A month with a mac [Archive] - XtremeSystems Forums

antipop

08-01-2005, 01:35 AM

If someone is interested by macs and wants to know more about it, anandtech have written some nice articles about switching to macs seen from a pc user view.
Part 1 : http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2232
Part 2 : http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2326

In the first article, he uses a dual 2.5 Powermac and in the second one he uses a 15" Powerbook. The articles are 6 months old and since Tiger and the mac mini appeared, and there's some article on them too if you want to check them out.

ps : i'm trying to have a nice talk about another view of computers, so please don't post stuff like "mac is crappy, i hate it blah blah" if you don't give some reasons and explain your view.
Keep you're mind open and try new things, i was a die hard windows user. Windows 2K was the best OS ever made. Since i touched OSX, my views are totally different and it is so far a great experience for me.

Ugly n Grey

08-01-2005, 06:15 AM

I am totally comfortable navigating OSX. I have tested it extensively on a freebie sent by sales to my office. I have not switched, I would be totally uncomfortable being stuck with it it...too much like being married to Jobs. I'll keep my PC. That was my experience, your mileage may vary.

For the record I do not hate the OS, I just find it..limiting. I think my Mother would love it. I may buy her a mini.

Do your own research folks. Beleive nothing you hear.

$a1Ty

08-07-2005, 05:08 AM

macs are cool, silly die-hard pc ppl that say they are crap have never used one most likely, i use a mac with protools, the mac is fine i hate protools lol :slap:

Ugly n Grey

08-07-2005, 05:16 AM

Being cool isn't enough to make me want one. I never was a fan of last gen hardware...and I'm not exactly a fan of "ease of use" because that usually means "you get no choice"....Anyhow, happy MAC surfing...

Order

08-07-2005, 06:14 AM

Those dual-core G5s really compete well with the dual core Opteron systems at a similar price to clockspeed ratio.
Oh, wait.

(I came here for no reason other than to be a wiseass. Sorry.)

Ugly n Grey

08-07-2005, 06:16 AM

I figured you'd be here :toast:...but wait...comparable doesn't mean better :) ......

[XC] leviathan18

08-07-2005, 06:24 AM

are you kidding me? if all the movie makers are switching from mac to amd opteron cuz they are a lot faster

Order

08-07-2005, 06:34 AM

I could see Mac making some movement to the "household" PC market if the prices come down. I think they're done, though, when it comes to workstation and enterprise hardware. Maybe the new Xeons will be incredible and if so I'll be wrong but if my gut feeling is correct then Mac will end up as Dell + Ipods.

Ugly n Grey

08-07-2005, 06:38 AM

I think they are done like dinner, I see the Ipod brand fading. I've ditched my shares in favour of RIM.... I always put my money where my mouth is....unlike guys who claim MAC's are great and then don't own one...that's not a shot at you Order, just the way I see other guys reacting....

Order

08-07-2005, 06:42 AM

True, I do not own one, but I've certainly worked on my share of them while in the proverbial "field". Plus EVERY SINGLE ONE of my friends are Mac users. They're all graphic designers, lol. I don't know how it happened but they all moved to Brooklyn and joined the whole design subculture. You should see me at their parties when it disintegrates into me versus twelve H&M-clad hipster designers defending their Macs against my subtle abuses. :)

Ugly n Grey

08-07-2005, 07:51 AM

I can do anything a MAC can do but I do it faster, (except run OSX), end of story for me. I can do it just as easily and I don't crash either.

But a MAC user definitely cannot do what I can do with my PC.

And the first person who says, yeah but you get virus' and crap, well that's a Windblows problem...not a PC problem, so kiss my butt....and last time I looked there were antivirus products for the MAC and cell phones and everything else....

If you belong to xtremesystems, you're here to wring the last spec from your PC, if you want to argue all day, show me your MAC and you using it, show me something I cannot do. Prove it's better in any way shape or form. Quantify it with numbers and costs.

