1. For Mac Guy : Pc As Sample Player Server Download

Via, I came across this whitheringly funny attack on the insipid Apple Guy vs. PC Guy ad campaigns from in The Economist from a few weeks back.

I have always hated Macs. I hate people who use Macs.

I even hate people who don’t use Macs but sometimes wish they did. Macs are glorified Fisher-Price activity centres for adults; computers for scaredy cats too nervous to learn how proper computers work; computers for people who earnestly believe in feng shui. PCs are the ramshackle computers of the people. You can build your own from scratch, then customise it into oblivion. Sometimes you have to slap it to make it work properly, just like the Tardis (Doctor Who, incidentally, would definitely use a PC). PCs have charm; Macs ooze pretension.

When I sit down to use a Mac, the first thing I think is, “I hate Macs”, and then I think, “Why has this rubbish aspirational ornament only got one mouse button?” Losing that second mouse button feels like losing a limb. If the ads were really honest, Webb would be standing there with one arm, struggling to open a packet of peanuts while Mitchell effortlessly tore his apart with both hands. But then, if the ads were really honest, Webb would be dressed in unbelievably po-faced avant-garde clothing with a gigantic glowing apple on his back.

And instead of conducting a proper conversation, he would be repeatedly congratulating himself for looking so cool, and banging on about how he was going to use his new laptop to write a novel, without ever getting round to doing it, like a mediocre idiot. Now, while I’m a dedicated PC user, I don’t have any particular disdain for Macs. The column does have an unquestionably British style that remarked on in a 1991 essay about, ironically enough, the appeal of The Economist from which quoted recently: The other ugly English trait promoting The Economist’s success in America is the Oxford Union argumentative style. At its epitome, it involves a stance so cocksure of its rightness and superiority that it would be a shame to freight it with mere fact.

American debate contests involve grinding, yearlong concentration on one doughy issue, like arms control. The forte of Oxford-style debate is to be able to sound certain and convincing about a topic pulled out of the air a few minutes before, such as “Resolved: That women are not the fairer sex.” (The BBC radio shows “My Word” and “My Music,” carried on National Public Radio, give a sample of the desired impromptu glibness.) Economist leaders and the covers that trumpet their message offer Americans a blast of this style. Michael Kinsley, who once worked at The Economist, wrote that the standard Economist leader gives you the feeling that the writer started out knowing that three steps must be taken immediately — and then tried to think what the steps should be.

What’s unique about this style is that it is simultaneously in-your-face and yet within the bounds of civility; obnoxious without being vulgar. Christopher Hitchens, Mark Steyn, and, occasionally, Andrew Sullivan do it quite well. The only contemporary American essayist who I can think of who has a similar style is P.J.

Look, I just want a computer that works and not give me problems I don’t want to deal with. I’ve been all PC up to this point, but frustration with Windows and hardware/software integration issues are making me look hard at a mac for the next upgrade. I admire Apple’s job in tightly controlling its hardware and software integration so when you buy a mac, you know all software for it will work as advertised.

I’m not a power user, so I don’t worry much about upgrading my computer except for additional memory or drive capacity. The PC’s versatility is also its greatest source of frustration with multitudes of peripherals that may or may not work with your computer. Plus there’s the Windows security issues that constantly pop up.

Im not really all that new to the forums but still new nonetheless. I work as a PC Technician for The Geek Squad. I originally worked for the main company and am now helping to move the Best Buy Tech counters over to Geek Squad Stations. I havnt much been in a store environment where they get alot of machines in weekly. But after a few weeks i said to myself 'All Im seeing here are Compaqs, Emachines HP's and Sony's' So i went to take a look at a mac. Not willing to Dip 2 G's down for a G5 I opted for something a little cheaper.

A 1 Ghz G4 Ibook. Let me tell you that I bought a KVM for the sole purpose to use my mac on my desk at home because i love it so much. Im still learning (only had it for 2 weeks) but any tips you guys can give me would be appreciated ( looking for advanced stuff really). I love how people laugh at me when i tell them i have a mac, but they have virii and spyware, not me. They have missing system files, not me. Glad to be a mac user.

I've been a PC user for most of my computer-using-years, but my family all uses Macs. I'm getting a 15 inch powerbook for college at the end of the summer (parents agreed to buy for me if i got an Apple, so. ) i've been looking into them alot, and playing on my mom's dual G4 system running 10.3.x.

I know that there are a lot of good programs that you can use to change alot of the 'hidden' settings in osX on VersionTracker.com (just search around there, cause i don't know exactly what you'ld want as far as 'advanced stuff' but versiontracker.com is a good start. I don't know what all they do exactly, because i haven't gotten my powerbook yet, but i know some of the software said that it will search wireless 802.11 and bluetooth, and there were other programs that i think revealed hidden features of osX, although i'm not sure how well they work, or how much truth there is to those programs. Don't take my word for it. Keep us posted if you find out anything cool. Ok, now let's bring it back to topic.

