[ Mac] New Users

[ne0star]

I must admit I can count on one hand how many times I have booted the vista partition on mine.

Yes both office 2008 on the mac and 2007 on the PC share the same docx file format so anything created on either system will open seamlessly on either a mac or a PC. the same goes for documents created in older versions of office such as 2003 on the PC. Its really good that it does that because my macbook pro is a much more comfortable system to type on comapred to my Dell.

[Wil]

Get a 24 inch iMac (you know you want to)

I just got one of these the other week - maxed out the ram and drive with the faster processor and graphics card. It's absolutely superb! Both OSX and Vista run like a dream and with VM Fusion they'll happily run at the same time.

I was dubious about the (wireless) keyboard and mouse but get on fine with them now.

[CMcK]

The BT Home Hub issue is non existent. I setup a Home Hub for the chap I sold my iMac G5 to. I would imagine the adaptor they are refering to is an Airport card. Been a long time since any Mac, bar the the Mac Pro, didn't ship with built in Wi-fi. They had built in 11g before Intel introduced 11b with the Centrino moniker.

I'm a big fan of the new Apple keyboards, short travel keys with a nice springy feel.And the Mighty Mouse is comfy with the 4 buttons being handy for stuff like Expose shortcuts.

[JP]

Get a 24 inch iMac (you know you want to)

And if you do get one, dump the mouse and get a wireless logitech or similar. The Apple mouse looks nice but is not that ergonomic in my opinion.

No, I think I really do like the idea of having a Mini under the TV as it'll be right by all my AV equipment and I have a spare shelf for it waiting.

At first I'll just be happy to get the Mac as I've got a USB keyboard & mouse waiting but I probably won't be able to resist those nice wireless jobbies for long.

The BT Home Hub issue is non existent. I setup a Home Hub for the chap I sold my iMac G5 to. I would imagine the adaptor they are refering to is an Airport card. Been a long time since any Mac, bar the the Mac Pro, didn't ship with built in Wi-fi. They had built in 11g before Intel introduced 11b with the Centrino moniker.

That's good to know, I was thinking that they were referring to something that was lacking in older models.

Just to check, the G5s are the Macs with Intel hardware and I should really be avoiding anything before that?

I had a look at a few magazines in Smiths today and there was loads but I ended up buying The Independent Guide to Macs which was ?8:99 but it's more of a book than magazine and seemed to cover everything I'll need when I start off.

I hadn't even thought about email but Mail looks really good if this book is anything to go by.

I've been having a look at buying Leopard as I may end up with a Mini that has an earlier OS installed (Tiger?) but looking on Apple's site they only seem to do a straight buy rather than an upgrade. Is that the only way to buy it or is there an option to download an upgrade when you're using an earlier version?

I'm quite embarrassed to admit it but I'm getting quite excited about getting my first Mac in September sometime!!

[Fei Fong Wong]

Just to check, the G5s are the Macs with Intel hardware and I should really be avoiding anything before that?

G5's are PowerPC's. Intel's will be named as Intel. Core Duo, Core 2 Duo etc.

I hadn't even thought about email but Mail looks really good if this book is anything to go by.

Mac Mail app is good. You won't need anything else.

I've been having a look at buying Leopard as I may end up with a Mini that has an earlier OS installed (Tiger?) but looking on Apple's site they only seem to do a straight buy rather than an upgrade. Is that the only way to buy it or is there an option to download an upgrade when you're using an earlier version?

The version you see for ?85 is the full version of Leopard, upgrade or not. Apple don't do multiple versions of the OS like Microsoft. New Mini's will come with Leopard pre-installed. You'll need to purchase the disc to upgrade from Panther/Tiger etc. on any older hardware. BTW new Mini's haven't been updated since August 2007 and so buying one new is not good value for money. Updated hardware or a discontinuance seem likely soon.

I'm quite embarrassed to admit it but I'm getting quite excited about getting my first Mac in September sometime!!

Enjoy your Mac.

[davidcotton]

No, I think I really do like the idea of having a Mini under the TV as it'll be right by all my AV equipment and I have a spare shelf for it waiting.

At first I'll just be happy to get the Mac as I've got a USB keyboard & mouse waiting but I probably won't be able to resist those nice wireless jobbies for long.