Yep there are diehard MAC users, but my expirement at work is proving that the great MAC choo choo has had it's day. The apple is now wormy in my opinion.

rant mode /off

Entity_Razer

08-07-2005, 10:17 AM

antipop

08-07-2005, 10:37 AM

are you kidding me? if all the movie makers are switching from mac to amd opteron cuz they are a lot faster
Pixar switched recently to G5 (it's owned by Jobs, but they weren't using mac now they do).

I own a mac so i know what i'm talking about. Apple is far from being wormy (just look at the rise of their stock) and i see it expanding even more with the switch to intel's. (Job never liked ppc, NeXt was based on x86) Tiger is the first step toward a killer os, forget spotlight the biggest innovations of tiger are under the hood. It's not because they're antivirus that it means there are virus. There's no virus for osx it's as simple as that.

Ugly n Grey

08-07-2005, 12:42 PM

I own a mac so i know what i'm talking about. Apple is far from being wormy (just look at the rise of their stock) and i see it expanding even more with the switch to intel's.
Wishful thinking, the majority of financial analysts have lowered their ratings and earning expectations against increased competition to the Ipod. Unless jobs has another killer device in his back pocket, his PC business won't keep apple on the upswing by itself. It's too stagnant.

(Job never liked ppc, NeXt was based on x86) Tiger is the first step toward a killer os, forget spotlight the biggest innovations of tiger are under the hood.
Interesting, anything new? or more recycled Unix ware?

It's not because they're antivirus that it means there are virus. There's no virus for osx it's as simple as that.

I'll take your apology now. You should run a google on what you spit out as facts BEFORE you write them down.

http://www.lowendmac.com/lite/03/0813.html

I will grant you this, the mini is pretty. But I'm not and just like picking a woman I'll take function over fashion any day.

Ugly n Grey

08-07-2005, 12:45 PM

UnG

I'll show you something that is in itsself just stunning and amazing.http://images.apple.com/macmini/images/indextop20050111.jpg

It's small (VERY small) and has enough power to beat a previus gen PC (my generation computer :p: a AMD Barton or a P4 early one.)

THis is something MAC beats PC hands down in

But I do need to add, PC's can be just as powerfull/small. The only real problem is, MAC is into/occupies itsself with such designs and is striving for smaller faster. PC is not. It is happy with its size as it is and it will remain to be the same for a few more years to come :)

Although MACs beat PC's handsdown on the beaty factor though :)

I agree they are striving for differentiation and that their designs are unique. I hope it's enough to keep them afloat because the market needs that competition. But you said it yourself, it's as powerful as a last generation PC. People who buy a mini are after a functional neat computer and they get just that.

Neat looking little thing isn't it?

antipop

08-07-2005, 01:01 PM

No mention of what the virus does, how it works how many machines have been infected. It's more a rumor than anything else.

To be precise there is one virus on osx and in order to work YOU need to type your admin password! We're miles away from all the :banana::banana::banana::banana::banana: you get on windows!

UnG, you're against mac i got it, so why bother saying it for the tenth time. I was trying to do a small thread were people could be more aware of osx and what it might do. I got that it doesn't do what you want but maybe for other it will.

ps : apple is so wormy the stock went from $10 to almost 50 in two years, looks like a bad investment to me

Ugly n Grey

08-07-2005, 01:15 PM

I was onboard for the stock swing, I bought in as soon as Jobs came back. I really do hope Apple suceeds. But not for the reasons that people are saying. If you are going to make product statements, do your research. This is the same company that claimed to have the "World's only 64 bit dual processor" workstation at the G5 launch while I was running Beta Redhat 64 on a pair of Optys I got from IBM a month before and already had boxed versions of SuSE 64 sitting on my desk...

I'm saying you buy MACs to be different, because they look sweet, because you like that it's not Microsoft, because you always bought MAC and on and on it goes. Those statements I agree with and they are all valid reasons for buying a product.

