Question for Kex, Wooch and other Apple users

[ForeverAutumn]

After a visit to the Apple Store, and analyzing the things that I actually use my PC for, I've pretty much decided that a Mac is the way to go for me. I'm not loving the 13" screen on the Macbook, but the price is right. For a 15" screen I have to go to a Macbook Pro at a substantial price increase. Are there other reasons that I should consider the Pro? Or, should I just stick to a Macbook and plug it into a monitor when I need the bigger screen.

What are you guys using?

[kexodusc]

I just have a MacBook....Keep in mind, our computer geek techies at work issued them to us for security reasons. We don't use Windows outside the office. But I generally prefer Mac to Windows anyway, and have owned several.
I have put Linux on the Mac though and that's what I use most often now.

FA, what programs do you use the most? I assume music, video, and Office?

FA - Do you know anyone who owns a Mac? I would feel more comfortable recommending one to you if I knew you have used one before, or I knew how computer literate you were. Macs work differently than Windows (you knew that). Some people with short attention spans get frustrated. I don't think that's an issue here because you'd have to learn Vista too which is arguably way more frustrating.

But...grabbing your existing software CD's and loading them onto a Mac, especially Office 2003 or whatever, isn't going to happen unless you buy some conversion software (correct me if I'm wrong Wooch?)

But you have options. iWork is the Mac equivalent that does most of the things excel and word do - it looks and feels similar, but it's different. The same way different music playing programs look and feel similar but are a bit different. It takes some getting used to. I think iWork is cheap - under $100. If you bought Office for Mac it's a bit more $150-$200. But you're smart and you could figure out any differences in an hour or two I'm sure.

Personally, I downloaded the free Open Office because I like it...I think most Mac users use the free NeoOffice suite - they both will work for most users - can save files in the standard Word, Excel, Powerpoint formats, and open Word, Excel, and Powerpoint files.

But it's not Office and that scares some people. If you use some complex spreadsheet macros, you might need to buy Office.

You can also by the software Parallels that allows you run Windows on you Mac, which is kinda cool, but it's an added cost of $100 or so. Dunno why you'd bother unless there was some particular software ONLY compatible with Windows that you couldn't find an alternative for on Mac.

If you are ready, willing, and able to learn how to use a different office suite I think you'll enjoy switching to Mac. Music/vids, etc I find just work a bit better than WIndows. I like using Mac's interface. It's more secure, more intuitive to use, smarter, more efficient, etc...

Just want to let that hang out there so you can price in any additional software (or maybe the machine comes with some?) and do a fair comparison.

The screen thing is not big deal really - if you carry it around a lot, you'll probably appreciate the size.

[ForeverAutumn]

Thanks Kex. I use Office at home, maybe 3 or 4 times a year. And we're not getting rid of our XP desktop, the Mac will be a 2nd computer in the house so any Windows programs that I absolutely can't live without will still be available to me...just not portable.

The iWork program is $79 and Office for Mac is $199. The Apple sales guy told me that I can download a 60 day trial of iWork to see if I like it and then decide which program I want to purchase...if either.

I do know a few people who use Macs, including my brother. Everyone I know who uses a Mac loves it. I can't say the same for the people that I know who use Windows. Of course, some of it is just a numbers game...the more users the more risk of an unhappy user.

The reason that I'm considering a Mac is that I want to get more into home recording and would have to upgrade my Cubase software if I move to Vista. If I go with a Mac, my current Cubase will work. Plus I get Garage Band, so I may not even need to install Cubase (that still remains to be seen). I like a lot of the other applications that I saw last night as well. Also, there is an Apple Store not too far from me so I can easily get software training and any other assistance that I need to familiarize myself with the programs. I don't see the training curve being a big deal. Trust me, if I can put up with the various Windows frustrations that I've dealt with over the years, I can stomach whatever Apple may send my way.

Plus, if I can convince them that I'm a university student, they'll give me a free iPod Touch! :)

[kexodusc]

Thanks Kex. I use Office at home, maybe 3 or 4 times a year. And we're not getting rid of our XP desktop, the Mac will be a 2nd computer in the house so any Windows programs that I absolutely can't live without will still be available to me...just not portable.

The iWork program is $79 and Office for Mac is $199. The Apple sales guy told me that I can download a 60 day trial of iWork to see if I like it and then decide which program I want to purchase...if either.

I do know a few people who use Macs, including my brother. Everyone I know who uses a Mac loves it. I can't say the same for the people that I know who use Windows. Of course, some of it is just a numbers game...the more users the more risk of an unhappy user.

