Vanity: Should I switch to Mac (somebody else is paying)?

Vanity - Self | January 30, 2008 | Scoutmaster

[Scoutmaster]

Please excuse the vanity, but I know many of you have very definite (and often informed) opinions about PC v. MAC.

I have an opportunity to upgrade my home desktop and laptop with designated funds from work. In other words, somebody else’s money, enough to seriously soup up a Mac Pro desktop and a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air. If I choose PC, then I'll upgrade only my laptop. No need to upgrade my PC desktop - the drudgery of re-installing software far outweighs the little jump I'd make in PC desktop technology.

If knowing about my PC use is helpful, read on. If not, then just skip to the asterisks below.

Me? PC user since I bought my first desktop in 1991 but have since built about a dozen PCs for my family, the last couple with fairly high-end Core 2 Duo-type specs. I have a better working knowledge of the Windows XP Pro OS and PC hardware than most computer users, but in a room of IT people I’m a lightweight. My kids can call from college with a Windows OS or software problem and I can usually talk them through the fix or the installation of new or replacement hardware. No real Windows OS problems, perhaps because I’m finicky about regular maintenance of the OS, cleaning unnecessary files, fixing minor registry errors, defragging, optimizing the start-up processes, removing all remnants of programs I no longer use, etc. Feel as though I would be starting from knowledge point zero if I switch to a Mac.

Job involves lots of writing, so for work purposes my PC is a basically a word processor/research tool which I use for hours each day.

At play, I’m a heavy Internet user, a moderately heavy web design/video/graphics/Flash animation user, with a developing knowledge of 3d graphics/3d animation.

Often use my laptop for graphics, video, and animation play when on the road.

When I start to think Mac, my practical side reminds me that I have a metric Peruvian buttload of Windows software to support my graphics/animation addiction (software acquired at educational prices, a minor blessing) – such as most of Adobe’s current web design, graphics, photo, and video/DVD production software; and Maxon, Maya, SoftImage, and Z-Brush 3d graphics/3d animation software. I’m a sucker for 'superior' after-market (Open Source, if possible) administrative/maintenance software alternatives to the standard Windows programs - Diskeeper Pro, Firefox, Opera, GetRight downloader, etc.

Our family operates on a pass-down hierarchy of computer technology, so my switching to Mac would eventually result in Macs for three PC-savvy kids and for a please-just-do-it-and-don’t-make-me-learn-that-computer-stuff spousal unit whose computer use is frequent but involves little more than Office Word, Quicken, and the Internet.

* * * * *

I’ve read what I can find from technical pros and everyday geeks who tried and documented a test-run switch to Mac – some of whom drank the Mac Kool-Aid and some of whom stayed with a PC.

Spoke with several of our IT people. Mac would be compatible to network with work, but they warn that they are notably unsuited to assist with any Mac-related compatibility issues.

* * * *

I realize I could acquire the Mac versions of the video production, animation, and graphics software I use most often. I realize a Mac would run Final Cut Pro and other respected Mac-specific software titles. I also realize that in a pinch I can set up the Mac for dual OS and keep running the Windows version of that software.

What practical advice would you give to help me make an informed PC v. Mac decision?

[antiRepublicrat]

I get irritated when I use them because there's a ton of stuff on the desktop and I still can't find where anything is.

It all gets very easy once you wean yourself from the Start menu, learn where all that stuff is on the Mac.

For rarely launched programs I don't even bother with the Applications folder (on Windows, Start, All Programs, on Mac always visible in Finder) or the Dock. For example, there's Disk Manager (on Windows, Start, Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Disk Management -- or right-click my computer to get to Computer Management). I just cmd-space, type "disk" in Spotlight and hit Enter to run the Disk Manager. Six quick keystrokes is faster than a bunch of mouse navigation and doesn't clutter your normally-run programs space with something you rarely use.

[Uri’el-2012]

How do you adapt between using a two-button PC mouse with a scroll wheel to a one-button MAC mouse? It would seem to be frustrating as heck to switch back and forth?

I use a logitech 4 button marble with my mac.

[Peelod]

It took me yrs to convince the directrix of the Ministry of Finance that I needed a new machine.

“Your G3 still works - use it!”

[Spktyr]

BlueCat always comes on these Mac threads and posts about some mysterious problem he had with a Mac. However, he never responds to queries about model, configuration, or just what the problem was....

[No.6]

Since you’ve built several PCs, you probably keep up with tech news somewhat and know that you can dual boot (”Boot Camp”) any Mac into Windows XP or Vista.