But I really get HOT under the collar when people start telling me how technically superior they are. That's just marketing hype just like M$. Use the search function and check all the facts, be informed, be empowered. If you still want to buy a MAC "just because" that's great!!! I hope they live a longggg time. Like I said I see a mini in my Mom's future, for those very reasons i think are valid for buying a MAC...

antipop

08-07-2005, 01:34 PM

Who stated that they are superior in this thread? One said "they're cool", the other that they compared to pc. The other that the mini was a nice machine and that it beats the pc.
Next time do your own search before spitting out that you found a virus for mac, lowendmac seems to be a joke site and that article a hoax.

I wasd trying to have a thread a bit different, that we could talk about osx and what it does and not some stupid fight. Has someone read the article?

Ugly n Grey

08-07-2005, 01:41 PM

The article is a good read. Start a new thread, I'll keep my nose out if unless I have something positive to say.

My threat assesment whitepaper from last week from Symantec (I have a corp license) lists 11 known virus/trojan combos for OSX btw...that one on that web site is not included, no one has submitted it yet..

antipop

08-07-2005, 01:59 PM

Symantec has not a very good relationship with Apple, i rely more on the people using osx and my own experience. i browse and post on a few apple forum and i still haven't encoutered a single person being a victim from a virus.

The thread is already here and i won't start a new one, people can post here freely. I was just trying to keep things in order here, otherwise we can way OT like on the other thread. I'll do a new thread where we can continue this if you want.

antipop

08-07-2005, 02:08 PM

For comparison and talking about different os, i've started this thread http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=71125

Let's keep this one about the article ;)

Order

08-07-2005, 02:24 PM

Something about the milky-white shine of a new Apple product dredges up uncomfortable childhood memories involving my uncle.

antipop

08-08-2005, 07:27 AM

ROFL i don't even know what the white stuuf was

vegeta

08-08-2005, 12:28 PM

Did you knew, you can CAN run linux on AppleHW :rolleyes:
Even on a ipod :D

I want to see a comparison between a linux distri on AppleHW and computerHW :).

Ugly n Grey

08-08-2005, 12:36 PM

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

For comparison and talking about different os, i've started this thread http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=71125

Let's keep this one about the article ;)

Please see above, I was already a bad boy on this thread, now it's only fair I try to help it get back on topic :)

Mr. Tinker

08-08-2005, 02:46 PM

Can I say that I just opened a brand new Mac G5 up (watercooled and everything) and I really liked what I saw. Like a really nice Lian-Li or something. And Ellen Feiss is hot. I'd smoke with her any day. I still hate macs.

Order

08-08-2005, 03:20 PM

Are they actually watercooled or are they heatpipe-cooled?

illmatik

08-08-2005, 03:33 PM

macs are cool, silly die-hard pc ppl that say they are crap have never used one most likely, i use a mac with protools, the mac is fine i hate protools lol :slap:

hehe, loud and clear!! from another frustrated pro tools user ;)

Mr. Tinker

08-08-2005, 03:39 PM

Are they actually watercooled or are they heatpipe-cooled?
watercooled dude! want me to go get a pic of the radiator?

Order

08-08-2005, 03:47 PM

No, thats okay I was just curious.
Thanks, though.

antipop

08-08-2005, 10:59 PM

Yeah i saw that but i guess youre the only one :D

Major

08-09-2005, 08:29 AM

I've owned several Macs going back to the orginal fat mac :D

I Like the OS, but feel limited as a power user.

Ugly n Grey

08-09-2005, 08:30 AM

OK done, I ordered Mom a mini. Now how the heck am I gonna OC it?

antipop

08-09-2005, 08:34 AM

OK done, I ordered Mom a mini. Now how the heck am I gonna OC it?
Open it and then play with the resistors, i saw a how to somewhere i'll try to find it again.

