Apple Macbook or Is it really not necessary?
 

Went today with a friend so she can buy it, and i fell in love with it. I always loved mac's interface, i had my xp configured to something similar. They're having a special there for students (discount + free printer + free nano).

I'm thinking about buying a new computer or laptop and then transferring over my documents. Anyone know the easiest way to do this? (My documents folder is about 6-9 gb i believe). And all documents should work on mac, right?

Anyways, what do you guys think about it? Or what do you guys suggest? Obviously I'd have to save up a lot more if a Mac is really necessary (meaning other than the fact that i just like it's interface, i find that it can be very useful to me considering what I do on my computer).

I need something that'll be a lot better on handling multiple applications at once. My typical taskbar consists of the following: Photoshop, Outlook, Firefox (with about 10 tabs), CoreFTP, NotePadd ++ (sometimes with very very very large file), A couple of folders opened, Aim, Msn, RealPlayer. Based on that, what specs in particular should I be looking for? I'm even open to just buying a new cpu and keeping my monitor and stuff if that'll be most affordable/beneficial.

Any advice/comments are welcomed.

You can install a Mac OS on a PC now, so if it's the interface you are looking for, you are in luck.

http://www.osx86project.org/

That's interesting, thanks for that. However I need a whole new CPU or computer all together:

for the "switch" from a PC to a Mac, the action is really simple... you can simply take your hard-drive and put it in your mac if you have a Mac Pro... if you have a iMac, you have to link your PC to your Mac via Ethernet, and you transfer your data...

it is simple as it is... i've done like 25 switch just these last 6 months for clients willing to change to Mac. (remember i'm a Apple Genius)

i have an old Mac Pro at home... 3 years old... 2x 2.5Ghz with 1.5Gigs Ram... and i can work Photoshop CS3 flawlessly, BBEdit with documents like 10 Mb in size, playing iTunes music in FLAC (remember that expensive format), having a webchat discussion with my niece (ya know, girls in teenage are always talking too much), Firefox with 5 to 20 tabs, Adiumx connected to (msn, yahoo, aim, icq, aol, gtalk and some others at the same time - i have a lot of clients), and actually running my webserver (Apache 2 with PHP 5 and Mysql 5... etc!) with something like 5000 hits per min., (with 7 vBulletin boards running full power!)... oh, and my wife use my Power PC to play her games from the iMac terminal... so Wolfenstein ET or Scrabbles are always runing in backtasks...

you can't do that with Windows or anyother PC!... not at the same time at least.. lol

EDIT: and if you continue to need to run some Windows APPS, you can activate Apple BootCamp so your Windows is still alive in your computer... actually on my old 3 years old mac i have Windows Vista™ in the background (SoftPC) running 2 times faster than on a Dell Dimension...

oh.. and most of the great games released lately for PC are also on Mac... and more are to be released on Mac before PC (Starcraft II will be on mac months before on PC!)

^^ Thanks, that seems really cool. I think I'm starting to lean more towards the pc side, just because it's what I'm more used to and have programs for. Thing is, I'm not sure what specs to look for based on what i need it for.

it is simple... with Mac, you do not need specs... compared to PC where you have to compare each component you have to add, the Mac are always bundled with the most powerful specs when you buy it... you can't buy a old mac that will need upgrades... it is always the up-to-date perfs... if the specs change tonight, in the store tomorrow you will have the updated specs... no lame configs with "possible upgrades" when you send the coupon.. lol

actually, if you have an average use of your computer, the latest iMac can handle it... and for now, you will have a rebate on the next OS that is coming this fall... it is easy to check what you can need: http://store.apple.com/ check the type you need, and tada! (oh and you can say hello to my iPhone!)

Hm, a computer that updates it's specs? Interesting...

I wouldn't say that. My 5 year old computer can do all that.

Heh ^^. I'm still confused as to what specs to look for if i decide to go with a pc. How much of each spec would i need to handle everything i do?

Hey gio, what will you be using this set up for? And, what's your price range?

And my price range is just as affordable as possible. You know, just don't want to get what i need rather than something that's "cool" or "looks good".. Just something that'll do what i need and in a fast manner.

Connect them (your old computer and new mac) using an ethernet cable. I know they can be networked together and just manually transfer them. That's how my family does stuff.

