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Sure, I'll give it a go... Posted by Justin VanAbrahams [Email]  (#32) [Profile/Gallery]
(more from Justin VanAbrahams) on Tue, 18 Oct 2011 20:19:20
In Reply to: Re: I don't know if Bill Gates is a nice guy or not..., Craig, Tue, 18 Oct 2011 17:02:10 Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup |
Internet Explorer was pretty awful until v7. Microsoft was clearly struggling with the vision of a fully integrated web browser and balancing that against the need for security. It's not really that early IEs were actually that bad in and of themselves, but they were massive security holes. At the time the concept of a browser being your main interface to the computer seemed ridiculous and unnecessary, but I think you'll agree it was actually visionary. Consider how much of your day actually revolves around your browser versus your desktop in 2011, and the wisdom becomes clear. Unfortunately, delivering that experience in a safe and consistent manner was problematic since web (and computers) were evolving so rapidly, and unpredictably in the early days. As technology and peoples' behavior have sort of settled out, IE has grown increasingly good at performing its duties.
In fact, I don't know if you remember the early days of Winsock and Netscape and that whole disaster, but at the time I *welcomed* IE and began to loathe computers that were still relying on clunky old Netscape to get online. It took a long time before Microsoft was able to provide the correct balance, but IEs 7, 8 and especially 9 have been very good. You may prefer Chrome or Firefox (my choice), but IE9 is certainly as good as any of them, and in fact superior to both of them in some aspects.
On the contrary, Safari is a pile of suck. It's been garbage since the beginning and it's not getting better. On common platforms it's the slowest, least compliant browser there is with the worst plug in support. Not only that, Safari integration in OSx is pretty pathetic and while you might argue it's a security feature, I'd argue it's a lack of development feature. I think this probably dovetails back into the fact that Apple is pursuing a world of "apps" rather than a traditional host OS/guest software application. TomAYto, tomAHto. Safari is still horrible, and it's unlikely Apple has the intention to fix it. In the browser wars, it's a vulture at best.
Office is largely indefensible, but deserves credit for bringing an effective GUI to the PC platform (remember Word Perfect for Windows? BLECH) and truly pushing the concept of suite integration to new boundaries. Office 2003 was an incredibly solid product and - being totally honest - Office 2010 is stunning. I checked out of the whole Office thing for a long time simply because the need to use a formal word processor and such was not part of my job description (linux administrator). But I've had reason to push out and use Office 2010, and it's amazing. It's functional, easy to use, and surprises daily with its ability to correctly guess what I'm trying to do and make it happen. I had to teach a class of 200 people or so how to use it, and while prepping I was perpetually blown away at just how well thought out it is. Word, Excel, and Outlook are far more capable than any product available on the Mac (except for Word, Excel, and Outlook). Powerpoint may be lagging behind Keynote, but only from certain aspects... From my perspective, they really aren't even competitive products. "Business presentation" does not really equal "Multimedia presentation," so it's not a surprise they are differently focused.
I really don't think in 2011 you can have the "Mac vs PC" argument. The underpinnings are similar, time has showed us the end results (both function and dysfunction) are similar, and modern-day "average use" yields a virtually indistinguishable experience. You can reach to the extremes and come up with poignant examples of superiority, but they all break down in the scenario of Average. OSX has a sweet cli, Windows 7 runs the crap out of Adobe CS5 (role reversal!!!). OSX has fewer security problems. Windows 7 has better software support. Macs have more elegant designs. PCs have more flexible designs. Blah blah blah. People care about surfing the net and sending email, and to that end I'm pretty sure LG makes a refrigerator that can do that for you.
posted by 12.195.130...
, Wed, 19 Oct 2011 05:55:46
, Tue, 18 Oct 2011 14:40:01, Tue, 18 Oct 2011 12:52:56, Tue, 18 Oct 2011 13:36:29, Tue, 18 Oct 2011 20:19:20 <-- Viewing This Message, Tue, 18 Oct 2011 14:32:01
, Tue, 18 Oct 2011 12:01:12, Tue, 18 Oct 2011 08:39:53, Tue, 18 Oct 2011 12:48:39, Tue, 18 Oct 2011 09:24:44
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