Joined the dark side.... Just picked up a MacBook

[Grassi21]

Well in one felt swoop I joined the world of Macs and regained access to AZ at work. I plan to double fist my laptops at work with my work and personal machine. I went with the plain ole MacBook. I couldn't justify the cost of bumping up to the Pro. The plan is to use it as a family computer for pics, vid, editing, and to have a machine to take on the road.

So to all m fellow Mac heads, what do have to look forward to besides ridicule from PC users?

 

[2knees]

i could only see half the thread title in the forums index and thought you had switched to snowboarding.

 

[dmc]

So to all m fellow Mac heads, what do have to look forward to besides ridicule from PC users?

Stuff that just works...

I love my MAC

 

[gmcunni]

I picked up a Macbook Pro (used) about 1 year ago. Having used a PC for many many years and having always looked down my nose at Macs i was pleasantly surprised how well it worked. I too use it primarily for photo and video work plus general internet browsing. i still whip out my PC for certain tasks but could easily spend all my time on my MAC.

I installed Open Office to handle the Microsoft attachments that are always floating around in email and use VNC to control a PC in the basement when i need to do something windows specific. i read that you can dual boot a macbook (with intel chip) to run both OSX and Windows but haven't tried it.

Odd that a MAC in the office gets around the filter that prevented you from viewing AZ, sounds like your security guys have a little hole in their systems ;-)

 

[BeanoNYC]

Grassi...if you need any help let me know. Do you have a .mac account? Do you have office, for mac yet? I currently have 2 mac and an airport extreme base station. Congrats, dude, you made a great decision. BTW if you're having trouble any of us can connect to your computer via iChat and help fix the problem. You'll hear a bit of naysaying from some...just ignore em. :beer:

 

[hrstrat57]

Well in one felt swoop I joined the world of Macs and regained access to AZ at work. I plan to double fist my laptops at work with my work and personal machine. I went with the plain ole MacBook. I couldn't justify the cost of bumping up to the Pro. The plan is to use it as a family computer for pics, vid, editing, and to have a machine to take on the road.

My trusty and loyal compaq presario m2000 notebood is finally about to give up. I too am mulling over a move to the laptop darkside(will still retain my high powered windows desktop arsenal)

Please post your quest results....I will be reading with interest.....

 

[wa-loaf]

We just picked up an airport express to extend our network. We hooked up the printer and the wave radio. It rocks! We have a powerbook, a macbook and Dell laptop I use for work and can now print from anywhere in the house. Streaming music is cool too.

 

[Grassi21]

I'm very pleased so far. I've only played with it a bit. The wife has an idea I was going to buy one. I'm going to break the news to her on mother's day after I cut my first vid on our son.

 

[Grassi21]

Grassi...if you need any help let me know. Do you have a .mac account? Do you have office, for mac yet? I currently have 2 mac and an airport extreme base station. Congrats, dude, you made a great decision. BTW if you're having trouble any of us can connect to your computer via iChat and help fix the problem. You'll hear a bit of naysaying from some...just ignore em. :beer:

Thanks Beano. My friend runs his own production company. He has already offered to load my Mac with every thing he has available.

 

[Grassi21]

Odd that a MAC in the office gets around the filter that prevented you from viewing AZ, sounds like your security guys have a little hole in their systems ;-)

Good point. I have yet to give it a go at work. I'll find out on Monday. Fingers crossed...

 

[ckofer]

"There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact it's all dark."

Good purchase!

 

[davidhowland14]

one other thing you have to look forward to is continued usability. Try running Vista on a 4 year old windows laptop and you'll have major, major problems. I do all my computer work on a 4-year old mac laptop running the latest OS and everything works wonderfully. Apple updates often and the updates trul are updates, not just pretty graphics and a crappy OS. Welcome to the real world of computing.

 

[mondeo]

4GB Sandisk MP3 players start at around $75 on Newegg, iPods are at $130 for 4GB.

iTunes album downloads start at $9.99, Walmart from $7.88.

A MacBook, with the 2.4GHz Core2 Duo, 1GBx2 DDR2 PC 667, integrated Intel graphics, and 160 GB 5400RPM HDD, is $1299. You can configure an Dell with equivalent hardware (and better hard drive and memory) for $994 with Windows.

The issues I have with Apple are not based on the operating system, but rather the massive price jump, highly limited hardware flexibility (a system with dedicated graphics costs another $700,) and their anti-Windows FUD campaigns, which play purely off of the perception of Windows issues. Stability? I haven't had a Windows software crash since Windows XP SP2 came out what, 4-5 years ago? And actually, the crashes I experienced in Windows due to a bad memory stick on my new computer were nicer than the ones I was getting with Linux; Windows actually has a screen for crashes, while Linux just rebooted, and I would have had to dig to get to the information.