Which one you bought? If it's the 1.25, it runs without a problem at 1.42, and the 1.42 can run at 1.67 but i don't know if it always happen

Ugly n Grey

08-09-2005, 08:42 AM

the 1.42..... I'm replacing her mini system built on a via arena board. This unit is a lot bigger than her current one, but it gives her a refresh and is more appropriate for me to burn a DVD when I am over there. Do you know how long it takes to compress a VHS home movie onto a DVD using a C3 900? You DON'T want to know...the C3 was just a hand me down from an attempt I made to build something to control my car from the back seat...

antipop

08-09-2005, 08:58 AM

For oc'ing i found this http://www.lbodnar.dsl.pipex.com/macmini/ you could always give it a try

I'm sure the mini will plenty ten times faster for encoding those movies, but i hope you bought some extra ram, 512 is a strict minimum (recommended 1Gb or above)

Ugly n Grey

08-09-2005, 09:10 AM

already done on the RAM, went to a gig, mom only surfs and play a few MSN games. I started ripping all our old home movies into new media (currently DVD) some time ago, so that's the only reason for a replacement, otherwise the c3 was fine (fanless system)....Basically it will see some minor compression use while I am there, it will be reliable for surfing that's all that's needed, a gig is plenty... but if I could get 25% more out of it that's time in my pocket in this case... I'll try it out, thanks for the links...

antipop

08-09-2005, 09:13 AM

You're welcome :) Tell me how it goes and if your mom likes it ;)

Ugly n Grey

08-09-2005, 09:19 AM

I'm sure SHE will, of course I will still grumble :) I expect this thing to go five years minimum....

Spanky Deluxe

08-23-2005, 04:50 AM

In the past few months I've really got into Macs a lot. I've spent years of argueing about PCs are better and faster, Windows is way better etc etc. Now I feel like I should eat my hat. Apart from the obvious speed advantages of using dual core A64 systems, Macs seem to rule the way. They're all based on the same hardware so are easy to support and maintain. They look good. But most of all they run OS X. Which is simply fantastic. Its absolutely lovely!! Way nicer than Windows. I now detest Windows, I've had too many viruses, spyware, malware etc get into my Windows computers even with fully paid for antivirus and anti-spyware software that it really is nice to see an OS that is easy to use, looks great and doesn't hang every five minutes because the latest worm is taking up 99% of your CPU time.
Now that they're switching to Intel its already possible to build your own 'Macs' - all you need is an SSE3 processor and a little hacking skills to make it install. Graphics drivers apparently aren't available yet for Nvidia and ATI cards but that'll only take a little time. I'd love to run OS X as a daily OS and then resort to Windows for games and benchmarking.

antipop

08-23-2005, 06:12 AM

Now that they're switching to Intel its already possible to build your own 'Macs' - all you need is an SSE3 processor and a little hacking skills to make it install.
This is cracking and you shouldn't be talking about that here. It's illegal to do this kind of thing.

[XC] moddolicous

08-23-2005, 11:54 PM

OK done, I ordered Mom a mini. Now how the heck am I gonna OC it?
Wow, I'm surprised Ugly. Since u posted that, u havent threatened to run the ppc version of gentoo or some other linux based OS on it.

Xyus89

08-24-2005, 11:11 AM

I liked macintosh because It's known to be much stabeler and you can use the newest software for 5 years with a mac and it's time to upgrade.

My dad had a very old powermac for 5 years and it never ever crashed or freezed.
I like mac OS because It's a much more nicer envirement to work with and you've got that bar on the bottom of your scream.

Another great thing is that mac's have much more less mhz and work faster/equally as pc , that shows how much XP needs to run.

If mac were to make there OS compatible with PC I would buy it!

and I am considering to buy a mac mini for my Tv, so I can run al movies.

Xyus

SynGroW

08-25-2005, 06:15 AM

If mac were to make there OS compatible with PC I would buy it!

