Mac vs. PC?

TrevMcRev

Hey all out there with more 'puter skills than myself

I'm looking to upgrade both desktop & laptop.

Considering Apple products this time round, what ive learned so far sounds good.

What are others using?
Why?
Have you actual experience with Apple?
Would Apple users go back to PC?

Tree Machine

I have both Mac and PC in the house. I have sort of equal abilities in both.

They're not a lot different anymore, the PC world, when they went from DOS to Windows, basically brought the PC world into a Macintosh-like environment (icon-based, drag and drop interface).

The PC couldn't 'copy' the environment, but could mimic it enough to get past intellectual property issues, out of the DOS era, and into a more friendly user interface.

I still don't consider the PC interface as friendly. Helping my family members on their PC's I find myself thinking, "If it were a Mac, I'd just go blip, bleep, done."

I only do a few specific things on the computer, web surfing/forums where PC and Mac are about identical, but then there are the images, video, music and wireless. These areas the Mac is so much a better friend.

Macs, as yet, do not get viruses, or at least haven't as far as I know. Free downloadable software updates. Great spam filter also.

Macs now have intel processors. I don't know what that means, really.

Macbook Pro, mmmmmm

Eric Frei

I cant really say, I got PC with XP SP2, has it's dramas but what woman doesn't.

The only problem I think happens is programs, PC is pretty much everywhere and help/programs easy to find.

Why dont you be the test pilot?

Also, how do prices compare?

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JohN Dee

Have you noticed that in the majority of movies nowa days that they use Apple/Mac for the computers? The display output is a whole heap better then what a pc monitor can do where you get them flicky lines... Plus for graphic design Mac wins hands down.

Although. I am a PC user... Maybe one day I'll actually try a Mac, but that will be when ive got 2k sitting there that I absolutely have no use for...

Anyways here are some "Educational videos" for you to watch :P.

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We are what we repeatedly do... Excellence then, is not an act, but HABIT...

Red : Green : Blue

TrevMcRev

I'm thinking i'll try em.

20" imac and if i can stretch it, a macbook air.

They seem so user friendly, easier to find stuff on - its all visual.
And for music & video which i'd like to more with having just got a HDD vid cam it seems real good.

Everything is built in ready to go.

TrevMcRev

Oh, prices for similar spec'd stuff seems comparable, they just dont have low end stuff, so not for price shoppers (we all hate them hey! Except when we are one!)

Brands like acer, dell compac are offering pc's and laptops from around $700 compared to $1700 for an apple. The others make dearer models too, but have some entry level products to reel you in, then try n hook ya with upgrades and software n more this n more that.

Tree Machine

The air, in order to get the thing intensely slim, it has no drive or ports. They are stepping into the 100% wireless mode, though I don't think the rest of the world is fully there yet.

Personally, if I had a laptop, I want it to burn CDs, DVDs, I want to plug a fat hard drive into it for video work. If a laptop won't do what your desktop version will do, then you're a step backwards.


This Apple homepage features the Air, and lower down the screen, online tutorials for whatever floats your boat; mixing and producing your own music, editing and creating video, storing, organizing and editing images, making slideshows, web-videos, and then the whole Quicktime world which seems to grow larger by the day.

The Mac is a much more intuitive beast, you can futz and fiddle around and figure things out, context sensitive help and tutorials at your fingertips. All the programs interwork seamlessly with each other, music, video, web, pics, e-mail.
I added Photoshop Elements ($99) so I can create graphics and edit images for you guys, and another program for uploading video to a server. Everything else I needed came internal with the Mac. Everything is built in ready to go.That was the case in the early days, but really not anymore.


For those who've conquered the PC, I have a great deal of respect for you. It still eludes me to a great deal. That's probably more a problem with me then the PC.

wulkowicz

I bought one of the first macs in 1984 and stayed in the family until 2003. I finally bought a windoze machine because everything was windows whether or not I went along. I hated it and its successor machines with their anemic imitation of the mac operating system.

I recently purchased a mac mini for about $550 and rediscovered the simplicity and user-friendly design of the little beast. It is a bit bigger that a dvd and 2 inches high. Mine has 2G of ram and I just bought an external 500G hard drive that nests beneath the mini. ($130)

It starts and shuts down in a flash comparatively and is literally virus free.

I had to provide a screen, a keyboard and a mouse, but those came out of the debris pile for the pc's.

