PC to MAC?

Get a Mac, it's a reliable (practically never crashes), virus free, totally windows compatible masterpiece of software and hardware design... (but I may be biased). Plus the prices are quite keen these days.

I have a Powerbook G4 and have converted 15 of my friends over to Apple by just showing what it can do with so little know-how and expertise (I wish I was on commission).

Jack

I'll be going mac.

imagine. not having to be a PC maintenance or hardware expert to be able you to 'do stuff'.

imagine. just touching the machine and doing what you wanted - remember back in the 70's when a computer was supposed to be a tool for making things easier - surf, mail, play music, edit photos, make music, make movies... it's all there, and most importantly it just works. no need for distractions of keeping the thing running.

so what will a mac bring me? freedom. no longer being the minion half-devoted to keeping my PC alive will net me a less-complicated life. something like when I went Naim.

Hi Howard.

The latest range of macs have gone to intel processors. In practice they look and feel exactly like a mc, but it does enable you to use an excellent piece of software called 'Bootcamp'

This will allow you to also install windows XP on the mac as well for those emergency times or for weaning off XP. TBH I have only really found it usefull for games.

As for software, depends what you want to achieve, if like me it will be music/photos/home video/surfing/email etc etc then a mac is perfect. If by some coincidence you are a CAD engineer then the only software I can think of that is not available for mac is AutoCAD.

Other than that there is some stunning software for mac, which you simply cannot get for PC, and it comes free with the mac, such as iMovie and iPhoto plus iDVD which allows you to make home DVDs with menus etc from your photos and videos. Yes these are available third party on XP but they are not the same, the whole point of the mac is the integration of the OS/Hardware and other software.

As for second hand. Well most all USB mice, keyboards and printers will work with mac. As for macs themselves. Well G5 processors were the most recent ype of processor before intel, but this is a significant difference, i.e. you can;t run windows on it. And they are obviously slower. BUt so saying A duel G5 powermac is no slouch.

As mentioned Apple have got agressive on pricing and their latest range of products spec for spec are great value and if I had your money and was looking to move to mac my first choice would be the excellent iMac 20inch with uprated graphics card and 1 gig of ram.

If this is a bit rich for your blood try moving into mac with a mini, you can use your old computer screen etc with it. BUt it does not have the graphics grunt of the iMac.

The usual conclusion from this is people moving to mac from PC are usually delighted as they can do everything they could on a PC with reliability, safety and no viruses etc. More over what ever the base line is, apple came out top again last year for customer service and satisfaction.

Garyi,

The only reason I still have a couple of pc's, in addition to the G5, is for Auto Cad and for the kids bedrooms. I have got so used to the Mac now that I hate having to switch to a pc for CAD work, which I need to be able to use for my course.

The kids prefer the Mac as well, the 20 inch screen is much nicer, and because it is so much faster.

On the last trip to my daughter's school I noticed that they had installed about 10 of them in the art department.

Howard, which ever one you get, you will not move back.

Regards

Nic

A useful way of finding applications for the Mac is to use
Version Tracker

A piece of electrical hardware on the Naim Forum that we can all agree on - MIRACLES!

quote:

Originally posted by BigH47:
Can anyone give me a short summary of MAC products? Pros and cons. PC equivalents (if any). Anything worth getting S/H?
Thanks

Howard

There is lots of high quality free software for a Mac through a system called DarwinPorts. A program called Port Authority makes this process easy.

Although it is not free, Apple's own software is very good indeed. I've been using Apple computers for years and I am really satisfied with them and Apple's software.

As I have to do a fair bit of programming in my job, I find Apple's OS X is a dream. I would detest having to program a PC, it is so complicated. The advantage for a non-programmer is because the Apple programming tools are so good that there is lots of stuff around for the Mac for anybody and everybody to use.

Rotf

this got me thinking hard.........

http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/aug_2006/event/index.html

I started drafting on the PC back in DOS days, I could never figure out where my files were. You really had to be a GEEK to know everything and boy did they love to lord this over you. Then in grad school I had to write a piece and someone showed me a MAC. What a difference!!!! Drag and drop, everything visual. Well, now Windows is a half hearted attempt to do things like a MAC.

