windows. In recent versions of MS Windows, dwwin.exe has been used for displaying error reports. The process seems to be used to transparently monitor reads and writes to specific files, resulting in many security programs inaccurately reporting a possible security breach.

Hopefully it will help you out.

Link

1. Right click on an empty spot on your desktop and select New – Shortcut.

2. Type %windir%\system32\rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks in the box.

3. Click Next.

4. Give your shortcut a nice name like “Clear Memory”.

5. Click Finish and you’re done.

Now whenever your computer starts running slow click this shortcut to clear out your memory and get your computer running at a normal pace again.

Link