The amazing thing is that I can run both mac and windows programs simultaneously, switching back and forth without rebooting.

Here's a link to look at specs: Apple - Mac mini


bob w

Tree Machine

Thanks, Bob. I forgot about the mini. I bought my Mom and Dad a mac mini.

It seemed every year to 18 months my Mom would destroy a PC and get a new one. That meant a number of keyboards and monitors taking up space.

Wulkowicz really points out the beauty of this economical unit; you can recycle part of yor PC scrap pile (we all have them) mac mini , is a concept where if you have the monitor and keyboard and mouse, the mini is just the processor and ports. It is in every other way a full-blown mac, no two ways about it, it has the Intel duo-core processor (for running Windows OR the Mac OS, even simultaneously), it has the superdrive (burns CDs and DVDs), you can fill it up with RAM like Wulkowicz did and it's smaller than an average textbook. It stows up on the shelf like a book, out of the way, even out of sight all together with just your keyboard and mouse USB'd to it.

For my Mom's I added Photoshop Elements. That's all. When I go visit I schlepp the external harddrive, I plug in and I've got an image library, all my video, Photoshop, and the internet--- all the things I need to stay in touch with you guys. $550. I couldn't resist. I make silly videos with the rellys, shoot them, edit them, burn them to DVD in one session, great fun.






It is so worth it, in my opinion. Frees up money to get the laptop you want

and you know


which laptop

you

want.....

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TrevMcRev

So im here now on my new macbook i just picked up today

Seems good so far

Will let ya's know how it goes.

Aerial

I've used Macintosh computers since the very beginning. I still have My Mac Plus and it still runs!

I've got four of them currently running, doing useful things. I never seem to get rid of them, not that I can't sell them easily, as they do hold their value, but I tend to repurpose them to other tasks and just keep them.

I've also had a great deal of experience with Windows machines (most of it bad), but I currently still retain an IBM Thinkpad running Windows 2000 Pro, (one of the best Microsoft operating systems in my opinion). I also have a Panasonic Toughbook running Windows XP Pro.

My latest Macintosh is a Mini that I bought to make it the heart of my home entertainment center. The Mini excels at this. With a wireless keyboard and mouse I can control it from anywhere in the room.

I can also use my Powerbook to control the Mini remotely using "screen sharing" a new feature of the "Leopard" version of OSX. I basically allows you to put the destop from another Mac on your screen and control it just like if you were useing it directly.

Here this is helpful to me is when I am watching TV on my HDTV the Mini is connected to, I can still use it by having the screen display redirected to my laptop. Here is a shot of this system, the screen on the HDTV looks washed out a bit, but that is glare from the bad lighting currently in the room. The HDTV works great as the only monitor on the Mini. Note the my Powerbook has the Mini's desktop on it:



I'll be happy to answer any questions about the macintosh, a topic I do know something about, far more than I know about treework.

Aerial

Tree Machine

if you were used to right-clicking (PC) with your mouse, and now you don't have a mouse, that is now ctrl-click.

The apple key is speedkey for frequently done things, the most important of all, is reverse. Like when you do something and you just want to undo whatever you just did; apple-Z. Appl-X is cut, apple-C is copy, apple-V is paste.

One finger on the touchpad moves the cursor. Two fingers on the touchpad moves the page up and down.

That's pretty much all you'll need to know. I'm on a Macbook, but it's 4 years old, yours will be more elaborate, but the same operating system.

Do you have a video camera at the top of your screen?

Tree Machine

Are you phone line, ethernet, or wireless?

rich

ive got a apple max pro and have found it the best thing ever ,i know nothing about computers and find it so easy to work plus if am out and about i can pull up at most places and go live,i seen the max book air and its to dainty for a real man

Tree Machine

I hear you, Rich. I consider myself a cyber-weenie, don't really care how it all works, I just want it all to work together; images, music, video, e-mail and internet, easily and intuitively.

And Mac does.



I'm with Rich, also, the at the Mac Air is too dainty for manly men such as are we Arborists.


I bought this macbook I'm on for wifey, and I use it 90% of the time here at home because I don't need to go to the basement to say hi to you guys (and gals). It goes on vacation sometimes, too. Wireless is a real luxury, I am grateful for it,

and greatfiul to just live in a time when technology is so powerful and so available and so affordable. Portable supercomputers for around $2,000, coupled with your internet subsciption and you are on the cutting edge of computer power and ability. Just amazing.

