Do You use Mac Apple ?

[Racoon]

Looking for opinions on the benefits for using Macintosh Apple.

 

Is it Dyed into the Wool which kind of computer person you are?

[InfiniteNow]

I am sure one of our more computer literate hypographites can better elucidate this issue, but I've heard that Macs are good for graphics and imaging, but that PCs are better when it comes to finding applications to fit your system.

 

 

We had Macs in the computer labs at the university, and they really weren't too hard to figure out. I don't really know of too many differences between them and PCs that make a huge difference, and personally don't care either way.

 

Except, I had the hardest time trying to figure out how to remove my floppy disk from the mac. It didn't have an eject button on the case. It did have a little tiny hole, and after about 20 minutes trying to push that with an unbent paperclip one of the procters came by and showed me that I had to click and drag the icon of the disk into the "trash/recycle" bin... Then it ejected just fine.

 

No problems at all other than that! :hyper:

[Buffy]

Mac, Win, Linux, Turing, Abacus, its all a religious issue. I've spent as much time fixing OS9 plug-in conflicts as Windows blue-screens. Linux is pretty stable, but it doesn't have the software you want. Turing and Abucus: good for those on a budget!

 

There used to be a tendency for certain key graphics software to only exist on Macs, mostly for legacy reasons: Quark, early Illustrator and Photoshop, Toast, etc. All these vendors figured out that with the faster hardware and the much larger installed base on Windows it was stupid to continue to be Mac only.

 

Apple has done a better job of polishing the, uh, apple: things tend to be a bit better integrated and error handling is better, but when it goes wrong, Windows has always had more "holes to poke through" to fix it by hand: this is less true with OSX, but the fixing is just as obscure, and less of the knowledge is in the public domain. Then there's always the exceptions (Safari was a worthless piece of trash until 1.3...).

 

The partisans will defend their side and call the rest apostate, treasonous and worse, and its all pretty much a wash. Those of us who are silly enough to be in the software business have to deal with all of them. So I voted "I use Apple," but I wouldn't read too much into it: I've got 2 windows machines, a linux box and an abacus piled up here too. :hyper:

 

Multilingual,

Buffy

[TheBigDog]

I wish I had my Mac again. I (my family) got our first computer in 1980. An Atari 800. I learned to program in BASIC, and submitted 3 games to Compute! magazine back when they still printed the code for basic games so you could type it in and run it. My mom taught computers and did beta testing for a friend of hers who had started a little educational software company called "The Learning Company". Anyone remember "Rocky's Boots" for the Apple II? I used that Atari all through high school for typing term papers. I remember taling my parents into getting the Epson MX80 printer with graphtracks so it would do letter quality type!

 

I didn't use computer's much from the time I moved out until 1991 when I was home from work sick for a month with Mono. My sister lent me her 286 and it got the bug in me again. Then I decided to do some script writing and my mom lent me an Apple II clone so I could use the Appleworks word processor. That computer was just not up to the task for me, so I went out and got myself a Mac. It was just 2 short months before the PowerPac was released, so I felt pretty screwed that no more software was being developed for the computer I had just dropped $1300 on. But I could do things with ClarisWorks on that Mac that I still can't do on a PC! The functionality that came installed in that 4 meg footprint was amazing.

 

In 1994 I developed a system for measuring production efficiency on the industrial paper slitters I ran for a living. Of course I developed it at home on my Mac using ClarisWorks (although the database function of the program was its weak point). When I pitched the idea to he plant manager he gave me 30 days to write the system on a PC so we could run it at work. So I had to learn really quickly which I am good at, despite the 16mhz 386 with 4 meg of ram that I was developing on. What a dog! Got the program done using FileMaker Pro for Windows 3.1(by Claris of Mac). Over the next 3 years I modernized the program as it migrated to Windows 95 and better PC's.

 

In 97 I got a job as user representative fo the development of our new manufacturing systems. So began my switch from being a machine operator to being an IT guy. And as an IT guy, no matter what you do in IT, there is some expectatino of proficiency with computers. So I have since learned the ins and outs of the PC world. For better or for worse.

 

But I wish I still had my Mac. I would use it for my writing. I gave it to a friend after I got married and bought my first PC. Last I heard it is sitting on a shelf in a closet back in NJ. Maybe I should try and reclaim it some day. I could add it to the current collection of 4 desktops and 2 laptops (all PC) that we have in the house. I am thinking about taking my first trip down the Linux road. And iI have always wondered about the mystical world of Amigas. I bet they scream on a modern PowerPC chipset!

