PC or MAC ?

[SirLicksAalot]

who said you can't?

I upgraded my Mac Mini Ram from 512 into 2GB

and I also upgraded the system. When the first time I bought, the system was 10.4.1 then now is 10.5.6 (the latest)

Wow . . . maybe then. Curious, notebook or desktop?
How about the selection out there. Are there alot>>?

 

[daintyfemme]

Wow . . . maybe then. Curious, notebook or desktop?
How about the selection out there. Are there alot>>?

mine is desktop.
the selection is quite a lot I believe

 

[rgraham666]

Thanks, that's my dream goatie. . . can't really grow a real one. Bad genes I guess he he he.

I think the decision kind of jives with the apple culture - more artistic and not so much hardware saviness when it comes to its users: professors, design people, writers, students (non-engineering Majors).

Almost all, if not all the people I know who uses MAC don't care much about harware specs so long as the computer is realible and able to do its job.

Contrast that to the technically savy people who uses PC that are almost insanely driven by performance and speed benchmarks.

That's my position on Macs. I really don't give a crap about whether it's got 'the latest' whatever.

It starts up in the morning. It runs all day. It shuts off at night. And it does everything I ask of it with out bombing in between. What more could I want?

 

[Austin8]

I suppose I fall into the 'apple culture' cause i feel the same way, but I must say I'm interested in the upgrades just the geek side coming out I suppose. To much time formatting drives, and souping up cooling systems; the PC gaming world is a whole world away my Mac.

Thanks rg.




Now, what did I do with that damn ribbon cable...

 

[SCcreampieLvr]

THe upgrade question depends on what model machine you have. While it is true some models of Mac are difficult to upgrade, many are just as easy if not easier to upgrade than PC.

Any of the tower macs are easy to upgrade. Ram, Hard Drives, Vid Cards- all easy.
The laptops can be ram upgraded pretty easy- HD upgrades- not as much.
True there are not as many graphics cards out there to choose from though.


I suppose in some ways its like the car culture. Some people love messing with their cars. Adding a cold air intake, putting in the brightly colored hoses and wires, adding a tuned suspension and exhaust. All great.
But some prefer to NOT have to do that and have a reliable car, thats fun to drive and gets them where they want to go.
Sure I can add a bunch of stuff to my engine to squeeze another 30 or 40 horsepower out if it. But I am not racing and it is fast enough for what I want to do.

 

[kelly0086]

my bf has a POS PC .. which crashes constantly and drives me generally insane.
@ work I have a POS PC ... which doesn't crash as often, but still makes me insane

@ the Apple store they have beee-uuu--tiful macbooks .. which i lust over all the time

so, as soon as I can .. its a macbook for this gurl ... would luv that really skinny one, stoopid expensive one (macbook air ?) .. but the cheap macbook will hav to do

 

[Austin8]

my bf has a POS PC .. which crashes constantly and drives me generally insane.
@ work I have a POS PC ... which doesn't crash as often, but still makes me insane

@ the Apple store they have beee-uuu--tiful macbooks .. which i lust over all the time

so, as soon as I can .. its a macbook for this gurl ... would luv that really skinny one, stoopid expensive one (macbook air ?) .. but the cheap macbook will hav to do

It's in the mail baby, now how bout some nekked pics!

 

[CarolinaHeat]

i'm a mac girl. they handle my graphic design and other programs much better than a pc.

plus no spyware or viruses to deal with!!!

 

[Austin8]

i'm a mac girl. they handle my graphic design and other programs much better than a pc.

plus no spyware or viruses to deal with!!!

Oh man no spam, no crap in my inboxes, awsome!

Kisses to southern Mac girls

 

[kelly0086]

It's in the mail baby, now how bout some nekked pics!

LoL .... sweet ... anxiously standing by my mailbox (nekkid)

 

[Austin8]

LoL .... sweet ... anxiously standing by my mailbox (nekkid)

Mental picture is worth a thousand words kelly, has the Mac with my addy gotten there yet?

 

[Leto Degeneres]

This is turning into a good thread!

So, since they're so expensive, I'm looking at the 15" PowerBook Pro, to be running VMWare Fusion with an XP virtual machine.

(1) Am I going to be happy with a 15" display? After all, the 17" is more expensive and heavier.
(2) Is 4MB of RAM going to be enough, or should one max it out at 8MB from the get-go?
(3) Office 2008 for the Mac doesn't include Visual Basic. Better to get Office 2007 for Windows and run it in the VM?

 

[Austin8]

Hey Leto, I think you would be totally happy with a 15" screen, mines a 13.5 and It's perfect for me. I might suggest if there's a apple store in your area stopping in the geniuses answered all my questions, let me mess around with all the computers , even had a cup of coffee there. If your unfamiliar with the Mac system they even offer free classes. Or you might just page back in the thread , Sub joe can answer your questions, or the grahic designer dude. thanks for stoppin' in. A8

 

[redpaint]

I use bouth PC and Mac. It depends on what i am doing. Just playing games and surfing the net I am on a PC. Soing Graphic Design or working on my art work I use a Mac.

