Delicious Monster
Flame: My birthday present to me
A fellow named "Larry Bodine", who is apparently on the advisory board of "Law Technology News" (e.g., he's a technology advisor) and is also a law firm marketing consultant, has written a piece where describes, using no small amount of factual errors, fallacies, and other bad writing techniques, why he doesn't like the Mac.I wouldn't normally see an article on a law technology site like this, but it's getting linked from some of the Mac meta sites I frequent, and this is how idiotic memes get started.
So, since the date on the article is tomorrow (he wrote it FROM THE FUTURE!) and that's my birthday, I considered this an early birthday present and decided a good old-fashioned flaming was in order. Ah, it's been too long. Shall we?
Larry writes:
I was suckered in by the hype about freedom from viruses, simplicity of computing and versatility. Instead, I bought a boat anchor that can't view Web sites properly, is not compatible with Microsoft Word and can run only dumbed-down versions of regular software."Suckered" and "hype" aren't supported here: you don't address the issues of "freedom from viruses," "simplicity," and "versatility." You never state whether you found the "hype" to be true? It doesn't matter if these three claims are true or false (they're true) -- it's mislead to say you were "suckered in by the hype" and then let the reader assume the hype was wrong, when, you don't feel that way. It's like me saying, "I was suckered in by the hype about 'food' being 'necessary for survival,' but instead I got fat when I ate too much of it."
And you say "instead" of getting something virus-free you got something dumb, but what you mean is "in addition" (and even that is a false statement). There's a big difference between "instead" and "in addition." You should know this, Mr. Law Professional: "Instead of giving my client a horse for $2,000, the defendant gave my client the finger" vs. "In addition to giving my client a horse for $2,000, the defendant gave my client the finger." Big difference.
And you really can't run Word? Because I'm running it right now. La la la, look at me typing in it. In fact, I'm pretty sure you yourself can and did run Word, because you talk about your problems with Word in a couple paragraphs.
Viewing web sites "properly" would need to be defined; Safari and its free brethren are certainly more compliant with the majority of web standards than Internet Explorer; I haven't had an incompatibility problem in years. You would need to provide at least a partial list of websites you found troublesome in order to prove this claim. You provide none, only one false claim about it.
"Dumbed-down versions" is subjective and requires you to prove it in future paragraphs, which you fail to do.
This time, I'm buying from Hewlett-Packard Co. or Dell Inc. -- anything that runs on Windows. (I'll assume the risk of flaming batteries.) Goodbye Steve Jobs, hello Bill Gates. I'll be lucky to get half of the $4,552.71 I paid for the Mac on May 21, 2006.Yah, I'm sure it's a huge surprise to you that computer hardware depreciates, since you're on the board of a technology advising firm. I'm also betting the whole "Apple switching all their machines to Intel machines" caught you totally off-guard, since Steve announced in August of 2005 that he would have all the machines switched by August of 2006. There was NO WAY you could have called that, since it's, like, your job to advise people on technology.
Also, Apple had to recall many of their batteries as well, as Sony provided batteries to both Dell and Apple. Engadget.com. You should look into it.
I realized it was time to unload the silvery box of frustration when I had to buy a "Dummies" book on how to operate it. I'm smart; I shouldn't need this. Aren't Macs supposed to be intuitive and easy to learn? My mistake.What, exactly, were the problems you had? You don't say. I'm not clear on why buying a book was so maddening to you. It added, what, like $10 to your $4.5K purchase? You're upset because you didn't sit down with an incredibly complicated piece of consumer electronics and understand all of it instantly? I mean, yes, the Mac is easier to use, but there's still a lot of functionality there, and it's very different from Windows. Sit down with a friend or a third-grader you know for an afternoon and figure this stuff out, technology advisor.
With a former PC, I had to have my hard drive wiped clean and formatted -- several times -- after catching nasty viruses. So I was enticed by the thought of being online without fear of viruses. I dreamed of going fearlessly to all the sheet music and game sites that are rife with Trojans, spyware and other dangerous bugs....and you again imply this thought was false, but never say state that clearly, because you know it's true.
I was encouraged to make the switch by artists, ad agency employees and junior high school kids, even though I don't really create graphics, listen to iTunes or make movies. They all used Macs and were intractable in their support. They seduced me with siren songs, especially good customer support -- which did turn out to be excellent and was staffed with American speakers working in the United States. I liked the sexy FireWire with its zippy transfer speeds, although I used it only to transfer data to my external hard drive."Friends, colleagues, schoolchildren, kittens, mice, even a leftover piece of steak in my fridge: they all encouraged me to switch..." You're finally asserting an actual fact, and it's that Apple's support is great and you're hot for FireWire?
