Tech Talk in a Stillwater

**Alan H** · 25th February 06, 02:53 PM

About a thousand people attend the annual Fall SIGUCCS. Amazingly a whole mess of people know who I am.

Is it because of my shining brilliance? No.
Is it because of my incredible insights and questions that probe to the heart of the matter and unearth new truths?

No.

It's because I was the guy in the kilt.

I'm not complaining.

Macs, PC, they both do amazing things. I work with them both as well as with LINUX, and Solaris machines. This back and forth about "Macs are junk" or "PC suck" is completely silly. You can do great work with both platforms. There are advantages to each platform. I use them both every day in work and get lots of work done on both, as well as on a LINUX workstation. There are also disadvantages to both platforms...

Windows users, do you keep up on your OS Patches? Every week you need to download the next patch or you risk virus infection, or having your machine turned into a virus-spreading machine by a hacker. Macs don't have that problem.

Mac users, there are three times the number of available software titles out there for PC than there are for Mac.

See what I mean? There are fifty more reasons to choose one platorm or the other, and they're both perfectly valid choices. So get a grip, gang. They're just computers, not religion.

**bubba** · 25th February 06, 03:06 PM

Alan, besides the software availability a PC is cheaper than a Mac. To some folks computers are a kind of religion, just like bikers and motorheads have their preferred machines. I use a PC because it's cheap but I sure don't worship the silly thing. Oh NO! The Windows God is threatening me with a Blue Screen!!!! AAAaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

**mudd** · 25th February 06, 03:10 PM

If it wasn’t for Macintosh, Netscape, UNIX, etc, where would Microsoft get all of it’s innovative ideas?

**pdcorlis** · 25th February 06, 03:13 PM

I knew this would turn out badly - I'm sorry I mentioned any computer platform in my post!!!!!!!!!!!

**starbkjrus** · 26th February 06, 09:55 AM

Did everyone notice the handsome XMarks kilt pin on Alan's kilt?

**Hamish** · 26th February 06, 10:07 AM

Originally Posted by starbkjrus

Did everyone notice the handsome XMarks kilt pin on Alan's kilt?

I certainly did, and I noticed the perfect colour co-ordination between kilt and polo shirt. Well selected, Alan.

By the way, I have never knowingly seen a Mac. I have a PC and use Windows XP Professional, but what on earth are "OS Patches"? I've never heard of those. Does Norton Anti-Virus do the same thing? I regularly download updates for that.

**Matt** · 26th February 06, 10:25 AM

OS patches are what you'd get from Windows Update website (or the automatic update tool included with recent service packs) - security updates etc.

**MacSimoin** · 26th February 06, 11:08 AM

I'm with Hamish...Alan obviously knows how to color coagulate.

**NewKilt** · 26th February 06, 11:54 AM

Alan, you wear the kilt very well. Ditto on the color coordination. I agree, Mac vs PC arguments are not worth the trouble. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. I run Windows XP Home Edition and do keep my system updated. I have Windows set to automatically download the updates. I also use antivirus software as well as a firewall, and anti-spyware. I have yet to be infected or hacked. I also run a dual-boot system with Fedora Linux from time to time. I'm waiting for the release of Fedora Core 5.

Darrell