First hints of Microsoft’s 'fight back' ads appear

Windows Vista Advertisement? Can it be?

Mesh of Technology Blog — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 03:53:08 GMT

Windows Vista Advertisement? Can it be?

re: First hints of Microsoft’s 'fight back' ads appear - Macbook Porblems With Windows Vista ♦ Apple MacBook and MacBook Pro News

Macbook Porblems With Windows Vista ♦ Apple MacBook and MacBook Pro News — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 01:32:36 GMT

[...] Avro made an excellent post today on their site [...]...

re: First hints of Microsoft’s 'fight back' ads appear

Avro — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 14:10:02 GMT

@Dipsh t Admin

Loaning them would be more appropriate. You avoid conflict of interest accusations. Reviewers such as Top Gear some times get refused loaners because their previous reviews have had a bit too much truth in them.

re: First hints of Microsoft’s 'fight back' ads appear

Dipsh t Admin — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 01:49:01 GMT

"Giving Bloggers $2,200 computers to write favourably about Vista"

Actually, they gave them computers to "write" about Vista, not favorably or unfavorably. Just like Apple gives the iPhone as a pre-release to Pogue and Mossberg. All companies do similar thing inside or outside the computer industry, so this a bogus argument. Do you think Car & Driver or Road & Track buys all of the cars they review?

re: First hints of Microsoft’s 'fight back' ads appear

DRWAM — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:49:23 GMT

That is tough Dude.

I was on the phone with an angry, depressed patient today for at least an hour. I was not the doc that did that did her surgery, but was the guy that gave her the bad news that her anastomosis had a leak [I did her BE]. Wow did she MF every other word! Then she cried , then got angry, then cried. I felt so sorry for her and tried to comfort as much as I could. She needs some Psych help to deal with the grief. Then, we need the same to deal with some of the depressing events, such as what you described above. It's a shame that we learn to build up a wall to cope.

Anyway, I also responded to show how much all of us have in common. My dad was a Prof. Firefighter. He died from a ruptured AAA. Stay healthy gang, especially for your families.

Peace,

Doc

re: First hints of Microsoft’s 'fight back' ads appear

Dude1313 — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:15:16 GMT

I was a fireman for 13 years and an EMT for 3.

Kids are always the toughest to handle in terms of patients. Not a s patients mind you, but when something is wrong and you have to work on them knowing they are not going to make it...

re: First hints of Microsoft’s 'fight back' ads appear

DRWAM — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:30:48 GMT

Wow. God bless her. I trained in Ped Radiology at CHOP in Philly, which was a center for Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, but I have only seen one case of TAPVR, and that was in training. There are two of us in our group of 27 that get the 'abnormal heart' studies, except for one or two MRI experts that do the MRI stuff, but it's few and far between because CHOP is so close. Keep up the good work as even one can be a handful and little girls can be picky. For example, since this is a tech blog my 6 yr old's eMachine mobo died, but I had a spare with the same socket. But the eMachine was a microATX and the spare mobo was ATX. I bought a new beautiful Sagitta and fixed it up, but she didn't like it. It was ugly. I learned then it would have been easier just to buy the cheap $45 microATX mobo, so I gutted it, again, then rebuilt it, again. She's happy now. Anyway may God keep watching over you all.

Doc

re: First hints of Microsoft’s 'fight back' ads appear

tayme — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:35:01 GMT

I also have a miricle child...she was born with a heart defect...TAPVC. 3 open heart surgeries later and she has outlived expectations by almost 19 years. Still has issues every now and again...but we are all used to that.

--tayme

re: First hints of Microsoft’s 'fight back' ads appear

DRWAM — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:05:09 GMT

Tayme, the kids are a little young for geocaching right now, but I'll try later. Our identical twins were born when our oldest wasn't even 11 months old. When the Ob doc [a friend] found out, his comment was "see what those steroids will do to you"! Real nice. And they are all girls. However, it was a blessing as the twins were monoamniotic, which has a 30 to 50% mortality, so they deliver them earlier than usual. Therefore, they would be premature [at 33 wks], but females preemies have a lower mortality and morbidity rate when compared to males. Our biggest problem when they came home two weeks after the delivery was trying to figure out which one was which. We kept the name tagfs on them for a wile then decided to paint their toe nails, so they were color coded! BTW, they are definitely Windows kids. In first grade, they already made a Powerpoint presentation on their 3 favorite colors. I had the day off so I was able to attend, then save to a USB flash drive. Yep, I carry one most days. They are really cute, so I need to keep lifting weights to be prepared when they start dating.

Regards,

Doc

re: First hints of Microsoft’s 'fight back' ads appear

tayme — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:58:54 GMT

@Doc - you are correct. Yikes, 3 kids that close in age...I hope that at least one of them is a boy, for your sake!!!

Do you ever try to mix the geek/jock worlds...ie, using the iPod/Nike thingy? Its not real "jocky" but you should look into geocaching - http://www.geocaching.com/ It is one way to mix geekiness with outdoors. It gets me and my wife outdoors and on some pretty long hikes. Our daughter used to join us, but it lost its coolness about the same time that she discovered boys!!!