The signs of doom were there on day one, but I ignored them. I pretended that I liked the one button mouse. I quickly started using click + command keys (and other keyboard shortcuts). I really missed the little scrolling wheel in the center of the mouse. I put up with the fact that the HP printer, which I had purchased on the recommendation of an Apple Store, would work about 50 percent of the time with the Mac. I was constantly deleting print jobs and starting them over.Dude, if you bought a PowerMac G5 in June of 2006 it should have come with the four-button Mighty Mouse (with a two-axis scroll-ball in the middle), which has been shipping PowerMacs since October, 2005. If not, you know, spend the $12 to buy ANY USB MOUSE ON THE MARKET instead of replacing your whole computer. And I can't help but think you should have simply had the printer serviced or replaced by Apple's excellent support staff instead of starting over with a Dell. I think it would have been easier.
I noticed it was slow; I saw that stupid spinning colored wheel a lot. The Mac would hang up; the TV ads said Macs didn't do that. The widgets were cool and snappy, but after a while I stopped using them. They were fun -- for five minutes. I did like the Finder because it was quick in locating files, but it would turn up a lot of false hits. It was comparable to the Google Desktop searcher on my PC.Ok, you found the Mac slow because sometimes you saw the spinning cursor. I will give you this point. It's the first actual point you've made that you could possibly consider "evidence," halfway through your article.
What drove me nuts was that I would open Word for Mac and couldn't delete files while I was in Word. There is no File | Delete option. So the documents took up space on my hard drive, until someone told me I had to find the document in Finder and then move it into the trash from there. This seemed stupid to me; I just wanted to highlight a file and tap "delete."You believe the Mac version of Word should have a delete option. Ok, this isn't the "Mac way" but I'll give you this point, too. Two so far.
Word files transferred from the Mac were missing pictures. PowerPoint files transferred from the Mac would lose their formatting. PCs and Macs are not compatible, regardless of what they say.Some types of pictures don't translate over from Mac to PC versions of Word. Sounds like a problem with your PC version of Word, really, but I'll semi-give you the point, because there is a big button on the Word save sheet labeled "Compatibility Report..." which was put there just to tell you when you've used incompatible features in the Mac version of Word. I can see how that'd be confusing and stuff. Maybe "Compatibility Report..." isn't part of the dummies' curriculum.
The multiple clicking to accomplish simple tasks was a constant annoyance. Things I could do with a PC in two keystrokes took four or five clicks with the Mac. To do a "fast print" required clicking File, Print, find Copies & Pages, click Paper Type/Quality, click Normal and finally clicking Fast Draft. And there was no way to leave the setting as the default. I had to do it manually every time.Ok, you've listed THREE complaints in a row now with Mac Word, not the Mac. Now, I appreciate that, as a lawyer, you feel it's your duty to spend all your time in Word, but, seriously, have you thought about flaming Microsoft for this? They wrote it, Apple didn't. These are hardly problems endemic to the Mac.
Doing a simple screen capture was an immense chore. On a PC you just press Alt and tap PrtScr. With the Mac I had to download and launch special programs to accomplish this simple task.Yah, it's an immense chore to hit command-shift-4. Ow, my pinky!
I didn't even bother with the Mac's iCal or Mail, which required me to buy an @mac.com address.No, no they don't. Both can integrate with .Mac but don't require it; all their functionality is available without .Mac, you just have to arrange the server stuff yourself, just as you do with Windows.
Instead, I went straight to Outlook for Mac.You went straight to the MICROSOFT alternative, without even trying Apple's really nice Mail client, and decided you didn't like it. Darn, it's like Microsoft isn't really trying to make a good mail client for their competition, isn't it?
You did not even launch two of the best programs that ship free with the Mac, and then you have the temerity to write an article about how much the Mac sucks? Seriously?
A lot of the software for Mac -- such as AOL for Mac OS X -- was dumbed down and missing may features of the current PC versions.AOL was dumbed-down? How would that work, exactly? I mean, this is like saying you got a dumbed-down version of a George Bush speech. It's strange that you would pay for AOL on the Mac but not .Mac. It seems like, at this point, you're just intentionally avoiding anything with the Apple label, but then blaming Apple for the quality of all these products.
For me the killer was the Web browser. Safari simply cannot read Flash. It is, quite simply, a second-rate browser.It simply can and does read Flash, and you are, quite simply, a big stupid.
I even called Apple headquarters and asked when a better version would be available and was told that Apple is in no hurry to improve it.Yes, I am positive that Apple said, "What? Safari? Yaaaawn... you're using that? Heh... we're not really working on that much these days."