Aerial

The Air is as specialized as an M200T, not really the best all around computer, but really great at what it does best. They feel surprisingly solid for as incredably thin and light as they are.

I also got my wife an Intel powered Macbook and she loves it. I'm a little jealous because it's about twice as fast as the G4 Powerbook I'm typing this on.

We use the laptops to surf from wherever we are in the house, she uses hers in the kitchen and dining room alot, I use mine from the couch or my easy chair. You can see in the photo I posted the tripod I have it mounted on, that makes it easy to move to wherever I'm sitting.

Aerial

wulkowicz

I also purchased an Iomega Minimax which has 500G and a cost of $159. On the backplate, it also give me 3 more USB and 3 more firewires..not bad for something the size of a ham sandwich. Oh yeah, and a stereo doofus.

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George Hayduke

Mac Mac Mac

Say no more!

When I have to use my PC it is dreadful. When it [often] locks up it takes three times, yup, I timed it, longer to shut down and reboot than my Mac. Time is money.

Aerial

If you look closely in the photo I posted you can see that the mini is sitting on a LaCie version of Minimax, also a 500 GB. The extra posts are very useful, especially as they come out the side of the unit and are easier to get to. Important to me because of it's placement in the tight quarters of my entertainment center (see photo above).

I replaced the hard drive that came in my Mini (an 80 GB) with a Hitachi 200 GB 7200 rpm 16 MB cache. This is the fastest 2.5 in drive available. Using this drive speeds the mini up noticeably.

Also maxing out the RAM makes a big improvement on these little gems from Apple. Actually doing that make any Macintosh run better. OSX needs a lot of RAM to avoid swapping out to the hard drive.

I am also able to record HDTV directly from my cable box using only a $10 firewire cable and and application found in the Apple firewire SDK (software development kit). Of course, these file are HUGE (about 9 GB / hr), hence the 500 gig drive.

When I bought my Mini (eBay) it had Windows XP in a separate partition. It was fun showing people my Mac desktop running on my HDTV, then switching over to Windows. A handy feature if you have a need for Windows, but I don't and ended up reclaming the hard drive space it took by deleting the partition that held it.

That sort of sums up how I feel about Windows, not worth the space it takes up. I'm not a Mac fanatic or anything, i mean I also have two Windows machines that have features I use for specific things, but Apple's operating system is very advanced, being built on a Unix base.

Since going to OSX, Apple has outclassed Microsoft's products in a major way. Each iteration of Windows had had to maintain backwards compatibility with all prior versions, and this has led to it being loaded down with the baggage of antiquated code base.

Apple made a clean break with the past when going from OS9 to OSX, and has rapidly improved upon it. Leopard, the latest version, has really great features, and runs faster, even on old underspec'ed Macs.

To the end user, even if a newbee, everything "just works", no hassles with drivers for almost any device you want to plug in. Networking is self configuring so don't need to mess about configuring things to get your computers to talk to each other.

If you are into networking, the fact that most Apple's come equipped out of the box with Gigabit class network ports. This is 10X faster than what most PC's come with.

Built in Bluetooth and WiFi "N" are great not to have to add, (often with unsightly dongles you have to plug in to a USB port in the case of Bluetooth).

Also Firewire has some very slick features in the Mac world. Much faster in real world use for attaching external hard drives, and the ability to use firewire's "target mode" to make any Macintosh act just like an external hard drive to any other Mac. That might be a little geeky to most users, but is very handy if you have multiple Apples.

You will definitely pay more for a Mac, especially down under, but you do get a lot more for your money. The fit and finish of Apple products is unsurpassed, but hardware design aside, it's the software (starting from the operating system), that gives Apple it's great value proposition.

Aerial

TrevMcRev

Ahhh, thanks for the tips TM, that helps already.

I dig the 2 finger scrolling, easy peasy.

Yep isight camera is built in.

Running USB wireless broadband on it till i get a desktop too and set up airport!

Weirdest thing though using a new computer with none of your "stuff" on it.

Gonna be a job moving everything across.

Tree Machine

Drag and drop. This is the essence of the Mac environment, one which PC tried to emulate with an upgrade to their operating system, from when they went from DOS to what we all know now as Windows.

That created a great similarity as far as people being able to use either the PC or the Mac.

TreeSpecialist

Trev......

