3 ms·

> that your normal user is never going to see You underestimate the amount of ducking around a normal user has to do to keep windows happy over the years.

by jiofih 5y ago

cronix 5y ago
I have to do the same with my mom and her mac every week or two. The latest was all of the flash deprecation warnings and she uses flash routinely for puzzle games although she's never heard of this "flash" thing. I spend about as much time getting her mac fixed as I used to her windows computer and she's been using computers since the 80s. Remember, we're talking about "normal users," not us on HN. Most normal users don't know 90% of their computer. They know how to turn it on and do what they did yesterday, and if that doesn't work any longer they are mostly lost. Kind of like cars. Most know how to drive them and gas them up, but if there is ever any other sort of issue that isn't obvious like a flat tire they are lost. That's most "normal" users. There's a reason why "did you simply try turning it off and on again" is a meme, because that's most people.
- setr 5y ago
  > There's a reason why "did you simply try turning it off and on again" is a meme, because that's most people. Well, that and the fact that it actually does the trick 90% of the time, which is fairly stupid to begin. Troubleshooting Windows is largely an exercise in futility to begin with; turning it off and on again is usually the only thing that even IT people can reasonably do (that, and google the error to find out about turning on/off this specific thing)
  - Zababa 5y ago
    > Well, that and the fact that it actually does the trick 90% of the time, which is fairly stupid to begin. I don't think it is, it's like aging on an accelerated scale. Turning on and off is like death and rebirth, you don't have all the stuff you acumulate with age. No injuries, no tumors, it's a clean start.
- jiofih 5y ago
  If you want to start that competition, ok. It’s not nearly the same. For one, the Mac will actually turn off when you want to turn it off. System updates are far in between and usually just work. On windows you get driver updates every week (which still don’t automatically install for the most part), and you might have audio / graphics issues start popping up out of the blue. Or your favorite software stops working. Or it just refuses to wake up from sleep. Or one of the 17 things running in the tray (the mouse driver maybe, or fan manager, or the manufacturers “optimization” software) starts eating your CPU. Your fans start going wild every 30 seconds for no particular reason. The start menu stops responding. Some app locks the whole system up and you can’t even open the task manager because it steals focus. One day your audio volume is off and you can’t figure out why. Windows decides that the default output is something else and ignores your attempts at reverting that. Your mouse locks up randomly. The Windows key decides it doesn’t work anymore. Alt-tab stops working. Everything slows down to a crawl one day while watching YouTube, and again you can’t open the task manager… The solution (if there is one) usually involves a fair bit of googling, uninstalling/reinstalling/updating things, maybe messing with the registry or settings. You may think I’m exaggerating, but this is actually the list of issues I’ve had myself in a span of two years. I use the PC for browsing and gaming, nothing else. It has been very frustrating, and I’ve been working with computers for 20 years. I used to think Linux was a pain but am rethinking that. Flash has been deprecated on the Mac for ages, and Adobe stopped supporting it completely last year.

> that your normal user is never going to see You underestimate the amount of ducking around a normal user has to do to keep windows happy over the years.

by jiofih 5y ago

> that your normal user is never going to see You underestimate the amount of ducking around a normal user has to do to keep windows happy over the years.

cronix 5y ago

I have to do the same with my mom and her mac every week or two. The latest was all of the flash deprecation warnings and she uses flash routinely for puzzle games although she's never heard of this "flash" thing. I spend about as much time getting her mac fixed as I used to her windows computer and she's been using computers since the 80s. Remember, we're talking about "normal users," not us on HN. Most normal users don't know 90% of their computer. They know how to turn it on and do what they did yesterday, and if that doesn't work any longer they are mostly lost. Kind of like cars. Most know how to drive them and gas them up, but if there is ever any other sort of issue that isn't obvious like a flat tire they are lost. That's most "normal" users. There's a reason why "did you simply try turning it off and on again" is a meme, because that's most people.

setr 5y ago
> There's a reason why "did you simply try turning it off and on again" is a meme, because that's most people. Well, that and the fact that it actually does the trick 90% of the time, which is fairly stupid to begin. Troubleshooting Windows is largely an exercise in futility to begin with; turning it off and on again is usually the only thing that even IT people can reasonably do (that, and google the error to find out about turning on/off this specific thing)
- Zababa 5y ago
  > Well, that and the fact that it actually does the trick 90% of the time, which is fairly stupid to begin. I don't think it is, it's like aging on an accelerated scale. Turning on and off is like death and rebirth, you don't have all the stuff you acumulate with age. No injuries, no tumors, it's a clean start.
jiofih 5y ago
If you want to start that competition, ok. It’s not nearly the same. For one, the Mac will actually turn off when you want to turn it off. System updates are far in between and usually just work. On windows you get driver updates every week (which still don’t automatically install for the most part), and you might have audio / graphics issues start popping up out of the blue. Or your favorite software stops working. Or it just refuses to wake up from sleep. Or one of the 17 things running in the tray (the mouse driver maybe, or fan manager, or the manufacturers “optimization” software) starts eating your CPU. Your fans start going wild every 30 seconds for no particular reason. The start menu stops responding. Some app locks the whole system up and you can’t even open the task manager because it steals focus. One day your audio volume is off and you can’t figure out why. Windows decides that the default output is something else and ignores your attempts at reverting that. Your mouse locks up randomly. The Windows key decides it doesn’t work anymore. Alt-tab stops working. Everything slows down to a crawl one day while watching YouTube, and again you can’t open the task manager… The solution (if there is one) usually involves a fair bit of googling, uninstalling/reinstalling/updating things, maybe messing with the registry or settings. You may think I’m exaggerating, but this is actually the list of issues I’ve had myself in a span of two years. I use the PC for browsing and gaming, nothing else. It has been very frustrating, and I’ve been working with computers for 20 years. I used to think Linux was a pain but am rethinking that. Flash has been deprecated on the Mac for ages, and Adobe stopped supporting it completely last year.