Get the Mac, it’ll serve you well as a Windows box too.

[zip]

ping

[antiRepublicrat]

How do you adapt between using a two-button PC mouse with a scroll wheel to a one-button MAC mouse?

It's hard. You start to miss the cool scroll ball on the Mac, the scroll ball button click for Dashboard, and the squeeze button click for Expose. You also miss being able to lazily press almost anywhere on the mouse for a left-click, even using both fingers, as this accidentally pops up a context menu in Windows a lot for me. The only way that doesn't work on a Mac is if you click just with your middle finger, as that's a right-click.

[Mr. Blonde]

If you truely want better security by design you are usualy better off going with some flavor of Unix....since it tends to allow you much more granualar control over the nuts and bolts of how the OS works...that tends to come with the trade off of more overhead in administration though.

You mean like Mac OS X Leopard which has Unix certification?

[Swordmaker]

As far as security, the Mac OS (OS X) really doesn’t have any fewer security flaws then Windows.... it’s just that Windows has a much larger market share and therefore is alot bigger target. Most malicious users want to find the most target rich environment they can for thier malware... which means they tend to target Windows instead of Mac.... all the stuff you here about Windows being more virus prone has alot more to do with that then any inherint difference in quality of security design between MAC and Windows.

You are right. Because you don't have much experience with Macs, you don't know very much about Macs.

Your "Security by Obscurity" claim. There are now approximately 30,000,000 OSX Macs in use. THIRTY MILLION. Macs now represent approximately 8.3% of the overall US computer market in US sales and among non-business consumers they are approaching 20%! That is not obscure.

The vast majority of those Macs, probably in excess of 95%, are running bare, naked on the Internet without any anti-viral or anti-spy ware of any kind. Many of them without a firewall... and yet there are still ZERO self-replicating viruses or worms, or self installing spyware in the wild. OSX is approaching 7 years on the market and successful hacking of an out-of-the-box OSX Mac is also so rare that prizes are offered at hacker contests for someone who might accomplish that task. It has still not been accomplished without lowering the rules and opening the Mac up.

There are a few trojans... but that require quite a bit of user participation to download, install and run... giving administrator permission at every step.

Incidentally, demographic studies of Mac and PC users show that Mac users tend to be a bit more affluent than PC users and so should be the easy and desirable target for hackers.

If you truely want better security by design you are usualy better off going with some flavor of Unix...

That's good advice, Grumpy. You are aware that Apple Mac OSX is one of the three certified UNIX OSes on the market, aren't you?

"Leopard is an Open Brand UNIX 03 Registered Product, conforming to the SUSv3 and POSIX 1003.1 specifications for the C API, Shell Utilities, and Threads. Since Leopard can compile and run all your existing UNIX code, you can deploy it in environments that demand full conformance — complete with hooks to maintain compatibility with existing software."

[Aria]

I have that dual core (or whatever you call it)MacBook and use it for composing documents, surfing and emails. I use Quickbooks on my PC for business and do all printing from the PC.

It works, and yes it would be fun to have the latest and greatest but I’m happy....for now. :-)

p.s. I’m a she.

[Albion Wilde]

Another FR computer thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1962102/posts

[Turbopilot]

It all gets very easy once you wean yourself from the Start menu, learn where all that stuff is on the Mac.

Exactly what I've been saying (well, assuming).

I do like shortcuts, although I would think that you'd want them for your most-used items, not your least used. That's exactly the type of thing I'd have no idea how to do outside of Windows.

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

My general recommendation for new hardware is Mac. It’s well-priced, solid, beautifully designed and constructed, and well-supported via your local Apple store.

I do recommend an extended warranty which covers accidents in any case.

We have a mix of Windows PCs, Linux PCs and Macs here. The Macs are bulletproof despite being two teenagers’ personal machines. They are much (much MUCH!) easier to set up and maintain than our Linux and especially our Windows machines. My sons’ previous Windows laptops would be brought to their knees with malware every few months, despite costly antivirus and firewall utilities; in three years (six teenager-years) of usage there has not been a single support incident for the Macs. Not one. Meanwhile, my wife’s Windows laptop continues to pick up infestations, again despite many paid precautions.

I personally use Linux, but only because I have existing hardware. It’s very good, preferable to Windows in many ways, but there’s still a whiff of geek quotient to it. Were I to purchase new hardware, I’d be off like a shot to the Apple store.