 

Come to think of it I remember being an AOL member back when my 2400 baud modem was a screamer. People were still using 300 baud acoustic modems to connect. My Mac was the Schiznet.

 

Bill

[Queso]

oh hell yes.

i LOVE my apple g5.

It's got dual 2.0 ghz K8 CPU's.

This thing's a beast,

Very efficient for my music production and studio work.

Mac is my favorite OS,

only because I've never used linux.

I'm sure that ownz.

[Tormod]

I use an Apple G4 titanium powerbook at work, it's three years old now but performs admirably. I use it mostly for web publishing and office work, but I have also used it for audio work (now I do all my audio work on a PC).

 

I have a PC lappy running Kubuntu linux and a desktop running Win XP. The differences seen from a "power user" perspective is that each of the platforms have their unique strengths and weaknesses.

 

For example, when I switched to Linux on the lappy I was amazed at how much easier it was to remote admin a Linux server...yet Linux is challenging for me because I don't really have the time to get "under the hood". But it has come very far - I use it with our digital camera and my Palm Pilot, for example. And I run OpenOffice on it.

 

The Windows desktop is mostly used for music composition and Dreamweaver work.

 

The Apple Powerbook is also great for remote server admin work since it runs OSX which is a BSD Unix OS. While it may be true that Apple excels at graphics and video work that may be true for orb's G5 but mine is sluggish in Photoshop, for example (I have 1 GB Ram and a 1Ghz processor). It is however extremely user friendly and very rarely crashes on me.

 

So I vote "yellow".

[Tormod]

Is it Dyed into the Wool which kind of computer person you are?

 

No...I think it boils down to what one is used to work with. When I got my first mac at a job 10 years ago it was cool but very very different from a PC. Today Macs and PCs are very similar and anyone could learn to use either system. The availability of games etc is different but most applications can be found on each platform.

 

However, Macs and peripherals for the Mac (unless you can use standard PC equipment) still cost much more than a PC, which is the biggest problem IMHO.

[Racoon]

Thats pretty good Info guy's..

Danke!

Trying to process all of this AI stuff... :hyper:

 

I liked the look of newer Mac's. Seemed intriguing. :eek:

Get some outside Ideas :) :hyper:

[Pyrotex]

I used "personal computers" before there was a "PC" (IBM copyrighted the acronym). I built my first computer from a kit: 16K of RAM, a B&W monitor, and a NorthStar floppy drive (with Basic included), for 2K$. Ouch! Then I used a variety of "desktops" by various companies, all using the CPM OS. I had no idea how crude they were.

 

I saw my first Apple computer (the Lisa) in about 1982, and fell in love. I bought my first Apple 2+ the next year. When I went to work designing Space Station Freedom, McDonnell Douglas chose Macs over IBMs for most engineers. We had a few IBMs and a few AT&Ts, but there was little demand to use them. I bought my first Mac. Then I bought a second and a third.

 

The work environment changed. The new IT manager at Johnson Space Center was a Bill Gates freak, and mandated that all new desktops be IBMs with Microsoft SW. Our space program was set back two years while the feuding and fighting brought many projects to a standstill. But he won.

 

I got good at Windows 3.1 and had a Mac at home. But when the Mac needed to be replaced, I could not afford the Power Mac and I was using a PC at work. So... I switched. I have lusted for Macintoshes ever since, especially the G4 and G5, and the Titanium lappy. I recently bought a HP PC for home--money is still tight. But I dream.

 

P.S. The rest of you are "apostate, treasonous and worse" :hyper:

[alexander]

I have had to convince too many people that Apple hardware is way better then anything they run in the PC world, and the thing that frustrates me all the time is people's unwillingness to understand why a 2.0 ghz PowerPC processor is way different then a 3.8Ghz P4 and can easily outperform it in many areas....

 

People, if you have the ability to choose between a P4 and a G5, go G5 before mac switches totally to intel and screw themselves over like they did years ago when they alowed windows to use their concepts... seriously they must have had a company wide ganja party for management or something when they came up with the idea of switching over to intel...

[cwes99_03]

The same is true when you try to explain how a AMD 2600+ is faster than a P4 2.8.

 

The fact of the matter is that each different type of processor works with different types of data differently. Now you have added hyperthreading and stuff like that and you have even newer realms.

