Macintosh -- Will you buy one now or later?

[emperor]

i rang applecare and was up front and honest about it - maybe the guy had the impression that there might be a problem with lcd too cause he was quoting repair costs of between 200 and 400 euro (or pounds stg?!)

its not too bad - with a little bit of slam it shuts ok - but wont click shut with a gentle closing motion like it did prior to being stood on

AO - it was on the floor next to my bed cause i was drunkenly reading my email after a night out and the next morning/afternoon my mum came into my room and stepped up onto my bed to open my blinds and stepped/jumped off onto my ibook

the thing is - my mum must weigh 2 stone less than me and ive stood on my vaio many times with no nasty consequences...
i guess the vaio is more solid but the tradeoff is the extra weight and bulk
i had wanted to get a powerbook, but read the ibook was more solid and thus the logical choice for hauling around
...but im finding out: apple notebooks are *delicate* !!

i think ill name my ibook 'precious'

[American Oyaji]

Do you own Apple stock?

I was just thinking that its about to go through the roof if Apple does what I think its going to do.

Apple is switching to Intel chips. What if Apple had a built in option that WINDOWS could be installed on a Mac instead of MacOS or alongside it so that the customer could switch OS at will?

Like right now, I can reboot into OS9 or OS X, whichever I want to use.

What if they make it so that you can do it with Windows or MacOS?

[gomichild]

Boot into OS9???? In 2005????

*goes to lie down*

[gkanai]

Do you own Apple stock?

I was just thinking that its about to go through the roof if Apple does what I think its going to do.

I hope you are not a professional investor.

AAPL is at a 2+year high.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=AAPL&t=2y&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=

Buy LOW sell HIGH.

[American Oyaji]

I'm saying I believe it is gonna go higher.

I don't own apple stock, but I know who does.

[American Oyaji]

Boot into OS9???? In 2005????

*goes to lie down*

I've got a beige G3 gc.

I can't go any higher than 10.2.8

Some stuff I HAVE to do in OS9

[cstaylor]

Unless you need Mac OS X incompatible device drivers, you can run most Classic apps under Mac OS X.

Have you configured Classic? It's in the system prefs.

[American Oyaji]

Not enough horsepower to run classic mode within OSX.

VERY bad performance. Simpler to just boot into OS 9

[electrocat]

you can buy a cheap blue and white g3 or a g4 tower for a couple hundred. Then you can do all these wonderful new things. Forget about os9, seriously. It was a piece of crap compared to jag, panther or tiger.

[FG Lurker]

you can buy a cheap blue and white g3 or a g4 tower for a couple hundred. Then you can do all these wonderful new things. Forget about os9, seriously. It was a piece of crap compared to jag, panther or tiger.

Oh my how the mighty have fallen. It wasn't that long ago that Mac nuts were trying to convince people that OS9 was the best thing since sliced bread and how it was sooooo far superior to Windows 2000.

(No, no, I'm not a Mac-hater by any stretch of the imagination. I came very close to buying one last summer, and there is a decent chance that my next upgrade in a few years will be to a Macintel. I just find posts like this to be damn funny.)

[cstaylor]

electrocat was comparing OS 9 to OS X, not to Windows. OS 9 had problems at a low-level in the OS, but from a usability standpoint it beats 2000 & XP hands down.

[FG Lurker]

electrocat was comparing OS 9 to OS X, not to Windows. OS 9 had problems at a low-level in the OS, but from a usability standpoint it beats 2000 & XP hands down.

OS 9 was horribly unstable, and to me that is about the biggest usability problem of all. If you can't rely on the computer to work in a stable fashion, nothing else matters.

OS X on the other hand is a great system. The only thing negative I have to say about it is that the hardware it runs on (while fast and beautiful) is too expensive.

[mr. sparkle]

OS X on the other hand is a great system. The only thing negative I have to say about it is that the hardware it runs on (while fast and beautiful) is too expensive.

You know FGL, you are right. It's expensive to play in the Mac realm. But are PCs really that much cheaper?

I think you know that I am looking to hook up with a PC that will run Avid Media Composer/Adrenaline/Xpress Pro HD well. The price for a full blown Dell 670 Workstation with dual procs, enough RAM and a kickin' vid card?

About the same cost as a comparable G5 in what I've found so far.

If you wanna run OS X on the cheap side, a mini or an iBook can run it just fine quite cheaply.

We'll see what Steve does regarding releasing OS X for PC. You never know, it might happen.

You never know with Jobs....

[FG Lurker]

OS X on the other hand is a great system. The only thing negative I have to say about it is that the hardware it runs on (while fast and beautiful) is too expensive.

