WMWIKI & MSUN

[valz]

Well here we go with another round of comparisions between the Mac OS and Windows XP.

-iTunes vs Windows Media Player
This one is hard. Both iTunes and Windows Media Player are amazing and both have great features and are a joy to use, they both have very little if anything to envy each other. But I think that, once the dust settles, Windows Media Player emerges as the best.

iTunes just like Mail, also enjoys the Smart Folder feature and has a very nice search field that is really fast and easy to use. The browse feature is also fantastic and so is the one in Media Player but iTunes gets the upper hand in it because it is easier to use and has a better implementation. The search also works better in iTunes giving you results as you type and letting you null a search by clicking a little crossed circle that sits right in the search fill, something which will get you back to your whole library.

But despite this neat features which iTunes is better at the interface of Windows Media Player is heavenly. The organization of the program and all of it's features is very, very nice and everything makes more sense than in itunes. The interface is also much more simple and user friendly than the one in iTunes and takes up less screen space while providing more functionallity.Another adventage of WMP is that it gives you tons of customization options to shape the player virtually to anyway you want.

Another great feature is the "More Info" button that you can use when you select a song. It searches for the song in the MSN Music store and lets you buy it right away. It is also easier to build playlists in WMP, easier to burn CDs, the MSN Music store is easier to use than iTunes Music Store among other things. WMP lets you access multiple stores, something iTunes lacks and also supports a wide range of MP3 players, another features iTunes does not have.

While iTunes can play videos from the Music Store, it cannot play videos on your computer while WMP can and with the additional codec it can also play DVDs, so WMP is an all in one for all digital media needs.

Both programs can access the online database to download album cover art and song information but WMP seems to make more use of this, specially the album art which appears right on the playlist as the song plays and it also appears as the icon in the folder where the album is stored on the desktop. Mac and iTunes do not have this.

Everything just works better in WMP, the Equalizer, skin chooser, color changer, the different tabs to access the different functions of the program the taskbar toolbar that integrates seemlessly with the taskbar and is available no matter what application you are using and can be used without having to bring the application to front.

iTunes is great, an amazing application but WMP is better.

-Safari vs Internet Explorer
Just like it is the case with Outlook, I had been using IE since version 2 and ditched Netscape as soon as I began using it. I continued to use IE even to the early days of OS X. But for some reason Microsoft decided to stop updating it and the browser started to get outdated and troublesome to run under the new OS. So I switched to Safari which came with OS X, it is fast, hast tabs, a neat download and bookmark manager, integrated Google search and a very simple and easy to use interface.

For some reason, both on the Mac and PC, IE has shifted from being the best browser, the one with the most useful features a browser loved by all to letting the competition catch up and even surpass IE in some areas and gain a bad reputation. I know this doesn't sits well with the people here but it is the truth, Safari and Firefox are better browsers than IE right now, but once you get a close look at it, this adventage is minimal but it's impact is great. If you look at it, at least from my perspective, tabs, RSS support and the download manager is what give Safari and Firefox the upper hand. That's all.

I do not belive the hype about security so I won't get into that. IE is a secure browser, and it gives you tons of options for customizing and enhancing that security. It is just that because more people use IE, it is the most attacked.

I love IE and I use it on the PC instead of Firefox. The MSN Toolbar adds the tabs and integrated search so that makes things better, but it is a bit slow and it still needs some work. But I miss the integrated RSS feature of Safari and the neat Download Manager, which was available on the Mac version of IE long before Safari even existed and long before Netscape decided to add it to it's browser so I am not sure why it is not on the PC.

But hopefully everything will be back in place when IE 7 is released so I can wait for that.

-Mail vs Outlook
This is a no brainer, Outlook is clearly a superior email client and is the one I had been using in the Mac up till the time OS X was released and Microsoft decided to stop distributing it for free and bundle it with Office instead. After that I started using Mail but now that version 2 was released with Tiger, it has turned into a very slow, buggy and not so user friendly program. I tried Thunderbird but it doesn't holds a candle either, I have always hated Eudora. So I am glad to be able to use Outlook on the PC once again, it is also way better on the PC than on the Mac and integrates with XP very well. I also find Outlook to be faster than Mail in all operations and it has so many features and options that Mail just lacks or provides in a limited manner.