Good luck with your choice.

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

One more thing. My 85-year-old mother-in-law recently decided to get a new machine to replace her creaking Windows box. At her son’s and my urging, she reluctantly went Mac. “I’m to old to change,” she protested.

She went to the Apple store and walked out with a new iMac. She was actually a bit annoyed— she had asked the folks in the Apple store how to get it working with her existing email account. “Just turn it on,” they replied. She figured they were just not giving an old lady the time of day and that she’d need to figure things out herself.

Well. She took it home, plugged it in, and turned it on, and answered a few setup questions. Within five minutes it had configured itself to work with her new printer, her ISP and her email account. She was totally astonished and rather proud of herself, as setting up her Windows machine had required multiple trips to the Gateway store, purchases of additional software, and repeated consultations with her son and me.

She remains absolutely delighted with the machine and wishes she had switched long ago. Plus, the thing is freakin’ gorgeous.

[montag813]

What are all these “Windows crashes”? I have 8 PCs running XP and have not had a single crash in 4 years. Our graphics software is also faster, and many of the 3D and animation apps we have aren’t available on Mac.

[toddlintown]

I’m in the same situation. A life long PC user (except for the old Com 64 days), I’m getting serious about film, sort of an offshot of my writing career.

I’ve worked with Pinnacle products with an HP for film editing and I’m extremly disappointed. I’m buying a 17” MacBook Pro with the upgrade 2.6GHz processer, a 4 GB, two SO-DIMM, a 200GB 7200-rpm hard drive and a second one at 250GB 5400-rpm and another HD 23” screen and my college kid’s picking up Final Cut Studio 2 for $499 with his school discount. The editing software usually runs about $1299.

The entire setup with be devoted to video and photos, nothing else. I’ll still use my PCs for word processing, spreadsheets, e-mails, etc (can’t quite cut the cord). I don’t want anything on the Mac that will interfer with the speed of it, especially with video editing.

In for a penny; in for a pound, especially when it’s not my money. I also promise not to turn into a Mac-Pr*ck, especially after I gave my brother-in-law so much crap when he moved to the Apple Darkside. I will not, however, buy an iPhone until I can replace my own battery and move to the carrier of my choice, despite the fact that I do find the b-i-l’s iPhone pretty cool.

Vista was the thing that made me make the move. 4 computers and 2 TIVOs on my home network and I STILL cannot get my new HP laptop with Vista to connect to it. An operating system should get easier to use with each upgrade, not turn into an new learning cycle of frustration.

[toddlintown]

He put a new sector on the hard drive. Yes?

[jack_napier]

OK, let me make a few points:

#1: Having 8 CPUs does not make you eight times faster than someone with one. How multi-threaded does a non-server need to be? I do development work all day; including running development instances of application servers. I don't really see that often a situation where more CPUs than the two I have would help. For running a single-threaded application (which most are), YES, a 3.2GHz Core 2 Duo will be faster than 8 Xeons. And for right now, your applications like a word processor or a web browser are...you guessed it, single threaded.

#2: I put together my PC right after the Core 2 Duos came out. There were no quad core machines, or dual quad core machines. I was speaking relative to the timeline. I didn't make that at all clear.

#3: IO, the hard drive is usually the speed bottleneck, not the CPU. Apple has the standard drives or the expensive SCSI option. I have 10k RPM SATA drives. They're noticably faster than the standard; sometimes just as fast as the SCSI options. But certainly cheaper.

#4: Overclocking.

[fso301]

[antiRepublicrat]

The entire setup with be devoted to video and photos, nothing else. I’ll still use my PCs for word processing, spreadsheets, e-mails, etc (can’t quite cut the cord).

I do small-time video editing on my dual-core iMac. I've found that the other applications don't interfere with it. The stuff you mentioned (except for maybe a huge spreadsheet) only causes occasional tiny blips in processor power to be taken away from my background rendering. Actually, running Activity Monitor itself to see this took more processor power. Even burning a DVD doesn't take much from it. And the system remains completely responsive to the other apps. This will be especially true when you have two separate processors with four cores each.

Don't forget, there's no registry on a Mac, no place that a bunch of applications stick their data and screw everything up. On a Mac you have some folders where applications stick their preferences and other stuff. I once tried to see what happens when I do a render and another conversion at the same time, and that wasn't a good idea. To simplify it, I'd say two jobs of an hour each separately were going to take three hours together. They were probably constantly poisoning each other's cache.