XPost: rec.audio.pro   
   From: grizzledgeezer@comcast.net   
      
   > OK, I was using a bit of hyperbole. No, you don't need to be a computer   
   > science major, but Windows is needlessly complex and arcane. I HAVE   
   > seen and heard many a Windows "fan" express the sentiment that   
   > because Macs are easy to use that they are somehow less of a computer   
   > platform than Windows, and that Windows is a "real man's computer" and   
   > that somehow this need for computer literacy is a "good thing." It isn't.   
      
   Well... Yes and no.   
      
   My problem is that I don't want the operating system blocking me from access   
   to the machine. XP and Vista started doing this, which annoyed me no end. (7   
   isn't quite so bad.)   
      
   If I were designing an OS, I would automate as much as possible, while still   
   allowing the user to easily lift the hood and fiddle with the nuts and   
   bolts. I don't have time to discuss this in detail, but making a product   
   that doesn't seem to require thought doesn't necessarily make it easy to   
   use.   
      
      
   > All over the world millions of   
   > people (and we all know some of them) own Winboxes about which they have   
   > absolutely NO CLUE. You, yourself alluded to this bit of techno-elitism   
   when   
   > you said that you used to recommend Macs to people who were too lazy to   
   learn   
   > how their computers worked. Why should they have to? Computers should be   
   as   
   > appliance-like as possible.   
      
   You're mostly right, but I get annoyed at people who put out no effort   
   whatever to understand the wonderful new product they bought.   
      
   My late friend Bill Hamlin (who introduced to high-end audio) had absolutely   
   no technical background whatever. (He was an English/acting major.) Yet, he   
   could rip apart an audio system and put it back together without having to   
   have anything explained to him. (He was the person whose Mac OS mysteriously   
   collapsed.) I hold him up as an example of how a non-geek can understand   
   technology.   
      
      
   > Yet I know many competent Windows users whose computers crash all the   
   time. I   
   > see them at work crashing right and left. Windows also has an interesting   
   > characteristic that as the Registry gets more and more complex with use,   
   the   
   > computer slows down. Most people have to do a wipe-and-reinstall.   
      
   This is one of the Great Mysteries of Windows. Some machines have chronic   
   crashing problems, for no obvious reason.   
      
   The Mac gets around this by being a basically closed system. If there were   
   any justice in the world, Apple would have been dragged into court for the   
   same reasons Microsoft has.   
      
      
   > Oh, don't misunderstand me, Bill, I'm neither belittling your choice of   
   > Windows nor am I trying to convert you. I was merely correcting some of   
   the   
   > misconceptions that you were perpetrating about Macs, such as that they   
   are   
   > limited in their use, that they are for dilettantes, or that they are   
   somehow   
   > "less of a computer" than a Windows machine. You feel free to use what you   
   > want and certainly don't let me influence your choice in any way.  8^)   
      
   Well, Microsoft didn't coin the expression "a computer for the rest of us".   
      
   >> I'm curious as to why the Mac never needs defragmentation. Does it   
   >> automatically defragment in the background?   
      
   > It's the way the file system works. I guess you can call it automatic disk   
   > defrag, but it really doesn't work that way. From what I understand (and   
   I'm   
   > no file system expert by any means), the system optimizes the allocation   
   > algorithms in an attempt to defragment files while they are being   
   accessed.   
   > This, coupled with automatic journaling, means that the disk keeps a   
   separate   
   > record of HD allocation and uses that journal to move blocks of data   
   around   
   > on the disc to keep them together.   
      
   Interesting. I used to run the UCSD OS on my Apple ][. It didn't need   
   defragmentation either, because it wrote all files to the disk as a   
   contiguous block. Of course, if there wasn't a free block large enough, you   
   were hosed. You had to periodically K)runch the disk to consoldiate all the   
   free blocks.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)