Mail has the smart inbox and folder options but this feature offers nothing that you can't duplicate with rules in Outlook and with even more options than you can do with smart folders. And Outlook goes even deeper with Search Folders.which let you set up dynamic folders that "absorb" new emails that match the criteria you set to it. This is something very similar to what Apple is now offering in Tiger with the smart folders, ironically Microsoft implemented this over a year ago.

Outlook offers so many features that Mail just lacks. Calendar, tasks, notes, etc. And my favorite of all features, email right from the desktop. If I want to email a file to some one i just need to right click and Sent |To-Mail Recipient. Outlook doesn't even have to be open, a new email window opens with the file attached to it and I can send it to anyone I want, also the auto complete feature works for my contacts without opening Outlook! And it also sends with Outlook closed!

And last but not least the reading pane on the right is a very nice feature of Outlook, moving around and viewing email is just the more easy and fun that way.

All in all, I have been using Outllook since it was called Mail and News back int he IE 3.0 days on the Mac. After that it changed to Outlook Express and then Entourage. Now on PC it is Outlook 2003 and it continues to be my all time favorite email client.

-The Finder vs The Desktop
I have touched over this already but there are so many amzing features that XP has that it worth covering them as well. The Mac OS is praised for it's easy of use and streamlined interface. But i'd say that XP is very underrated in this area and more often than not unfairly and blindly bashed.

There is so much ground to cover here so i'll just go at it in some random fashiion. I love that you can actually copy and paste items around it is a very nice time saver specially when you do it thru the side bar which opens a window asking you for the location where you want to paste the copied files. Apple implemented this in OS X, this feature was not available in OS 9. While WIndows has it since 95 I think.

I love the auto complete feature in open/save dialog boxes. It is a nice time saver that makes saving files with similar names a breeze. Mac OS X has nothing like this. I like how in an application like for example Photoshop, when you have multiple documents open at the same time and you minimize them, they become dock in the bottom of the screen as the title bar with the close/expand buttons but they do not go to the taskbar, they remain within the application window so if you minimize the application, all of the minimized documents get minimized with it! This is much better than having a window added to the dock everytime you minimize an open document, it makes the dock really long and small as it adjusts to fit on your screen.

A great time saver are the personalized menus that adjust to the manner in which you use applications and documents. Things that you rarely use are hidden to save up space and give you easier and faster access to the things that you use frecuently. A great little feature I found out is that if you leave your mouse over the Programs menu in the Start Menu and some programs are hidden, a little balloon telling you to click the little arrow appears, the arrow expands the menu. But if you wait a bit more the menu will expand itself to show you the whole program list. Awesome.

Navigating thru directories and moving files around is far, far easier to do in XP than OS X. It has much more options and ways to do it and I personally love the Folders button on the toolbar of every window that replaces the side bar with a folder three which lets you access any part of your computer and view the contents of the folder in the right side. It is also very useful when moving items around.

-Plug and play?
Again the Mac is constantly touted as being plug and play and of making installing new devices fairly easy and Windows is portrayed as giving you a lot of problems and headaches. Too bad, Windows is much more user friendly than OS X when it comes to installing new devices and managing them. It grabs your hand thru the installation process less than a second after you plug the device to your computer. It displays a message telling you that it found a new hardware, launches a wizard that guides you step by step thru the process and searches for the drivers in the internet or in a CD for you! In OS X Nothing happends, no feedback no installation wizard, nothing. You have to manually launch the installer and then install the device.

I have been having a blast unloading pictures from my camera to my computer in XP, the process is far easier, more streamlined and has much more options and features than in OS X. A good thing I liked is that XP actually told me that the camera can run better and faster if I use it in an USB 2 port! That is because the camera supports USB 2 and I was using it on a regular USB port. Amazing.

Windows also lets you know when any component or device is not workinig properly and offers to search for the drivers on the internet, fix the problem or just uninstall the device or component. There is again nothing of the sort in OS X.

-Bugs, viruses and the blue screen of death.
When I visit online forums, I see a bunch of topics of users asking for help because their computer got some problems. It has been the case since I first had a Mac. I have never run into any sort of problems and the only times my computer has stopped working is because I was messing around with system files, so it was my fault and not the one of the OS. And it can also be chalked up to inexperience.

So far I have run into no problems with XP, so the bugs and blue screens of death are alien to me. XP has not crashed on me nor has any application crashed either, well IE did once but that was because I had over ten tabs open. The PC I am using had viruses and adwares but that was before I started to use it, now it is all clean and tidy a pleasure to use. OS X is very stable too it gives no problems but just like in XP it depends on the user, some people just don't think twice before doing something on the computer. In any case I think Windows is also unfailry and blindly bashed about viruses and the so called blue screen of death, my advice? Read the manual or something before using it. you will run into problems with just about anything if you just start messing around without knowing what you are doing. Don't bash the OS to cover your ignorance.

