Dvorak tries a Mac... he likes it!
By Donald Melanson 
posted July 26th 2007 2:04PM
posted July 26th 2007 2:04PM
As most everyone reading this no doubt knows, John Dvorak hasn't exactly shown much love to Macs (and all things Apple) over the years. Mac fanboys may now want to brace themselves, however, as it seems Dvorak has had a change of heart -- sorta. While he still has "no plans to move to the Mac platform for my personal use," Dvorak has apparently been using a Mac for the past few months and, shockingly, admits to liking it. Of course, he isn't quite exuberant in his praise, calling the system he's been using (an iMac) "not half bad," adding that "it's very quiet, and it performs as well as the PC on general office applications." He also found that "the interface is slicker," and that he didn't get the feeling that the computer was going to " start acting weird because of some virus, spyware, or endless Firefox loading procedure." But other than that, he says, he "cannot see much of a difference between the Mac and PC." He even apparently found doing some things on the Mac, like burning CDs, "convoluted." Despite that, he says he has taken to recommending Macs to friends and neighbors, although we somehow suspect he won't go so far as to recommend an iPhone anytime soon.
Dvorak has said before he likes the sleekness and good design of macs. He's said it on TWIT many times.
In related news, Satan has just opened a Lemon Chill™ stand in Hell.
It amazes me that so many people (on both sides) care so much about what other people think of their OS of choice.
I use what works for me, and I could care less what others think about it.
No, this works for Engadget.
Start an OS flame war to drive traffic.
I never even heard of the guy but you can bet the Mac fanboys will be here in droves to defend/discount/debunk his personal assessement of the platform.
@ Aaron,
This pundit is well known for many anti-Apple sentiments over the years so this is pretty remarkable coming from him.
>I could care less what others think about it.
You could, could you?
The phrase is "I couldn't care less."
@paloooz
>The phrase is "I couldn't care less."
Actually, they are both correct and mean the same thing. I couldn't care less was the original form, with the latter I could care less coming from America and meaning the same thing. Language is a funny creature.
Source:
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-ico1.htm
I shouldn't have to explain this, as you clearly speak English. It's as clear as day that they mean totally different things.
"I could go to the store" does not mean the same thing as "I couldn't go to the store."
When you use "could," you are saying that it is possible for you to care less about said topic, inferring that you have some level of concern.
When you use "couldn't," you are saying that it is impossible for you to care less. You care not about said topic, therefore it is impossible for you to care about it. You can a level of concern, but that level is at the bottom.
So, yes, maybe some stupid people say "I could care less" but they are wrong. What they really mean is "I couldn't care less."
Whatever, accepting a phrase to mean something when it actually means the exact opposite is ridiculous.
From the page you linked...
"...it loses its force when put on paper and just ends up looking stupid."
@Palooz
Yes, I realized that after I posted. I figured that instead of cluttering up the comments with a correction post, I'd assume that my fellow Engadget readers would know what I meant.
Guess I was wrong.
@adam
paloooz occasionally gets upset if you drop one of the "o"s from his name. Methinks he is a language pedant. Truth is, English is full of inconsistencies, contradictions and silliness. Fortunately, if a phrase is in common use, it becomes accepted. For example, where I come from, an acceptable response to paloooz would be:
Get a dog up ya!
REQUEST: Please change the title of this blog post to:
IRRELEVANT, OLD MEDIA WHORE BUYS APPLE COMPUTER TO STAVE OFF TOTAL OBSCURITY.
heh heh...
Dvorak never pays for anything anything... and he gets no spam.
So you're one of those people who buy his act?
Dvorak is an easy one to figure out. Everything he says is for publicity. I'm sure the guy hasn't really thought any worse of macs then PC's for the last twenty years, but he uses that angle.
In a well written story you need the hero's and the bad guys. Not everyone can be the hero, he plays the bad guy, the cynic the antagonist. I find it funny how sheepish people are to quickly buy into it.
I think the dude is brilliant, he knows how to get people going and that drives sales/readership.
Totally agree with Todd.
Couldn't care less what that Dvorak does. Can't imagine why anyone would. They man is a bore.
"endless Firefox loading procedure"
What the fuck did he do to his firefox?
I get this too, and a few of my friends, and my girlfriend on her computer, I ahve no idea what casuses it but it's pissing me off. firefox goes to do an update, then says it can't, then trys again, then keeps cycling ENDLESSLY. ctrl alt del is just a fix till next time it happens. reinstall solves for a little while, then it just happens again ina few weeks. no clue, but it sucks. still prefer firefox tho.
Problem I have with Firefox is that sometimes I click on a link and it takes me nowhere, it doesn't respond. Heck, even when I hit CTL+Click it won't open up another tab. It does this randomly, mainly from my iGoogle page and from the Bank of America website when I'm accessing my account info. IE doesn't suffer from this. I still also prefer Firefox though.