Oh, no, wait, Safari has had like eight releases since Internet Explorer was last revved.
On the suggestions of friends, I downloaded Netscape and Firefox, which were no better."No better?" That's it, huh? Well, I'm convinced! Although I should mention my friends on the Firefox team have told me they are working to upgrade their next version to "kinda better," with the eventual goal of being "somewhat better."
I scraped along with Internet Explorer 5.0 for Mac, and then discovered in 2006 that Microsoft would no longer support the Mac version. You can't do WSYWIG on Typepad (where many folks create their blogs), which you can on a PC.Yes, you must have been pretty shocked about this, since it was announced in 2003, and IE has three percent of the market on the Mac. Damn! Those companies keep pulling fast ones on you by announcing stuff years ahead of time and expecting you to, you know, make intelligent decisions.
I do sympathize, though, because I learned in 2003 that Apple was no longer going to manufacture the Apple //e! Well, they'd stopped years ago, but I just learned it then, because I'm a technology advisor who lives in a cave, surrounded by books written for idiots. (Oh, sure, I'd tried the Mac, but it was "no better.")
I run several Web sites, all optimized for IE 5.5 or higher. I couldn't operate my own Web sites with the Mac. That was the straw that broke the camel's back.Yes, if you insist on running a ten-year-old browser on your Mac instead of any of the five or so alternatives, some web sites may not work. In other news, if you spread rotten shit on a hot dog, it doesn't taste as good.
The phrase "couldn't" here is completely a lie; you "could" operate your websites, you just chose to use a ten-year-old browser instead of Safari, Camino, Firefox, Bumpercar, OmniWeb, or any of the zillion other ones available.
Also, the phrase "the straw that broke the camel's back" means you are finished with something (e.g., his back is broken, you can't ride on), but you said earlier that "the killer" was Safari's (in?)ability to read Flash, so your camel is already dead. Also, apparently your camel is still hobbling, because you go on...
Then the hard drive croaked on me after only three months of owning the machine. I couldn't tell what was going wrong and had to hire someone for $125 an hour to come over and tell me what the heck was happening. Apple replaced it for free, but I became leery of what other hardware would fail unexpectedly.Hard drive failure! That would NEVER happen if you had a Dell!
Apple uses the same hard drives as basically everyone else on the market. Sometimes they fail. They are moving parts. In this case, Apple replaced it for free. I don't see the problem, except you are apparently a huge whiner.
The supportable points of your argument, in total, boil down to this:
- Apple's marketing department and fans lured me in with promises of Macs being virus-free and having great service, both of which turned out to be true.
- FireWire is sexy.
- Sometimes I see the spinny cursor on my Mac.
- Microsoft Word doesn't please me on the Mac because the key shortcuts aren't short enough, and because I can't find the compatibility button on the save panel. Also, PowerPoint.
- Microsoft Outlook doesn't please me on the Mac, and I never tried the free alternatives that were bundled with the system.
- AOL(!) doesn't please me on the Mac.
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 from 1997 does not please me on the Mac, and I mistakenly believe Safari doesn't support Flash, nor will I use any of the many free alternatives that would work fine.
- One time, my hard drive broke and was replaced for free.
In summary: you are fundamentally only interested in using Microsoft products, and you find that your experience on a Mac using nothing written by Apple and everything by Microsoft is sub-par. Wow! I am SHOCKED! This is as amazing as when I heard that people who love open-source software sometimes prefer Linux to Mac OS X!
I let the repaired shiny Mac sit on the floor for weeks, and instead used my reliable IBM ThinkPad, and rediscovered how much I enjoy it. Wish me luck on selling the Mac.Good luck! And good riddance! I'd buy it myself but I'm afraid you might have smeared some stupid on it!
Labels: mac community
212 Comments:
You are a god.
October 15, 2006 6:52 PM
Dang. I was almost done writing my response when I read yours. I nearly clicked DELETE instead of POST. But I had written all those words...
October 15, 2006 6:58 PM
What's sad about this is that the incompetent technology advisor will never read your blog, and even if he did he wouldn't get it. Instead, he'll probably lead the rest of his life detesting Macs because he doesn't know any better, and he'll convince other people to do the same because he's somehow a technology advisor.
October 15, 2006 7:01 PM
I can't wait for the follow up article by him, "Crazed Mac Fanatics Attack". As stupid as these people are, I sometimes wonder if it would be better to write them a simple letter say "Hey, what exact problems did you have? Because I don't have problems running Word, or viewing web pages. Can I help?"
I know it's not my/your responsibility to teach someone how to use the Mac OS, but when people with a voice (as minor as it may be) blast the Mac OS in such a way wouldn't it be more productive to either ignore it or offer help, rather than blast him in the stereotypical mac-fan-boy fashion?
