:asleep: ....... No, not you Mark! ;)

OK I'll byte ;) Please refer back to my post as I've added links for the first three most compelling reasons for you, your ex girl friend, or any WindowsXP/Vista user to get a Mac and run Leopard.

BTW I think it's important for anybody who critiques a product to have actually used it, otherwise there is an issue with credibility. I used Vista for a week and reverted that particular box to Mandriva 2007 Linux. And like many reading this, I've been using Windows XP since it came out. And I still prefer Windows 2000 Professional by a long margin. Windows 2000 Professional was the high point. It's been slip sliding away since then.

Well I haven't found (in my opinion) any reason not to like it however I would never ever try and convince any one to anything unless they tried it themselves and made their own opinion. For me, Vista works great.. I have also had many months of testing and tweeking it for work so I may have more hands on and experience than most. I have also noticed that with most of our users that are novice types it does frustrate them, but I have seen this is mostly caused by lack of experience, pre-concieved notions from people who hate it and also from people who don't like change.

like I said vista works great for me, it may not for you, and I would never try and twist anyones arms to push them toward using it.. use what make you feel comfotable :)

Sometimes I feel I'm the only Mac OS X user on the planet who doesn't feel the (desperate) need to preach the gospel of switching to anyone not yet on a Mac. :rolleyes: No wait, my brother doesn't do that either. (We're both on Tiger, Blommers - and I don't see an upgrade happening anytime soon for either of us.)

Yeah but I live about 20 miles from the Microsoft main campus. The stench of the dark side permeates this place. It can change a man.

Truth be told my brother is not a Mac evangelist either, nor is my sister, though they both are Mac users. So we know the effect is not hereditary :D

JB - Windows 3D developers don't develop for XP or Vista or Win98, etc - they develop for DirectX. It's entirely up to Microsoft to keep DirectX working properly on new operating systems. So far, even my old DirectX 6 program works fine on Vista. MA3 is DirectX 8/9.

You're the 3D developer of record here - thanks for the clarification. It's good to know that your work on MA3 is not going to be negatively impacted by Vista! :D

One has to wonder why there is so much discussion about Vista breaking programs that worked fine under XP. Is it the amplifier effect of the Internet? I do know from my own testing that Video LAN Client (VLC) had some major issues with Vista. Yet iTunes worked fine.

Oh, stop it, Blommers. There's only so much propaganda you can fit into every post before it become's nauseating! iTunes for Windows isn't an especially well-written program just like most of Apples efforts on the Windows platform.

And while you're at it - Could you clarify for us the wisdom on Apple's part in not discovering the bug which corrupted lots of harddrives when upgarding to Leopard because there was some issue with Boot Camp?
Still a perfect OS?

/Tiny Again and Again and Again

I just see nothing new in Vista that XP doesn't have -- feature wise. It's all heavy duty architectures that look pretty or might do something cool one day.

To me, the choice if I want a next generation OS is 2000/XP or Mac OS X.

I'll have to take your word for it, TinyTurtle, that Apple has poorly-written Windows applications, as I don't know anybody on the iTunes developer team.

Nobody on this forum likes to read stories about data loss. Still Boot Camp for Tiger was a Beta that expired before Leopard came out. Beta code is imperfect code indeed! Repartitioning hard drives is not for n00bs, beta testing system level software is not for n00bs, and those who use system level beta software and don't have backups - are indeed n00bs. :TD:

Now I am struggling with how to return this tread to its intended topic, namely MA3. A little help TinyTurtle?

Before I ask you guys to take it outside, I'll just say a few words.
Sure, the Mac is a fine machine with many innovative features, most of which they stole from the Amiga. And, like the Amiga, it's a niche market that will never take over the world. As an Amiga developer, I've been down that road, and won't be doing it again. I knew Jay Miner and all the Amiga team, and thought that the world could not possibly ignore this wave of the furure. I invested all my money in Commodore stock and created the interfaces and startup graphics and music for their CDTV and CD32 machines. Well, they were wiped out by the tidal wave of Microsoft, and I went down with the ship. So, I learned to swim in their ocean and never looked back. Yes, I have a Mac product on the market, but it only accounts for a tiny fraction of the Aquarium sales.