 

[jomar]

This is turning into a good thread!

So, since they're so expensive, I'm looking at the 15" PowerBook Pro, to be running VMWare Fusion with an XP virtual machine.

(1) Am I going to be happy with a 15" display? After all, the 17" is more expensive and heavier.
(2) Is 4MB of RAM going to be enough, or should one max it out at 8MB from the get-go?
(3) Office 2008 for the Mac doesn't include Visual Basic. Better to get Office 2007 for Windows and run it in the VM?

1) totally
2) 4 should be enough unless you have 4 CAD programs running and are trying to find pi to the bazagillionth decimal
3) google the solution then run open office

 

[Salvor-Hardon]

This is turning into a good thread!

So, since they're so expensive, I'm looking at the 15" PowerBook Pro, to be running VMWare Fusion with an XP virtual machine.

(1) Am I going to be happy with a 15" display? After all, the 17" is more expensive and heavier.
(2) Is 4MB of RAM going to be enough, or should one max it out at 8MB from the get-go?
(3) Office 2008 for the Mac doesn't include Visual Basic. Better to get Office 2007 for Windows and run it in the VM?

1) Screen size is always a personal preference. Check them out test drive them, go with what feels good to you.
2) Memory is one of the few things users can upgrade easily on Macbooks. Go low, and then get upgrades from Mac Mall or other retailers and save about 100 bucks or so. (I submitted a purchase request that was taking a 4gb macbook to 8 and it was saving 200 but I have connections).
3) Yes....VB will work better on the windows environment, even on a virtual machine.

 

[Leto Degeneres]

1) totally
2) 4 should be enough unless you have 4 CAD programs running and are trying to find pi to the bazagillionth decimal
3) google the solution then run open office

(1) and (2) helps; they're good news. That means there's a "stock" MacBook that won't require options. As for (3), I'll do that. That VB programming is important to me, but since I know nothing of Open Office I can't say what it'll do. Off to Google

 

[Leto Degeneres]

1) Screen size is always a personal preference. Check them out test drive them, go with what feels good to you.
2) Memory is one of the few things users can upgrade easily on Macbooks. Go low, and then get upgrades from Mac Mall or other retailers and save about 100 bucks or so. (I submitted a purchase request that was taking a 4gb macbook to 8 and it was saving 200 but I have connections).
3) Yes....VB will work better on the windows environment, even on a virtual machine.

...and Salvor-Hardon seconds Jomar's opinion. This is really good news. The thing is expensive enough without thinking of options to make the VM doable.

I wonder, does the 4MB that comes standard get to stay in the slots when 4 more are added?

 

[Salvor-Hardon]

...and Salvor-Hardon seconds Jomar's opinion. This is really good news. The thing is expensive enough without thinking of options to make the VM doable.

I wonder, does the 4MB that comes standard get to stay in the slots when 4 more are added?

Shoot me a pm with your email address in it and I'll check the repairs manual when I get to work tomorrow and let you know. Typically they've been that way but you never know when things will go wonky.

 

[jomar]

(1) and (2) helps; they're good news. That means there's a "stock" MacBook that won't require options. As for (3), I'll do that. That VB programming is important to me, but since I know nothing of Open Office I can't say what it'll do. Off to Google

I have a Lenovo because I've had such good luck with IBM. I'm locked into pc software or I'd do Mac, though pc is fine. I have a 15 inch widescreen and it's great in a notebook. I do miss the lightness of my 14 inch regular one (drowned it). I think open office is a MS like environment, but freeware.

 

[longlastingwm]

Windows Stuff

Following up on some things that have been discussed here and a couple of others:

VMWare Fusion: This is a great product that allows you to run Windows applications on the Mac. The apps are essentially placed in a virtual wrapper and run in PC-Environment. VMWare has taken it even further though, and made it so it is possible to drag and drop files between the Fusion app and a related Mac app. This is a great tool, but there are some drawbacks. First, fusion costs $80.00, and though it is a great tool, there's always the possibility of some frustration getting apps packed, up and running. Second, you still need to own the license to the software being run.

OpenOffice: OpenOffice is an open source software suite including a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation tool (power point), visio type tool, image tool, and a math formula tool. It started as StarOffice, then became OpenOffice version 1, 2, and is up to version 3. With each version, it's functionality AND interoperability with MS Office has grown. I still don't find it entirely compatible with the Microsoft stuff. Meaning, if I write a highly formatted document in OpenOffice Writer, it won't open up looking the same if I email it to someone with Microsoft Word, and vice versa. However, if I was a fairly independent entity and could get by with simply sending PDF's to outside folks (a function built into the software), I'd be very pleased with the software's functionality.

Office Live. If all you really need is to create or open a Microsoft Word or Excel document every once in a while, take a look at Microsoft Live. It is still free and will probably be nominally priced once it really does go live. It allows you to create and edit docs online. If you HAVE to play with Microsoft, this might be the way to go for a lot of folks.

