Mac vs. Windows for Photographers

[pixel pete]

Has there been any poll on this subject? I'm not trying to make trouble. We already have one brewing in Canon vs. Nikon.

I'm just curious. Remind me to search the forums next time. I did find something but it was mostly someone asking for advice.

I bet Mac users as the minority here. Am I right?

Colin, I could use your expertise right about now on how to get this poll going?

When I teach I have to do so on Windows. It's not my 1st choice but it's just annoying because the Windows machines are so locked down with Anti virus. The moment I stick anything into a USB port or insert even a CD, the machine slows to a crawl to scan every thing even a card reader!

Can you tell I have a "weight problem?" oops I meant a “wait problem,”

[Colin Southern]

Has there been any poll on this subject? I'm not trying to make trouble. We already have one brewing in Canon vs. Nikon.

Hi Pete,

I haven't seen any polls. Not aware of any Nikon -v- Canon trouble - just a bit of friendly rivalry in the weekly challenge thread to stimulate a bit of motivation

When I teach I have to do so on Windows. It's not my 1st choice but it's just annoying because the Windows machines are so locked down with Anti virus. The moment I stick anything into a USB port or insert even a CD, the machine slows to a crawl to scan every thing even a card reader!

It's actually an interesting dynamic to watch change - traditionally, viruses spread by eMail, but these days most ISPs do such a good job of intercepting them that I hardly see them anymore - what we ARE seeing a lot more of though is infections originating from infected websites & servers that exploit known vulnerabilities in browsers (and their associated technologies) of which statistics show (and I'm going to choose my words very carefully here) "Mac and Linux machines as being at least as vulnerable as Windows machines".

Personally, I find that people reply on anti-virus software far too much - it's not the "first line of defence", it's really "the last hope" - as mentioned above, most malware seems to be attacking via the web so - for any platform - the best defences are (a) keep your machine fully patched and (b) avoid the types of sites that are guaranteed to try to exploit security vulnerabilities (and I'm sure we all know what type they are!).

Some "security" packages definately have a major impact on performance and - frankly - I avoid those packages. The problem is that most people aren't network security experts - so the various security packages have to make many decisions for them and attempt to cover all bases; whereas all one might want is an anti-virus package, what they end up with it Anti-Virrus, Anti-Spyware, Parental controls, firewall, anti-phishing etc etc etc. My new laptop came with all of that stuff - and the very first thing I did was uninstall ALL of it - and because of my knowledge of IT and the safety of my browsing habits, I'm quite comfortable with that decision. From a professional point of view, I've tried many packages out there - and have for several years now run with a particular brand that lets us choose which components we want, and has proven to have minimal impact on system performance. So from a windows perspective at least - it doesn't have to slow a system to a crawl - the system just needs to have enough resources and the appropriate packages need to be setup and configured properly

[pixel pete]

Just out of curiosity I'm starting a poll to see what % of us use Mac or Windows

[Daniel Salazar]

hi Pete, I'm a devote Mac user. My first one was a:



and like you, I'm live in an ambivalent world, at home Mac and @ the office PC (at least every afternoon when I come back home I can say "that's a real computer" )

[Hansm]

I'm a macusers for more then one year now.
should have done this 15 years ago.
Works always, no strange behaviours or intermittent hang of the system

[pixel pete]

Wow dasle,
Now that's a classic! Hard to believe how quickly technology changes.
It is interesting and funny. My 13-year-old son watched "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" with me recently and cracked up when he saw James Bond copy some documents with a portable Xerox machine.

Having to use both OS, I still prefer the Mac because the anti-virus that has to run and scan everything in the lab slows me down.

Can you tell I have a weight problem? I mean "wait" problem.

[Davey]

I use windows for anything that won't run on linux well/at all but linux is my main choice of OS and I use that for everything else. Been slackware (and derivatives) fan since about 1998 and never fails to do what I expect and support from big companies getting better as user base is growing.

[Daniel Salazar]

I remember the first program I learned was Logo, I was so happy using my monochromatic screen and watching the cursor drawing and a lot of things.

Then I saw a friend, who had a Comodore 64 and I was really jealous however I kept using Mac until now.

Can you believe a computer with 64 bits and now that is not even enough to process a...... I don't know. Time changed a lot.

[cav]

My first computer was a Sinclair ZX81 (8Bit 1K of ram without the wobbly Rampack). Based on the Zilog Z80 processor which was susequently improved and used in the popular Sinclair Spectrum.

Windows was written to bring computing to the masses, many of whom were computer illiterate.
One reason I heard for not buing a MAC was 'You can't play games on it'
Solution:
Mac for work (Image processing, music production, publishing etc).
Windows for the masses.
PS3 for games.

What do you think?

[Davey]

Give me a linux pc over a mac any day. I think macs are great, much better than windows in some respects but all the benefits of mac over windows are levelled by linux and bsd in particular. I find pc's more flexible and price wise better than macs. I used to respect them more but the main criticism I make is the move to have more to do with the trendy marketing these days than tech appeal. In actuality I like them but prefer the flexibility, cost and power of pc.

The amount of long hair and and balding pony tail brigade mac users looking down on the none mac users in my local coffee shops is a frequent cause of my ranting hehehehe. Funny when your sitting there with a thinkpad with linux install that wipes the floor with their machine, doesn't suffer from the flaws they complain none macs do AND was cheaper. Now who's guilty of being a smug condescending git hehehehe (oh wait it's me !)The whole anti windows brigade behaviour from people who picked a computer based on trendiness as opposed to tech reasons and who are clueless (like mac is bsd, it's not it's darwin! Very little of it's lower layers is bsd admittedly but they make out it's a bsd distro when it's not). This has taken it's toll on my opinion and it's pushed as an unfair comparisson. Really I don't dislike mac hardware, and MacOS is pretty good too but I can equal those benefits on my pc too. You cannot compare hardware on the basis of chosen OS, you can compare MacOS/OSX to windows but people confuse the issue with macOS IS mac or windows IS pc. Comparissons I agree with are running the same OS/distro on both architectures and comparing.

Hardware wise although macs are decent enough (and their work per clock cycle ratio is higher figure than suggested going on intel ratio for instance where the work per cycle is more equal making equal spec macs look poorer in numbers wars) but pc's still wipe the floor with them hardware wise, with the right hardware of course hence powerful servers, rendering clusters and so on use PC hardware. As a result I say PC from hardware POV. From operating system point of view it depends purely on what you do, your personal preference, experience level, hardware needs and support and other such factors. Oh I better note I'm not complaining about ANY mac users on this forum, everyone here seems to have chosen their machine for good reasons it appears. For the record I have many very knowledgable friends who own macs and picked them for particular reasons, if anything they hate the trendy mac image more than me (along with ipods being rated over cowons etc).