Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

airin wrote:

I've been a PC user for a very long time though I did sign on for the computer journey with an Apple back in the day when Apple was the computer of choice in the BC school system (too bad they dropped the ball later on).

Now PC's are all over in my work world and also in my home.  But that idea of the Apple laptop has been brewing in the back of mind for a while now.  I'm thinking of finding a Mac laptop on craigslist to mess with so I can get a feel for the system.

Any reason not to jump onto the Mac ship at this point?  Any words of warning?  Any words of wisdom?

Airin,

I've used both and have a few thoughts. I'd say it depends on what you like to use the computer for.

A Mac is great for the ease and intuitive feel of the front end. If you're ok with the relatively limited software box of choices and difficulty getting into more advanced applications, you can't go wrong. 

PC's have a clunkier front end and are more susceptible to viruses. However, there are many more software choices and they have much more adaptability when it comes to doing more advanced things like working with servers to set up forums, hosting auctions etc. You can really get into the guts of a PC when it's required.

I would rather use a Mac because of the simplicity, but I need to use a PC to be able to do the things that I like to do. I also like the seemingly unlimited palette that a PC offers. If you don't want to do those things or have no need to, a Mac is wonderful!

Good luck!

Mujitsu wrote:

...difficulty getting into more advanced applications, you can't go wrong.

Um...which 'more advanced applications' did you have in mind, Mujitsu, ol' buddy.

Just curious (I've been limping along the the very 'limited' Mac platform since 1984).

*****[sarcasm]*****

edosan wrote:

Just curious (I've been limping along on the very 'limited' Mac platform since 1984).

*****[/sarcasm]*****

[and btw: http://www.google.com/search?q=stock+an … =firefox-a]

Last edited by edosan (2010-01-20 21:52:45)

You can make your own Mac however the time and effort may not be worth it... I have my hands full crafting shakuhachi!

Last edited by Jon Kypros (2024-03-30 18:48:04)

Wow, lots of angles on this that I hadn't really thought of, thanks for the feedback guys.

Mostly I just want a peak at the 'other side of the curtain', I've got nothing too fancy in mind.  I know that working with videos, audio files and photos will be nice to do on a Mac. Other than that I'm leaning towards going Mac with the money I was going to use for a 12 inch netbook but I am finding my netbook budget will not be big enough for say a 13 inch Macbook. 

So I'm still thinking....

I'm running a very sacrilegious workstation a octo mac pro that is dual booted with (the first version of) leopard and 64 bit vista business. I have it set up this way so I can use 3ds max that only has a windows version, also it was much cheaper to get the mac option with my specifications.

As you mentioned about audio and video on a mac. There are a lot of industry standard video and sound edition software that is only available on a Mac os (such a s Final cut pro, shake, logic and etc...).

The wide selection of programs for windows it's much of a decision maker any more thanks to os virtualization software and boot camp. The same thing can be said for the mac only software although it's more difficult running a mac os on a pc even with virtualization. Since you need hardware similar or exactly the same as the hard ware found in a mac.

Switching to mac is exciting and awkward but once you get use it it you might find it much more easier it work with. Expose, spaces, and a cover flow effect in the file browser called finder, are features that make my work flow faster and more organized.

Tea Drinking Bird wrote:

The wide selection of programs for windows it's much of a decision maker any more thanks to os virtualization software and boot camp. The same thing can be said for the mac only software although it's more difficult running a mac os on a pc even with virtualization. Since you need hardware similar or exactly the same as the hard ware found in a mac.

OK, I see. With the new Intel based Mac processor you can have a dual boot and run Windows on the higher quality Mac machine. But remember, you already paid extra for the higher quality machine, now you have to buy a copy of the Windows operating system you want to run that too. If I were to go that route I'd definitely do some more research into how well Windows programs run on it, and pay particular attention to to how Windows only peripherals work with it. For instance, I have an older (2007) Flip Video camcorder that comes with it's own Windows software contained in the device. When I googled I see that Mac users have some problems with them. 

My personal experience with dual booting operating sytems is that I'm currently running a system with a dual boot between Linux and Windows. When I first installed Linux it was great, no more problems from resource hungry applications running in the background, I could surf the web without the hard drive continually cranking, I found Openoffice for free as a replacement for MS office and everything seemed faster.

But then I found out it's a bear to do anything with video... and audio... and I spent way too many hours trying to get Skype working on Linux, never got it working. I looked into getting some forex trading software running on it too with no luck. So now I pretty much only boot up into Linux when I visit web-sites where I'd be likely to get viruses otherwise (bit torrents and such). So it does serve some usefulness, but needing to switch between operating systems is a pain. There's some work I'd really prefer to do in Linux, but with the majority of work I do requiring Windows I decided to put up with Windows inefficiencies and occasional crashes for those tasks because constantly switching between operating systems is such a hassle. The VMware or virtual machine solutions might be better, there your going to have some overhead related to the fact that your running one OS on top of another though. And I'd think there'd be more periperal/software interface problems too because all the information to and from the peripherals would have to be passed through the the native operating system to the virtual one.

It seems to me the best solution is to see if you can get a machine with an OS that will do everything you need to do. Unless maybe it's just one or two applications you only run infrequently.

Edit -- I just did a fair amount of googling and it seems that an Intel based Mac is as good at running Windows as a PC. There seems to be some concerns with special device drivers for peripherals because of hardware differences between Mac and PC's, Apple is providing the drivers. My guess is that they'll work for most name brand equipment. People also report some problems getting some of the keyboard keys working as expected, I'm not sure, but I think that may be because on Windows machines the keyboard mapping files are set up for you.

Last edited by radi0gnome (2010-01-21 14:07:20)

Vevolis wrote:

I have to upgrade a PC every two years or so without it feeling dead slow,

Part of that slowing down is probably because almost every program you install includes services to check for updates often. Get inside the programs and look for settings that will do less "automatically". Particularly virus checkers, do you really need to automatically scan every file you copy from one folder to another? Do you really need to have the virus checker go to the link and scan the web-page before you get there? Another source of degradation due to overly invasive programs that affects how long it take the PC to come up is that almost all of them put themselves in the startup folder by default. Always use the customized install for programs and don't add the program to the startup folder when asked to unless you're sure you want the program started and running in the background all the time.       

I'm using a PC I got in 2003. When I first experimented with the Linux dual boot in 2005 it was because Windows (XP) was running slow and crashing. After realizing I couldn't do everything in Linux I went through Windows and got rid of any program I didn't use, tweeked the settings on the others and now Windows runs as fast as Linux. It still crashes sometimes, but the effort was sure a lot better than upgrading every 2 years.

Mujitsu wrote:

Why don't we hold off before we get into a Mac/PC/Linux debate?

Fair enough?

Not fair at all, spoil-sport party-pooper old admin....

Thanks to all of you.  Definitely agree, lots to chew over here.  I appreciate your thoughts on this topic.