If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
Posted on 10/21/2007 1:00:06 PM PDT by American Infidel
This forum has been a great resource for information, not just for political and media related topics, but for a wide range of other topics as well. This is a testament to the diverse skill sets and expertise possessed by the members of Free Republic. I am hoping to leverage this expertise by asking for some advice in the technical area. I am looking to make the switch from a PC to a MAC. I am hoping that some of you may be able to provide some information or even links to information about some of the pros/cons of making the switch as well as some suggestions on things such as migrating about 5 years worth of Internet Explorer Favorites (mostly links to FR threads) to the MAC platform. I also would like to continue to use MS Office (need to purchase in MAC compatible format) - or can I use a Windows parallel environment(?). I currently have a Dell desktop and printer/copier/scanner. My guess is that a Mac would not be compatible with my Dell printer (?). Any information from those who have made the switch would be greatly appreciated. I was unable to find any previous threads on FR regarding this topic. A lot of the stuff I have googled on the topic has been less than comprehensive. Thanks to all in advance for your advice.
Looks like he’s gotten great advice so far. I love my Mac and if all my software would work on it I’d never have to turn on the PC again. When I hit the lottery, I’ll be able to buy myself an IMac and then can run dual platform....that’ll be heaven.
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
Here you go!
1st Step. Go to apple.com or an apple store and see what kind of unit fits your needs. iMac, Laptop, etc. Buy what you can afford.
2nd step. Get Parallels or VM Fusion, both work fine and have different issues pro and con. You cannot really run both. I use Parallels.
3rd step. Make a disk image of your existing PC with all it’s files, software, programs, OS, etc fully in tact. Using Parallels or VM Fusion.
4st Step. Copy this to a file on your new Mac.
5th step. Sell your PC to recover some $$$
6th step. Boot into Mac. Open Parallels. Run all your windows PC in a simple window as if you still had it.
7th step. Wean yourself off of the PC stuff as you feel comfortable, using the parallels/VM windows only when really needed.
8th step. Realize just how long it has been since you did use those windows apps in the VM. Save them off to a DVD or external HD just in case you may need them someday.
9th step. You are now fully a mac user and haven’t had any of the virus, spam, phishing problems you now only read about instead of deal with.
10th step. Tell a friend to go Mac.
That’s it. 10 easy steps to liberty!
Enjoy !
I love my iBook but hate the MS Office Suite for Mac.
WHOA! Sure you can handle that? LOL!
My wife's first car had an 8-track. She bought a converter to play cassettes. Imagine the cassette-like adapter that you plug into a CD player, that's what it was except it was shaped like an 8-track.
VirtualPC will only work with PowerPC Macs which have not been made for over two years. The current methods for the Intel® Macs is virtualization under OS X or dual booting under BootCamp. Both approaches require a legitimate Windows license as does VirtualPC on the PowerPC Macs. When running Windows under BootCamp the Mac IS a Windows PC and it has been reported that it is faster than most PC boxes. Under the virtualization approach, Parallels or Fusion, the Windows session runs in a sandbox under OSX and there is about a 5% speed hit... but still faster than most low and mid range PCs.
It’s truly a technical choice as Mac works way better than PC’s. I used to build my own PC machines and just got tired of having to fiddle with all the spyware, virus protection and all the other MS crapola.
I got my iMac over a year ago and it’s been a wonderful experience. Plenty of games to play and all the MSOffice software works fine for me.
I hate algore, don’t really care for Steve Jobs...but Apple does a superior job with product design, engineering, packaging and customer support. We have a MacBookPro and this iMac, several iPods and an iPhone for ME!
Can’t wait for the OS Leopard next week.
Try a Mac, you won’t go Bac.
.
Some information:Comparison of VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop
Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal reported that although Parallels
Desktop for Mac has more features, Fusion has a smaller impact on overall
system performance. On August 16, 2007, CNET published the results of
several benchmarks in which Fusion demonstrated better performance than
Parallels Desktop for Mac in SMP-aware applications.Convert Physical Machines to Virtual Machines – Free!
Remember you must have a valid MS system disk and it's Key
To recover the MS system key download Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder 1.51 and run on the MS machine.
Sometimes I think it’s a question whether people hate Steve Jobs or Bill Gates more.
Have you seen the movie, Pirates of Silicon Valley?
I have. About half of it was complete fiction - and if you read the small print, it’s not actually presented as a factual documentary. Specifically, the negative aspects of Steve Jobs’ personality were greatly exaggerated.
To give you an analogy - POSV’s portrayal of Steve Jobs bears as much resemblance to reality as Democratic Underground’s portrayal of President Bush (”you know, Bushitler!!!!”) does. All the faults magnified, all the positive aspects suppressed.
If you haven't you can watch it here:
However, he still comes off as better than the amoral Bill Gates...
Don’t EVER give up your Commodore 64. Some day it will be wroth real money, say $15, give or take twenty.
LOL! Does it work on a tape?
We’ve been a “Wintel” family for YEARS. Very recently, The Lovely Wife was GIVEN a serious Mac Pro (dual dual-core Intel procs, 7GB of memory, 2TB of storage, 30” display, etc.).
We both have a lot to learn........
......but so far? Amazing machine. Remarkably quiet. Just unreal how they have engineered this machine. It sits next to a dual-Opteron workstation that sounds like an aircraft revving up. Unbelievable.
She runs Final Cut Pro 2 on it (also provided free) and, unlike Premier 6.5 on the Intel machine............never needs rebooting. It just......runs.
So far.......color me ultra-impressed.
Paralels is popular with Mac users, but you’ve also got another option...boot camp. Not that Macs are Intel based, you can install windows on them and dual boot if neccessary. If your only need for Windows software is the MS Office suite, be aware that plenty of other programs read and write Office formats natively now. I use a suite called Neo Office, which is a port of Open Office with Mac graphics and toolbars (that is to say, it’s an “aqua native” program). Apple also has a very reasonably priced office suite called iWork, that has a word processor that not only read and writes Word formats, it also doubles as a basic desktop publishing program like Adobe Acrobat. Numbers and Keynote, the spreadsheet and presentation apps, are also MS Office compatible.
Or you can just shell out money for Microsoft Mac port of Office if you’d like.
The only complaint I have about the Mac is the Safari browser. Its functionality is pretty basic. Its not what I expect with Apple software. As soon as you get your Mac, download Camino, the Mac port of Firefox.
“I’m not against the Mac, but, platforms for currency trading are friendlier to the pc.”
Now that Macs are Intel based, why not just dual boot? You can install Windows and OS X on them these days.
This reply may very likely reveal my ignorance, but, my g5 is not the dual processor version, it is osx tho. I was told the meta 4 platform was only pc compatible.
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