Virtualization: Speaking of playing with Microsoft, virtualization is an increasingly exciting area. Here's something to think about. Today, corporations are setting up farms of servers that allow their users to dial in from anywhere and access a virtual machine that is run on the server hardware. Translated, a user can access a fully functional, high-powered Microsoft Windows machine from a $200 dumb-device, or from pretty much any browser.

Now think about tomorrow. The next step in this is going to be private companies setting up virtual farms of machines that will allow users to lease a Windows box on a temporary or long-term basis. There are a lot of Mac folks out there today who invest hundreds if not thousands of dollars in order to access Windows apps perhaps a few times a year. It won't be long before they'll be able to shell out maybe twenty dollars a day and access that vitual machine in the sky, get the Windows work out the way, and move on with their Microsoft-free lives.

Just some stuff to think about.

 

[Austin8]

awsome info long thanks for that!

 

[NoJo]

Following up on some things that have been discussed here and a couple of others:

VMWare Fusion: This is a great product that allows you to run Windows applications on the Mac. The apps are essentially placed in a virtual wrapper and run in PC-Environment. VMWare has taken it even further though, and made it so it is possible to drag and drop files between the Fusion app and a related Mac app. This is a great tool, but there are some drawbacks. First, fusion costs $80.00, and though it is a great tool, there's always the possibility of some frustration getting apps packed, up and running. Second, you still need to own the license to the software being run.

OpenOffice: OpenOffice is an open source software suite including a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation tool (power point), visio type tool, image tool, and a math formula tool. It started as StarOffice, then became OpenOffice version 1, 2, and is up to version 3. With each version, it's functionality AND interoperability with MS Office has grown. I still don't find it entirely compatible with the Microsoft stuff. Meaning, if I write a highly formatted document in OpenOffice Writer, it won't open up looking the same if I email it to someone with Microsoft Word, and vice versa. However, if I was a fairly independent entity and could get by with simply sending PDF's to outside folks (a function built into the software), I'd be very pleased with the software's functionality.

Office Live. If all you really need is to create or open a Microsoft Word or Excel document every once in a while, take a look at Microsoft Live. It is still free and will probably be nominally priced once it really does go live. It allows you to create and edit docs online. If you HAVE to play with Microsoft, this might be the way to go for a lot of folks.

Virtualization: Speaking of playing with Microsoft, virtualization is an increasingly exciting area. Here's something to think about. Today, corporations are setting up farms of servers that allow their users to dial in from anywhere and access a virtual machine that is run on the server hardware. Translated, a user can access a fully functional, high-powered Microsoft Windows machine from a $200 dumb-device, or from pretty much any browser.

Now think about tomorrow. The next step in this is going to be private companies setting up virtual farms of machines that will allow users to lease a Windows box on a temporary or long-term basis. There are a lot of Mac folks out there today who invest hundreds if not thousands of dollars in order to access Windows apps perhaps a few times a year. It won't be long before they'll be able to shell out maybe twenty dollars a day and access that vitual machine in the sky, get the Windows work out the way, and move on with their Microsoft-free lives.

Just some stuff to think about.

Great points, thanks, and refreshingly unpartisan!

 

[Leto Degeneres]

...Office Live. If all you really need is to create or open a Microsoft Word or Excel document every once in a while, take a look at Microsoft Live. It is still free and will probably be nominally priced once it really does go live. It allows you to create and edit docs online. If you HAVE to play with Microsoft, this might be the way to go for a lot of folks.

Virtualization: Speaking of playing with Microsoft, virtualization is an increasingly exciting area. Here's something to think about. Today, corporations are setting up farms of servers that allow their users to dial in from anywhere and access a virtual machine that is run on the server hardware. Translated, a user can access a fully functional, high-powered Microsoft Windows machine from a $200 dumb-device, or from pretty much any browser...

Office Live hasn't occurred to me. There's something to look into, regardless of a new Macintosh or not. Thanks for pointing it out.

Virtualization: I'm struck by the adage "What's old is new again". Maybe you remember VT-100 terminals and time sharing. That's how I started out in 1981. Well, when I was lucky. Sometimes I was stuck with the card reader. Nevertheless, you're exactly right. It's an exciting concept. No matter where you are, or what you're running for a terminal, you'll have a consistent usage and capability environment. I want to look into this as well.

edit: Regarding Office Live, it turns out I'm already using that. I use online storage for documents in a sort of pseudo Sharepoint way, along with the Office Live add-in for Microsoft Office. Other than the storage, I didn't see any online applications per se when I went back there this morning.

 

[longlastingwm]

edit: Regarding Office Live, it turns out I'm already using that. I use online storage for documents in a sort of pseudo Sharepoint way, along with the Office Live add-in for Microsoft Office. Other than the storage, I didn't see any online applications per se when I went back there this morning.

Sorry, all of that MS Live family sort of blends together in my head.

The official name is Office Live Workspace.