Amidst yet another article about Windows PC sufferers and their Stockholm Syndrome/Cognitive Dissonance (Guy buys a Dell with Windows Vista; thing doesn’t work; much time and money wasting ensues), The New York Times’ Harry Hurt III writes, “I called John C. Dvorak, a prominent columnist for PC Magazine and a podcaster on the Podshow network. ‘I advise everybody to buy a Macintosh because Apple products are the easiest to use,’ he said. ‘If you own a PC, you have to find a local nerd, a kid, maybe a relative. Every family has one unless they’ve just moved here from a foreign country. That’s the only solution.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Does Mr. Hurt take Dvorak’s advice (which is not new, BTW, as Dvorak’s been advising this at least since July 2007) and return his 3-day old Dell and get a Mac instead? No, of course not – he has Stockholm Syndrome and/or Cognitive Dissonance, after all.
Hurt reports that John, his PC tech support guy, ultimately had to remove the data on the hard drive, wipe it clean, and then reinstall all the data and Vista. The total cost was about $800, over half of what Hurt had originally paid for the Dell. But, Hurt writes, “I was so happy to hear the crunch of S.U.V. tires on my driveway when John returned with my newly repaired machine, I told him I didn’t begrudge paying the tab.”
Check out this article for more on why Windows PC sufferers will do and try almost anything before they ultimately stop the insanity and go buy themselves Macs:
Defending Windows over Mac a sign of mental illness
And, Macs aren’t just easier to use, they’re better. Macs will make you more productive and you’ll enjoy using your computer instead of being scared of fouling it all up with a simple software install.
One time I ran into someone who needed their computer software fixed. When they asked what I charge, I said $50 and hour for Mac, $100 an hour for pc. The person looked at me in shock and asked why I would “dare” charge twice the price for a Windows machine and I said “Because it’s a pain in the neck to work with.” Needless to say, I have not seen or heard from her but I’m sure she’s out there somewhere screaming her head off.
Scheduler, if you want to watch NASCAR videos, you’re already challenged!
I’ve beem playing around with VWware Fusion and Windows XP (a legit copy). It works quite well, much better than Virtual PC on my old G5.
Anyways, I thought I’d increase the memory allocation on my Windows XP virtual machine. Then, when I ran the Windows XP virtual machine, and I got a message that said I have to “reactivate” Windows because there has been a “significant change” to my hardware configuration. So I go dig up my Windows XP box with the long “product key” and entered it. Then I got a message saying I have used that product key too many times, please phone Microsoft tech support to get a new one. So I called the 800 number on the screen and get an automated voice recognition system. It asks me some questions including how many different computers I had installed that copy of Windows on… Then I had to enter 7 (sets of) 6-digit sequences (which is displayed on my screen) when prompted using my phone keypad. After I managed to get through that exercise, I had to listen to the automated voice read off 7 (sets of) 6-digit sequences, and entered them into the appropriate spaced on the screen. Finally, I’m done and I Microsoft has given me its blessing to use Windows XP.
So… will I have to go through that torture each time I adjust the settings for the virtual machine? Does a typical Windows user have to do the same thing if he or she adds RAM or a new hard drive to their system? Is Windows Vista actually MORE annoying than XP regarding this “activation” business?
syberghost: Nice stab at comedy but it still needs a LOT of work.
hey scheduler! if you play the video from the menu on the right rather than expecting rhe link to auto-open, you will get good results from flip4mac. i just got done watching the vids. initially, i got the -19160 error, but when i clicked the vid from the right, they all worked. hope this will help you keep that old pc in hibernation.
“I am a NASCAR fanatic…”
You could have just stopped there.
@ken1w:
Vista is much more annoying. In the never ending battle to stop Windoze (which bogles the mind: why would anyone even want to steal it? I know. To resell it to unsuspecting dweebs. But still…) See the new articles on Vista SP1:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1267
dear scheduler.
I do not worship my Macs. I just think NASCAR is retarded.
My opinion. And no, I’m not a jackass. You don’t know me, so STFU.
@Scheduler: It’s true, some internet sites will give you problems on the Mac. This is because some use codecs or plugins or ActiveX junk that only works on Windows. When you find one, do everyone a favor and complain to the site owners, codec/plugin/player developers, and anyone else you can think of, that they need to be more inclusive in their technology. Because there are plenty of great cross-platform technologies that exist, there is little point to using proprietary ones.
I guess what the world needs is for more Mac web developers to develop pages that only play correctly on Macs. Just kidding.
