I’ve just got to archive this little gem for posterity. Scoble addresses a bug in the TabletPC software, and in explaining why he himself hasn’t encountered it he tells us that:
“I shut down my Tablet PC most evenings and start it up from a fresh boot. Why do I do that? Because I’ve been using computers for 20 years and have learned that’s the best way to work.” #
Too… many… jokes… Must… not… bash… Windows.
You know I’ve found in my years of using computers that just leaving the thing on makes getting work done quite a bit faster… oh wait.. Windows. Right. Probably best to run a command, shut down, restart, run a command…repeat…
Zealot! :)
Fact is all software has bugs, Macs too.
That’s the sad truth. Windows™ has conditioned people into shutting down and restarting their computers for no good reason.
Bjorn, ever so true. But while I appreciate Scoble’s honesty, it just says a lot that he feels it necessary to restart his system every day.
I generally don’t restart my Powerbook unless I’ve updated some system software (and might I add, that Windows has seen fit to start doing so on its own in the last few months…).
I don’t consider Windows all-evil, I’m fortunately too smart for that. I just think it says a lot :)
So true, I have an iBook that I leave on for days but my Windows system needs a reboot every day.
BTW love your Chandler (Friends) quote… A classic.
I can’t agree with you people. My Windows box runs fluently for ages without rebooting. And it is just simple Windows XP Pro SP2 system. I don’t use any special software, I don’t even have B I G amount of RAM, just 256Mbytes.
BTW.:
1) http://goozballs3.spymac.net/petiemac.html
2) http://www.hamncheez.com/media/flash/mac.swf < - hehe :)
a lot changes in 20 years.
unfortunately over the years much of PC hardware/windows has not, since the birth of the laptop.
iBook—haven’t had an issue keeping my long uptimes.
its nearly as if he’s trying to use his “20 years” as a “trust me” position, when it’s coming off as ignorance of systems that really do work properly when kept “always on”. :(
j.
I am normally running my Windows XP for several days (though my recent electricity bill has made me think it might be a good idea to shut it down for the night). The machines I have here in the office running Windows 2003 are now running on for 4 months. In the time I’ve been running them I have only had one crash.
Sometimes it takes hard work to get a Windows box running perfectly, other times it just takes a bit of luck. I have not used Linux enough to be able to speak in general on the stability of it, but I have used it enough to personally document that it indeed can crash. The same goes with Mac.
As Bjørn says every piece of software has bugs. If your Mac is running to your satisfaction, good for you. If my Windows XP is running to my satisfaction good for me. But “Windows is horrible unstable. Linux is stable. Mac is stable. Actually everything non-MS is stable” is a big fat myth.
Nice :) I was going to comment on that gem, but your post sums it up nicely. I keep my Powerbook hooked up for so long that when I do restart (normally because I’m travelling) I’ve forgotten passwords! ;)
I’m not knocking Windows for the sake of it though…running a beige box is just really hard work, as Anders says, and the way to make life easier is to shut it down every day and be really cautious about how you install and remove software…but that’s just not the way to live now is it? ;)
My Windows machine is very stable. I leave it running without restarting for weeks at a time. And, again, I’m not running some crazy high-end shit here. 512MB RAM and 2.2GHz. Nothing special. I do agree that Macs are more stable and PC’s, but they aren’t impervious. My parents Mac froze the day we got it while playing chess. Honestly.
Is he saying he leanrt to restart every day on Mac OS7? and that he still continues to this day on windows? Im not clear.
Anyway, funny quote from Steve Jobs from the apple commercial archive
Hrm… I know people on Windows like to propagate their system, but only if they play games or feel threatened by a better system they can’t pay so they hate it (how many people dislike Ferrari because they can’t pay for one? I know many do!).
I daren’t restart my Windows box, as it fails the first 6 or 7 attempts at loading Windows. It broke a while ago, so I definitely need a new apparatus.
its all about the hardware you use. I used to have a mac back in the days of OS8.6 (I forget if it was 8.6 or some of ther number) and restarts were quite common because of all the unexplained crashes (that os didnt handle memory too well). Anyway, now I have a home built PC and it can stay on for as long as I need it to. I usually restart when I install software that requires it. If you buy some no name brand pc that uses god knows what for hardware you will probably be disapointed with the preformance. If you buy from a good company or build it yourself using only quality parts, in the end you will get a very stable machine that will probably be cheaper than one of those g5 towers and that will outpreform one as well. I like macs, and I know that building a computer for yourself isnt for everybody but the benifits are clear.
oh yeah, and that guy is dumb, heh.
