Re: Macs no longer overpriced - InfoWorld

Snit wrote:
"-hh" wrote:

There was absolutely no relevance or reason for him to have divulged
this, except as the reason why he's forced to use "hand me downs"
instead of buying the correct product for his alledged needs.

Ah, he gave more info than needed when it was assumed he could just go buy
any Mac he wanted. OK. That is not the same thing as playing the sympathy
card.

The sympathy card that he played was that he was "forced" to buy his
brother's hand-me-down (iMac). The reality is that he couldn't be
bothered to sort out or accept any of the other alternatives (including
doing without).


Great speech... but irrelevant. He is not asking you to send him a
computer, he is telling you he cannot go out and buy any computer he wants.

If he can afford to pay off his brother (which he has claimed), it
would be of equal difficulty to save those pennies and dollars in his
sock drawer until he had saved up the $299 or whatever he needs for a
generic Windows box...or scrimping longer for the Mac Pro box.

Do note that as per his headers, he's using Agent Forte as his
newsreader, which is a Windows-only app. YMMV on if he is "wasting" a
Mac by running it (presumably exclusively) in Windows, but if your
application is to run Windows, there's alternatives - often less costly
ones - to doing so on a Mac (any Mac).


What he has or does not have is not an issue. His comments about the
platform, of course, are.

Sorry, I disagree: its a "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth".

Here I think you have somewhat of a point. He is complaining about lack of
features on a computer that has a different focus than the one he is talking
about...

More specifically, he's complaining about the fashion in which the
capability is provided: he couldn't add his 250GB EIDE drive
internally, but he has it hooked up as an external.


I think his main
complaint, even if not worded well, is that Apple does not have a machine
that allows expandability and is not at the same level as their pro
machines. I can understand this complaint - Apple does have a pretty big
gap between machines and a number of people would like to be somewhere in
the middle.

The solution is external peripherals. Granted, its not necessarily as
"elegant" as an internal, but the >> effective capability << is
comparable.

Given how frequently the stereotypical Windows user claims to not give
a hoot about the asthetic appearance of the box, it is odd that this is
being found offensive here. Especially with the "woe is me" financial
constraint in the forefront.


Then again, from what I understand, his complaints were about
expanding memory and hard drive space, both of which are possible and,
frankly, not that hard on iMacs. Sure, you are limited to "only" 2 GB of
memory, but if that is not enough for you then it is not unlikely that you
do need a machine comparable to the Pro machines.

True, and I am a bit cynical about his claimed need for 8GB of RAM.
Assuming "cost no object", other than the Apple Mac towers, I'm curious
as to what Dell offers that can support 8GB, since the Dimension or XPS
(2GB max) or the Precision or Optiplex (4GB max) can't do it either.
Perhaps one of the pro-Dell participants can do us the favor of
pointing us to the appropriately capable model, and its MSRP.


I would take his comments as more of a complaint about the machine and less
about his personal circumstances, even if worded poorly.

Like all manufacturers, Apple publishes their specifications; whose
fault is it to fail to do applied product research before buying?

On one newsgroup I read, a new guy will show up and ask: "Hey, I just
bought product XYZ, did I make a good choice?" and the classic
response is: "Its too late now! You should ask for advice BEFORE you
went and bought it, idiot!"

Instead of accepting responsibility for the decision with which he had
to agree, he now tries to blame it all on non-sentient, inanimate
hardware.



Perhaps... though the way the system is now, from I understand, in many
cases when disabled folks do get jobs they lose their insurance, etc. The
system is really screwy.

That's nothing new. Society's decision to provide Disability pensions
is merely intended to be a safety net to prevent the unfortunate from
starving to death: it was never intended to be resourced to allow a
high standard of living complete with Luxury Goods.

Which has little to do with my comments. I am not saying the disabled
should have the lives of the wealthy on my dime, but they should be able to
provide what services they can without losing that minimum reasonable level
of living...

And the question is: "what is the appropriate minimum reasonable level
of living?".

YMMV, but we've become a society that's chosen to avoid critical
self-examination of what expenses are truely necessary versus luxury
items that we claim as necessary, such as Cable TV, a Cellphone, a
Computer with High Speed Internet, etc. Want to save a quick $100 per
month out of a limited budget? Just do away with these...the reality
is that they are generally nothing more than straighforward and
discretionary 'Enertainment' expenses that we might _prefer_ to not
live without, but the reality is that we can (and do) live without
them.


-hh

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Are you folks MAC or PC?
    ... > virtually every version of DOS and Windows. ... > For processing photos I have switched back to Mac, ... Nobody makes stuff that looks as cool as what Apple does. ... > to work with Windows machines. ...
    (rec.photo.digital)
  • Re: I really do like OS X but . . .
    ... > or laptop running Windows XP Pro - which will not blue screen if you ... > My intel laptop running xp pro with 2 gig of memory has not yet blue ... Regardless of what all the Mac ... then machines which are damned cheap are ...
    (comp.sys.mac.advocacy)
  • Re: Laptops?
    ... the relative strengths of Windows MX vs. Vista, vs. Linux, vs. Mac. ... as laptops are laptops in that department. ... Having said all of this I can tell you that any machines I buy in the ...
    (rec.music.makers.percussion)
  • Re: Apple vs. Newegg
    ... The equivilent to OS X would be GNU/Linux, not Windows XP Pro. ... Their 'kazillion and four' machines have a lot more problem than my run of one does. ... The three proprietary apps you want to run all run on GNU/Linux with Crossover Office. ... Less than the cost difference for buying a Mac, ...
    (comp.sys.mac.advocacy)
  • Re: Should Apple do away with OS X?
    ... Donald L McDaniel wrote: ... Windows machines". ... Mac users are not saying that Mac OS provides less choice. ...
    (comp.sys.mac.advocacy)