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What is your platform of choice ?

  1. Bill Sohne Bill @ ΩF Staff Member May 24, 2018

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    Hi
    it was brought up in another thread something about using a mac product... could easily strip out EXIF data...

    My question to the community....

    What is your platform of choice?

    I am an old school Mac guy.... since 1984. For a frame of reference I had a TRS-80 Mod I since 79.
    When I first saw the mac... it was eye opening... and now 34 years later... What I always loved about the Mac platform is it ability to empower users.... The best way I could sum it up ... The Mac allowed you to do what you wanted to do , But without thinking how do I do it...

    I also did work in the industry at various companies over the years Agfa, Aldus and Adobe to name a few ... I never made it to Apple as I was too aggressive in an interview.... ( but that is another story).


    To be fully disclosed , I have broke my left wrist and thumb last week.. .so posting is a challange and I have not worn a watch.... cause of the cast. Will try to go to micro center to see if they have superlong velcro straps...

    Good Hunting

    Bill
     
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  2. peatnick May 24, 2018

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    Feel better soon Bill!

    [​IMG]

    PS - what happened to the other guy?
     
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  3. Larry S Color Commentator for the Hyperbole. May 24, 2018

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    In my personal life, I'm All IPhone /Mac. In my professional life ...My work phone is an IPhone but I'm Windows 10 based. I personally find that because I spend so much time in Windows, I struggle in the MAC environment. This is raising questions for what I hope is my impending semi retirement and consulting gigs. Do I get myself a Windows Laptop or a Mac Laptop? Cant decide.
     
    Edited May 24, 2018
  4. Jantar May 24, 2018

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    iPhone and like so many others Windows 10 in my professional life. I do make a habit of turning off location data for just about every app I use unless I am using it for a particular reason that requires it.
     
  5. Tubber May 24, 2018

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    When I was at school doing Computing we got Macs that replaced the BBC computers. I think that would have been 1990? The Macs were brilliant but it was another 24 years before I bought another Mac. I wish I had done it sooner. It was out of frustration with Windows and being unable to download Linux that I bought the Mac. I stick with an unlocked, cheapo Android phone though.
    Hope the wrist heals soon. It's a bugger, broke mine twice.
     
  6. MSNWatch Vintage Omega Aficionado Staff Member May 24, 2018

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    Interesting question and the question about what platform is central regarding data entry and retrieval. But going forward I think the bigger action will be in what happens in between - the cloud - and this is an arena that Amazon, Microsoft and to some extent IBM are contending over. For instance Amazon Web Services - their cloud business - generates almost all of the company's net income despite accounting for less than 10% of it's revenue.
     
  7. Professor May 24, 2018

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    I still have a Compaq with Mellinium OS stashed away. No longer internet compliable but the darn thing just keeps on trucking. I guess its components are overbuilt for the working stress placed on them.
    I have a scanner and printer I could hook up to it, since they are far outdated but still work fine.
    I'll install some older version GIMP image manipulation software on it one day and use it for hobby work.

    I stopped buying high dollar PCs after my fourth meltdown. The local power grid is subject to catastrophic failures due to the intense lightning in these mountains. Nearby lightning strikes have even blown out my air conditioners and refrigerators leaving burned masses of wiring and dead motors. Thats with surge protectors , even the surge protectors and wall outlets melted.
    Transformers blowing up are fairly common, really spectacular light shows.

    I use a el cheapo Accer tower now, hooked up to the monitor and keyboard of my long defunct HP. The Accer does everything I need it to do. If it melts down I'm not out all that much.
     
  8. Tony C. Ωf Jury member May 24, 2018

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    I composed and edited three reference books that a friend and I co-authored and published in the mid-'80s on an original Macintosh, and have only once, by necessity, used a windows machine (Thinkpad).

    As big a fan and supporter as I have been, I find the current focus by Apple on mobile computing to be disappointing, not because it doesn't make sense from a business standpoint, but because they have gone the wrong way with recent developments in their laptop/desktop computers.
     
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  9. Paedipod May 24, 2018

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    Mac(s) at home.....started as you did Bill with the happy little box in 1984. Came with a foam lined cordura carry-case.....pre-cursor to the padded laptop bags. I ended up using it for a beer cooler (I was at engineering school at the time).