It's not officially compatible with normal computers, but since Apple decided to use Intel hardware instead of the IBM PowerPC CPU's you can run OSX on normal computer hardware :)

Apple distributed a special version of OSX together with their Intel test systems to a lot of company's who design software for the OSX platform.

This version is leaked and you can find it on the net ;)

With the right tools and a how-to (you can find a lot of them with google, I don't think I'm allowed to post a link to one of them here) you can install OSX on your Intel or AMD system :) )

A friend of mine runs OSX and Windows XP in dual-boot on his Acer P-M laptop and it works great :) only problem is the lack of drivers for a lot of hardware.

Xyus89

08-25-2005, 07:08 AM

Hello,

thx for the reply.

but I really doubt if mac is going to release an official mac OSX for pc users :(
because they won't to sell there computers were they get most profit :(

but I'll keep it in mind what you said ;)

Xyus

antipop

08-25-2005, 08:38 AM

Please can you stop talking about x86 Tiger on regular PC? This is borderline illegal (the talking, the rest is illegal).

MaxxxRacer

08-25-2005, 01:27 PM

Myself and my father have both used MAC's rather extensively, but not by choice i must admit.

In my opinion they are overpriced underperforming machines, powered by an OS that is incredibly limiting and slow.

An example here. A while back I was in a mac store and i tried out a dual 2.5gz G5.. at home i had a AXP at 2.3ghz.. now my machine cost about 400 dolllars at the time and the mac ws 3k.. but tbh i couldnt feel a diference in speed, and i even opened up a few programs and timed how long they took to load... it was the same.. at that point i started laughing in disgust at how apple could get away with such a thing.

Anyway, the mac hardware is purely inferior and most every REAL techy knows it. the IBM PPC just cant cut it anymore and that is a stone cold fact. From what UnG has toldm e they do well when u get 5cpus or more, but guess what.. apple isnt using 5 of them. Reading anandtechs article on the hardware you quickly see the reasons that the ppc architecture just cant cut it. maybe if it was out aobut 3 years ago, it would be an excelent contender, but now it isnt.

Now to the OS. FreeBSD is a very fast OS by itself. BUT apple likes to make things pretty.. very pretty. This is all well and good, but they do it at the expense of speed.. and they do it everywhere. I have an ibook 1.4ghz in the house and to be frank, it has a hard time running ANY app. just opening up the internet browser slows it down horribly. granted the ibooks hardware isnt amazing, but even still, its not ultra slow either. as well, pretty much any other program you run, you can feel the lag in every movement.

for all of you mac mini fans.. My dad just got one for work, and apparently the thing is unusably slow in stock form. The first thing he did to it was slap in a gig of ram as OSX by itself can take up to 512mb just to get going. From what he said, he nearly chucked the thing at a wall becuase it was so frustratingly slow.. Now you want to pay 500 dollars bare minimum for something that slow?? you have to be out of your mind. granted its tiny and all, but so freeking what if its unusable.

Tilmitt

08-29-2005, 04:10 PM

This is cracking and you shouldn't be talking about that here. It's illegal to do this kind of thing.
It is not illegal. If you have paid for your computer and a copy of Mac OS X then you can do what you want with them. Personally the thought of OS X running on an x86 processor revolts me, but it is "legal".

Ugly n Grey

08-29-2005, 06:01 PM

It is not illegal. If you have paid for your computer and a copy of Mac OS X then you can do what you want with them. Personally the thought of OS X running on an x86 processor revolts me, but it is "legal".

The license agreement stipulates that OSX be run only on a piece of Apple hardware. Read it.

Tilmitt

08-31-2005, 12:46 PM

The license agreement stipulates that OSX be run only on a piece of Apple hardware. Read it.

Breaching a license agreement is not illegal, it just means that Apple is not obliged to give you any product support.

Ugly n Grey

08-31-2005, 12:53 PM

Breaching a license agreement is not illegal, it just means that Apple is not obliged to give you any product support.