Which brings me to my final statement about Apple: if not for the common misperception of Linux as a non-user friendly, text driven operating system, I don't think Apple would sell any computers, whatsoever. Linux is now at the point where a basic user (web browsing, email, general productivity, multimedia,) would probably be more than happy with a Linux system. Any further beyond that, and it begins to be a pain, but that's the point where you start getting compatibility issues in Mac, too. Games, things like TV tuner cards, and other non-standard but still fairly common applications, etc. So in the end, I don't see the benefit of Apple over a Linux system other than a few Apple-developed programs, and Linux is free.

FWIW, I built my new computer last December, and ran until mid-March with Linux only. It does work, even with printer and file sharing with Windows computers on the same network; never tried linking it with my XBox (as a media server,) but from what I know, it does work.

 

[BeanoNYC]

Thanks Beano. My friend runs his own production company.

NY or CT?

 

[wa-loaf]

4GB Sandisk MP3 players start at around $75 on Newegg, iPods are at $130 for 4GB.

iTunes album downloads start at $9.99, Walmart from $7.88.

A MacBook, with the 2.4GHz Core2 Duo, 1GBx2 DDR2 PC 667, integrated Intel graphics, and 160 GB 5400RPM HDD, is $1299. You can configure an Dell with equivalent hardware (and better hard drive and memory) for $994 with Windows.

The issues I have with Apple are not based on the operating system, but rather the massive price jump, highly limited hardware flexibility (a system with dedicated graphics costs another $700,) and their anti-Windows FUD campaigns, which play purely off of the perception of Windows issues. Stability? I haven't had a Windows software crash since Windows XP SP2 came out what, 4-5 years ago? And actually, the crashes I experienced in Windows due to a bad memory stick on my new computer were nicer than the ones I was getting with Linux; Windows actually has a screen for crashes, while Linux just rebooted, and I would have had to dig to get to the information.

Which brings me to my final statement about Apple: if not for the common misperception of Linux as a non-user friendly, text driven operating system, I don't think Apple would sell any computers, whatsoever. Linux is now at the point where a basic user (web browsing, email, general productivity, multimedia,) would probably be more than happy with a Linux system. Any further beyond that, and it begins to be a pain, but that's the point where you start getting compatibility issues in Mac, too. Games, things like TV tuner cards, and other non-standard but still fairly common applications, etc. So in the end, I don't see the benefit of Apple over a Linux system other than a few Apple-developed programs, and Linux is free.

FWIW, I built my new computer last December, and ran until mid-March with Linux only. It does work, even with printer and file sharing with Windows computers on the same network; never tried linking it with my XBox (as a media server,) but from what I know, it does work.

:lol: you sound just like BMM. did he take over your account?

 

[ckofer]

Linux may be the dark side.

 

[BeanoNYC]

Which brings me to my final statement about Apple: if not for the common misperception of Linux as a non-user friendly, text driven operating system, I don't think Apple would sell any computers, whatsoever. Linux is now at the point where a basic user (web browsing, email, general productivity, multimedia,) would probably be more than happy with a Linux system. Any further beyond that, and it begins to be a pain, but that's the point where you start getting compatibility issues in Mac, too. Games, things like TV tuner cards, and other non-standard but still fairly common applications, etc. So in the end, I don't see the benefit of Apple over a Linux system other than a few Apple-developed programs, and Linux is free.

I installed linux on my PS3 and am quite impressed. ...Runs great. I'm more partial to my Macs. On both a mac and linux related note, I'm hoping that Netflix quickly comes up with some sort of player for those two platforms.

 

[MichaelJ]

Awesome! I have an iBook G4 and a dual G5 PowerMac; no Intel for me yet. I love doing video and photo work on the big one, and the laptop is like an oversized PDA. Everything "just works".

Pick up Adium for all your instant messaging needs, Skype if you like, Firefox for Mac for those few websites that don't work with Safari.

If you have Airtunes speakers, then Airfoil is an awesome product (redirect ANY app to your remote speakers), and Audio Hijack Pro will take any audio-producing program and reroute it to anything else (including to file). Bitpim can talk to your cell phone if iSync can't, the built-in screen sharing is just VNC, you can get a Microsoft Remote Desktop client, Flip4Mac to view .wmvs, GPS Babel+ and Google Earth go great together on the Mac, and the list goes on with more things I could recommend. You also want Growl, the integrated notification framework. It's hard to explain, just Google for it.

Welcome to the universe of light!

 

[davidhowland14]

A MacBook, with the 2.4GHz Core2 Duo, 1GBx2 DDR2 PC 667, integrated Intel graphics, and 160 GB 5400RPM HDD, is $1299. You can configure an Dell with equivalent hardware (and better hard drive and memory) for $994 with Windows.

that's the problem with your statement.

 

[mondeo]

that's the problem with your statement.

What, exactly, is wrong with Windows? It's stable, easy to use, and far better supported than Macs. I love how Apple doubled their market share with the introduction with Windows hardware compatibility.

Or, as I bring up later, install Linux. Still the same price.