Oh dark day. Giving up on Vista and going Mac?

On Sunday... I spent 4 hours just trying to copy some videos of our New Years Band from one XP machine to another. Vista crashed twice, required three restarts, hung four times. I tried connecting via my home wireless, via switchover cable. I pored over settings. I allowed Network Discovery (now THAT's a bitch that Vista chooses to keep subtle). I allowed file sharing. Short of uploading the bloody things and downloading them onto the other machine (neat idea, not practical, thanks Telkom) - I tried everything.

Everything.

I have never, ever been so frustrated by an operating system.

And to be fair to Vista, I even tried this on Ubuntu. Theoretically, a lot easier, but still couldn't get it working (I have a feeling Ubuntu got as far as copying and then decided that the crummy downstairs wireless signal shared by its lesser XP brethren was just not enough and timed out with gay abandon). So points to Ubuntu. No points to me who is still without said New Years videos.

Vista is a disaster.

I refused to believe it. I punted the interface. I applauded the "ease-of-use". I looked towards the positives. I feel like a fuckin idiot. Have your laughs.

So. Is there a white light at the end of this code-bloated tunnel?

For the FIRST time in my life, I considered Mac. Come with my on my journey of discovery. And hope like hell my Acer packs up soon.

Hmmm. PS3 for games. Mac for work. iPod for tunes. And all the future goodies. Might not be as bad as it sounds...

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Comments

  1. I'm very pro Apple, and Apple is the way to go - but beware the new Leopard OS is still a bit buggy and does not play too well with Microsoft servers and systems. Also support in South Africa is non-existent - you're going to end up fixing a lot of your problems yourself!

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  2. ah. the voice of reason.

    How buggy is buggy?

    I thought the whole mac thing was - IT JUST WORKS!

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  3. Generally Mac's "just work". I haven't had any issues with them over 4 years of using them in SA, but earth-touch is right: local support is a bitch, especially hardware. Laptop warranties are worldwide, though.

    I haven't had any problems using Macs with Microsoft system, although admittedly I haven't upgraded to Leopard yet...still happy with Tiger!

    If you have issues/questions about your Mac, the cool thing is there is a rabidly loyal user community who usually goes out of its way to help. So, pick me!

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  4. Now the question on my lips... Will a MacBook do it? (for fairly power users). Or do you HAVE to get a MacBook PRO?

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  5. Btw, Mr Roger Saner - tried to leave a comment on your blog - got bombarded with pages of Wordpress errors :)

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  6. Your change of heart about Vista has been particularly interesting. A lot of people I work with, who come from large organisations, are refusing to upgrade from XP and one or two who bought hardware delivered with Vista (mostly laptops) have decided to downgrade to XP.

    Apples new OS, based on Unix, is highly thought of but PC architecture is still the de facto standard outside the graphic arts and similar industries. The Mac doesn't meet critical needs in many applications as essential software is not available for the Mac OS or doesn't work properly when run under a Mac's simulated PC environment. Specialised software designed for the Mac is also generally a lot more expensive than the equivalent software for use with a PC.

    XP is still the most widely used OS but there are some very serious moves toward deploying Open Source software running under Ubuntu, particularly in organisations where word processing, spreadsheets and presentation software meets almost all routine needs and most documents are only used internally or are interchanged in HTML of PDF formats.

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  7. Get Ubuntu. It's free and more stable. Good community support also.

    Cheer!

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  8. i currently dual boot vist and ubuntu. hows THAT for a combo.

    Ubuntu is great if you leave it alone. Try get fancy and ishoes.

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