[ Mac] New Users

[fishbowlhead]

No probs fullspec. I like a good rant myself.

Just goes to prove in the case of M$ that you can crap on someone's plate and make them eat it.

[JB@XL]

As a recent happy convert to mac i was planning on upgrading to an imac but the new prices mean i will probably stick to my mac mini.Anyone thinking of changing to mac might be put off with the higher prices and the improvement shown in windows 7.

I was also going to get an ibook but happy with my Advent netbook.

advent pic.

[belmondo]

Re Apple hardware being better quality - this is not the case in my experience. My 3 year old iBook G4 has a failed battery and DVD drive (it only gets intermittent evening/weekend use). Contrast that with my work Dell laptop (on 8x5, occasionally for 60 hours periods) which I've had for 2 years (it could be older than that though) which has no hardware problems.

I do like OSX but don't really believe it is more stable or secure than Win XP/2k. I don't think I would buy a Mac again, but might consider a 'Hackintosh' for my next machine, in order to avoid Apple's high prices.

[Brad]

Depends what you use your computer for I suppose. I've had to use Windows for 20+ years and always found it to be pretty crap. NT 3.51 was their best version IMO.

[fishbowlhead]

As a recent happy convert to mac i was planning on upgrading to an imac but the new prices mean i will probably stick to my mac mini.Anyone thinking of changing to mac might be put off with the higher prices and the improvement shown in windows 7.

I was also going to get an ibook but happy with my Advent netbook.

advent pic.

How did you get OSX onto it my good man? from vids ive seen on it you have to use hardware the same as what you find in an apple computer?

Might be a cheaper way to change my work office computer to OSX than buying another iMac, which i really can't afford to do right now.

[belmondo]

Well I started with Win 3.1 but don't remember much of it, 95 and 98 were quite poor but was there a reasonable alternative at the time?

Comparing XP and OSX, I prefer the Apple UI but I have seen the same problems (i.e. application hang, computer lock up) the same amount on both OSs. XP has much more software available but has the twin pains of software installation/deinstallation and the registry. OSX has less security worries but that is more to do with obscurity of the OS than the code itself (I still get plenty of security patches via software update).

[Brad]

Oh mac apps crash. of course they do. However, when you think a Mac app has died do this:

Alt context click on the app in the dock and choose force quit. Result? the app quits. Every time. Straight away.

Try the same thing on Windows. More often that not I have to wait an age before widows tell me the app is not responding and do i want to force quit it. I say yes and nothing happens. This has been consistent on multiple computers and multiple versions of windows since as long as I can remember. Does my head in.

[JB@XL]

How did you get OSX onto it my good man? from vids ive seen on it you have to use hardware the same as what you find in an apple computer?

Might be a cheaper way to change my work office computer to OSX than buying another iMac, which i really can afford to do right now.

I used Kalyway 10.5.2 install on dvd but there are other ways using usb flash drives.As always google is the best option as i dont think a link would be acceptable here.

[wakka]

Macs don't tend to be better made than pc's, they are better made, fact.

Dude you've apparently owned all of one Mac, I don't think you're really that qualified to say this.

I love Macs and Apple products, but the quality varies just like any other manufacturer. I bought the MacBook Pro when it was first released, and had massive amounts of problems with it over the next two and a half years. It got far too hot when I was doing basically nothing, to the point where the metal above the ports warped, the Superdrive broke twice for no reason, the screen broke, the battery needed replacing, the power cable was defective, all sorts of crap. In contrast, we have a few Dells at home that are years and years old, and they still run great bar one ancient Dimension desktop that constantly warns that the hard drive is on the verge of failure.

Macs are in general well put together - it certainly must help when writing the OS and software that they know exactly what components it'll be running on. They're not perfect though, not by a long way. It's just not an absolute truth that they are better put together, full stop.

I now have the new late 2008 model MacBook Pro, and it's much better. My revA G4 Mac mini that I use as a media server at home still runs great, too, except the Superdrive is getting a little unreliable at reading discs now.

[fishbowlhead]

Oh mac apps crash. of course they do. However, when you think a Mac app has died do this:

Alt context click on the app in the dock and choose force quit. Result? the app quits. Every time. Straight away.

Try the same thing on Windows. More often that not I have to wait an age before widows tell me the app is not responding and do i want to force quit it. I say yes and nothing happens. This has been consistent on multiple computers and multiple versions of windows since as long as I can remember. Does my head in.

I absolutely hate that with a vengeance. The application is not responding, do you want to quit? yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Cue 50 yes's later and ive thrown the keyboard out the office door and poxy windows still hasn't quit the app.

Why M$ why


Edit. to randicoot, ill refraze that sir, in my experience macs are better made than a windows pc.

[Strolls]

...I was also going to get an ibook but happy with my Advent netbook.

advent pic.

Oooh! That's really tempting. I'm pretty sure I set one of those up for a customer recently, and was pretty impressed with it.

His was the version with GPRS / 3G mobile internet, though - I'm sure you won't get that working under OS X.

Did you get the webcam, wifi, bluetooth, soundcard & all that working on yours?

Stroller.

[JB@XL]

Oooh! That's really tempting. I'm pretty sure I set one of those up for a customer recently, and was pretty impressed with it.

His was the version with GPRS / 3G mobile internet, though - I'm sure you won't get that working under OS X.

Did you get the webcam, wifi, bluetooth, soundcard & all that working on yours?

Stroller.

Not tried bluetooth but webcam works on ichat,wifi (drivers now available for the realtech card which comes as standard so no longer requires changed) and soundcard (workaround now available which enables headphone jack to work).

Really impressed with how smooth everything works.I upped the ram to 2gb but i know it still works well with only 1gb ram.Best machine i have bought in a long time.

[Lyris]

Alt context click on the app in the dock and choose force quit. Result? the app quits. Every time. Straight away.

Try the same thing on Windows. More often that not I have to wait an age before widows tell me the app is not responding and do i want to force quit it. I say yes and nothing happens. This has been consistent on multiple computers and multiple versions of windows since as long as I can remember. Does my head in.

I absolutely hate that with a vengeance. The application is not responding, do you want to quit? yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Cue 50 yes's later and ive thrown the keyboard out the office door and poxy windows still hasn't quit the app.

Why M$ why


Edit. to randicoot, ill refraze that sir, in my experience macs are better made than a windows pc.

I despise this too and can't understand why they haven't fixed it. Here's how you avoid it though:

CTRL+ALT+DEL, Task Manager, Processes Tab.
Find the program in there and hit the "Kill" or "Terminate" or "Force Quit" or whatever it's called. That will do it instantly

[JP]

I've got a couple of questions probably aren't specifically for Macs but this seems like a good place for them.

After reorganising everything again I'm now looking for a way to get music from one side of the room where the Mac is to the other where our main AV set-up is. I could obviously have cables (RCA/Optical) stuck behind the furniture but I'm wondering if there is a cheap way to do this wirelessly without compromising the audio quality?

Really not interested in the video side of things, it's simple 2 channel, CD quality audio via FrontRow or iTunes

Also, I have a 80GB iPod so only have that amount of music on the Mac and I just let everything update but need to rip CDs when ever I want to chaneg what music is on the iPod. I'm thinking of perhaps sticking another 100GBs or so of music on the Mac but I'm not realy sure how iTunes would deal with this if I update manually. In brief, how would I organise the music and choose which the iPod updates and which is just left in the library?

I'm sure it's very simple to do but it's not something I've tried before.

I've just updated the title of the thread after seeing this thread to make the Mac specific stuff easier to find.

[Magnakai]

An Airport Express may be in your future...