Tag Archives: Opinions

Top 10 reasons why you should get a Mac

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Well, I’ve never thought I’d write this post. In 2007, I’ve written a post about top 10 reasons why you shouldn’t get a Mac. It was well reflected the real situation back then though. How things have changed in 4 years! Today Apple has become technology giant and even outgrow Microsoft in stock values.
So here I am, writing this post, why you should consider getting a Mac over a PC.

1. Mac OS and most softwares require no tedious activation procedures

Apple really target the mass market. What do I mean by that? Well, in general, majority of people all over the globe are lazy and stupid. While Microsoft is busy how to prevent their softwares from being pirated, Apple just focuses on the quality and target the general populace. The result? It is very simple to use. When I started using OSX, I was surprised to find out that no activation is required. When I install iWorks suite, no serial or activation process, it just installs and done. Most softwares install and uninstall process on Mac OSX is as simple as drag and drop.

2. Multi-Touch and gestures

multitouch Apple innovated multi-touch and gestures. Magic trackpad and Magic mouse are really fun to use. In Lion, swiping four fingers up to bring Mission Control and three fingers swipe left and right to switch full screen apps are really intuitive.

3. Services

Apple hardware are warranted by Apple. Period. This is their brand to protect, so they took care of it whenever you’ve got issue with either hardware or software. For Windows user, the PC vendor may push the blame to Microsoft or any other software provider and vice versa. Furthermore, you can extend AppleCare by up to 3 years and it covers almost anything that goes wrong.

4. It doesn’t crash

This is not really true, but yeah majority of the time it doesn’t crash. Let me put it this way, if Windows crash once a week, Mac will crash like twice a year.

5. iLife and Time Machine

iLife There’s iCal, Apple Mail, Address Book, iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, iTunes, and iDVD. For Windows part, you’ve to download Windows Live essential and still no equivalent GarageBand and Windows Live essentials isn’t as well integrated as iLife. Any Windows backup software I’ve tried are not as user-friendly and dummy proof as Apple Time Machine. This is not entirely Microsoft fault though. Due to a lot of anti-trust lawsuits, Microsoft simply cannot bundle these apps like Apple do. I guess that’s a small price to pay for when you are a market leader.

6. Macs don’t need an anti-virus software

I agreed that there is Anti-Virus for OSX as well. But unless you are clicking everything on the internet and entering your password whenever there’s a prompt, you simply don’t need anti-virus. OSX underlying OS, Unix, is too strong in security for any bad boy.

7. Long-lasting Battery life

battery life Battery life on Macbook, Macbook Pro and Macbook Air are all fantastic. This is as a result of integrating hardware and software so well. I sincerely say that Windows notebook don’t even come close when you compare battery life with the same size and weight as Macbooks family.

8. Price

You may probably say What!? Macs are more expensive. Yes it is true if you compare the initial cost. Then you are comparing Apple with Orange (no pun intended). The total cost of ownership of a Mac is a lot less than a PC. Apple hardwares hold their value over the years. Let’s say you spend $999 for Macbook Air today. A year later, that Macbook Air can fetch at least $400. You can count yourself lucky if your one year old PC notebooks get half of that resale value.

9. Macs run Windows, if you need to. PCs are not able to run Mac OS.

This is a bit unfair to include as advantage as this reason is mainly due to Apple not allowing their OS to run on third-party hardware to protect quality of service. But at least if you need to run OSX and Windows legally for whatever reason, you’ve got no choice but to use Mac.

10. Design

The last but not least is design. Apple products have the feel-good quality which always gives you the comfort that you are using a great product. From the iMac to the new Macbook, Apple’s design has remained flawless compared to the competition. Unibody Macbooks are really durable and amazingly beautiful! Apple had said they’ve left their competitors years behind when they introduced unibody Macbooks and it really turns out to be the case.

In conclusion, I’d encourage you to invest in Apple hardware nowadays. But remember, we can’t take technology for granted though. Steve Jobs, the mastermind of Apple’s success, has already left his CEO role at Apple and Windows 8 demos are really look stunning. So Mac vs PC war will not end in the foreseeable future.

Cnet did it again

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I don’t trust Cnet anyway. I have always doubted about their product reviews and ratings. I’m sure all of these reviews are clearly biased based on how well someone paid them.

