[thelist] OT: Need a new laptop for development...

[Felix Miata]

On 2007/11/30 20:31 (GMT+1100) Ken Schaefer apparently typed:

> I absolutely agree that Macs are similarly priced to equivalent PCs.

...

>> The G3 PowerMac before that is now *9* years old
>> and is plenty functional for most tasks. TCO anyone?

> Sure - I can run XP (or a Linux distro) on a 9 year old PC. The difference is that with XP I'm still supported, and get security patches etc.

Even W2K is still supported, but do you really want to continue using an OS
with a 6-8 year old feature set, or to install it on current hardware? With
Linux you have the option for a return to state of the art as often as every
6 months, without any out of pocket cost for the software to do it.

> With Mac OSX, I now need to be running MacOSX 10.4.x or 10.5.x if I want patches.

TCO isn't just about $$$. On Linux, OS/2 & Mac, I need spend little to no
time on malware protection or cleanup, or answering yet more questions about
downloading yet another feature-duplicating "free" toolbar[1], or clicking
off that stupid popup on Google's home page that wants me to install its free
toolbar, or waiting extra time to do various tasks (particularly including
startup) made to take longer by the overhead imposed by AV software. XP
puters that have neither Norton AV nor McAfee AV installed seem to run about
three times as fast as those with.

One of the most glaring time wasters on doz is its dumb default file picker
behavior, which nearly anytime chosing file open or file save for the first
time since opening, starts in My Documents instead of the last opened or
saved location, accompanied by those itty bitty select list windows that are
only 2-3 items long, forcing nearly always to scroll with a virtually
unusable 1/2" tall scrollbar to find the desired list item.

Annoyances like these have to affect the bottom line.

[1] http://video.linux-noob.com/screenshots/ie7/iemess2.jpg
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 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409

Felix Miata  ***  http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/