--tayme

re: First hints of Microsoft’s 'fight back' ads appear

DRWAM — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:41:15 GMT

Tayme, you are actually an uber-geek. I am more of a jock and a geek-wanna-be, but at least buy a new rig every two years. I used to give them to my family, but since my wife popped out 3 kids in under 11 months, and they are now in school, they use them a lot. Yesterday, all five of us where on a computer at the same time. Of course, it was peaceful for me...using the one in the basement. But that's where MY bathroom is anyway!

Doc

re: First hints of Microsoft’s 'fight back' ads appear

tayme — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:18:06 GMT

@Avro - I was not trying to diss Apple or their products...only making a point that the point-counterpoint will never stop!

Like you, My MBP is an awesome Vista lappy. I've been running Vista under Bootcamp for about 3 weeks now, and not one issue. My good old HP desktop has also been very solid with Vista, and it was an XP SP2 upgrade, not a clean install. It has a decent TV tuner card, and I am a huge fan of the MediaCenter/XB360 integration. Now with a good Vista lappy, I can take some of my recorded TV on the road with me. My old IBM T42 is a great XP/Ubuntu dual booter. My daughter is the primary user of the old G5 iMac right now...it is getting a little sluggish, but that might be an illusion caused by the new MBP. It actually froze up on her the other day, and sounded like a jet taxiing for takeoff(fans at high speed).

Anyway - I am a geek and I buy a new PC almost every year. My wife would tell you that I never get rid of the old ones, but she would be wrong :-). I just donated several to a local charity that preps them and gives them to inner-urban families.

--tayme

re: First hints of Microsoft’s 'fight back' ads appear

johnpapola — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:09:05 GMT

@Tayme,

First, it needs to be said that Apple has every right to target problems in earlier versions of windows with their ads. If 70% of consumers are on XP, Apple should be targeting issues that resonate with that group, regardless of whether Vista addresses the problem. They'd be negligent not to.

I'd agree that purely in software terms, stability and security are a wash between the platforms. But the variability in hardware and driver quality on Windows leads to effectively lower stability on the PC. It's not necessarily Microsoft's fault... but it's a reality for people and they don't care whose fault it is. Vista may be more secure in the lab than OSX as well... but Windows long history of massive attacks and the billions in lost productivity are totally fair game for Apple given the record of real world attacks on the mac. That said, I don't think Apple has been pushing the security angle hard lately. They know not to say "bring it on".

Windows definitely throws more cryptic error messages at you. No question. Again, it's a function of the horizontal market. But it's a reality.

Apple's support and customer satisfaction are well documented as being better than any Windows PC vendor by a wide margin from both Consumer reports and PC magazine surveys. There's no run around and finger pointing as is so often the case in the PC world. This is reason enough to buy from Apple for many including myself.

Time Machine is a great solution that provide both data versioning and redundancy in one interface (as well as a transparent file structure if you don't like the wiz-bang UI). It has already saved me twice. Does "previous versions" save to another drive to protect from drive failure? Is there a built-in mechanism with the equivalent integrated functionality of Time Machine that's one-button easy for consumers? Time machine can 100% restore a crashed drive within the same mechanism that saves versions. Vista may have all of this stuff. I don't know.

iLife is great. Period. Whether it's better for the individual user depends on their needs. No software can serve all users equally. Any effort to do so produces bloat and complexity. Paul has repeated called it superior to any similar suite on Windows. It's not the end-all-be-all, but no question it's the highest quality and best value with the best integration. iLife in many ways matters more for consumers than OSX.

Vista Versions - Paul has been one of the most outspoken critics of this. Without question, this versioning is bad for consumers. The paradox of choice at work.

@Avro... With regard to your Mac Pro on Windows experience... I AGREE! Apple's bootcamp driver backage and subsequent software is superior to any other OEM for Windows. Even little touches like the nice OSX-style volume controls via the dedicated keyboard are great.

I still can't understand why so my OEM's write applications for basic stuff like DVD and system volume with skins that look like a 1982 version of the future.

re: First hints of Microsoft’s 'fight back' ads appear

Avro — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:42:06 GMT

Wouldn't it be funny if we became some of the best Vista advocates around?

I wouldn't advise anybody to buy a cheapie computer to run any OS. You need something that gives you a good experience.

re: First hints of Microsoft’s 'fight back' ads appear

DRWAM — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:31:56 GMT

iLife is probably the biggest reason why I use my Mac [more like iMovie and iDVD], but it's funny that you mention that your Mac has given you the your best Windows experience, because that's how I feel too. In fact, because I have sorted out the problems with our PACS software and Vista, showing that it can work well, I can now encourrage my partners to go ahead and buy new Vista computers. So, a Mac runing well is responsible for more Vista sales, not even mentioning those if us dual booting with Vista. Go figure! Ya gotta admit that the default Vista monitor background is really eye catching, even though my favorite color is blue. Kudos to the graphic artist. Although some days I'd like to change my wife's background to flowers, so that I might not have to plant those 100 tulip bulbs this fall. My poor achin' back!