The reason that I'm considering a Mac is that I want to get more into home recording and would have to upgrade my Cubase software if I move to Vista. If I go with a Mac, my current Cubase will work. Plus I get Garage Band, so I may not even need to install Cubase (that still remains to be seen). I like a lot of the other applications that I saw last night as well. Also, there is an Apple Store not too far from me so I can easily get software training and any other assistance that I need to familiarize myself with the programs. I don't see the training curve being a big deal. Trust me, if I can put up with the various Windows frustrations that I've dealt with over the years, I can stomach whatever Apple may send my way.

Plus, if I can convince them that I'm a university student, they'll give me a free iPod Touch! :)

Okay good...Now I feel comfortable telling you to hurry the %@$# up and buy a Mac already :)

Like I said, there's alternatives to Office. I use Open Office for spreadsheets, word processing and powerpoint presentations. It is a very effective program, little nuances that differ from Microsoft's Office that bother me about it are outweighed by some other features and the price.
So I'm sure iWork will be fine for you. Spreadsheets and word processors are fairly simple to learn for most common uses.

For the home recording/multimedia a/v stuff oh yeah...get a Mac. I think you'll like the fewer crashes, glitches, anti-virus/anti-spyware maintenance, and backing up files has been revolutionized by OS X Leopard.

Plus...ya gotta admit there's a certain cool factor to buying a Mac and stickin' it to da man!

When you get really ambitious, come see me and I'll tell you how to install Linux on it!

[Ajani]

Okay good...Now I feel comfortable telling you to hurry the %@$# up and buy a Mac already :)

Seconded!


Like I said, there's alternatives to Office. I use Open Office for spreadsheets, word processing and powerpoint presentations. It is a very effective program, little nuances that differ from Microsoft's Office that bother me about it are outweighed by some other features and the price.

I use Openoffice at home on a Vista laptop.... I see no reason for the majority of people to pay for Microsoft Office when a very good alternative is available for free...

[ForeverAutumn]

I'm so confused!

I spoke to two Apple guys. One in the Apple Store in the mall and the other at the Apple toll-free number. Both recommended either an upgraded Macbook with 4gb of ram for $1,749 or a Macbook Pro for $2,099 if I want the power that I need to record on a Mac.

The price is just getting way out of hand. So now I'm back to looking at a Window's laptop.

Kex, there may be a certain cool factor in stickin' it to da man. But at these prices, I'm not so sure anymore that Jobs isn't as guilty of being "da man" as Gates is.

[kexodusc]

Kex, there may be a certain cool factor in stickin' it to da man. But at these prices, I'm not so sure anymore that Jobs isn't as guilty of being "da man" as Gates is.
You must have missed the part where I said my Mac was my work computer and I installed Linux on it :thumbsup: Jobs is a more consumer friendly "da man" but he's a "da man" too.

But then you could do that on a cheaper Windows machine and have your cake and eat it too.

Yeah, Apple's pricing can be a barrier.

But...uhhh, to record on a Mac, you don't need 4 GB of RAM. I'm sorry those guys are just idiots, or they are paid by the Megabyte.

People have been recording onto their machines since the Pentium 2, 128 MB RAM days if not earlier. I doubt you are doing any Pro-tools, mastering, remixing and editing are you? If you are you probably already know what to get...(send me a demo comp if you are!) Even then, can't see only 1 or 2 GB being a barrier. RAM shouldn't be the bottleneck for audio recording...somebody correct me here if I'm wrong.

That said, I would recommend at least 2GB and more is better but yeah, stay within your means.

[kexodusc]

FA, I'm a little confused at the price you're being quoted too.
I can get the Macbook from Futureshop starting at $1150, and upgrade the Ram to 4 GB for another $75 bucks to a whopping 4 GB.
That's $1225 plus tax. What else ya buying for the $500 difference?

[Woochifer]

The biggest difference between the Macbook and Macbook Pro, aside from the screen size, is the graphics card. The Pro uses a separate graphics card, while the Macbook uses integrated graphics in which the graphics are rendered by sharing the processor and memory with other system functions. All Macs except the Macbook, Air, and Mini use a separate graphics card.

The advantage of a separate graphics card is that it will run image intensive applications (like games, picture/video editing) much faster. Also, the upcoming tweaks to OS X that come out next year will apparently boost performance by moving more of the processing tasks over to the graphics processor, which the Macbook would not be able to take full advantage of.