it’s actually healthy to leave on your Mac overnight. i can’t comment on windows, thankfully i don’t have to use it. generally i try to avoid using ms software. maybe it’s just me, but the only frustrating experiences with my mac are at times when i have to open an office app. for example, have you tried to format a powerpoint document, so that it looks good? it’s nearly impossible. the software just knows better what the user wants. i realize that it’s not a professional application, but i thought after a decade of development i can expect to have the option for kerning and precise positioning of objects for example. sorry for the rant. i had to let it out. :)
Yes, Powerpoint’s positioning of items sUxOrs big time. Ive heard that turning your computer on is when the most stress goes through the parts (rush of electrickery and all that) so its best to leave it on if possible. I cant comment on the accuracy of this myself, but I leave my home and work Macs on and just reboot for OS updates, crashes etc.
It’s got nothing with health to do when you change things a bit. Now you to can safely reboot your Mac just like a M$ pc, but without loosing vital functionality:
http://uis.georgetown.edu/software/documentation/macosx2/macosx2.cron.html
(works for 10.3 too)
17:20:23 up 106 days, 8:46, 2 users, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
That’s my file server. It would have had another couple of months of uptime, but my sister demanded that I turn it off when she visited due to the noise it makes. :-)
I shut down my Windows desktop machine when I go to bed, but that’s just for the noise it makes. (I’m not bothered by the file server, though.)
Just about the only frustrating experience I have with PC is when I have to open some shoddy Apple software that breaks every single Windows UI guideline present :)
Not saying iTunes & Quicktime aren’t nice applications on Mac, but cross-over software breaks system guidelines in both camps. It’s not just Office on Mac.
My PC has problems all the time, I came in from work 25 minutes ago and windows has restarted itself twice already.
I check the Event Viewer and what do I find; errors about the fact windows can’t reestablish the entwork IP address, bricks itself and dies… oh how I look forward to my February pay check and my Mac Mini =)
The PC I am using right now at work is rarely ever shutdown. In fact , few of the stations we have here are, and they seem to run just fine. At home, I shut mine down when I am not using it because it makes little sense to have it up all the time when it is only used for a few hours of the day.
Sorry guys, while I should have predicted the instant-flamewar, I was pointing my finger more at Scoble (whom I’ve had to unsubscribe from today, so that I don’t do something stupid), than at Windows…
Our name server is a Mac IIcx running 7.5.1 with an uptime of around 3 years. I think the last time it went down was for a power outage. My daily macs only go down for updates, my powerbook doesn’t have more than a couple of days, while my work iMac has a 27 day uptime at present.
We had a G4/450 running as a file server which had an average uptime of about 6 months (IE we used it as a server for about a year and rebooted twice) none of which were due to crashes. That was OS9.
it took me purchasing my iBook.
that being said, i run a few Windows PCs at home as well, and one in particular will stay up indefinitely. same for my work PC, although at times it will inexplicably begin to thrash (most likely due to the corporate installing of software).
i still don’t understand the whole scoble comment however…why is it the “best way to work”? apparently he must mean “given the current instability of computer systems”, because the obvious best way to work would be to be able to sit down at your computer every morning, with a big fat “todo” note, and all of your windows up where you wanted them.
j.
I leave my work pc on all the time unless software requires rebooting. Right now I’m at 26.5 days for Windows XP Pro SP2. Same with the home computer too. But I tend to shut it down at night (if it’s idle) to save on power bills.
I, uh, don’t turn my computers off. =/
whats the off button? :P
Bryan P, it’s that little round thing that sits on the back of Apple’s computers…
And on the front of PCs (usually).
Exactly my point :)
Well, to comment on Rask, and i completly agree with him, any non-trivial software has bugs, even though not all of them are show stoppers.
My main greif with windows is that MS has choosen to put their window manager into kernel space. In my not very well informed opinion, thats a one of the main reasons to that windows is perceived to be more unstable. I think it goes about like this: Program crashes->tears down window manager->locks up kernel->reboot
Even though explore.exe has become alot more stable in the latest windows versions, there are stille problems with seperating user and kernel space.
With linux, it is somewhat better, since X just sits on top of linux, should it crash, then its just a matter of restarting X.
Another problem, this can only be put on users, is that almost everyone i know(including yours truly) works as administrator in windows, and this is just asking for probies. The very same people (me included), shudder when people works as root as their normal user. why this is so, im unable to say.
to comment on tfa, rebooting windows is like curing symptons and not knowing the real problem.
Cheers
Jens
Scoble also said the Mac Mini looked like a good place to run Windows, so…
Alsted, my point exactly…