As long as Jim O'Connor is willing to put in Herculean efforts to do Mac conversions, I'll continue to have a Mac version on the market. Here's something you may not know: We had to create a special "Mac-look" box for the Apple stores. The normal product has both the Mac and PC versions on the CD, but the one for the Mac box had only the Mac version. Yet, it was the same price as regular version. Mac people do not even want those PC bytes on their disk. Now THAT's fanatacism.

Jim thanks so much for sharing some of your history with the Amiga. I'm kind of glad that Tiny Turtle and I got into it a little bit now :D

As you know, I'm a fan of the SereneScreen Marine Aquarium - Mac Version - and I would not be here on these forums if it were not for the Mac version. It is the first screen saver I ever actually paid for and it is worth it.

Let me say that I have enjoyed every exchange with the people on this forum. Everybody here is first class! Sure there have been times when points of view did not align, but I find that I learn more that way. Frankly I enjoy a bit of banter once in a while. I just hope that nobody thinks that TinyTurtle and I actually hate each other. Not a chance! I enjoy our back and forth pokes but it's never with malice.

So let me hoist the traditional glass of Andorian Ale to you Jim Sachs, and to the excellent Jim O'Connor as well!

K'plagh!

PS, the tale about the Apple packaging for MA rings true to Steve Jobs form. But I think that if there is a single Mac/PC CDROM that is value add for the customer. For example you may be familiar with X-Plane. The main developer is Austin Meyer, and he develops on the Mac and leverages OpenGL for the 3D graphics. However, X-Plane comes in Mac, PC, and Linux on the same DVD. Damn but that is too cool!

PPS, Have you ever considered licensing the Unreal engine for your aquariums?

John, - Why always the long unnecessary 'quotes'? :erm:
..... It makes a long boring exchange, even longer and more boring! :lol: ..... :asleep:

P.S. iTunes was broken on Vista for some time (up to 7.2 I think), fixed now.

http://www.news.com/2100-1027_3-6164830.html

John,
Nevermind, that's clearly Microsoft's fault as well... :rolleyes:

Good point, thanks for the coaching, although in this case the long quote was from Jim - and a good one. :TU:

..... but not a million miles away! ;);)

Not quite fixed yet, x64 Vista has issues with Itunes now in 7.4 and 7.5. Itunes now lacks the 64 bit cd burn drivers it had in 7.3.2 and still has several install errors occuring. Luckily there is a quick, non-supported solution.

Also, I have a x64 Vista system running with dual monitors should you need beta systems on this unique breed.

Exellent movement on the 3.0. I remember the days of .99 some time ago!

ITunes is extremely slow on all our machines. It takes forever to even recognize an iPod when I plug it in. We've never been able to figure out the Books/Spoken word system at all. Chapters show up in one order in iTunes, and a different order on the iPod. Playlists disappear. The whole system needs an overhaul.

When someone reports a problem it's helpful to try to reproduce it. To see what is going on, I booted up my little Microtel box with its 1GB RAM, 10GB HD, Radeon 9200 PCI, and 800 Mhz VIA CPU. It recognized my iPhone within 8 seconds, and I expect it would be faster except that things get in the way:

- Windows XP insists on telling me, every time, it would be faster to use a USB 2.0 port even though it knows that there are none to be had.

- Windows thinks I just connected a camera called iPhone and wants to know what to do with it. Every time.

- iTunes 7.5 wants me to flash the iPhone to firmware 1.1.2 which I cannot do without bricking it, given the hacked firmware on it and all. I can check a box to disable that test.

Windows detects the USB device within a second (from the beebop sound). So I'm sorry but I cannot verify the poor response time you're seeing, Jim, so I can shed no light. The other issues you're having are doubtless iTunes-on-Windows issues, as I can assure you that the Mac version of iTunes 7.5 is a rock.

BTW I found a menu on the Windows vesrion of iTunes not found on Macintosh, you may wish to try it out:

iTunes --> Help --> Run Diagnostics