Unless you need a computer immediately, you might want to hold off for about a month or so (or as long as you can before that free iPod touch offer expires in mid-September). Rumors have been buzzing that a new Macbook is due for release (http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/07/30/apple_warns_resellers_of_mac_and_ipod_drought_says _load_up_now.html) in September. But, other rumors have this pushing back to October because Apple wants to redesign one of the chips that Intel currently supplies. But, I must say that free iPod touch offer is very tempting if you're eligible (my wife is, since she's university staff, so we're thinking about it).

For most of my computing needs, I much prefer the Mac. One issue though is that some websites might not work right because they need the Windows Media Player or Active X (a proprietary controller that's only available on IE). Of course, I run into that same issue on my PC because I use Firefox.

If you still need to do Windows for some applications, you have multiple options available.

Option #1: Install Windows and use Boot Camp for dual booting
This option is the equivalent of having two compters in one. When you start up your Mac, you're given the option of loading OS X or Windows. Once you choose the OS, you're running those apps exclusively. In order to do this, you'll need to buy a copy of Windows (probably Vista since XP is no longer available at retail).

Option #2: Install VMWare Fusion or Parallels plus Windows
This option is known as virtualization. Basically VMWare Fusion or Parallels would create a "virtual machine" while you're running OS X. Rather than the equivalent of two computers in one, this is more of computer within a computer. The advantage to virtualization is that you don't have to reboot your computer to run Windows (or any other operating system), and you can have Windows and OS X applications open at the same time. The disadvantage is that you have to buy Windows AND one of the virtualization programs (Fusion and Parallels each cost about $80), and you take a slight performance hit (about 10-20%).

Option #3: Install Codeweavers Crossover
This is basically a reverse engineered version of Windows from the open source Wine project that runs on both OS X and Linux. It allows you to install and run Windows applications without having to actually install Windows. While this is a very inexpensive option (the open source Wine code is available for free, and the Crossover app costs only $40), it's also hit-and-miss as to how well a Windows program runs using it. Office97 and 2000 run great using Crossover, while 2003 has more glitches, and 2007 has even more.

Most of the musicians I know use Macs, so if music apps are one of your primary uses, then I think you'll be well off with the Mac. Garage Band is a fun program, and I use Final Cut Express for video editing -- and in these instances, there are no Windows apps of comparable quality available.

[Woochifer]

I'm so confused!

I spoke to two Apple guys. One in the Apple Store in the mall and the other at the Apple toll-free number. Both recommended either an upgraded Macbook with 4gb of ram for $1,749 or a Macbook Pro for $2,099 if I want the power that I need to record on a Mac.

The price is just getting way out of hand. So now I'm back to looking at a Window's laptop.

Kex, there may be a certain cool factor in stickin' it to da man. But at these prices, I'm not so sure anymore that Jobs isn't as guilty of being "da man" as Gates is.

I don't know the Canadian price equivalents, but the U.S. Macbook midlevel configuration starts at $1,300. Upgrading to 4GB adds $200, and going with a larger 250GB hard drive adds another $100. Going with an aftermarket memory vendor like Crucial would only cost $100 for the same memory upgrade, and you get to keep the original 2 x 1GB memory modules for trade or resale. The larger hard drive will probably help if you do a lot of recording and need to work with uncompressed digital audio files.

I use my iMac for video editing, which is more taxing than audio apps, and it has 2GB and a 1.87 GHz processor (the midlevel Macbook uses a 2.4 GHz processor, and a faster system board). I have a 500GB hard drive, and still have about 300 GB of space left, even with 8 hours of video footage, 4,000 pictures, and over 2,000 MP3/AAC files.

As Kex mentioned, I'm not so sure you need that much firepower just to handle home recording projects.

[Woochifer]

I do know a few people who use Macs, including my brother. Everyone I know who uses a Mac loves it. I can't say the same for the people that I know who use Windows. Of course, some of it is just a numbers game...the more users the more risk of an unhappy user.

Definitely not a numbers game. This survey from back in March found that only 1-in-4 Windows Vista users were "very satisfied" while more than 4-in-5 users of OS X Leopard were. I'm surprised that Vista Home Basic even got 15% because it's just a gawdawful kludge that should be avoided at all costs (i.e., the same compatibility, performance, and stability problems as other versions of Vista, but with none of the eyecandy -- basically Vista in XP drag).

http://gracefulflavor.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/os-satisfaction.png

[Woochifer]

But...grabbing your existing software CD's and loading them onto a Mac, especially Office 2003 or whatever, isn't going to happen unless you buy some conversion software (correct me if I'm wrong Wooch?)