You know FGL, you are right. It's expensive to play in the Mac realm. But are PCs really that much cheaper?

I think you know that I am looking to hook up with a PC that will run Avid Media Composer/Adrenaline/Xpress Pro HD well. The price for a full blown Dell 670 Workstation with dual procs, enough RAM and a kickin' vid card?

About the same cost as a comparable G5 in what I've found so far.

I had greater flexibility in that I didn't need a machine that was had been validated to run a specific piece of software, only one that would be fast and stable for general use.

I ended up building the system myself (which I have always done), but it will probably be the last one I do. I got an Athlon 64 3500+, 1GB of memory, 36GB 10,000rpm WD Raptor boot disk, 2 x 200GB 7,200rpm disks for storage, a 256MB ATI 9600XT, a fantastic Cooler Master case with a top-of-the-line PS, dual layer DVD burner, etc etc etc. It was about 200,000yen. At that time the dual G5 2GHz machines were around 300,000yen, and that was without memory upgrades or any extra storage.

Yes, raw CPU power wise two G5 2GHz would have been faster, but a single 1.8GHz would have been slower. Also, I can now drop a dual core Athlon 64 chip into this machine with no further upgrades required.

When you get to the very top end of things I think prices get a lot closer. A dual Opteron setup (4 cores total) gets pricey fast, as do the very-overpriced Xeons.

If you wanna run OS X on the cheap side, a mini or an iBook can run it just fine quite cheaply.

That doesn't really help me as most of what I do on the PC (besides my FG habit ) is photography related. Photoshop likes lotsa memory and lotsa CPU power, as I'm sure you know well.

[drpepper]

[quote="FG Lurker"]That doesn't really help me as most of what I do on the PC (besides my FG habit ]

And that is truly sad. Having to do photography work on a pc. Take a look at photoshop benchmarks and you'll see that in many cases a mac will do it as good as a faster pc (many blame adobe for this but macs have always had better/more effecient graphic processing power for 2d work). Also the whole work flow situation is just better on the mac. I do lots of graphic work and on occaision have had to do on site work on pc's and it was always a chore (maybe in part because I was used to do things on a mac where stuff made sense). I also found color renderings on pcs to be really bad, why so bad I have no idea but the color fidelity was just 'off' even though they used basically the same graphic cards. This was especially true many years ago when most pcs were running 24bit color, it may not be as bad now.

[FG Lurker]

That doesn't really help me as most of what I do on the PC (besides my FG habit ]
And that is truly sad. Having to do photography work on a pc.

There is no difference in capability between a PC and a Mac for this now. I use Capture One Pro for my RAW work and both Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro for any further editing I might wish to do.

For me a computer is literally a tool to achieve an end. I don't really care what OS it runs, what brand it is, or if it has the best industrial design or not. I simply want a stable, fast, and reliable machine that can run the software to do the job I want done. Beyond that price carries weight to a degree, I would prefer it was not outrageously loud, and options for easy upgrade are good too.

[drpepper]

I'm not talking about what the box looks like. I am talking about work flow. I have used capture one, it is a piece of crap, why not use photoshop?? Paint shop????? You gotta be kidding... Well I guess if you just doing this on the side you can use whatever ya want but for work I find the things go much smoother on a mac system for post-processing. As for not caring about the OS well it just depends how many hours you spend on it I guess. I know plenty of IT people who love their linux boxes and prefer to nearly never use a mouse and pretty much disdain gui's in general. I personally don't get that myself but different strokes for different folks. In design and photo-editing I find things go faster on the mac, more so than if I were using a faster pc. The interface and workflow matter, all those little things add up more so than timing a giant filter on a 100meg image that alot of sites will use to show something is faster than something else.

As for money well there is start-up money and long-term money. An equivilent pc will cost less up front (not by a whole lot though) but in the long run, the time saved on not having to deal with OS problems, upgrades as well as time saved on actual work due to a better designed OS will eventually save you more money. I guess I just have a different take on it because that is what I do for a living, I don't do databases or play games so really there is nothing about the pc that is attractive to me.

[FG Lurker]

You are living in the past in so many ways... I think we'll just have to agree to disagree and leave it at that.

[drpepper]

You are living in the past in so many ways... I think we'll just have to agree to disagree and leave it at that.

I don't see it that way, the right tool for the right job is how I prefer to look at it. Never heard of anyone prefering a pc to a mac for image editing based on the work itself but heard the opposite many times. But it's all good, as a hobbyist you should use whatever you are comfortable with. You can do the same things on either system, it is simply how you get there that is different.