October 15, 2006 7:06 PM
Go Wil, it's your birthday.
October 15, 2006 7:08 PM
This was so worth taking a code-break from.
Oh yeah, happy birthday. That was a helluva nice way to start it.
October 15, 2006 7:11 PM
man, Gruber's gonna be dark on you - stealing his thunder like this....
But more importantly - Happy Birthday!!!!!
October 15, 2006 7:16 PM
I couldn't stop laughing by the time I finished this. The part at the end where you summed up all the completely bogus and unrelated points that he made absolutely killed me. Way to go, Wil.
October 15, 2006 7:19 PM
Bravo!
.... and happy birthday.
October 15, 2006 7:20 PM
Happy birthday
October 15, 2006 7:23 PM
Funny you're the one making us a present for your birthday.
Please, stop coding, just blog more. :D
Happy birthday.
October 15, 2006 7:25 PM
Oh yeah, awesome post Wil! And happy birthday too!
I'm still a bit shocked by how much was just plain wrong in that article. One you didn't mention: the Word print dialog has the usual Presets popup menu (and it saves the printer-specific options, with my HP at least).
October 15, 2006 7:34 PM
I lol'd
October 15, 2006 7:35 PM
"Darn, it's like Microsoft isn't really trying to make a good mail client for their competition, isn't it?"
That's crazy tak. Entourage (still) stomps all over Mail.
October 15, 2006 7:38 PM
http://www.law.com/jsp/legaltechnology/pubArticleLTN.jsp?id=1158829528257
Another article on the same site by another law practitioner, praising the Mac...ironically, I found it because it is linked to from Larry Bodine's piece!
October 15, 2006 7:46 PM
"Entourage (still) stomps all over Mail."
Really? I've been using Mail for years and I love it. Entourage is typical over-complicated Microsoft crap.
October 15, 2006 7:52 PM
So he ran Outlook in Classic then? Unless he meant Entourage.
October 15, 2006 7:55 PM
I seriously believe Apple should just start suing people like this for defamation.
He makes claims that are simply factually incorrect. He associates problems with other people's products with Apple.
Sue his ass I say.
john
October 15, 2006 8:11 PM
So, to sum up, the guy is a moron. Nice total deconstruction of a poorly researched article written by a highly ignorant man.
October 15, 2006 8:14 PM
So, his response on his blog is:
Mac Aficionados in Flames
His supporting points are:
-many called offering help
-many posted useful tips
-many thought his story wasn't true
-one person insulted him in comments while he was writing his blog post!
October 15, 2006 8:28 PM
Wil, that is the funniest (and saddest) thing I've read in a long time. And, honestly, the best flame I have ever read.
Thanks for the laughs, and have a happy birthday.
October 15, 2006 8:28 PM
Interesting note on his "issues" with printing in Word: uh, it's a lot quicker to hit CMD-P, then hit print... or, if a QUICK print is what you desire, why not hit the little icon that looks like a printer on your toolbar, sir? That just shoots it straight to the printer.
Seriously, it's as though he woke up one morning, put on his shoes, tied his shoe laces together, stood up, took one step and fell over. He then promptly blamed his shoelaces for not working properly.
October 15, 2006 9:30 PM
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
October 15, 2006 9:30 PM
"if you spread rotten shit on a hot dog"
lmfao
Happy b-day~!
October 15, 2006 9:35 PM
As a contrast to all the enflaming posts above, I'd like to mention that I sent a nice email to the writer with some helpful hints and suggestions, and offered to help him further if he needed it.
I realize that his article wasn't directly asking for help, and was in fact, partially ignorantly, disparaging of something we all enjoy and esteem. Nonetheless a helpful and kind response is the kind of response I would hope that we would each offer if we had met the writer in person, so I offer to him now over the internet as well.
Offer him help to show him that the Mac Community isn't just filled with partisan blowhards, but with helpful smart geeks. Even if his article doesn't deserve it.
October 15, 2006 10:03 PM
Um. There is no Outlook for Mac anymore.
October 15, 2006 10:07 PM
He responds!
"These Mac zealots are unusually defensive. They are just realizing that they have bought orphan technology. Macs are the Betamax of the 21st Century."
October 15, 2006 10:13 PM
I agree with everything you've written except the Safari working with WYSIWYG blogs. I have a WordPress blog and none of the writing features work in Safari. A popular technology forum's rich-text editor also doesn't work.
That was probably the only thing that caught my eye in Mr Larry's post.
