The Thing About Macs

Student Lounge College Life
101

<br>

<br>

<p>I made a fairly simple point. And got jumped on by you and the other
with extraneous issues.</p>

<br>

<br>

<p>I’m a novice with Apache though I have a project to get CGI working
tonight. So “we all know” isn’t correct.</p>

<br>

<br>

<p>1) Some people, like myself are cheap and don’t want to pay for the
hosting charges. If you don’t understand the behavior, read The Mind
of a Millionaire.
2) My hosted server at work is always on. My desktop server at work is
always on. I know lots of people with Mac Pros at home that are always
on. One guy I know has two homes and several Mac Pros and PowerMacs
and has access to the files in his homes from the other homes.
3) Mac Minis make for good servers - just ask Mozilla.</p>

<br>

<br>

<p>This is a new offering. Personally I’m a little annoyed that Opera would
join the AMD bandwagon in getting the EU to sue over preinstallation of
the browser. Firefox, Chrome and Safari are competing quite nicely against
IE while Opera remains in the basement of desktop and laptop browser
marketshare.</p>

<p>One could use Opera to host off of their system but then you’re relying on
Opera and Opera sees all of your page accesses. If you’re hosting within
a company, you have the advantage of limiting your content to your company
assuming you have a decent firewall.</p>

102

<p>^ Are you agreeing with me, or is there a response in the works?</p>

103

<p>
[QUOTE=BCEagle91]

Rubbish. You can get your web pages up and running with less effort.

[/quote]
Wrong. I tried to do exactly that, but OS X does nothing more than get in your way and frustrate you. As soon as you try to change any settings, you find out that everything’s set up in Apple’s crappy proprietary and locked-down way, which just makes everything 10x more difficult to accomplish.</p>

<p>
[QUOTE=BCEagle91]

Mac OSX isn’t marketed as a web server platform. But it is suprisingly
nice that it includes one preinstalled. All you have to do is turn it
on.

[/quote]
Do you even hear yourself talking? It’s like you’ve stuck your fingers in your ears and are yelling “LALALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!11”. I’m telling you that you can’t just “turn it on” and use it in the majority of cases.</p>

<p>
[QUOTE=BCEagle91]

The empiracal observation is that it is the easiest to get up and
running. I don’t know how you can argue with that. Still, you try.

[/quote]
It is of no relevance. I don’t know how you can argue with that. Still, you try.</p>

<p>
[QUOTE=BCEagle91]

Non-sequitur.
Ad hominem fallacy.
Ad hominem fallacy.

[/quote]
Like pandem said, using these debate buzzwords instead of making an actual reply just makes you lose credibility.</p>

<p>
[QUOTE=BCEagle91]

My observation is that it is easy to get Apache up and running on Mac OSX.
There are lots of books and web page tutorials that agree with me.

[/quote]
I don’t care about the “lots of books and web page tutorials that agree with” you. You still can’t cite any concrete examples of how it’s so easy to configure Apache on OS X. I’ve told you over and over how much of a pain it is to change any settings, but you just seem to completely ignore that and instead opt to go with the WorksForMe™ argument.</p>

<p>
[QUOTE=BCEagle91]

Some people, like myself are cheap

[/quote]
Yet you somehow seem to be willing to pony up the cash for the overpriced shiny trinket that is a Mac.</p>

<p>
[QUOTE=BCEagle91]

Opera remains in the basement of desktop and laptop browser
marketshare.

[/quote]
That’s a very US-centric view. In several European countries, Opera is in the double digits in terms of market share.</p>

<p>
[QUOTE=BCEagle91]

One could use Opera to host off of their system but then you’re relying on
Opera and Opera sees all of your page accesses.

[/quote]
Actually, the final release will support bypassing the proxy, so this isn’t true.</p>

104

<p>MODERATOR NOTE:</p>

<p>Please keep this discussion within College Confidential’s Terms of Service, found under the Help & Rules link. We strive to make this site a welcoming place for all, and, for this reason, we do not allow members to attack the character of others, regardless of differing opinions. In future posts, both here and elsewhere on CC, please limit your comments to the content of other members’ posts without commenting on their character, intelligence, allegiances, motivation, etc.</p>

105

<p>Jeez I always hate these type of discussions, because they always end up like this. Everyone calm down. Windows has its ups and downs (Vista is not as bad as advertised but Windows 7 just makes it look like it should have never came out, Mac is ok, but still does run into some pitfalls when say programming or playing games.) Both are ok ways to go depending on your needs. Then of course theres Linux…meh it’s ok.</p>

<p>Can’t Windows and Mac fanboys just get along?</p>

106

<p>No, because there are always men - it’s always men - who want to fight about technical details that only matter to them and who want to impose their views about what is right, what is best on everyone else. They can’t hear themselves and they make no allowances for other opinions because what matters is their interpretation of what you said in the context they impose. These conversations are a waste of time and inhibit regular conversation and the provision of useful advice.</p>

107

<p>BCEagle91:

I was not under the impression that I did any “jumping”. If it seemed that way, I apologize. My intent was to combat the blanket statement “the average person would be happier with the Mac OSX approach”, which is innaccurate purely by virtue of trying to create a hypothetical “average” user.

“We all know” is hyperbole, and you are right to call me for using that expression. I should know better. With that said, I stand by my assertion. You yourself said that Apple’s setup was right for users that don’t desire “any configuration work”, and personal experience tells me that trying to perform in-depth configuration on any Apple product is usually difficult. That doesn’t make them bad products - the whole point is that they don’t require any configuration. But it does make them (in my opinion) undesirable for a user who wants to change things around under the hood.

I am about as stingy as it gets, which is why I don’t buy software (nor do I pirate it, in case you were reaching for the phone to report me).

I don’t even want to think about how much power you use.

I agree with both these statements, but both are irrelevant to my statement. In any case, Opera Unite is nowhere near perfect. I mentioned it only to offer another solution for temporary file sharing for anyone who actually wants to learn something constructive from this bottomless pit of a thread.</p>

<p>srunni:

Right but wrong. You are correct (if a bit zealotously so) regarding advanced configuration, but for just hosting a simple page, OS X does work right out of the box.</p>

<p>CH121S:

You never mentioned NetBSD fanboys, so am I okay? :P</p>

<p>Seriously, I agree. Every argument has two sides to debate.</p>

<p>IN CONCLUSION: There is no right or wrong choice. There is no “typical user”. There is no perfect system. There is no magic bullet.</p>

<p>A relative of mine has a Mac and uses it as a server. On a visit, I had the chance to play with OS X Apache a bit. If you are okay with the defaults, it is a fine choice. Wait, did I just say that? Could this mean that it is actually possible to argue both sides of this debate? Yep. Configuring OS X was (in my opinion) a bit painful - you are free to disagree, but only after you’ve spent some time trying - but the default did what it did just fine.</p>

<p>I don’t recommend buying any computer as a dedicated server unless you are sure you need it - you could probably get by with an old machine rescued from the trash. If you have either a PC or a… PC made by Apple and need some basic server functionality, either will suffice. It comes down to personal preference, and you have to make the choice. Nobody else can do it for you.</p>

108

<p>Funny how incredibly irrelevant this conversation is to the vast majority of college students.</p>

109

<p>haha yeah thiscouldbeheavn i agree, this is the most ridiculous thread for a college computers discussion thread! all one should care about while choosing a computer for college is durability, portability and practicality, and this thread addresses anything but those.</p>