You know what? Cnet just named Vista as top ten terrible technology of the year. Come on, I confessed that Vista has been out for almost a year and has got many resistance than XP introduction was. But this is because XP has been out for 5 years and as strong as a rock. When the time XP was introduced, everybody was sick with Windows 9x Blue Screen of Death.

I’m sure Cnet must be paid by Apple marketing guys behind the door. Just look at their pathetic sentence such as:

Windows Vista conforms to all of the above. Its incompatibility with hardware, its obsessive requirement of human interaction to clear security dialogue box warnings and its abusive use of hated DRM, not to mention its general pointlessness as an upgrade

Isn’t this funny?

Apple attack Vista once more

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I wonder whether Apple marketing guys has got anything to do other than to attack Windows Vista. I mean Apple should tell their potential customers about how good their MAC is and why they should get it. Not simply making a stupid ads like below.

The only thing good about this ads is the idea of using two leaderboards to make one video ads. That’s it. Are you thinking to buy a MAC in the near future? Read my top 10 reasons why you shouldn’t waste your money on MAC.

Do not rely too much on TinyURL

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I’ve noticed that many webmasters become very obsessed with Tinyurl.com services. Of course, I can’t deny that tinyurl indeed provide very useful service for all of us. But there are many alternatives available too.

Why shouldn’t you rely on TinyURL?

Do you know that if you solely rely only on TinyURL.com for URL shortening services, if it faces technical difficulties, then all your links could become broken. If you google for tinyurl.com reported outrage, you can find it happened already.

Shouldn’t you use URL shortening services at all?

Of course not. URL shortening services help us a lot. Making our life a lot easier by not having to post longer url. Also keep our affiliate links save from danger hand. I’m not saying you shouldn’t use URL shortening services, but I’m suggesting that if you use URL shortening services, don’t use tinyurl.com for all your links. Try to make balanace with many alternatives out there.

Where are the alternatives?

Here are my favourites. You can google for many more.

I have no reason to be against Tinyurl.com. I am just giving you all to avoid disaster. Better safe than sorry!!

5 things people love about Windows

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Most of my visitors (90-95%) are Windows users. So I discussed with some of them about why they use Windows and what they love about it. Here is most common points.


Application Support
Don’t get me wrong, the competitors have some cool software suites, but if there is a program out there, then there is a good chance it was made for XP, or has a version available for Windows.


Gaming
Hands down, XP is a gaming machine. Gaming companies always make an XP version, and very few port their game over to the competitor’s operating system. Virtually, there are no games available only to competitor’s operating system, not to Windows. It’s always the other way around.


Customizations
Sure prepackaged computers may be great for novice users . But what if you want to build your own? Windows makes it extremely easy. You can just go into any computer shops, buy any hardware components you want without having to worry about whether there’s a driver available or not.


Familarity
Like it or not, most companies/corporations use Windows. So if you are a PC users, you must be able to use Windows. That made most of us familiar with Windows. Microsoft marketing teams are really genius too. Instead of bashing competitors’ OS, they offered great discount to high schools and University. After all those kids have graduated, what would they get used to? Huh, see?


Free help from friends or family
When your computer faces some problem or you want to tweak a bit, it is easier to find Windows expert among friends or family. It would be very difficult to find people who are expert in other OSes.

If I have to write it down all, the list would go on and on. So let me stop here.

Top 10 reasons why you shouldn’t get a Mac

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Apple is giving reasons what they think is imperative for making the change from a PC to a Mac can be found on their website and their famous “I’m a PC, I’m a Mac” ads. After I’ve seen most of the Apple ads and have read their long lists of conviction, I don’t see any apparent reasons why Windows users should switch to Mac. Let’s start the list!

1. It just works.

Huh? What do you mean it just works? Many Mac ads will tell you that all people that own Mac are really satisfied with their computer and Mac never crash. This all turns out to be a pack of lies. It does crash a lot.

Normally, Windows crash because of third party faulty hardware, for Mac, it’s simply because their OS is suck. Just wonder why Apple Sweden website is running Solaris, not Mac OSX. Maybe they know their OS is not reliable.

For those who doubt whether Mac really crashes or not, watch this youtube video. It’s a proof that Mac crashes a lot.

2. You can even run Windows.

Apple just invented BootCamp and then came out and say “Come all Windows users, buy our expensive hardware; you can still use your Vista”. If you can indeed run Vista like on your normal PC, I wouldn’t complain. But you know what, all the function keys will drive you crazy.