I see. Keep believing that.

benji

09-01-2005, 01:10 PM

breaching a license aggrement not illegal. Just no support.
phew....has copyright law changed so much since 2004?

Tilmitt

09-07-2005, 12:12 PM

I was under the impression that breaching a License agreement by say giving out free copies was illegal, but that a person reserves the right to do what they want with the software. Like Sony an Microsoft can't sue you for installing a mod chip in your games console, so I would have thought the same applies to running software in non default configuartions. Though it seems i may be wrong in this instance...

Ugly n Grey

09-07-2005, 12:28 PM

It depends on the terms on the package... they are all different. MAC lincesnign specifies only designated hardware.... and it's stood up in court before... like when they shut down the MAC clone makers and were sued for access to the OS.....

nn_step

09-13-2005, 02:06 PM

I will take a mac over windows anyday... a computer is like Air Conditioning.. it stops working once you open windows...
:lol:

Arkangyl

12-05-2005, 02:10 PM

I really don't see why everyone complains about WinXP crashing and getting infected.

I've had this instill going for a few months now, last one went from this time last year until then. The only reason for the new install was the move from 120gb IDE to 2x160gb SATA RAID 0 :D

In that timeframe I have had no issues with infection or crashes. And that's with NO anti-virus installed. Hell, I didn't have Spybot till yesterday, ran it and had a massive ONE item get popped up as potentially evil. Click and gone.

I'll admit that I've skinned XP to be semi-Macish. Brushed Alu color scheme and Objectdock are nice. Beyond that I don't do any video editing and my image editing is just fine in Photochop here, no lags at all. Oh, and I can game :D

and nn_step, when I open my windows my PC runs faster :D

[cooler air = lower temps = higher OC for those that didnt get that one]

perry_78

12-05-2005, 02:50 PM

Considering we have a terrific thread revival, I'll post my opinion here :)

I find win2k3 when properly tweaked and adjusted to suit my needs (everyone has different requirements and uses with a system of course), it runs very well and I don't complain, and it comes at less a cost than a mac would.

I'll be getting one of those new über cheap iBooks in Q1 06, because I need a school laptop, and a windows one is rather expensive considering what you get in the 700 dollar range (terrible build quality for most of the time). I would so like to get a nice IBM, however my money isnt there. A laptop that runs me word apps, a film every now and then, runs word, prints, runs word and has a decent price and keyboard is what I would like, amongst running word.

I agree that the whole iPod syndrome is getting somewhat tiresome. I have a 3G iPod (30gb, first ones that came out since the absolutely original design), and despite battery changes every year I'm happy with it, just needs more space. I'm reluctant though to purchase those new video things, as an iPod is now a fashionable object rather than an mp3 player. I see people with 250 songs on a 60gb ipod :rolleyes:

Shame no manufacturers have come up with a decent response, I don't like the Sony's, nor the creatives.

ranting over.

ghost_03

12-06-2005, 07:30 PM

I'll be getting one of those new über cheap iBooks in Q1 06, because I need a school laptop, and a windows one is rather expensive considering what you get in the 700 dollar range (terrible build quality for most of the time). I would so like to get a nice IBM, however my money isnt there. A laptop that runs me word apps, a film every now and then, runs word, prints, runs word and has a decent price and keyboard is what I would like, amongst running word.

hehe that's funny. I have an IBM t43p 2ghz dothan/sonoma/1gb ram/firegl v4300 that sits collecting dust. I can't stand it in comparison to my much-nicer-to-use dated 867mhz/640mb 12" alu powerbook. The thinkpad is much faster and sometimes I use it for extra horsepower when I've got video to be rendered, but screen,os,keyboard,heck even the sound card on the powerbook is much better, not to mention the nice-looking factor.

As far as all the people who feel limited, I'm not entirely sure what's limiting, but, open up terminal. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. There's a lot under the hood.

