It’s been a while since I posted and I just wanted to add a little to my PC vs Mac post. The newest Apple commercials featuring PC (a guy that looks like Bill Gates) and Mac (a hip young guy) focus on Windows Vista. While these commercials are humerous again they stretch the truth abit. My favorite so far is directly pointed at Vista’s UAC (User Access Control). It’s features PC with a Secret Service looking guy guy behind him dressed in a black suit. Mac walks up and starts to talk but the SS dude intercepts and asks “Mac is trying to talk to you, do you want to allow or cancel.” The whole commercial goes on tlike this with UAC (the guy in black) intercepting and prompting to allow or cancel for the entire spot. It is funny but a little stretched.
To understand a little better let me explain about UAC in Vista. This is a new security feature that Microsoft implemented. In the XP days, most user accounts ran on the PC as the Local System Administrator. This means that those accounts could do virtually anything to the system at any time (Install Programs and Hardware, delete files, change settings). This is one of the primary reasons that Spyware and Viruses can get installed on a system without the person knowing. With Windows Vista even the computer administrator account runs as a standard user all the time, and if a program requests elevated access to do something the user is prompted to allow or cancel it. At first this can come up often but for some programs you can have Vista remeber the settings and allow the program to elevate privledges as it needs it. Furthermore as programs get written for Vista this will start to go away (except for stuff written by lazy coders) as they write for the security features in Vista. I have now been running an RTM of Vista Ultimate on my laptop since late December and I now rarely get UAC prompts. Apple makes this sound like it is a huge problem when it is fact not. In fact UAC and IE7 protected mode (IE Browser runs in a sandbox) protects the user from getting infected even if they get to a malicious site.
What they also don’t tell you is that Mac OS X does the same thing! If you download file updates for your Mac you get prompted to insert an ID and password to install them. Yes you can turn off UAC in Vista (I would not recommend it) but I have yet to find a way of turning this off on my Mac!
I do have to give some credit though. Mac did get it right on the commercial dealing with PCs upgrades. Yes Vista does have some hefty hardware requirements, yes this is for the new eyecandy Aero interface (Flip 3D is still my favorite) but these features can be turned off and you don’t have to run the interface. Windows Vista Home Basic also does not ship with Aero and is suitable for earlier PCs. In my opinion if your PC is relatively new, purchased in the last 8 to 12 months, you should be able to run Vista but double check by downloading the Vista Upgrade Advisor.
Also on another note the commercial featuring the installation of a Video Camera is also false. Many Windows PCs now do feature these options and the buyer can select to get them if they want. It is much easier for MAC to do this as the only people that can build a Mac system is Apple themselves. They are a monopoly. You can’t get a MAC clone. This leads to higher prices and fewer options and upgrades in the future.
That’s it for now.. I have more Rants and News coming right up!
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