October 15, 2006 10:45 PM
I regularly use half a dozen windows machines (running win2k, NT, xp pro, and xp home ed), a couple of Linux machines (now both running the lovely Ubuntu) and 3 Macs. They're all fine and anyone who couldn't accomplish the tasks that Mr. Technology Consultant set for himself on *any* of these machines is... well, that would be my mom. But she does not claim and has never claimed to be a "technology consultant." I am forced to the conclusion that Mr. Technology Consultant is (a) a drooling retard; (b) a liar; or (c) intentionally incompetent. These possibilities are not mutually exclusive.
October 15, 2006 10:50 PM
Wait a doggon minute. Are you seriously telling me the Apple IIe isn't being supported any more?
Clearly, I need a new technology advisor. I shall look in the other caves...
October 16, 2006 12:14 AM
Wil, you're a champ. I took a week to get up to speed when I switched and I'm way more productive on my Mac than I am with WinXP. I work day-in day-out on a PC and go home and just love working on my MBP.
Spotlight makes my life a lot easier, because on my Mac's desktop I only have my HD icons, and on my windows PC at work (and I've had it only half as long as the MBP) there are 49 icons. Mac OS just makes life easier and cleaner.
BTW, Happy Birthday
October 16, 2006 12:17 AM
I think it's great if people want to nicely offer this guy help. But his post was both incredibly insulting AND full of outright lies, and that magic combination, to me, says this person needs a smack, not a biscuit.
It was like, say, if I decided I really hated how smug Mac users were, so I hooked up a third-party networking card and hacked it and then did a huge press release about how Macs can be hacked without even connecting to a network and got tons of press on it but then never demonstrated an actual Mac being hacked publicly, and instead just hinted that I was being threatened by corporate goons into being silent, except I wasn't really being silent, I was showing up at conferences and giving talks in which I claim to be being threatened, which is kind of unbelievable because if someone were really threatening me I'd probably either (a) ignore the threat and say what I wanted, or (b) tell the world I was being threatened and say what I wanted, or (c) keep quite because I was scared, but not (d) tell the world I was being threatened but not say what I wanted. (It's like, "Don't call the cops or I'll shoot you." "Ok, well, can I tell the cops that you threatened to shoot me, then?" "No! Dumbass!")
October 16, 2006 12:52 AM
Happy birthday, Wil!
I am so glad this guy jumped off the train. Imagine he bought our softwares some day. Nothing but support trouble. And hey, the average IQ of Mac users just recovered after a mysterious low since May 2006.
October 16, 2006 1:20 AM
"I think it's great if people want to nicely offer this guy help. But his post was both incredibly insulting AND full of outright lies, and that magic combination, to me, says this person needs a smack, not a biscuit."
Did you feel insulted? Why? Do you work at Apple?
Thanks to the usual suspects, MacDailyNews and the like, sending hate mails and insults, he will rant about aggressive zealots.
October 16, 2006 1:58 AM
If nothing else, Larry's post should remind us that anything blog related needs to be passed thru about 3 s**t filters to get to the reality of what the author is saying. Even then one has to presume it may be entirely fiction, as this article probably is. Or possibly evn Mac-user flame bait - which it also seems to be. Wonder if he knows that Dvorak character. Unless this guy is actually from some alternate dimension where Apple/Microsoft quality of user-experience are reversed.
I still don't understand how he obtained a 2.7Ghz Mac only 5 months ago (and one which wasn't second hand.) Did he really mean May 2005?? If not, this only goes to support my alternate dimension theory ;-)
Plus, he kinda looks like a retarded Michael J. Fox in the pic on his site (no offence at all to Michael.)
October 16, 2006 2:04 AM
"Plus, he kinda looks like a retarded Michael J. Fox in the pic on his site "
Can you please post a picture of yourself, just so we can laugh at it? Still, what does it have to do with anything?
October 16, 2006 2:30 AM
This article is just crazy!
Happy birthday, Wil!
October 16, 2006 2:50 AM
I love my Mac. I think they're great and try to get everyone I know to use one. I just need to make that clear before I say what I have to say here.
If you're a lawyer and your whole computing life is Microsoft office, you really are quite possibly better off running Windows (perhaps on a Mac, perhaps not). MacOffice is pretty good, but you do run into compatibility issues when crossing the OS divide. And it is true that it is not as fully-featured on the Mac. And Entourage really does just plain suck. At the end of the day, if you're in an office that revolves around Outlook, there are good reasons to want to be running Outlook and Windows.
And in any event, while yes the guy is wrong about a few specific things, that doesn't make him an idiot or stupid (or retarded or whatever else you people are calling him). Different people have different needs. Why is that so hard for y'all to accept?