**F5 changes the volume instead of refreshing.
**F4 lowers the volume instead of dropping a combo box.
And if all that weren’t bad enough, THERE’S NO RIGHT CLICK BUTTON!!! So besides being pretty, there is no point using the hardware for Windows.


3. Macs run Microsoft Office.

Come on! This is the funniest thing of all. I am really wondering about this. I mean Microsoft Office runs on Microsoft Windows. It just ported to Mac doesn’t mean we should switch to Mac. I just ask myself why should I switch when it’s the exactly same on the Mac?

4. Instant video chats.

Yeah! Yeah! Go and tell your grandmas. All PCs users are having great video chat, conference with Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! and so on since a long time ago.

5. Design that turns heads.

I won’t deny Mac looks stylish, neat and tidy. The problem is that their focus on design hinders them from creating practical Machines. If you have ever used the small round iMac mouse, you may have probably too suffered from aches in arm and hand.

6. No hunting for drivers.

Apple stated that USB and firewire devices will be working at Mac without having to install drivers. Well, that happens to PC since introducing Windows XP five years ago.

7. You can take it with you.

Apple website stated that most popular applications for Mac and PC use the same file formats, making it simple to exchange documents with friends and coworkers or move existing files from a PC to a Mac.

That is not true. We don’t have to be genius to know that switching to the Mac means we will be sacrificing the diversity of software available for the PC. Sure, you get the essential word-processor and web-browser. But you will get Gtalk with only chatting, who would want Gtalk if you can’t make voice chat?

8. 114,000 viruses? Not on a Mac.

Apple says their OS is based on UNIX, so it is more secure. But, in reality, the reason is that they can’t make OS from scratch like Windows, so they adopted FreeBSD and put some make-up on it.

Of course, there are many viruses for Windows, but Apple forgot to state that there are many Antivirus choices for Windows users as well. Most PCs users who’ve got antivirus never really suffer from virus problem too. Mac is not virus free (Bad boys can release viruses) and Antivirus choice is very limited if there’s any.

9. More fun with photos.

Apple is saying their so-called great invention program named iPhotos that will revolutionize the way we look at digital photos.

Maybe Mac users are new to digital photos on the computer but Windows users reached that stage of evolution ages ago.


10. Hollywood-style movies.

It seems that Apple thinks that they’ve revolutionized computing by developing mediocre software for viewing digital photos, editing video, burning CDs and DVDs and listening to music. Well they haven’t!

So don’t be fooled by Apple ads. You have nothing to gain by switching to a Mac. Apple has proved it on their website already. Who would want a mouse with just one button anyway???

Why Yahoo! search is far far behind Google

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I’m always wondered why Yahoo! can’t defeat Google yet? I know that Yahoo! acquire many many companies and tried to be in front of Google in the search war.

But except simple search terms, Yahoo! search results are far far behind Google. Yahoo! results usually look spammy and irrelevant. Anyone with one week experience of both search engines can tell you that Google is a clear winner.

Why? why?
Well, the answer actually lies within Yahoo! itself. After you’ve built a new website, if you want your site to get indexed by Google, everyone can submit for free. Even though Google have adwords program with sponsored search results, Google clearly states that no one can buy search results.

For Yahoo!, even though there are free search submission available, they also accept paid submission. For Yahoo! free submission, it took ages for your site to come up.
There are two types of paid submission for search results.

For Yahoo! Search submit basic

When you initiate your Search Submit Basic subscription, a nonrefundable annual fee of $49 per URL is charged. This annual fee also includes account setup and a basic quality review of your pages. You can submit a maximum of 5 URLs per domain into the program.*

For Yahoo! Search Submit Pro

Pricing is based on cost per click – customers are charged each time a user clicks on one of the customer’s search listings. The specific cost is based on the type and category of content provided for inclusion in the algorithmic search results.

See? Despite having Sponsored search results program like Google, Yahoo! also have paid submission to include in their search results. So Yahoo! search results are clearly biased.

My advice is that you shouldn’t rely on Yahoo! as long as they have their biased programs, their search results will be their sponsored less relevant webpage presented to you to increase Yahoo! revenue rather than the best relevant results to your keywords.

Domain names are not that important after all?