Now that you've got a real computer, you know why Mac Addicts love them so much. The learning curve is short and sweet. True, there are fewer programs for the Mac, but the programs that are out there are all you need.

I've had Mac's since the 80's and am now on my 8th one (I like to upgrade!)

The Mac Powerbook is great. I have the Mac Pro laptop - more machine than I need in the field, but fun to have the power.

My G5 is awesome, but for newbies, I'd recommend getting the new iMac - go for the 24 inch screen if you can - you won't regret it.

Also, get as much RAM as you can afford - it speeds everything up.

The best thing about the Macintosh line is that the freaks who write computer viruses don't want to mess with the Mac. That's not to say the Mac is completely safe from viruses, it's just that they are rare.

Now that you're computerized, you need to consider backing up you data (every day.) There are two types of computer users - one who has had a hard drive crash and one who is going to have a hard drive crash. While the hard drive is rated for some ridiculous number like 300,000 BMF (between mean failures,) they can and do crash when you least expect it.

When I bought my first computer, it had an amazing 80 MB of memory on its hard drive. I filled it in less than a month.

Now, with 240 gigs of memory, I have about 1/3 of it filled.

I back up hourly (automatically) to a new device Apple just came out with called "Time Machine." It's a separate hard drive and wireless router all in one - works flawlessly!

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Aerial

Lots of RAM works wonders, especially if you have a slow hard drive.

It's not that the script kiddies who plague the Windows platform don't want to "mess with" the Macintosh platform, they don't have the skills to infest a hardened UNIX system. Windows is all about low hanging fruits to be picked at will.

I wouldn't say that any computer system is safe from anything, but you are not accurate in saying that viruses are "rare" on OSX, they are non-existent.

There has been no confirmed virus attacks in the wild for OSX. There may have been some lab experiments that could be considered virus vectors, but they have all been theoretical exploits.

"Time Machine" is not a device, it is software that comes with every copy of OXS Leopard. Very slick automatic backup software, It does require a second hard drive, (being pointless to make backup to the same drive), but those are cheap insurance, and available anywhere.

The device you are probably refering to is called "Time Capsule", it's an Apple branded NAS (Network Attached Storage) device with either a 500 or 1000 Gigabyte server grade hard drive. It also has a Gigabit speed WiFi "N" router built in so is actually a good value and good solution for those that also need or want a top class wireless router.

Otherwise just buy a cheap firewire external hard drive, and you are good to go, with backups of your entire system made hourly without you doing anything. It's allready saved my ass. (but not saved me from being an ass).

Here's the link:

The Apple Store (U.S.) - Time Capsule - 1 TB

Aerial

DBS

i am not a MAC user at all.. but its to my understanding... two different animals in terms of operations. drag and drop on PC does multiple things. copy and move. Mac to my understand .. IT MOVES.

i can see getting very angry very quickly trying to adapt to a MAC after all i have learned with PC over the years..


Virus issues with PC will drive you bonkers if not properly protected. i hear MAC has little to NO issues what so ever!!


here is a Classic Mac Vs Pc video funy!!...
-Daryl

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Stihl MS 361

TreeSpecialist

The original Mac commercial......

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DBS

LMAO...

-Daryl

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Stihl MS 200T
Stihl MS 361

DBS

keep you PC clean and you nose (fingers) out of trouble on da net you shouldnt have any issues...

-Daryl

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Stihl MS 361

Eric Frei

I'm running sweet with 2 gig of ram, 3800x2 duel core AMD, XP sp2. Had this couple of years now I think.

Looking at getting a big external hard drive to back everything up to.

But I do know this. If you have all your programs running on C Drive say. You back that up to an external. Then pull that C drive out and shove a new one in with the back up on it, it doesn't work anyway. I know as I have tried it.

I have all my programs on C drive, all my files on D drive.

I have found if you load a program to D drive which doesn't have the operating system then it doesn't work as good and sometimes at all.

Programs are best loaded to the drive with the operating system on it.

I have very few issues, however can say that with the plethora of flash, websites that are embedding hidden flash and sound that as you surf these days you may be experiencing delays, lock ups etc but it's those dumb webmasters out there with bells and whistles rather than brains causing some of the havoc.

Even large corporations websites are getting increasingly worse to navigate, pop ups, talking characters and all sorts of junk and jingles that wreak havoc on your browser and settings. Embedded flash video files that do not stream are also very common, not everyone surfs with 20mb line speed.