Again, I love my Mac as much as anyone, but I have to say I'm a little taken aback by the zealotry and dismissive tone in this post and all of these comments. By going on this way, you're only proving the guy's point about the Mac user stereotype.
October 16, 2006 3:10 AM
There is no File|Delete optin in Word for Windows - i just checked
October 16, 2006 3:20 AM
I just peed my pants and then subscribed to your feed.
That was awesome!
October 16, 2006 3:36 AM
The things you criticise him for are things he shouldn't have had to find out. Buy a scroll mouse? Why? They come with PCs off the shelf. Hard sell on the mac.com? ActiveX on IE?
It's not his job to know this stuff, just as it isn't yours to know whether the EULA applies in every territory where the machine might be sold. You're criticising him for not being a computer expert. That's wrong. It's the computer that should be the expert.
October 16, 2006 3:42 AM
I think the whole Mac community has been trolled.
October 16, 2006 4:19 AM
And in any event, while yes the guy is wrong about a few specific things, that doesn't make him an idiot or stupid (or retarded or whatever else you people are calling him). Different people have different needs.
pcal: if you get numerous simple but imprtant things wrong, don't do any research before attempting to solve problems, post your misguided saga on a law.com legal technology site (this is not a random rant blog...), and expect anything less than ridicule...
please clarify: what is your definition of stupid ?
October 16, 2006 4:25 AM
Talk about outing yourself as someone who doesn't know what the hell he's talking about! Why would someone who proclaims to be some sort of "professional" so publicly display his stupidity?
What a total wanker!
October 16, 2006 5:13 AM
This guy is not necessarily stupid, but he is certainly ignorant.
Just like anyone, I had a good laugh reading Wil's post, but the reality is that from this guys point of view things didn't work the way he is used to/expecting and he didn't have a "mentor" that could lead him in the right direction.
Even if it isn't Apple and MS MBU's fault - I think that they should do better. They both need switchers business, so they have to work harder to get it.
The more sucessful campaign at "switching users" that I am familar with was won by MS Office for Windows. If you look in the help menu of Microsoft Word for Windows, they still have an item "Help for WordPerfect Users..." and Excel has something about Lotus 1-2-3. I remember that both programs had modes where the competitors key presses worked etc.
As an aside, this guy is sure going to get a surprise with Vista/Office 2007!
October 16, 2006 5:24 AM
He's using the Dvorak strategy. Flame on the Mac and get a huge surge of hits next morning.
October 16, 2006 6:06 AM
My favorite line: "La la la, look at me typing in it." Its just so insulting its hilarious. I can imagine you doing this in front of the guy. Great stuff.
October 16, 2006 6:39 AM
Great post, Wil, and happy birthday. You should take these liberties more often ;)
October 16, 2006 7:43 AM
Wow,
Technology advisor eh. Impressive. I didn't know the "Dummies" series could take you that far. Vewy scawy.
Nice piece Wil - It's comforting to see these thoughts in writing. I go through this at least once a day, but just keep it bottled up inside.
October 16, 2006 8:16 AM
I'm not sure if this has been already said, but I'm not sure that this man should be hanging around ANY 3rd graders.
October 16, 2006 8:18 AM
This man is a 'technology consultant'?
Those who can, do; those who can't, teach; and those who slept through the lessons consult.
October 16, 2006 8:32 AM
Aw man, your grammar is fucking awful.
I wish I had a better comment than that but damn, it was so hard to work out what you're trying to talk about.
Get off your high horse and let people hate mac's if they want, everyone'll just end up on Ubuntu anyway.
October 16, 2006 8:49 AM
Mac users are fuking idiots.
October 16, 2006 8:49 AM
Mac users are fuking idiots.
October 16, 2006 8:50 AM
larry bodine = Mac illiterate and extremely ignorant.
Hit the help button larry.. or is that too confusing since you have to go to a menu to choose it. Click on the Finder, go to the menu at the top of the screen...all the way to the right.. choose 'help'. Now, click on 'Switching from Windows'.
or better yet.. you seem like you need hand holding. Larry.. don't splurge on a $10 book, just go to my site and I will give you a tutorial every single day.
October 16, 2006 8:54 AM
There is no File|Delete option in Word (?!) Why would there be? What applications allow you to delete an open file from within the application? And why would you want to?
This guy is a collosal asshat.
October 16, 2006 8:55 AM
"I'd buy it myself but I'm afraid you might have smeared some stupid on it!"
- LOL!!!
Thanks for the read.
October 16, 2006 8:55 AM
Haha!
Great piece! To be honest, I'm really not a fan of Macs, but I agree that his article was very badly written and full of holes...
It's great to see that you tore him a new one!