As far as mac hardware being slower, why, yes it is, would you like a cookie? That's going to change in a little bit anyway.

As far as apple releasing OS for any PC, yeah, it could happen. Die-hard apple fans say that apple makes most of their profit on hardware, and that's true, but that's with 5% marketshare. 50% os marketshare is *A LOT* more money than 5% of hardware, not to mention they'd still have ipods and people that buy imacs will still buy imacs. They'd have to get real serious with the powermacs to keep sales though. The problem is that jobs is 1.) too short sighted and 2.) not willing to take the risk since he's sitting pretty 3.) perhaps too confident? to make the switch. It'd be betting the farm.

sladesurfer

12-08-2005, 07:53 AM

perry_78

12-08-2005, 01:07 PM

I bought the mac mini just to try apple out and the thing 's ok not great. I catch myself going back to my pc whenever i need to use a computer.I give apple A+ for ease of use. I guess apple computers are targeted for moms and those movie stars who dont know anything about computer but would like to have one cause it's cool looking.As far as virus is concern, Apple by far is not virus free and the only reason it's not gettting a lot is because people who makes viruses doesnt feel it's worth while to make any cause there's not a lot of mac users out there for them to exploit. call it a waste of time.

Oh very much so, reffering to UnG's post, a PC fulfills my needs much better and/or faster than a mac does. I am not a person who preses on, types in password, clicks PS CS 2.0 and plays with images, or clicks firefox or MSN.

ease of use is important, but to all us self-proclaimed power users, an "easy" MAC simply wont kick it for most of the time.

My student laptop though, needs to run word, print, word and word ;) A mac should be able to do that I would think ;)

Xenogias

12-09-2005, 03:54 AM

1 virus or 11, its still a bit shy of the hundreds of thousands we pc users have dealt with and will continue to deal with long into the foreseeable future. Macs are good, they are great even. I fix laptops at a university all day, its my job and I'll tell you what, the hardware failure rate for macs is much, much lower than for PCs. I still enjoy using 4 year old mac laptops for most non-gaming applications. I can't say the same for PCs which must be doubled in almost every spec to support the next version of winblows. Whats really interesting is that if you take the average PC user, I think he or she would beenfit more from a mac for his websurfing, wordprocessing, IMing, email, and grocery tax calculating applications, while having a much better designed machine, aesthetically. For all the effort people put into pimping out their pcs, macs still look better. sheesh. Its an appliance, and a very good one at that. Its when you begin to look at computing as a business/hobby/obsession that a PC really begins to make sense, unless you are a graphical designer.

ghost_03

12-09-2005, 08:53 AM

Oh very much so, reffering to UnG's post, a PC fulfills my needs much better and/or faster than a mac does. I am not a person who preses on, types in password, clicks PS CS 2.0 and plays with images, or clicks firefox or MSN.

ease of use is important, but to all us self-proclaimed power users, an "easy" MAC simply wont kick it for most of the time.

My student laptop though, needs to run word, print, word and word ;) A mac should be able to do that I would think ;)

All of freebsd unix won't kick it for your power user needs? I smell bull:banana::banana::banana::banana:. Open up terminal. Get fink running. You can run whatever PPC unix apps you want. The software is all there.

IMO, disadvantages of mac are 1.) no real windows software support 2.) expensive 3.) not pc hardware.

Once you know the OS, however, it's not restrictive. It just doesn't have all the headaches.

Arkangyl

12-09-2005, 11:19 AM

I still enjoy using 4 year old mac laptops for most non-gaming applications. I can't say the same for PCs which must be doubled in almost every spec to support the next version of winblows. Whats really interesting is that if you take the average PC user, I think he or she would beenfit more from a mac for his websurfing, wordprocessing, IMing, email, and grocery tax calculating applications, while having a much better designed machine, aesthetically. For all the effort people put into pimping out their pcs, macs still look better. sheesh. Its an appliance, and a very good one at that. Its when you begin to look at computing as a business/hobby/obsession that a PC really begins to make sense, unless you are a graphical designer.