However, someone told me the basic concept of the two machines, Microsoft was designed by engineers to do what they want, create data, and occasionally do something fun. A Macintosh was designed by designers who knew human capabilities/concerns and to work with multimedia: music, visuals, and data. They became hugely successful at this with photoshop at first, other graphics and interactive software followed, jumping thru hoops and spinning on it's head. Microsoft decided to get into the game and try to match and take over the world.

If you want to work in graphics and interactive multimedia that's what a Mac was originally designed for. And yes, the others are right a Mac is more stable. Once we got OSX I haven't had to call my tech for 4 years. I kinda miss him, tho not the bills. I don't have to have virus software. When my main system software got messed up once (before OSX) he came up to reload something on it and as it was doing it he said be happy you have a Mac. On a Windows machine we'd have to strip this down to the bare OS and then reload every bit of software you had from scratch. I was up and running in minutes and he didn't charge me for the visit.

I got a degree in Graphics, have 2 monitors, scanner, 2 printers no hassles, no extra sound cards etc. The teachers always said to Win people "you're on your own". It just works flawlessly. I haven't spent a dime, or hour, on maintenance in 4 years.

But, it is really confusing trying to switch key commands between the two systems, drives me nuts.

Good luck on your decision.

glenn

I've had a mac mini knocking around for ages now, a few weeks ago my main PC died (worked out graphics card failed finally), fired up the mac and have been pretty much using it as my main machine now.

Fixed my main machine, bought and installed Windows XP64 and also have installed a beta of Vista, still using the mac though.

I also run a mixture of Red Hat Fedora Core 4, was running gentoo but that's gone now and also run Kubuntu. Trying to get a new GUI on linux to run now that is called XGL, makes windows look awful and the mac look a bit naf but can't get it to run.

Depending on OSX10.5, may buy a new mac next year to replace the mini.

Steve.

quote:

Originally posted by Ancipital:
Trying to get a new GUI on linux to run now that is called XGL, makes windows look awful and the mac look a bit naf but can't get it to run.

Steve.

Steve - if you can't get it to run that would deter me from looking at it. One advantage I always cite for using a Mac (or a Sun running Solaris) is I know it'll work. I always find with Linux that I'm searching for a driver, though most times Linux does work really well.

Interested to know about XGL as a better interface rather than Gnome or KDI is something I'd like.

Rotf

Rotf,

It's written by Novell and is currently an Alpha release.

As I'm playing with Kubuntu at the moment, there's no package for it in the current release.

It's not XGL I'm having a problen with at the moment, it's getting the Nvidia drivers to run with the graphics card. What I really need to do when I get the time is to uninstall what I've already done (bear in mind that I installed Kubuntu, packaged Nvidia drivers, XGL & one other component about in about 45 minutes without really reading much of the documentation). I'll retrieve the proper set of drivers from Nvidia then complile it all from the ground up.

If you're interested, I'll dig up the site that had comparison videos of XGL, OSX 10.5 (Leopard), & Vista Beta 2.

Saying that, it's quite fun playing with the mini as it stands, bought it originally as a set top box/dvd iso image creator. Didn't quite work as the set-top box but as a main machine it's pretty cool.

To add to a bit of energy efficiency, most of my pc's are switched off now and my Solaris boxes are certainly off - saw a graph of my electricity usage recently, the solaris boxes being on doubled my bill last summer.

I also use a bluetooth keyboard and mouse, they're good but can be a bit iffy to get going when bringing the mac out of sleep, using the bluetooth adapter off my pc as well and not an apple one. Word of warning, to install OSX, you need a real keyboard & mouse, don't even have to use it, just plugged in during the initial part of the install - grrrrr!

Steve.

If the bluetooth is built in then you should be fine installing OSX with a bluetooth keyboard and mouse. That is infact what happens when you order macs with the wireless option.

Gary,

Only ever having an external Bluetooth dongle, never knew that! Cheers for the correction.

Steve.