October 16, 2006 8:56 AM
The original authors email address is at the bottom of the article. Has anyone emailed him?
October 16, 2006 9:03 AM
Wow.
Thanks so much for the laughs! I can't believe people thought that Larry's story was serious!
Wait...what do you mean it WAS serious?
-j
October 16, 2006 9:04 AM
I second what matt tavares said about your being a god. Man, I wish I could flame in such a way. You have my respect and admiration for all eternity (that's not counting how much I love your software, too).
October 16, 2006 9:05 AM
Wow.... you should stick to writing code, and not rebuttal posts.
I'm not agreeing with the essay you are rebutting, but wow, that was a complete waste of time reading your blog post.
October 16, 2006 9:07 AM
Great response! One thing, though, despite the fact (yes, fact), that Safari and Firefox are more WC3 compliant than IE, there are many (if not most) sites on the net that were developed, wrong-mindedly, with only IE as a target market. Incompatibilities DO result. So he does have a point there. I'm a web developer who uses both Mac and Wintel systems, so believe me, I see it all the time. Any ActiveX control usually won't work on the Mac (which is actually a bonus, when it comes to security). Both my bank and credit card company websites have issues displaying in Safari and Firefox. Not insurmountable issues, but issues that would bother me if I was novice. And occasionally I come across e-commerce sites that simply will not work outside of IE for Wintel. Sad but true. Thankfully, now that we have Parallels/Bootcamp, that won't be such an issue.
October 16, 2006 9:08 AM
freakin brilliant.
October 16, 2006 9:12 AM
What drove me nuts was that I would open Word for Mac and couldn't delete files while I was in Word. There is no File | Delete option. So the documents took up space on my hard drive, until someone told me I had to find the document in Finder and then move it into the trash from there. This seemed stupid to me; I just wanted to highlight a file and tap "delete."
This option doesn't exist in Windows to my knowledge, and if it does, it's useless. I've never used it, I'm a windows user first, Mac user second (though i prefer a mac now) and I just went to My Documents, and deleted it :O. PRetty challengint :|
October 16, 2006 9:14 AM
The sad and scary facts are that people pay this Larry guy for his opinions and this Law.com has put up such tripe.
October 16, 2006 9:16 AM
"American speakers" I didn't realize "American" was a language?
October 16, 2006 9:17 AM
Oh hell.
That was worth printing out for toilet paper. He bought a Mac, he feels let down. Quit analyzing, get over it.
October 16, 2006 9:19 AM
The things you criticise him for are things he shouldn't have had to find out. Buy a scroll mouse? Why? They come with PCs off the shelf. Hard sell on the mac.com? ActiveX on IE?
It's not his job to know this stuff, just as it isn't yours to know whether the EULA applies in every territory where the machine might be sold. You're criticising him for not being a computer expert. That's wrong. It's the computer that should be the expert.
Charles: What post did _you_ read? You get almost every point wrong.
a) His machine DID come with a scrollball, multi-button mouse, as ALL Macs do.
b) I didn't tell him to buy Mac.com, or give him a hard sell (WTF?), I said he didn't need it to use those apps.
c) It *IS* that guy's job to know that stuff. He's a technology consultant, not a lawyer. Nowhere does it even say he has a law degree.
d) I make it my job to understand the law as it applies to my business.
e) I try VERY HARD not to post long rants on the net if I don't know about something.
I'll give you that he shouldn't have to know about ActiveX. Nor should anyone, really. ActiveX should be quickly forgotten.
October 16, 2006 9:19 AM
Like shooting fish in a barrel. You could have stopped at AOL.
Frightening to think this guy recommends technology to anyone. I wouldn't let him program my DVR.
"This was too complicated, and I went back to hitting Play-Record when the show came on which I wanted to view at a later time."
October 16, 2006 9:19 AM
Your reply wasn't witty, funny, or interesting. It was just slightly more annoying than the original article in fact. Oh let me pick his article apart look how wrong he is har har har. And then he said... can you believe it?
Self-important mactards.
October 16, 2006 9:19 AM
Yeah, this post sucks. I'm so tired of this PC vs Mac stuff. Look, Macs are always going to suck to some people as will Windows. They are both just tools or a means to an end. Mac fanatics, get over it, move on. There are problems with Mac apps. I support them for a living and I could give you a very detailed list of problems in Macs that don't exsist on Windows. But I've already given that list to Apple.
October 16, 2006 9:19 AM
And we still cant maximize a window....
October 16, 2006 9:20 AM
Dude... he's getting a dell. Had to post it. Happy birthday.