I know there are workarounds for it, but clicking on a PDF when in Firefox either takes like 10 minutes to load or grinds my computer to a halt. This has never happened in any version of IE I have used. I have plenty of gripes about FireF"i"x, but I still use it.
I hate firefox. Im gonna post a firefox problem I have like this is a firefox problems anonymous meeting with people who care... but i prefer it to everything else.
He likes the iphone actually....
Listen to the latest podcast of This Week in Tech (TWiT). He admits the iphone is better than he predicted...
Dvorak: "I'm FULL!"
*chuckles and says in decreasing octave* “Dvorak”...
Hey still kicking? Oh yea, and nice high school picture :^P...
Go. Away.
Who the fuck is John Dvorak? Sounds made up.
Many ages ago before the Internet, he was a very popular columnist for PC Magazine, PC Computing, and other magazines (magazines are those small paper books that come out regularly you read at the dentists' office if you forgot). I used to read him alot in PC Computing. I loved my PC Computing. I remember when they ran front page article in '92 about the "Information Superhighway" then they mentioned in a 2-page spread about this thing called the "Internet" that could become it. I'd be funny to read that again.
Being a hypercritical sonofabitch doesn't make you look any smarter.
Also that 'Adobe leaving Apple because of delays in photoshop' a year back was just trolling garbage.
nothing
He found burning a CD on the Mac convoluted? You drag files to the blank disc, then hit burn. No 'wizards' that complicate things.
Or you can right click --> New Burn Folder
How can that possibly be more convoluted than the wizards on windows...?
Other than that I like him. His column is actually really funny.
Yeah that one confused me. With the exception of the wizard for finishing the CD in XP, the process is more or less the same on Mac or Windows. Then again, anyone that listens to this guy on TWIT knows he's out of his gourd.
First Colbert, now Dvorak. What comes next? Paris Hilton? WTH is going on with Engadget?!
I would love to have a Mac. If only someone would create a program that lets you rip your DVD's and make backups with a Mac. I would go out and buy one tomarrow or the day after.
There are a couple programs for the Mac OS that can do that and a cursory search via Google will lead you to them
Ripping DVDs on Mac= HandBrake
"Making" backups depends on the sort you wish to make. There are utilities out there.
Handbrake ($0) and Visual Hub (~$20) to back it up to almost any version you want. Boom. You're done. Which Mac are you buying?
"Version" (you can tell I'm distracted) was actually supposed to be "format."
Funny you should mention that, I find it a massive pain in the arse. I have a mac mini with an external drive plugged into an HDTV; I hooked the drive up to my powerbook the other day and OSX remembered the size of the Finder window. It was so big that the bottom right corner didn't even appear on screen and I therefore couldn't resize it. Took me ages to work out how to sort it out, so Windows wins that one imho.
The downfall of the OS is the cult itself. I am really sick and tired of mac users showing off their superiority complex to say one hardware or one OS is more superior than the other. Don't get me wrong, I use a mac and I like the OS.
However, classifying myself with other people that thinks "if anything is white, then the company must be copying Apple" is an insult.
I have this issue all the time switching from my laptop to projector. Easy fix- push the little green circle at the top left. It will re-size to fit your screen.
@matt,
the little green circle on the top left with a "+". Auto resize. Also, expose'. also, ctl+tab.
@Iceman,
google "mactheripper". works great.
Handbrake works good too.
Dvorak has actually given the iphone a fairly decent review on either TWiT or various other podcast. His biggest issue has been the praise even before the phone was even released.
So this assclown has been ripping into Apple without even using a Mac after all these years..?
I crown thee King Assclown
He has a lot in common with most people that rip on Macs. Most have never used them for any extended period of time. Those that did usually went into it without an open mind.
Most people rip the Mac because they are pissed of with Mac fanboys spamming the internet with "Macs RULE", "Steve Jobs FTW", "Windows Sux", "They cost the same so you should switch" etc...
The amount of Mac spamming is enough, IMHO, to want to kill all Mac users. I've used a Mac, I think it's good - but my Windows laptop was 50% cheaper than the comparative MacBook Pro, and even if they were the same price, why would I have to learn something new if I can have something I know the ins and outs of?
I haven't used a Mac since Web class back in '03. I really liked it. The issue is ripping and burning to DVD+r media. If I can truly do this on a Mac then i no longer have a viable reason to use a PC. I hate itunes but there has to be alternatives to that as well.
Ripping has been covered before :
Look up MacTheRipper or Handbrake. Handbrake also encodes to DIVX or H264 or MPEG4.
Macs have been able to burn to DVD+R for years. All of the built in DVD burners in macs have been DVD+/-R now, including DVD+R DL.
iTunes is generally a nicer experience on the Mac than in Windows, in my opinion. It's faster, and more stable in Mac OS X.