Thank you and good bye! I'm no longer Xara's target audience.

[Xcellent]

In what way is MacOS superior to any other?

I wouldn't call it superior but in my experience it is more stable (i'm preferring and use Win personally). The instability is mostly drivers on any computer systems and connected hardware that is not fully supported due to badly written drivers. (Or drivers haven't been continued to develop or simply discontinued to sell new hardware with (again) badly written drivers (you most love creative).

Apples approach is: we write the drivers so we make sure it works. Again, in my experience, this is the case and makes apple stable IF you use the hardware that is officially supported. But come the day you need additional hardware or you want a specific graphic card or sound card, you might not get it to work at all.

[BONES]

Unfortunately, Apple's version of "works" is not necessarily the same as mine., epsecially when it comes to OpenGL compliant graphics drivers. They seem to optimise their graphics drivers for multi-monitor support, rather than outright performance, which makes them next to useless for 99% of the work I do. Worse still is that they generally use graphics cards, Radeon and GeForce, that are designed for running games using DirectX, rather than opting for a range of true workstation graphics cards [QuadroFX or FireGL]. Of the very few applications I use that run on MacOS at all, they all suffer from greatly reduced performance and much lower levels of stability/reliability, despite generally having far more development resources thrown at them than their Windoze or Linux siblings.
My experience with stability is somewhat different from yours. I've found MacOS to be as likely to crash as Windoze. The only problem is, as I've said previously, it's usually much harder to resolve the issue on a Mac than on a PC [FireWire, anyone?]

The critique is entirely subjective, no one is saying Xtreme doesn't suit some users very well. Obviously it has much of what you need, I am very glad for you.

Who is "we"? How can you presume to speak on behalf of anyone but yourself? I was simply pointing out that what one professional sees as a deal-breaker can be a completely useless feature to another. The OP intimated, without directly saying, that Xara did not meet the needs of industry professionals. I simply pointed out that in some cases it more assuredly does. Had he restricted his opinion to his own situation, that would be one thing, but to imply that his view somehow encompasses all graphics professionals, or even a majority of us, is nonsense. Maybe that wasn't his intention but it is certainly the way it reads.
Generally speaking, professionals use professional software and none of it is anywhere near the $250 mark. Each of the applications I use on a daily basis is more than 10 times that, yet none of it offers the breadth of ability of Xtreme. They are focused on a specific discipline.
What makes Xara great is that I don't need to have an expensive, focused pro application for every little thing that I need to do over the course of a year. As well as saving me lots of money, it also allows me to spend more time focused on my work, not having to learn several new versions of different applications, year after year. I suppose I see it as the perfect companion for any graphics professional, rather than the thing they hang their hat on. I don't think it is being fair to the application and the people behind it to expect anything more than that.
Moreover, it's a marketing position that can, and obviously does, work for them. There is simply no way they could take on Adobe and if they tried they would be squashed like a bug. I looked on in horror as Adobe mobilised to protect After Effects from Combustion, whilst Autodesk, a company of similar size, were powerless to stop them. Xara would be well advised to avoid that kind of attention.

Saying that it does not improve in the areas we would prefer, does not make our comments invalid, perhaps irrelevant, given the direction Xtreme is moving in, but not invalid.

No, but it does make you sound like whiny, little girls. Or maybe it's a Gen Y thing, who knows?

[handrawn]

Mark's 'we' is the royal one I think - that is how I read it - he might be taking his cue from the statement you made about skipping 11 pages, a strange thing for someone so common sense-ically methodical as your good self to do, if you do not mind me saying so

Actually Mark is one of the least 'whiny' people here, as you would know if you read everything - or maybe you were using the royal 'you', humm....

[MarkMyWords]

We, as in those of us who are "whining". Nothing wrong with "venting", as long as we all stay polite, it clears the air.

I really don't understand why you are being so defensive. This is not an attack on you, for most who are disappointed with this new iteration of Xtreme, it is not even an attack on Xara, but merely voicing their disappointment. Are we only allowed to praise Xtreme on this forum? Can we not tell Xara our point of view? Sure, it has become clear that the complaints are falling on deaf ears, but that's life. If you don't speak up you are guaranteed to be ignored.

If this thread irritates you, then why take part in it? There are plenty of other threads to read. You are actively prolonging the life of this thread, which was on it's last legs.

[fsteve]

You sir, are a troll, and I present the following evidence to support my claim:

EXHIBIT A

Who is "we"? How can you presume to speak on behalf of anyone but yourself?