October 16, 2006 9:21 AM
I emailed him. Said he was out on a client thing or something. I'm amazed that someone can really publish crap like this. And his latest "article" he says "They Mac users are just realizing that they have bought orphan technology. Macs are the Betamax of the 21st Century." Where did he get this?
He actually collects money for his opinions? I think he probably uses the Chewbacca defense as well.
October 16, 2006 9:23 AM
When he says, "Word files transferred from the Mac were missing pictures," I think he means that he never figured out the difference between inserting and linking files - this happens to people in my office (all PCs) all the time. Not a Mac thing - just a stupid Word distinction.
October 16, 2006 9:23 AM
Even with its stupid generalizations, Larry has touched on the tip of a lot of icebergs that a MAC has waiting to sink any ship. Real tech's use linux not MAC OS.
October 16, 2006 9:27 AM
could be that he's just trying to show off to his 'bosses' at redmond. one problem with guys like this making phoney claims, is that they're actually convinced that they're so correct!
October 16, 2006 9:28 AM
I guess some old dogs can't learn new tricks. Even though they are easy!
October 16, 2006 9:35 AM
As far as the # of key strokes to invoke printing preferences like:
draft/econo ink, duplex (both sides of page), multiple copies per page, collation, or any of the other layout/format options;
can easily BE SAVED AS CUSTOM PRESETS in the print dialog box.
Incredibly powerful and quick. Only a retard would set individual options over and over and over again.
While it may be politically incorrect, perhaps macs need to ship a Macs for the Really Really Retarded.
-----
Happy Birthday!!
October 16, 2006 9:37 AM
"Maverick," huh? Did your mom not like you?"
But, seriously, MAC makes cosmetics.
October 16, 2006 9:37 AM
Great Job Will! Happy bday.
October 16, 2006 9:43 AM
his experience is like an american going to paris, ordering a hamburger, then complaining the food sucks in france! and next time he'll just do his vacationing in america... THEY know how to get hamburgers right.
October 16, 2006 9:48 AM
Flash really doesn't work well on any Mac browser, Sarari or Firefox included.
October 16, 2006 9:48 AM
His stupidity is beyond all the adjectives in my vocabulary....
Happy birthday Wil. :)
October 16, 2006 9:55 AM
"There are problems with Mac apps. I support them for a living and I could give you a very detailed list of problems in Macs that don't exsist on Windows. But I've already given that list to Apple."
No, no, no. That lets the problems go down a hole. You give that list to US. We will get so many Macnerds complaining about the issues that apple will be much more motivated to do the fixes... :-)
October 16, 2006 9:57 AM
It seems to me that there is one single complaint which every switcher who hates the mac always has. Their number one - and only complaint? The Mac isn't Windows. That's it. Everyone who switches and hates it and then writes some blog about how awful the mac is always has only one issue - it's different. Well shock and awe, Copernicus. If he wanted something exactly the same why bother? Seriously - I love to see a happy switcher, but I hate to see a whining fool complain that a computer is different than what he's used to right after he went out and bought the damn thing because it's different.
October 16, 2006 10:03 AM
Wil, this is a very very poor review of an article. Going to debate 'opinions' paragraph by paragraph is certainly not the best way to do it. You should begin by stating the why it is totally wrong and then go into the details. If you don't know how, look at Larry's article; he is pretty good.
I don't know who is right or wrong with their opinions, but style-wise, Larry is clearly better. Sorry.
October 16, 2006 10:03 AM
I'm not a Mac user. I probably never will be but that's merely because I'm comfortable using my Windows.
Your response made me chuckle and reconsider owning a Mac. I'll let you know how it goes if I manage to get one :D
October 16, 2006 10:05 AM
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October 16, 2006 10:09 AM
Well there are some points in macs that are plain frustrating. The biggest example i get is safari just like he (who according to you is the incompetenet IT advisor) mentioned. Let me put it this way, i started off my evening after work to browse the web on a mac and now i am back to the boot camped windows and its a relief. All i was doing is going through digg.com stories. The stupid safari crashed not once not twice but thrice all this in less than a hour. And all i was running was Safari 1 window with 5-8 tabs. some text based pages some flash movie based (youtube movies etc -- links from digg.com) and just like this guys says it cant play flash .. crashes and crashes and crashes .. and this is not just today its more like a daily routine. Safari just cant be used to surf the web --- thats it. Its very existence is pointless. It SUX. The hardware Im using is standard mac mini and comparatively windows run much faster (can use this for comparison since its the same hardware) Flash 8 for example takes eternity to load on MAC as compared to the windows on the same pc. There are a few more problems but i'll just leave it here as.
October 16, 2006 10:10 AM
This is hilarious. I love you. Happy birthday.
October 16, 2006 10:10 AM