Yea, that does seem pretty easy. I don't know though, now that i look more at it, Mac's are cool. However, i'm not comfortable enough with the to get work done fast and as comfortable as with a pc. That's why i'm trying to see what specs i need to look for in a pc to get what i need done, and with no computer problems :)

actually, as said, if you like some features more on a Mac and want to switch, you can take the time to deal with a switch by continuing to use Windows on the Mac... for a time... 'til you forget about it.. lol

Those are some awesome points, nexialys. I'm actually considering investing in a Mac, too and your comments have been really informative so far. :D

a good detail... you do not need to "translate" your actual documents to work on a Mac... they just do by themselves. and on a Mac, you have Microsoft Office 2007 working like a charm! (damn we only have the ultimate!)

I just made the transition from PC to Mac earlier this year. I needed a new PC badly and something small and easily transferable for college from class to class...I was going to go for just another PC, but my friends at #vbfans persuaded me to invest in a Mac.

I decided on the Macbook with an upgrade to 2gb ram, and it was an excellent choice, and I have no regrets.

Regarding running lots of applications at once, not a problem, I usually run a myriad of programs while I am on the computer: Firefox, Zend Studio, Itunes, Adium, Word...without any lag whatsoever.

The only thing that I need (especially while programming) is an external monitor, which I plan on purchasing next week. So if you are planning on getting a lappy, keep that in mind....

Now, I am not a big fan of OS wars. I think they are pointless. Just go with what you want and what is in your budget... :)

Any ides what specs i should look for (based on what i do) in a pc?

From what you mentioned so far, I would just make sure you have plenty of RAM (1gb-2gb) and a decent processor. (You could probably get a great system at Dell that is also affordable.)

Do you do a lot of gaming? You would have to take that in mind too. (I don't do any gaming, so I am not any help there.)

Nope, not really in to gaming. Thanks for the tip on the ram! How many ghz would a processor right for me be? And what type (core, athlon, sempreon, there's a couple of them lol).

One more question: My comp is 2.66ghz. Which if is fine, i'll just buy RAM and install it. But how do i know what kinda RAM to buy? Grrr, computer hardware really isn't my thing lol.

There are tools online that can tell you what sort of memory your PC takes:

http://www.crucial.com/index.asp

A memory upgrade may be all you need. How much ram do you have now?

First off, I would like to say thanks to Gio~logist for starting this discussion, and to Nexialys and Danny for the extremely useful information and insight.

My husband and I have been thinking about making this transition, as well, and I've been feeling VERY intimidated by the idea! Having used nothing but PC's up to this point, a Dell Dimension most recently, I'm comfortable and in my groove (read: set in my ways...hehe). However, if this transition will be as smooth and easy as you guys make it seem, I'm all for it, and would LOVE to own a MAC!

Having visited our local Apple Store, and the online store, I was amazed by their computers! There's no tower...the hard drive is IN the monitor! Just blows my mind that it can be done that way. I'm also the proud owner of an iPod Nano. Prior to receiving my Nano as an anniversary gift, I was happy just having a CD Walkman and didn't understand what all the fuss was about with the iPods. WHOA!! That TINY piece of equipment is like my best friend...it goes with me EVERYWHERE!

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that, I believe it's possible that Apple's technology reaches beyond all others. Their products ARE more expensive, but for a very good reason: they're worth it.

RAM, Mhz.... actually, the slowest Mac on the store is faster than any Dell... they provide 2 or 3 models of each just for the maniac of details.

the only detail really is the RAM... the more apps you want to run at the same time will make your decision... i actually have 1.5Gigs on my Mac Pro, and this is not needed to add more in my situation. 800Mbs are reserved for the webserver and the rest for my apps... Photoshop is always running on 75% of the RAM i have so i do not have to calculate that detail.

you can now decide if you go for a tower or a iMac... the Towers are flexible for hard-drives, video cards, network extensions... but aside of that, they are the same as the iMac...

remember that you do not have drivers on a Mac... even if you buy a PC printer or keyboard... you do not need to configure and seek the specs of your extensions to see if they work on a Mac... just lately, i bought a new keyboard (baby dropped my coffee in my old one), and i bought the cheapest Microsoft keyboard (8$... yep... 8$) and in the specs it was noted to not work on a Mac... the only detail not working was the Alt key switched with the Control key,.... so yes, even Microsoft makes Mac keyboard!.. lol

if you are not into gaming, that's less questions... everybody know that Mac have less games, but when you have Windows installed in your bootcamp you can run PC games like in the most powerful PC... you just need a little extra RAM!