For Mac Guy : Pc As Sample Player Server Download

Versiontracker.com is great. The function keys F9, F10, and F11 come in VERY handy when you need to move back and forth between apps or the desktop (plus the cool transitions don't hurt!) If you're looking for some advanced stuff, and won't mind reading a book for a while, then look up 'Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Panther Edition' by David Pogue (published by O'Reilly, known for high-end comp books). Look it up at amazon. Will run you about $20. REALLY comes in handy sometimes.

I'm sorry I can't be of anymore help. I myself have had my powerbook for about two months now and am a pc to mac convert (used to be one of those people you helped with monthly viruses!!).

I hope the senior members of this forum will help you with the advanced stuff!! Congratulations on your new iBook!! Im not really all that new to the forums but still new nonetheless. I work as a PC Technician for The Geek Squad.

I originally worked for the main company and am now helping to move the Best Buy Tech counters over to Geek Squad Stations. I havnt much been in a store environment where they get alot of machines in weekly. But after a few weeks i said to myself 'All Im seeing here are Compaqs, Emachines HP's and Sony's' So i went to take a look at a mac. Not willing to Dip 2 G's down for a G5 I opted for something a little cheaper. A 1 Ghz G4 Ibook.

Let me tell you that I bought a KVM for the sole purpose to use my mac on my desk at home because i love it so much. Im still learning (only had it for 2 weeks) but any tips you guys can give me would be appreciated ( looking for advanced stuff really). I love how people laugh at me when i tell them i have a mac, but they have virii and spyware, not me.

They have missing system files, not me. Glad to be a mac user.

I never claimed to be Network+ or Cisco certified, what i said is that I was relocated to a best buy to help train their technicians, and there is nothing wrong with being a technician for best buy.some of the ones ive been to have some of the brightest people you will ever meet, some are iffy but that goes with almost any place. Plus I think I'm doing pretty good considering Im only 19. And excuse me, dont proclaim to know something about a company thats been around for 10 years thats right TEN years that was BEFORE best buy. I think it's really a slap in the face to a lot of us folk that are well versed in fixing PCs to take a look at a Mac. The first time I ever really ran into a Mac was a few years back, when a friend of mine brought a G4 to a LAN party. He was practically laughed out the door by everyone there, myself included. It wasn't until a couple years later that I actually sat down with an OSX Mac to check it out.

The first thing that caught my eye was that all mounted filesystems sit on the desktop. Huh, that's cool. Then I found Terminal.app. This is a full-on Unix system!

The rest all fell into place, and now I'm an admin on an All-Mac network - let me tell you, there's no longer any doubt in my mind that Macs are easier to maintain and more reliable than Windows boxes. There aren't many network admins that get to run an all-Unix environment, but the benefits are enormous - having a CLI for everything, and the goodness of CRON and SSH makes all the difference, really. Today I've really come to have an appreciation for both Windows PCs, Linux boxes, and Macs. They're all just fine if you know how to use them, but they all have their strengths and weaknesses. I have a Windows machine at home that I use for games, but I'm mainly a Mac guy now for everyday things. I have a G4 iMac that I use for browsing, chatting, and IRC. I also have a cheapo ClamShell iBook G3 that I got for free, and lemme tell you - for a 366 G3, it's a hell of a lot more functional than a PC of the same vintage.

Things to check out on versiontracker: - Launchbar: lets you launch any app by holding the apple key and pressing space bar then just typing the name of the app. Tinkertool: lets you tinker with all sorts of cool settings in the OS, once you're bored with the initial stuff in the control panels and such. AdiumX: One of the coolest multi chat clients out there, allows you to use all the major clients with a lot of the same features. Missing a few of the major stuff like vid and audio chat as well as group chat, but tabbed chatting in one window and the contact list where you can turn the window transparent so you just see the names. Little stuff like that that are just awesome. Trillian on the PC is crap compared to it;-) - Watson: Been around for a while, now with Sherlock having a lot of the features it's not quite as cool, but it still is useful for finding all sorts of different info.

File sharing app. Nuff said - Carbon Copy Cloner: Kinda like Norton Ghost on the PC, lets you clone your hard drive to other media and keeps the linked files and invisible files intact so it even lets you get a bootable copy done. BatChmod: If you get stuck with permission issues that the system doesn't let you change, or to force the trash to empty. Not as much an issue these days, but still useful.

VLC: About the best multi format media player out there. Some files are a little flaky on it, but most play very good. There's a lot of other goodies, but those are the ones I tend to get the biggest kick outta. Well there's a lot of cool key commands to get you started: - Hold Option at start: will start you to a boot manager, so if you load a iPod or other hard drive with a OS, you can use the mouse to select it to boot to. Very useful if your system is having issues booting. Hold T at start: will boot you to target disk mode, basically making the system you boot into a firewire hard drive, all you have to do is connect the system to another mac with firewire, and it mounts on the desktop as a drive. Very cool for transfering files quickly between systems.