 

I used macs from 1994-2003 for all my science lab work in HS and college. I have used PCs for everything else. If you want something that interacts with a whole lot of data taking peripherals including cameras and microphones, I would go with a Mac, as the developers keyed in on their great ability to manipulate this sort of data.

 

If you are looking for limitless canned programs to do just about anything then go with a PC because most developers got the MS bug back in the early 90s during the tech boom.

 

I still think that quark and Illustrator on the Mac are WAY better than the versions for PC. They run smoother and better (after all they were designed for macs.) I even ran MS Office for Mac OSX a couple of years ago. I was a bit disappointed in transfering PowerPoint shows from mac to PC though, can't remember which, but I think the mac would find my vid clips on the CD i burned and play them, while I had to fiddle with the PC for over an hour (basically recreating all the slides) to get my show to work on the PC. I ended up getting a D because my slide presentation didn't work in the Philosophy of Education class I was in.

 

I haven't used Unix based OSs because as far as I know they are largely built for the server and programming crowd. Since I am neither, the PC is still the most user friendly general use computer around. If you want to be a musician or amateur videographer, go with the slightly more costly mac, it will be worth its weight in gold.

[alexander]

I haven't used Unix based OSs because as far as I know they are largely built for the server and programming crowd. Since I am neither, the PC is still the most user friendly general use computer around. If you want to be a musician or amateur videographer, go with the slightly more costly mac, it will be worth its weight in gold.

dude, :hyper: OS X is gehind the scenes is BSD, so you are lying...

 

and Unix(for the sake of argument i will use it synonymously with Linux, different inside, similar on the outside) is not built solely for server and programming crowd, the fact the reason that Photoshop has not realeased the newest versions of Photoshop for Linux is because they think that they have no market share in it, but Photoshop 5 did get released in Linux (kinda old now), gimp by the way works pretty well, especially if you know python and are willing to spend a litle while writing your own filters and plugins for it, Ink Scape for vector. There is many times better software in Linux for music, making, sequencing, mixing, producing, encoding, now with lilypad, even writing music is better then any other OS offers, actually quite possibly more then all nonUnix oses have combined, times 2, just that people are lazy to invest their time in setting up and using Linux, cuz they lazy, bout summs up the explanation. Oh yeah video, that too, there is a lack of tools for easy film manipulation, but if you recall, Shrek and Shrek 2 were both created and rendered on thousands of linux boxes, The Last Samurai, did not have a single arrow on the set, all the thousands of arrows were drawn in with Gimp.... so to that extent, unix oses are way better for both imaging and sound and video....

[Queso]

oh yeah!!

i'm so glad i got my G5 before they made the switch!!

[capnrefsmmat]

People, if you have the ability to choose between a P4 and a G5, go G5 before mac switches totally to intel and screw themselves over like they did years ago when they alowed windows to use their concepts... seriously they must have had a company wide ganja party for management or something when they came up with the idea of switching over to intel...

Erm.

 

http://www.macworld.com/2006/01/features/imaclabtest1/index.php

 

Intel Macs are actually a bit faster than PowerPC ones.

 

 

My previous experience with Macs (OS 9) left me rather irritated (they were networked with Windows computers to share printers, and that didn't work all that well...) but I recently looked through an Apple shop, and OS X is impressive. If I had the money, and I needed a computer, I'd definitely get one.

[Queso]

faster means nothing when it comes to the processing power of their previous CPU's.

They are so thorough, and stable.

EFFICIENT.

amazing.

[Zythryn]

It really comes down to what you want to use it for.

Myself, I am a toy geek when it comes to software. Must have the newest games:) As a result, it is PCs all the way for me.

 

However, if it is custom software, developement, or something made in a timely manner for the Mac, then I would prefer using a Mac (always preferred Macs over PCs).

 

Funny thing is I was reading today how Apple's newest Mini Mac is using intel chips and is 2-5 times faster than the old which didn't use intel (according to the CNN article quoting Steve Jobshttp://money.cnn.com/2006/02/28/technology/apple_announcement/index.htm?cnn=yes).

 

Macs do tend to cost more, however they have been working on that, not sure how close they are at this point.

[Jay-qu]

I grew up with a computer that ran solely on DOS then we got a windows PC when I started primary school - which used mac's, stayed that way till high school when they only used windows PC so I have been microsoft ever since, but going to have a go at linux soon enough