i'm not a Mac fan only... you see, i can tell you that you can run everything PC into a Mac... the detail is that a PC ...CAN'T run Mac apps... even if you have something virtual, the shelled Mac emulators are 25% efficient... for the PC/Windows fans or the guys in need of both technologies, the only solution is a new Mac.. :)

oh, btw, when i talk about no need to upgrade when you buy a Mac... it was not about a self-upgradable Mac, but a comparaison with most of the PC sellers that will provide you with free upgrades to make it work with Vista... on a Mac, even with the new OS released in 4 months, no need to tweak your computer to make it work... OS-X Leopard works on a Summer 2001 iMac... (ok, it is slower, but it works! - no tweak)

Good luck! And you're welcome heh ;)



640mb.. Trying to figure out the model of my computer, not in system information (after clicking properties of my comp), hmm. I really need to update my knowledge on this, i hate not knowing so much about something!

As I understand it, Bootcamp is the dual boot solution while Parallels (And now VMWare) are the virtualization products...so using bootcamp would not necessarily require extra memory to function (Outside of Windows being a memory hog :) )

As an interesting foot note, We have 2 iMacs in our lab running Windows XP exclusively...no OSX partition. You have to pre-partition the drive using the OSX setup disk. Make the whole thing NTFS and then boot off of the XP CD to setup up. Use the Bootcamp driver CD once it is all done and you have an OSX-less Mac. Why you would want one is another story ;)

http://www.parallels.com/landingpage...FRGsGgodDGX7og
http://www.vmware.com/beta/fusion/
http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/

If you want to run OSX on a pc without it being virtual, you can do that too:

http://www.osx86project.org/

You can buy an Intel dual core PC (same cpu MAC uses) with a massive hard drive and 4gigs of ram for less than $1000.

A mac with those features would probably cost close to $2000 or more in some cases.

It's and interesting alternative if you are on a budget.

GIO, if you have a p4 2.66 you need standard ddr pc2700. That will be just fine in your dell, now you just have to decide how much you want, 512mb 1gb etc.

Thanks a lot ! :)

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati....asp?CatId=549

Seems cheap, i might get me about 2 more gb

Do not get a 2gb single module, get 2 1gb memory modules.

Besides being illegal and locking you into a system you can not upgrade easily it is a good alternative. I loaded OSX into a VMWare session using these instructions, as well as a gx620 for testing. Far from perfect but it does work.

However, the point of my post was not running OSX on non Apple systems, but running windows on Apple systems. Apple makes some very good hardware. I just ran through some configs from Dell and Apple, and you are right on the price issue...Mac Mini vs Inspiron 530s is a good example of similar systems and the price difference is more than noticeable...and you are losing out on hard drive space.

Oh, ok. Any recommended brands? Considering i already have 645mb or so, i hope i have space for the extra 2gb slots.

You may have to take out your current ram to put the 2 new 1gb modules in there.

Chances are you only have 2 slots on your dell motherboard, one with 512mb and the other with 128mb.

Generic memory should be ok for you, it's not like you have a massive cad machine, or server.

Thanks a lot! You've been a great help. Just one more thing: when i replace the memory cards, no information will be lost right? I can just replace the two ram slots and won't loose any information?

You will not lose information. The Hard Drive is the mechanism that holds all your information.

Make sure the PC is off, and when replacing the modules be sure that the notches on the motherboard are matching the notches on the modules.

Don't force them, they should go in easily.

Thank you very much, that's all i needed to know. Looks like I'm all set :)

I've used this before and I can assure you its not even close to the same thing. I absolutely love my macbook pro.

... any substitution is NEVER the same... osx86 is just a substitution for geeks...

bootcamp for Mac is not a random thing, it is a Microsoft product... built by Microsoft to fit in Apple products... (that's what we call partnerships...)

Boot Camp is a product by Apple. Not Microsoft. If you don't believe me... Visit Apple's Website.

As far as I know, Apple doesn't place third party applications under the section dedicated to Mac OS X and it's features on their website.

hum, King, i'm not telling BootCamp is released by... but is developped by... even in the last interview between Gates and Jobs at the D5, they told directly "we worked together on BootCamp to make it sleek and efficient..."

and usually, when Gates say such things, i suppose he know what he is talking about.