    Currently stuck in a Windows environment at work. We have upgraded to Windows 7(!) in the last year or so. Thankfully can use my MacBook Pro for much of what I do as there are browser based versions of the machine-based programs for most things.

    Have gone back to a "dumb phone" for most of the time.....accessibility goes both ways, and more often I am choosing to be less in touch lately.


    And get well soon Bill
     
  10. rb10chris May 24, 2018

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    Used mac for a few years now back to windows. windows 10 is almost on par with macOS now. I was able to get a great deal on an 8th gen i7 + 16gb ram and a bunch of other goodies in a 15" laptop for 800. Similar spec macbook pro would have been 2k+. With how far windows have narrowed the gap, not worth paying up for $AAPL.
     
  11. Mouse_at_Large still immune to Speedmaster attraction May 24, 2018

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    I'm Windows and android. For PCs I guess coming across Windows 3.11 in the early 90s set me off on that path. Previous to that, I actually had experience of helping spec and introduce the first computer system to a radio station where I worked. Programmed in DR DOS and using 5 1/4" floppy disks. What fun :)

    Nowadays I have a 5 year old custom built mini tower at home that seems perfectly capable of handling anything I (and Windows) throw at it, especially as I recently upgraded it to a SS drive. For consulting work I have a cheap laptop also running Win 10.

    Phones are Android, but I'm not concerned with getting the latest and flashiest. I tend to go for value which means that I'll happily buy less well known manufacturer's product. Currently I use an Oukitel K6000 Plus running Android 7. A couple of years back I had some interest in rooting (stop sniggering at the back!) and custom ROMs, but the latest versions of Android give me pretty much all the functionality I desire with the added advantage of virtually seamless migration from phone to phone via the cloud when I upgrade.
     
  12. BlackTalon This Space for Rent May 24, 2018

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    No Apple products here. Wife has an iPhone, iPad and iPod, but desktop and laptops are all Windows-based (10+ year old laptop w/ Millennium, 5 year old laptop w/ Win10 and almost brand-new desktop w/ Win10).

    At work it is all Win8/ 8.1 machines and a MS Server. I assembled/ loaded/ setup all of the machines and do all the troubleshooting. I avoid proprietary systems like the plague, as I want the ability to easily source and swap components if a part fails. No "Gurus" wanted or needed.

    Work is mainly office software applications, AutoCad and, ahem, lots of watching video and checking personal email on the web.

    Home is office software, internet stuff and photo edit/ processing (and starting to get into video).
     
  13. Foo2rama Keeps his worms in a ball instead of a can. May 24, 2018

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    I was an Apple guy... even ran Tech support for the largest Mac reseller in the world from 94-98 or so.

    Love OS 7,8,9 one the most customizable, clean, easy to use OS’s ever. X just makes no sense to me.

    As I work in gaming now I build my own win rigs. I was happy with 7, and 10 a lot better then I was expecting.

    Apple phone as when I finally made the break into a smartphone the android options where intolerable. while not perfect the IPhone works for me for me needs.

    While I’m a tech guy I like stuff that works with little input. I’m past my early adopter phase and don’t want to spend hours setting things up or researching how to make 1 tweak for the sake of tweaking.
     
    Edited May 24, 2018
  14. ulackfocus May 24, 2018

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    Our household is Apple dominant. I'm posting on a MacBook Air (hand-me-down from my wife), my cell is an iPhone 6S (hand-me-down from my wife), and I have a first generation iPad Mini with me (hand-me-down from my wife).

    Recognize a pattern to my devices? :p

    I like the simplicity of Macs, particularly in their photo editing.
     
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  15. AnotherDon May 24, 2018

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    I'm a Windows guy by force. Back when I had my own accounting practice, all for the programs (worth owning/using) for bookkeeping and tax return preparation were written for the Windows platform. I never really understood the basic economics of buying a MAC and then crippling it to work in Windows mode. So, Windows it is.
     