You'll need a 6 to 6 pin firewire cord. There's a ton of other stuff too, check out for some really interesting stuff.

Things to check out on versiontracker: - Launchbar: lets you launch any app by holding the apple key and pressing space bar then just typing the name of the app. Butler: Free, generally more functionality than LaunchBar.

You can add Hot Keys for just about everything. When combined with AppleScript, there is almost literally nothing you can't do with a single stroke on the keyboard. I've heard the abbreviation is less accurate, but I've never had a problem with it. Tinkertool: lets you tinker with all sorts of cool settings in the OS, once you're bored with the initial stuff in the control panels and such. Very useful for various stuff, like adding a quit menu item to the Finder, making hidden apps transparent in the Dock, yadda yadda. Also, check out!for similar things.

AdiumX: One of the coolest multi chat clients out there, allows you to use all the major clients with a lot of the same features. Missing a few of the major stuff like vid and audio chat as well as group chat, but tabbed chatting in one window and the contact list where you can turn the window transparent so you just see the names. Little stuff like that that are just awesome. Trillian on the PC is crap compared to it;-) Haven't tried Adium for a good while, I'll go download it again. According to me, the best IM client to any platform is. Also, you might want to check out - Watson: Been around for a while, now with Sherlock having a lot of the features it's not quite as cool, but it still is useful for finding all sorts of different info.

Haven't tried it. I didn't like Sherlock much, though. File sharing app. Nuff said Don't know if we're allowed to mention file sharing apps here. But I suppose I can go so far as to say that the BSD layer in Mac OS X means that just about every single good.NIX app gets ported, or at least runnable in X11. Carbon Copy Cloner: Kinda like Norton Ghost on the PC, lets you clone your hard drive to other media and keeps the linked files and invisible files intact so it even lets you get a bootable copy done. I've never really had the need to do that, but I can imagine it being very useful indeed.

BatChmod: If you get stuck with permission issues that the system doesn't let you change, or to force the trash to empty. Not as much an issue these days, but still useful. I haven't had problems of that nature since an early Panther beta. And maybe 10.1. VLC: About the best multi format media player out there. Some files are a little flaky on it, but most play very good.

Simply superior. Check out Mplayer for the odd file VLC doesn't like, but I find VLC to be better in almost every way. There's a lot of other goodies, but those are the ones I tend to get the biggest kick outta. Well there's a lot of cool key commands to get you started: - Hold Option at start: will start you to a boot manager, so if you load a iPod or other hard drive with a OS, you can use the mouse to select it to boot to. Very useful if your system is having issues booting. Hold T at start: will boot you to target disk mode, basically making the system you boot into a firewire hard drive, all you have to do is connect the system to another mac with firewire, and it mounts on the desktop as a drive.

Very cool for transfering files quickly between systems. You'll need a 6 to 6 pin firewire cord.

Both tips very useful in the right circumstance. There's a ton of other stuff too, check out for some really interesting stuff. Macosxhints.com is very useful. Some app suggestions from my part (aside from the ones I've already mentioned), too: - OmniWeb 5 (beta 7): a very good browser. It has a better UI than any other browser I've ever used, quite fast (But not really recomended for low-end Macs, it's quite heavy. Not on the RAM, though.), has loads of very interesting features, such as the ability to create custom settings for each website. If you don't like the White-On-Black here in HF, you can change that to Black-On-White and still retain the default settings for every other website.

You can even (de)activate things like Java for specific sites. Drag-N-Drop tabbed browsing is also a very useful feature. Only two flaws I can think of is that it costs some money (you can use it without paying, but you'll have to put up with not being able to set a start page other than the nag page) and that it's still a bit unstable, what with it being a beta. Colloquy: an IRC client. The best, according to me.

It's open source, fully AppleScriptable, has excellent system integration, very good UI. It doesn't really have the entire feature set of X-Chat or mIRC, but still very good. FinkCommander: a graphical front end for Fink, a package handler. Lets you look for.NIX apps and download, compile and install, everything fully automated. Konfabulator: if you're in to customizing your UI experience, this might be for you. Lets you add 'widgets' of any nature to your monitor. Weather monitors, iTunes controllers, image viewers, whatever.

GeekTool: another customizing thing. Lets you add system logs in windows (that can be placed however you like, even at 'desktop level') on your monitor, can run terminal commands on given intervals and show images that, too, can update on given intervals. Very useful if you're in to such things. Transmit: FTP client.

My favorite when the CLI client won't cut it. SIDPLAY: a SID-player, for your High Voltage SID Collection.