By the way Windows got the stability and memory protection thing working before Apple. While Windows 95 had that OS 8 and 7 were still getting crashed down by conflicting extensions. So if there is OS that is stable it is Windows.

-Who is the copy cat?
I don't want to get into some anti-apple rant or anything because I love Apple, but I love Microsoft too. But those who are constantly whinning about how much Microsoft copies Apple need ot open their eyes. In terms of the Aqua interface and XP interface, both OSes look NOTHING alike. The only thing that got introduced with OS X and XP was higher quality and more colorful graphical interfaces. No more no less. XP has no Aqua look, those who say so are reading stuff into it.

Yes, Apple too has copied Microsoft and other developers more than most Apple fans would imagine or are willing to admit. I have pointed tons of little details on this already so going over it again is not necessary. The same complain I have heard with WMP 10, some say that it is a carboon copy of iTunes, again both programs are worlds apart and look nothign alike. Ironically WMP got an aqua like interface while iTunes go the metal interface which share nothing in similarity.

What is seen are emerging trends in technology, both in hardware and software. Same needs different companies trying to satisfy those needs. Smoe overlap is to be expected.

Bottom line
Well I am done I guess. There is of course many more thigns but that would just need tons of space and time to go over by and it is really not needed.

The verdict? Windows XP is much better OS than Mac OS X. Microsoft is better, we are still living. There, it is on the table, the world has not ended. And with that said im switching to Windows.

I am really looking forward to Longhorn, can't wait for it.

[Zarax]

Dude, you're making me smile like it didn't happen since some time...

Now, let's talk about BSOD and IE

- Blue Screen Of Death

This is by far the most infamous Windows Error by far.
Bill Gates even made a very misunderstood joke about it in Windows98 presentation (that BSOD was a fake one... Have you ever seen a screen refreshing right to left?).

Since MS adopted the NT engine for widespread use (Windows 2000 and XP) this is a rare event that nonetheless happens in some precise circumstances.

If you see a BSOD it is most likely because of hardware reasons.
Typically it happens when you install new hardware and this one has poorly written drivers (Trust is the most common example in EU, i don't know if there's in the US too).

SP2 partially fixes that by implementing a stricter parsing policy for drivers but if you buy cheapo hardware you might still meet that one (expert users knows the problem and builds their own PC, avoiding the cheap tricks made my brand makers).

- Internet Explorer (or Exploder, like many calls it)

IE is now paying the price of the past success.
Unfortunately not even Microsoft is sometimes immune to sitting over the laurels (despite Bill Gates' warnings about success being a lousy teacher) and IE was developed when the Internet was a safer, easier to trust place.

Virus writes and spyware are mostly concentrated on it as this is still the mostly used browser by far so that exploiting a vulnerability yelds much more return on investment.

Again, SP2 partially fixed the security issues there but there's still much work to do (and IE7 is a total rewrite, most likely code directly ported from LongHorn) so most competing browsers are safer to use, even though no perfect (firefox quietly dropped the safety advertisments as vulnerabilities are found).

On that side i will be able to tell you more as soon as I will have a chance to try IE7 beta.
_________________
Your personal MVP at hand.
The best is yet to come.

[valz]

Well it is nice to know that the blue screen of death is not Microsoft's fault and to know what is that causes it. I am aware of the joke at the Windows 98 presentation and how the screen slides from the right. I think they were using PowerPoint with a picture of the desktop to simulate the Windows enviroment. I don't think that the guy who was presenting it was a aware of the joke tho.

As far as as Explorer goes, yes Microsoft has indeed slept in it's laurels with it and it is a shame because they more than anyone can implement amazing features into Explorer due to how integrated it is with Windows.

Firefox is vulnerable too, it is just not as attacked as IE is and it is marketed with a lot of hype about security and the like which kind of casts doubts over IE, so people start thinking of IE as insecure and Firefox as secure when it isn't really the case.

But hopefully the fire of the fox is some temporal fad which will end with the release of IE 7 and Longhorn which will probably include a much more advanced version of IE than v7.

[kevintxu]

Don't forget to turn on cleartype. It makes text a whole lot easier to read http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/tuner/Step1.aspx

[Zarax]