It can be done (with varying degrees of compatibility) using Codeweavers Crossover, which is available for both OS X and Linux for $40. It's basically a consumer-friendly version of Wine 1.0, the open source effort to reverse-engineer Windows that's been ongoing for close to 15 years. Version 1.0 finally came out only a few months ago. I tried out an older version of Crossover last year, and it was hit-and-miss. Plus, I don't need that much Windows compatibility ever since my company upgraded its server and allowed me to access my Windows programs at home via remote desktop connection.

Office 2003 will work with Crossover, but compatibility is much better with Office 97 and 2000.


Personally, I downloaded the free Open Office because I like it...I think most Mac users use the free NeoOffice suite - they both will work for most users - can save files in the standard Word, Excel, Powerpoint formats, and open Word, Excel, and Powerpoint files.

Unfortunately, MS decided to screw with this by introducing the incompatible OOXML format with Office 2007, which cannot be saved (only converted) using Open Office.


But it's not Office and that scares some people. If you use some complex spreadsheet macros, you might need to buy Office.

MS strikes yet again! With Office 2008 for the Mac, MS discontinued support for VBA scripts, which means that if you have an Excel file with macros, the latest Mac version of Excel can't execute the macros. In order to run those macros, Mac users would need to either run the Windows versions or install Office 2004 for the Mac, which did support VBA scripts. MS claims that VBA was dropped because of the difficulties they encountered in converting Office into a universal application (natively supported for both PowerPC and Intel Macs). Their Mac blog now says that VBA support will return with the next version of Excel.

[ForeverAutumn]

You guys are awesome! Thanks for all of the info. I'm going to be an expert by the time this is all done.

Kex, the Apple guy was telling me that I needed to get the $1549 version of Macbook with an extra $200 charge to upgrade the RAM. :eek6:

I decided to go directly to the horse and solve this once and for all. After work I took a trip to the music store where I bought all my recording stuff and talked to the experts there. They told me to run far, far away from Vista. I would need to purchase the most recent version of the software that I use (which I knew) but that even then the program was really buggy with Vista. They also recommended a Mac, but said that the 2GB of ram was plenty and I would have no problems running the interface or software with that.

So now I'm back to the Macbook, 2GB memory and 160GB hard drive. If I need a bigger HD than that, I'll buy an external drive. The only question left is whether to get it now or wait a couple of months to see if something new comes out. But there will always be something bigger and better in the future...

I feel like ping pong ball!

[kexodusc]

Kex, the Apple guy was telling me that I needed to get the $1549 version of Macbook with an extra $200 charge to upgrade the RAM. :eek6:
I don't know why he would say that - near as I can tell (and would expect) every single Macbook can have the RAM upgraded, and you wouldn't need the $1549 jobber.


So now I'm back to the Macbook, 2GB memory and 160GB hard drive. I
I believe that's the first upgraded Macbook model...$1350
http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10099352&catid=

Like we've said - you can upgrade the RAM for extremely cheap, depending where you go. (doesn't have to be the Mac brand Ram get aftermarket for 1/2 the price). I think that $50 -$100 is very worthwhile if you can swing it, probably the most cost-effective upgrade, but yeah 2 GB is plenty for you for now.

The base model Macbook with the 2.1 GHz processor and 1 GB RAM has a more processing power, better graphics, and a bigger hard drive than my Macbook, and would likely run circles around it in any heavy duty application. Upgrading that 1 GB RAM to 2 or 4 GB would make for one scorching little laptop for web browsing, email, videos, music, heavy Office using and still leave you with enough power to make me your Threshold covers CD.

Think you're on the right track...

[ForeverAutumn]

Thanks for all your advice fellas. My new Macbook was delivered yesterday. I ended up with the middle version (2GB RAM, 160 GB HD). I ordered it through a local college website where I was able to get the student discount.

Along with the student discount comes rebates for the full purchase price of an 8GB iPod Touch and $100 towards a printer. I upgraded to a 32GB iPod Touch which, after rebate, will cost me only $200 and a $99 printer that will end up being free.

I charged everything up last night and now I just have to find a free evening to do the initial set-ups. I'll be up at the cottage next week and although there's no internet, the forecast is calling for some rainy days that I can spend learning how to use the other programs.