And all this time I thought NASCAR fanatics were crude, arrogant, and uncouth lowlifes who married their sisters. How wrong I was. You’re talking about MAC sheep. Us rodeo fanatics can breathe a little easier, too. Thanks, Scheduler for clearing that up. I bet you’d really enjoy using a PC with Vista. Keep posting!
Your potential. Our passion.™
We are veering off topic here, but why not:
MilitaryPolice sez: “It’s true, some internet sites will give you problems on the Mac. This is because some use codecs or plugins or ActiveX junk that only works on Windows. When you find one, do everyone a favor and complain to the site owners, codec/plugin/player developers, and anyone else you can think of, that they need to be more inclusive in their technology….”
Well, back in the olden days, circa 1996, before Microsoft stuck their fetid foot into the Internet, everything was designed to be 100% cross platform and standardized, no excuses, period, the end, amen. But I think all of us here know The Microsoft Way. Proprietarization. (Probably not a word, but you get the idea). J++ pollution (thankfully now dead and buried). JScript pollution. Pseudo-HTML pollution. Proprietary media format pollution. ActiveX pollution. (ActiveX BTW is one of the most insecure technologies Microsoft ever stuck in their own eye. Nice job. Be glad Macs can’t access it. Actually we can with a FireFox extension, but don’t bother). Windows web coding kiddies, and sadly a lot of companies, have used Microsoft FrontPage to perpetrate their websites. Sites made from FrontPage are notoriously bad when viewed with anything but IE. No surprise. If you examine the code on these pages you will typically see FrontPage listed in the headers, a big giveaway as to why they look lousy.
Has anyone heard anything about the dreaded successor to FrontPage? (Microsoft Expression Web Designer :-Q***)
A fun way to waste an afternoon: Download and crank up the iCab web browser. It is designed to examine web code on every page you visit and give you a smiley face if the code follows established standards, or a frowny face if the code has errors. Go travel around the net and see if you can find even one page that gives you a smiley face. So much for Internet standards.
😀
“Macs will make you more productive” yes – definately true! cant believe how much time i used to waste trying to get things done wid my old vaio on xp, fist the 10 – 15 min boot up, (waiting cos if i try sumthin right away, it crashes) then closing some pop ups about updating windows and my antivirus, another minute. takes a couple minutes to open the new word, the took me 3 HOURS to type my 1000 word essay cos i have to learn the new crap word layout. I mean, on apples Pages i can get it all done in about 30 minutes (first time , even), i would count the instant on after sleep as an excellent time saver, but it takes less than thirty seconds to boot my new macbook anyway (im almost scared to move the mouse when i turn around and its done!)
Had my first ‘real world’ experience for debugging Vista over the weekend. Had a relative visit us with his shiny new Viao with Vista and the crapware wouldn’t properly connect to my 802.11b/g wireless LAN. It would see it, ‘register’ it but then complain the link was for local traffic or some similar. Triple checked Network setting to ensure it was DHCP but the sh*t wouldn’t release a 169.* address acquired from some airport wireless LAN during his recent travels. IPconfig/release required elevation, as I didn’t realise till much later that it required the dos/cmd prompt be run as admin. And all the while clicking away those “allow or deny” UAC annoyware. In the end, just gave up after wasting half an hour. And my iPod Touch, AppleTV and iMacs work fine on that same wireless LAN.
So much for Vista friendly-ness… NOT! Its a serious piece of cr*p!!!!
Boy, $800 would have bought him at least two very nice evenings with an <cough> escort. If you want to get f*cked, you might as well have it done in an enjoyable way.
@ Scheduler
Sorry bout your problems on the NASCAR site … but point your dismay & anger where it rightfully belongs, … that’s right at Microsoft, and their proprietary windows media crap. They purposely insure that their crap won’t work correctly with other vendors, or for that matter open source apps. NASCAR chooses to use this closed loop crap, so hence your video viewing pains. NASCAR should choose to use any of the mpeg/mpg formats … preferably 3 or 4. They would then be compatible with all platforms available, not just windoze.
thanx
dave
The world is a strange place, I agree.
“And yet here’s the weird bit. She’s happier on the Dell than she was on the eMac because….. “it’s what we’ve got at home, and it’s what everybody else here has.”
From what she tells me, her Dell at home causes endless trouble also.”
——–I am not sure if its the Stockhom syndrome or something else.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” /> And I have found out in life that you just cannot help some people sometimes. They may want to complain but they really do not want what ever is wrong to be fixed.
Its crazy, but true. 🙁
Hey, me, I have bones to pick with my Macs, but they are much less than the bones for the work PCs. Plus, I admit, I enjoy the role of the rebel, just a little bit. .
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Ahhhh 500 miles of uhhhh, turning left, now there is a “sport” I can get behind…
Troll ho1