The accused then goes on to degrade Apple and anyone who buys their products as if his opinion of MacOS is gospel:

My experience with stability is somewhat different from yours. I've found MacOS to be as likely to crash as Windoze.

How interesting. My experience with XP is that it can freeze at the drop of a hat and that it may blue screen any time you try to plug in new hardware. At one point, I had to reinstall XP once every six months because otherwise it got too bloated and slow. So I've found XP to be utter crap.

IIs it more stable? No, not one little bit. IN fact, in my experience it is far more difficult to resolve stability problems that do arise than any other OS.

In my experience, you have to do bloody guesswork with finding the right .inf file or registry post in XP to resolve a stability problem, which often have such strange names that they're impossible to guess. With Mac, all you do is go into the Preferences folder and delete the appropriately named file and you're done. So again, I've found it to be much simpler to resolve stability problems in OS X.

They thrive on the ignorance and blind loyalty of their user base to perpetuate this myth of superiority. Give me a budget and I will build you a PC that will be superior in every way to a similarly priced Mac.

And after you've built me that PC, can I call you at any hour of the day for the next year and send my PC to you to have all my problems fixed? Perhaps you then instead suggest I buy a Dell which has similar customer support, but then I'd get a computer loaded down with "free" bloatware instead of actual usable things like iPhoto, iMovie and Time Machine.

Oh, and I forgot, you have to build the entire PC into the screen itself.

...the kind of ignorance upon which most base their decision to buy a Mac

Right, because everyone and their grandmother wants to educate themselves about the risks of phising, trojans, botnets, viruses, worms and things which makes an unpatched XP's life expectancy online about 5 seconds, whereas on a Mac you don't even need anti virus software?

So please shut up about MacOS. This thread is not about the merits of Apple products, and you can't convince me that a Windows PC is better with bloody stupid self referencing anecdotes. I responded to your posts to prove how silly this is, and if you respond to mine you'll only have proven it further.

---

Unlike BONES, I've actually read all 19 pages of this thread, and everyone seems to have missed one important thing:

If you look at the OP post, at the project which made him switch from Xara, you will note that it seems to detail quite an intricate document manager for internal handling and evaluation of contracts/projects.

Now, what company does this at such a detail level and needs a database to handle all projects? My bet is a company with millions if not billions in turnover. Now, I doubt that such a company cares if a software costs $250 or $2500. That's peanuts for them. I do, however, think that such a company cares about a 24hr support number and proper support case handling, instead of having to find an obscure 3rd party internet forum and then wait two years or longer for a fix.

[Soquili]

Hello FSteve,

Is it only coincidence that you and Eobet have the same IP Address?
213.112.66.63


OrgName: RIPE Network Coordination Centre
OrgID: RIPE
Address: P.O. Box 10096
City: Amsterdam
StateProv:
PostalCode: 1001EB
Country: NL

ReferralServer: whois://whois.ripe.net:43

NetRange: 213.0.0.0 - 213.255.255.255
CIDR: 213.0.0.0/8
NetName: RIPE-213
NetHandle: NET-213-0-0-0-1
Parent:
NetType: Allocated to RIPE NCC
NameServer: NS-PRI.RIPE.NET
NameServer: NS3.NIC.FR
NameServer: SUNIC.SUNET.SE
NameServer: SNS-PB.ISC.ORG
NameServer: SEC1.APNIC.NET
NameServer: SEC3.APNIC.NET
NameServer: TINNIE.ARIN.NET
Comment: These addresses have been further assigned to users in
Comment: the RIPE NCC region. Contact information can be found in
Comment: the RIPE database at http://www.ripe.net/whois
RegDate:
Updated: 2009-03-25

[fsteve]

Err, yes? I live in Sweden, not Amsterdam. And I use Bredbandsbolaget, not Ripe or Sunet.

[handrawn]

... whereas on a Mac you don't even need anti virus software...

sadly, since the events of the past few months that's moot

it was only the lack of interest by hackers, not anything superior machine-wise, that made macs 'safer' - and now they are coming increasingly under fire

[Mike Bailey]

fsteve,

Err, yes? I live in Sweden, not Amsterdam. And I use Bredbandsbolaget, not Ripe or Sunet.

Since your such a new member and looking at your first post.
I just have to ask, did you join TalkGraphics just so you could jump into this flame fest?

[fsteve]

How about checking my IP now? I'm out having a lovely dinner.

So yes, I admit I'm a forum jumper, and I stole the nick from Fake Steve Jobs since it seemed appropriate, but does that make my post any less valid?