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If you are my regular readers, you might know that I am a big fan of domain names. I have posted about important of having key domain names. business.com sold for $7.5 million. If domain name is not that important, who would have paid $7.5 million in the first place, isn’t it?

But after I’ve checked it out all the high paid domains, they are not really the home of any corporations or businesses at home. For example, business.com. If you checked that website, you may find it surprise that it just contains lists of sponsored links. Not sure they have made enough money to cover the cost of domain or not.

Hey from digg, I have found out Top 30 Most Wasted domain. Yes, they really are wasted. First I thought most people in the world won’t hesitate to kill someone to get 3 letters domain names. But after I have seen that lists, I feel that domain names are not that important after all.

Some of the domains in the list that made me surprise are

  • Hot.com
    A single page with nothing on it except a lame colored logo. The sky is the limit for a domain like this.

  • Toy.com
    PageRank: 0
    Alexa: Over 3 million
    An amazing 3 letter domain! Yet just another parked page.

  • Pay.com
    Parked

  • Men.com
    PageRank:3
    Alexa: Over 250,000
    Acquired for 1.3 million dollar and seems fully developed. However, a domain like this carries so much power that it is ridiculous it is not more popular.

  • My.com
    A 2 letter domain! Seems like an unsuccessful hosting company. This is the only 2 letter domain in this list, and man this is wasted.

It is quite obvious that most of those domain owners are waiting for their dream day, when a big company would throw a big cash at them to take over those names. I believe that day would hardly come as most of the internet users go to Google for whatever the thing they want. Not like 1990s, when no search engines are available, users have to type in the domain names to get what they want. I mean if you’re looking for toys, you’d better type toys in the Google than randomly going to toy.com, toy.net or whatsoever.

So when you are starting new businesses or blogs, don’t pay high price for domain names, you’d better save your efforts for the better contents and businesses.

That freak me out!

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After I have read Cow’s freak email, that’s freak me out too. Do you really know that Abraham Lincoln, American president in 1846 and John F. Kennedy, another American president in 1946 have got a lot in common. Okay, here’s the email:

Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.
John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.

Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.
John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.

Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.
Both wives lost their children while living in the White House.

Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.
Both Presidents were shot in the head.

Now it gets really weird.

Lincoln ’s secretary was named Kennedy.
Kennedy’s Secretary was named Lincoln.

Both were assassinated by Southerners.
Both were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson.

Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.
Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.

John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born in 1839.
Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939.

Both assassins were known by their three names.
Both names are composed of fifteen letters.

Now hang on to your seat.

Lincoln was shot at the theater named ‘Ford.’
Kennedy was shot in a car called ‘ Lincoln’ made by ‘Ford.’

Lincoln was shot in a theater and his assassin ran and hid in a warehouse.
Kennedy was shot from a warehouse and his assassin ran and hid in a theater.

Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials.

And here’s the kicker…

A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe, Maryland
A week before Kennedy was shot, he was in Marilyn Monroe.

That’s really WOW!!! Isn’t it? Some people claim they have already learned about this in high school and some said this is very old news. But for me this is really WOW again and again.

Someone worked very hard to say this all coincidence are not really surprising.

Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.
John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.

It’s hardly surprising that two men who (as noted above) both achieved their first political successes at the national level a hundred years apart would also ascend to the Presidency a hundred years apart. This “coincidence” is even less surprising when we consider that presidential elections are held only once every four years. Lincoln couldn’t possibly have been elected President in 1857 or 1858 or 1859 or 1861 or 1862 or 1863, because no presidential elections were held in those years. Likewise, Kennedy couldn’t possibly have been elected President in the non-election years of 1957, 1958, 1959, 1961, 1962, or 1963. So, even though both men were politically active at the national level during eight-year spans when they might have been elected President, circumstances dictated that the only years during those spans when they both could have been elected were exactly one hundred years apart.

You can read the long list of convictions of all the facts are not really surprising at snopes. But I don’t agree with those convictions. For me, all these facts are really surprising, amazing coincidences.

Digg-clone netscape is gone

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Now if you go to Netscape.com, you’ll get suprised that there are no longer what-so-called digg killer is there. Now, aol realized that their social networking site is gradually killing them. So they get rid of that into another domain called Propeller.com

Now the old netscape.com is back. Even though it is quite a shame to see big company like aol have to take a step backward, I congrats them for making a right decision. Yeah, that’s right, in the Web 2.0 world, you can’t kill digg, it’s as simple as that.