That's good to know, I was thinking that they were referring to something that was lacking in older models.

Just to check, the G5s are the Macs with Intel hardware and I should really be avoiding anything before that?

I had a look at a few magazines in Smiths today and there was loads but I ended up buying The Independent Guide to Macs which was ?8:99 but it's more of a book than magazine and seemed to cover everything I'll need when I start off.

I hadn't even thought about email but Mail looks really good if this book is anything to go by.

I've been having a look at buying Leopard as I may end up with a Mini that has an earlier OS installed (Tiger?) but looking on Apple's site they only seem to do a straight buy rather than an upgrade. Is that the only way to buy it or is there an option to download an upgrade when you're using an earlier version?

I'm quite embarrassed to admit it but I'm getting quite excited about getting my first Mac in September sometime!!

If you do go for the wireless keyboard, check out the marks and spencers with technology section. Picked one up from there for ?10 less than the apple price!

[JP]

Right, change of plan...again!!

I'm now thinking of the 20" iMac instead of the Mini but unless there is a really BIG price drop in September I'll be spending more than I really want to. I'll still be looking to buy a used model if possible which will ease it a bit.

It'll be 2.4Ghz but are the iMacs easier/worth upgrading on the CPU side of things in comparison to the Minis if I did want to do it some time in the future?

I was surprised to see on Apple's site that Halo was available for the Mac!! I know that Bungie used to be Mac developers but I had no idea Halo was available. I'm definately a console gamer and must have bought around 10 or 15 games for my PCs over the years so I'm really not buying it for games but if I was to suddenly want to play a game on it sometime in the future, what's it like for Mac gaming now compared to how it used to be? What's it like running games if Windows is running on Bootcamp?

On a side note, does Bootcamp run on top of OSX or does it run instead of it?

With the games, if I was to be told now that I'd never be able to play a game on the iMac it really wouldn't affect me fgetting oen but I'd just like to know where I'd stand if fir some reason I wanted to.

Lol I can't believe this, I'm buying a Mac and I'm already thinking that I may buy Vista to run on it sometime in teh future!! I feel so dirty!!

I hate you people, you've got me thinking about bloody iPhones & I've just seen that the iPod Classic is available in a 160GB version. I still have an 80GB version and that was no where near what I need even when I bought it.

[Fei Fong Wong]

It'll be 2.4Ghz but are the iMacs easier/worth upgrading on the CPU side of things in comparison to the Minis if I did want to do it some time in the future?

You can't upgrade any CPU on any Mac. What you buy is what you'll get. On an iMac you can upgrade RAM and nothing else (unless you're good with taking it to bits yourself to swap the HDD out.).

I was surprised to see on Apple's site that Halo was available for the Mac!! I know that Bungie used to be Mac developers but I had no idea Halo was available. I'm definately a console gamer and must have bought around 10 or 15 games for my PCs over the years so I'm really not buying it for games but if I was to suddenly want to play a game on it sometime in the future, what's it like for Mac gaming now compared to how it used to be? What's it like running games if Windows is running on Bootcamp?

There are some native Mac games out there but still slim pickings in comparison to PC gaming. With an Intel Mac you can run Bootcamp or a virtual machine to access Windows though. The main issue for Windows gaming on a Mac is the graphics card/chipset. The new iMac's run most games just fine but pay attention to what graphics card is in the Mac if you're going 2nd hand. Gaming on a Mini would be painful I think because of the integrated chipset.

On a side note, does Bootcamp run on top of OSX or does it run instead of it?

Instead of it. It is a dual boot scenario. You boot in to Windows or Mac OS. VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop can help you run Windows at the same time as OSX though.

I hate you people, you've got me thinking about bloody iPhones & I've just seen that the iPod Classic is available in a 160GB version. I still have an 80GB version and that was no where near what I need even when I bought it.

New iPods will be out in a few weeks. Expect an announcement sometime around 15th September.

[Brannigan]

6. - You can use any external hard disk you want so long as it's USB2 or firewire enabled. The format of the hard disk is important and for cross compatibility with Windows, Fat32 is ideal. There are ways to get Windows to read Mac disks (MacDrive is great) and there's ways to get Macs to read NTFS too.