I think that covers 99% of people here :p

and I don't know how on topic this is but you're definatly right about the average computer user being better off with a mac. I think, however, that Apple needs both a mac-Mini in the $300-400 range to compete with the ub3r budget PCs and an iMac in the $800-1000 range, say 15 or 17" LCD with mac mini specs.

Then the Powerbook / Powermac line for those who do the video/image/audio editing chores.

Xenogias

12-09-2005, 01:40 PM

Arkangyl,

Oh I know. I wouldn't trade in my pc for a mac =]

I actually like the approach some universities take in pushing mac laptops on incoming freshmen. In this day and age, almost every incoming university freshmen gets a laptop, either from the school or from somewhere else. Most of these schools have deals with IBM or Dell. There's just one or two that have one with Apple. I wish more companies/schools would wake up to what benefits the "typical" student most. Although, with the ipod proliferation phenomenon I've already felt my manhood in question every time i rock mine and 6 people around me also have the white earbuds in. So freakin mainstream....

antipop

12-10-2005, 05:58 AM

There's nothing wrong with having a mac and a pc, i have my PB as my main machine but i'm keeping a pc just for fun and toying with it (even if i don't have free time on my hand anymore).
As i have less time free on my hands, i find myself using more and more the PB because it does all i want to do without wasting my time. I'm not saying the pc is a waste of time, but it's just easier to do stuff on the mac.

perry_78

12-10-2005, 06:00 AM

All of freebsd unix won't kick it for your power user needs? I smell bull:banana::banana::banana::banana:. Open up terminal. Get fink running. You can run whatever PPC unix apps you want. The software is all there.

IMO, disadvantages of mac are 1.) no real windows software support 2.) expensive 3.) not pc hardware.

Once you know the OS, however, it's not restrictive. It just doesn't have all the headaches.

So, MACs are better if you run other OS on them than their MAC OS X.whatever.

The point of the discussion was based primarily on the operating system, not the hardware behind it.

Gee, get a grip and read the whole 3 pages :rolleyes:

ghost_03

12-10-2005, 02:57 PM

So, MACs are better if you run other OS on them than their MAC OS X.whatever.

The point of the discussion was based primarily on the operating system, not the hardware behind it.

Gee, get a grip and read the whole 3 pages :rolleyes:

Do you know what an operating system is? I said absolutely nothing about running any other operating system on mac hardware.

Perhaps the problem you, as well as others in this thread that feel OSX to be limiting, is that it's difficult to understand that Mac OSX consists of an Apple Proprietary window system and desktop enviornment for FreeBSD Unix. Those that find the OS to be constricting perhaps don't realize that the underlying UNIX is there, and can freely be accessed by Terminal, and packages (including such desktop environments as KDE and GNOME) can be installed with fink. Running apps such as gimp (even in gnome) is still running in OSX, and not any other OS.

Oh, and I did in fact read all three pages. :)

[XC] moddolicous

12-10-2005, 08:08 PM

If you search the internet, there is someone that stripped down the OS to just a terminal I think. Macs get the job done for me.

perry_78

12-11-2005, 04:03 AM

Do you know what an operating system is? I said absolutely nothing about running any other operating system on mac hardware.

Perhaps the problem you, as well as others in this thread that feel OSX to be limiting, is that it's difficult to understand that Mac OSX consists of an Apple Proprietary window system and desktop enviornment for FreeBSD Unix. Those that find the OS to be constricting perhaps don't realize that the underlying UNIX is there, and can freely be accessed by Terminal, and packages (including such desktop environments as KDE and GNOME) can be installed with fink. Running apps such as gimp (even in gnome) is still running in OSX, and not any other OS.

Oh, and I did in fact read all three pages. :)

sorry, rather bad mood I was in. point acknowledged, should get the ibook in soon, ill see how it fares.