  16. lillatroll May 24, 2018

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    I use an iPad, I am on my second one, I like it very much because it is simple to use. I don t use it so much right now because the internet connection in Malawi is, well, third world and home internet is stupid expensive here; so I use my phone, a Samsung A3.
    I have no interest in technology products, I just want them to work. I use 4 or 5 websites on a daily basis and read newspapers. I have no very little understanding of the digital world, I read something about geotagging and people were getting excited., from what I can work out it knows I am I Malawi, I don't care really and I don t know why I should care.
    I like my iPad and I am going to buy a new one when I move to Romania in August. I like it because I can just use it, I don't have to think. I don t even want to think when it comes to technology I just want it to do, and iPad does this.
     
  17. jetkins May 24, 2018

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    The first computer I ever saw in person was a PDP-8/L - my school in Melbourne Australia was the second non-tertiary educational institution in the country to get its own computer. That was in 1971, and I remember being amazed that it all fit in a single cabinet - all the computers we were starting to see on TV filled entire rooms. It had a whole 4K of genuine ferrite core memory, and a single ASR-33 Teletype terminal with a paper tape reader and punch.

    I had to wait another year until Form 3 (eighth grade) before I was actually allowed to access the thing, but that was the start of a life-long love affair with computer systems.

    After graduating high school, I dropped out of college and got a job as a trainee computer operator on an IBM 370/158 mainframe - this was the room full of equipment that I expected! The company - a large multinational - was towards the pointy end of computer technology take-up, with TSO then ROSCOE screens quickly replacing the punched cards and printouts, and we were one of the first large-scale adopters of Personal Computers, starting with the IBM PC of course. By that time I had graduated to Master Terminal Operator, and I have fond(?) memories of lugging an IBM Portable PC home on weekends when I was on call.

    With ready access to all those PCs at work after hours, I didn't buy my own for the first few years. When I did eventually take the plunge, it was an Olivetti M24 SP - an IBM PC/AT clone with 512K and a 20Mb hard disk, running MS-DOS.

    When GUIs started to appear, our company went the OS/2 route instead of Windows, and I followed suit. I stayed with OS/2 all the way to Warp 4, laughing smugly at all my friends who were struggling with the various early iterations on "Windoze," but after IBM effectively abandoned OS/2 I finally made the jump to Windows 2000, followed by XP, 7, and now 10.

    My handheld devices followed a somewhat similar route. I was an early adopter of Electronic Organizers, owning a couple of different Casio Digital Diaries before buying my first Palm Pilot Professional and staying with the Palm platform through to the Centro. When they finally stopped developing Palm OS, I eventually made the jump to the iPhone, where I've stayed ever since, though I still miss the Centro's real (though tiny) keyboard.

    I still work with computers as a systems administrator, and at work I handle a mix of Windows Server, Linux (primarily Red Hat) and AIX systems, but I've gotten to the point these days where I'm happy to leave the technical details at the office and just let Microsoft spoon feed me Windows at home.

    Likewise, I've done my time massaging my phone OS, including jailbreaking earlier versions of IOS, but all the features that used to require that sort of manipulation are now included in the base OS, so these days I'm happy just to live in Apple's walled garden and let other experts worry about the minutia.
     
    Edited May 24, 2018
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  18. vbrad26 May 24, 2018

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    Apple fan boi here.
    Started with them when I was in elementary school (so maybe 1993-ish?) and every school I went to used them all the way through high school.
    Also have had an iPhone since day one.
     
  19. jetkins May 24, 2018

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    My wife, on the other hand, is a dyed-in-the-wool Mac fan. She bought herself a used Mac Portable when she went to college, and she's never used a PC unless it was dictated by her employer.

    Growing up with an OS that was so heavily mouse-oriented, she has never learned to use keyboard shortcuts - she does everything, including selecting, cutting, and pasting text, with the mouse or touchpad. It drives me crazy watching her meticulously marking out her desired blocks of text, when a few simple keystrokes would have had it selected, cut, and pasted, in a tenth of the time. But c'est la vie - she'll never change, and I've long since given up trying to convince her otherwise. But I wonder if that's just her, or if other longtime Mac addicts work the same way.
     
  20. AQBill May 24, 2018

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    For a while my employer supported both Mac & PC and I used Mac by choice. Then we were strongly encouraged to switch to PC which everyone did unless they had a specific software application that they used almost exclusively. Now retired, I use a Mac, again and find the small cost premium in Mac products is well worth while.