Macs can read NTFS right out of the box, they just can't write to it.

John, I wouldn't worry about having 2Gb of RAM in a Mini. OSX is pretty good with memory management and will cope fine. And as long as you've got a dual-core processor, I would say any speed is good. I've got a single-core G5 iMac as my main machine and its still going strong. It only struggles with HD playback and takes a while to encode video. The 2Ghz Core 2 Macbook that I've got flys through these tasks though.

[CMcK]

Keep an eye on the Apple UK refurb store for some bargains:

http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObjects/ukstore.woa/wa/RSLID?sf=w2YF4JXY4AHCAJCDF&nclm=C61AFE24

I've bought a Powerbook G4, iBook, 2 Mac minis and iMac Core 2 Duo from the refurb store over the years and they have all been just like new with brand new software and accessories included. They even ship in the correct box now instead of the old brown refurb store box.

[fishbowlhead]

Ive had my iMac for a few months now and i can honestly say, its been the best piece of technology ive ever purchased. My only regret is that i never made the switch from pc to Mac so much soner.

There were 2 things that affected my ability at the time though to switch,

1. i was running photoshop on pc and couldnt afford to splash out on the mac version of the same product in the same year i purchased the pc one. LUCKILY a copy of mac cs3 just happened to find its way to me

2. i run a small business and was making all my catalogues and brochures in publisher and then converting them into pdfs using acrobat (which is an absolute nightmare of a process)

Well i walked into a mac store one day to try them out and noticed there new iWorks suite running, i started playing around with it and discovered that all of the iworks programs can save there documents into pdfs as standard, this was the sign id been waiting for as i no longer had to worry about anything i designed again, i could now produce everything in pdfs and take them to my work pc without compatibility issues, i could also now produce brochures, adverts, catalogues and anything else in pages and save them as pdfs with no problems at all.


All i can say is i love my mac to bits since ive had it, ill never go back to a pc for personal use (or design work) and im now on the serch for sage accounts 50 for mac so i can rid my business of pcs as well.

Im running an 20inch iMac,
OSX Leopard
2.66 duel core
4 gig of ram
256 meg ATI graphics card
500 gig hard drive

I have to say that the machine is an absolute beast for raw power, ive run and advert designed in photoshop, A4, at 700dpi, and the machine has just laughed at it and merrily carried on. If i ran the same advert on a vista machine (i used to use) with the same specs it would fall over, blow up, die, then blow up again. The efficiency of Leopard is just astounding!

[philbw]

I've been a PC user for years, always used a PC for pleasure and a Mac for work (as a designer)... The advent of the Intel Mac and the ability to run PC apps I had been used to for years through Parallels was the final straw for me, I made the switch to just one machine a couple of weeks ago after my G4 iBook when kaput. I bought a refurb 20" iMac (2GB ram, 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo) from Apple for a meager ?700, was as new, all in all it was the Best.Decision.Ever

[Richard.John]

Another plus with iMacs is that they are whisper quiet. My Dell sounds like a small jet engine most of the time and a raging tornando in the summer months as the temp rises. I am sure the Mini is the same too (quiet as a mouse)

Having owned my Alu/glass IMac for a year now, I can state that it's the best computer, possibly the best tech that I have ever owned, though the Super Famicom pushes it close. The only glitch was freezing up in Leopard but that was a known issue and was fixed by Apple, via a software update, last year.

When people ask why I went mac, they usually say, but of course you have problems with this and that, but I tell them to to try it, take a chance and buy one next time you need a new computer. I was the same, I assumed that I would be locked into a small, windowless, world of pain due to it not having XP but the reality is that 95% of things you want to do can be done straight out of the box and the remainder only requires a quick search on the net for the answer. For day to day computing, its the only machine you will ever need.

[Ginger Tosser]

1. i was running photoshop on pc and couldnt afford to splash out on the mac

Adobe will allow you to change to the Mac version of PS for a small fee (or free apparently)

[fishbowlhead]

Adobe will allow you to change to the Mac version of PS for a small fee (or free apparently)

Well i kind of (acquired) that version as well so ringing adobe wasn't really an option.