In a recent interview Google's Matt Cutts spelled it out, keep it simple! But the software to knock up a website in 10 minutes is out there cheap, flash website templates, very cheap, prompts you where to add sound, what the button should read on mouse over, what the link should be, drag and drop page layout yadda yadda yadda ... very simple, but when the Google and the surfer come along you bugger them up.

So if you experience a lock up, think about what you were doing.

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Aerial

That is because you are just copying the files over I presume. Windows needs the boot tracks to be in the first sectors on the hard drive, a general Windows copy command doesn't do this. It's fundamentally flawed in this, and many other areas.

OSX has had a built in cloning program called "Disk Utility" this allows you to make an image of any hard drive, even your boot drive, to a .dmg image file. I use this to backup my entire boot drive, applications, data, and settings. This image can then be restored on any hard drive and you can then boot from it, it's an identical, bit for bit, copy.

I restore this image of my boot drive to an external firewire hard drive and can boot any Macintosh into my complete setup. Of course this is only as recent as your last backup, sooo...

Anyway, with Leopard it is even easier now that it ships with "Time Machine" if left unattended it makes hourly backups of your entire hard drive, and this can be restored to a fresh drive in the event of drive failure. With "Time Capsule" you can do this wirelessly for all the Macs you own.

There are several Windows utilities that do a similar function, if in a less elegant and intuitive way, than on the standard Macintosh. Here is a link to one:

Drive Image Backup Software for Windows :: Image for Windows

That is because Windows has stuck with the ancient CP/M limits on the naming of drives or devices. "C, D, E, ect... " I find this archaic, inflexible, 30 year old method of naming drives pathetic. I guess in Vista you can assign aliases now, but I'm really not sure.

I generally just give my drives their actual name and size. For example my Mini's boot drive is "Hitachi 200", On my PowerBook my hard drive is named "Hitachi 100" (both 7200 rpm drives with 16 MB cache). Not very original, but it works for me. Many Mac users give their hard drives cute names, I did that for a few years, but then got so many hard drives I ran out of cute names.

My wife's MacBook, while twice as fast in CPU speed, suffers from a small (60 gig), slow hard drive and only 512K of RAM. My four year old PowerBook runs rings around it because of 2 gigs of memory and super fast hard drive. (which I added last year as an upgrade).

On the Macintosh it doesn't matter where you put you applications. In general I try to put them on the fastest drive available. Also, because OSX puts applications in "packages" they can be dragged and dropped to wherever you want them. No reinstallation or reconfiguration needed. It just works. Similarly if you want to delete a program, just drag it to the Trash. To install a new program just drag it to wherever you want it. Marvelously simple, the way it ought to be. No drivers, installing hassles, no "DLL Hell" to sort out.

On my PowerMac Dual processor tower (circa 1999) I have a total of five hard drives. Two are paired together with Raid 1, which maintains them as mirrored drives, both identical and ready to seamlessly take over in the event of drive failure. This has already happenedf to me, and the only way that you know anything's wrong is a message pops up informing you. You can go right on working without missing a beat.

Two other drives are paired together in a Raid 0 configuration. Both drives acting in tandem, doing interleaved reads and writes for maximum speed and response. This is where I put my games and applications. They load really fast and can bring in additional program modules which gives great response time for even bloated programs like Photoshop.

The fifth hard drive is a laptop drive that fits right on my hardware accelerated RAID card. All I keep on it is OSX to boot from in an emergencey. Very handy for trouble shooting problems, I guess, other than the one hard drive failure the tower has been trouble free, just like all the (numerous) other Macintoshes I've ever owned.

I can't even imagine trying to manage this system if all the drives could only be assigned letters! It also has a DVD burner and a Zip drive, plus at times multiple firewire external drives, An alphabet soup of devices.

Lets see, were did I put that invoice? A?, B?, C?, D?, E?, F?, or was it G? That is so arbitrary, why didn't they use Q.W.E.R.T.Y or something easy to find?

You get what you pay for. In other news, I just bought a STIHL saw today, my first chainsaw.

"Keep it simple" it's what Macs do.

Aerial

Eric Frei

Maybe next PC then.

I bought an external hard drive and backed up all my stuff today. Just in case.

Man, hasn't the price of them plummeted!

So ole Gates won the war with an inferior system, smart man!

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