[FG Lurker]

You are living in the past in so many ways... I think we'll just have to agree to disagree and leave it at that.

I don't see it that way, the right tool for the right job is how I prefer to look at it.

The differences are not as big as you think. The Mac looks purdier onscreen and off, but as far as a tool goes they both do the same things these days, often in (very nearly) the same ways.

Never heard of anyone prefering a pc to a mac for image editing based on the work itself

I'm totally indifferent to it. I couldn't care less which one is beside my desk, as long as I can get the work done. Right now it is a PC. Maybe (if Apple gets their prices and options into line) next time it will be a Mac. Honestly, I really don't care.

[American Oyaji]

I'll say this and leave it alone.

The U.S. Air Force switched to Macs in their graphics labs about 10 years ago.

[FG Lurker]

I'll say this and leave it alone.

The U.S. Air Force switched to Macs in their graphics labs about 10 years ago.

10 years ago it mattered. Think nothing has changed in 10 years?

[American Oyaji]

They still have Macs. Just better ones now.

[FG Lurker]

They still have Macs. Just better ones now.

Sure, maybe they do... But it no longer matters.

AO, I have been using PCs for 25 years. I have used Apple IIs, various Commodores, Macs, Atari ST, Amiga, Sun, Windows, Linux, BSD, SCO... and that's just on the personal computer side of things -- and I have probably missed a few. I've used VAX/VMS, IBM mainframes, and recently a Fujitsu mainframe too. I've seen a lot of stuff, and I no longer really care about any of it. They're just machines to get work done.

[electrocat]

if you are doing photo editing and are using a digital camera, Apple just came out with a "aperture" which looks amazing. I think photoshop is kind of stuck in a rut. Seems like the lasts 2 versions were just minor tweaks of what came before. Apereture looks a bit different from photoshop.. more for a photographer than a graphic designer.

and back to the argument of prices for pcs and macs. This is just an old myth. Macs are not more expensive. I wish people would get over that. Theres always a guy that says "i can build one for 4 hundred dollars less". Well did you count the time its going to cost you for choosing all the components and putting it together and trouble shooting when it doesn't work right? that right there is 400 dollars +. Not to mention that you get alot more in customer service when your mac isn't working right. Have you ever used the "genius" guy at the apple store? Just make an appointment that day and you have someone helping you face to face with your problem. Try that with mish mash of a computer.

[FG Lurker]

I give up. The Mac is not only the same price or cheaper as a PC, but it does everything better too! This certainly explains why Apple controls the PC market with such a commanding overall market share.

Everyone bow down before The Steve in unison, and then drink your Kool Aid. It'll all be over soon.

[drpepper]

:roll:

I give up. The Mac is not only the same price or cheaper as a PC, but it does everything better too! This certainly explains why Apple controls the PC market with such a commanding overall market share.

Everyone bow down before The Steve in unison, and then drink your Kool Aid. It'll all be over soon.

Actually they do, 75%+ of the graphic, design and printing market is mac. They also have a high % in music and low-mid end video editing as well. Like I said in my previous post, the right tool for the right job. Why do you think there is no difference?? I am talking about time-saved for doing a graphic type of job. CAN you do it on a pc? YES. Will it take longer to get it right on a pc, also YES. Save the $$ wherever you want, I prefer to save time while saving money. It simply depends on how much time you are doing photo-editing and how much your time is worth. If a pc could do everything the same and it is cheaper then why don't they have better than a 15-20% market share in that business? Believe me when I say design and printing companies (the small ones) are very poor and would like to save where they could. Why is it so hard to imagine that a mac could be better at something than a pc???? If someone was starting a trading company or accounting firm or something like that I would not be saying "hey better get macs in there!" but for photoshopping??

[drpepper]

They still have Macs. Just better ones now.

Sure, maybe they do... But it no longer matters.

You can't believe that... you don't believe that. You are an IT guy right?? If some guy came up to you and asked you to set up a medium sized company network would you say to him it doesn't matter what kind of computer or system they all work the same?? If you are setting up a web server would you choose windoze XP over BSD?? (or perhaps you would go with SUN??) I am sure you think some are better for certain jobs over others. You gonna use the same set up for a 10 workstation network as for a 1,500 workstation network?

[emperor]

via TUAW

pre-packaged mac mini in-car solutions for a grand

http://minidock.jp/en/index.html

[Greji]

-snip1They also have a hig?h % in music and low-mid end video editing as well.-more snip-

All I know is that almost all of the Japanese commercial recording studios for making videos for my company that I have been involved with for the last ten years or so, as well as ones I have canvassed for future recordings are all using Mac. I wonder if that that could be indicative of something?