Mac Vs. PC

You know the commercials, in fact whether you are a Mac fan or not you probably like the commercials. They are funny, but are they true? Are PC users stuffy overweight dorks while the Apple user is a hip youngsters with a sharp wit? Well Popular Mechanics put the issue to the test. Not only did they test the performance of the machines but they tested what type of people preferred what type of machine as well.

The results of the test may shock you a little as PC held it’s own weight when it came to the which system was preferred by users. The user ratings came back with Mac only scoring a half a star higher than the PC. Mac’s “famously friendly” user interface ended edging out Microsoft’s Vista in the end but all users found both operating systems to be easy to use and enjoyed them as well. Oh and it wasn’t only stuffy fatties that liked the PC while not all of the hipsters preferred the Mac. So maybe the commercials don’t exactly reflect the truth.

The results of the speed tests, well those are a different story, Mac crushed Vista in the important categories such as startup and shutdown and launching the browsers. Vista did alright on installation times and program launching by keeping up and even beating Mac in a few categories. But when again it came time to test the heavy duty stuff Mac pulled ahead by taking about half the time to launch CS3 with a high stress level on the processors.

So I guess Macs can be considered the better computer. The results of both speed and user performance came back favoring the Mac. If you would like to see the exact stats go grab yourself the May 2008 copy of Poplular Mechanics. They also have the benchmarking software available for download on their site so if you want to perform the test yourself go out and grab the software.

In the meantime tell me what you prefer and why. Because I am a PC guy and Mac users often rub me the wrong way. Pretentious is generally what comes to mind. However it seems like that stereotype may be just as wrong as the commercials.

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Working With The Computer Illiterate

Chances are you (The Creadiv Reader) knows what you are doing when operating a computer.  You know the basic functions, the advanced techinques, the tricks of the trade.  However I also assume that most of you work with somebody that doesn’t.

My “real job”  the one that pays the bills is at my dad’s medical billing company where I am a computer programmer, tech support, network coordinator, maintenance man, and 100 other titles.  We are a medium sized company of about 50 employees and I find myself today creating tutorials for the employees in our office on topics which they should already know how to do.  

To me this is very frustrating.  I am spending my day creating tutorials on how to backup outlook’s personal folders.  How to create spam filters and use shortcut keys.  All are tasks that I feel the “computer literate” employee should have a relativley strong grasp of, yet here I am doing it anway.

So how do you deal with the less than computer savy co-worker?  Is it right to be frustrated or grumpy about what you feel is a waste of time or do you need to be patient and willing to help them learn?  Please take some time to share you feelings and some of the ways you deal with people that are computer illiterate.