| Author |
Message |
    
AlleyGater
Citizen
Username: Alleygater
Post Number: 32
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Monday, December 20, 2004 - 1:32 pm: |     |
Also good for buying used:
http://www.smalldog.com/
and if your a bit daring there is always ebay.com |
Michael Janay
Citizen
Username: Childprotect
Post Number: 1414
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 22, 2004 - 4:06 pm: | |
I'm seriously considering getting an Imac for the house.
My wife and kid keep screwing up my PC running XP.
I don't think they could mess up the mac.
But realistically the Imac I would want to be equivalent to the PC we have now will cost over 2 grand.
It may be worth it though for all of the headaches. |
musicme
Citizen
Username: Musicme
Post Number: 912
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 22, 2004 - 4:41 pm: | |
I've a G-4 at work, a ibook at home and a PC (dell) at home for gaming. For anything serious, the Mac is the way to go, even though the Dell is quick. I'd stay with Mac completely if the games were ported for it. The airport is wonderful! Ditto itunes and the ipod. Garage band rocks! iphoto is easy to use. Why look elsewhere? |
Dave
Moderator
Username: Dave
Post Number: 4813
Registered: 4-1998
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 22, 2004 - 4:43 pm: | |
iMacs top out at $1900.
20-inch widescreen LCD
1.8GHz PowerPC G5
512K L2 cache
600MHz frontside bus
256MB DDR400 SDRAM
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
64MB DDR video memory
160GB Serial ATA hard drive
Slot-load SuperDrive
free shipping |
Michael Janay
Citizen
Username: Childprotect
Post Number: 1415
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 22, 2004 - 4:58 pm: | |
Not if you add memory, bluetooth, and wireless.
• 512MB DDR400 SDRAM - 1 DIMM
• 160GB Serial ATA drive
• AirPort Extreme Card
• None - Bluetooth Module
• Final Cut Express 2 preinstalled
• Bluetooth Module + Apple Wireless Keyboard & Mouse + Mac OS X - U.S. English
• 20-inch widescreen LCD
• 1.8GHz PowerPC G5
• SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW)
• NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra w/64MB video memory
Subtotal $2,251.00 |
monster
Citizen
Username: Monster
Post Number: 447
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 22, 2004 - 5:03 pm: | |
taking into account "everything", the better deal is still a Mac.
~nuff said |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 4849
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 22, 2004 - 5:07 pm: | |
I think I'm convinced. If my wife's luck is any indication, a Mac will cost less over time. She bought a Powerbook in 1998 for $2000. It is still running now. It's slow, and since it's running Mac OS 9, there's no more new software for it. The buggy software will have no updates. So it's about at the end of its life.
But that is to say that she got six years out of it. That's fairly impressive for a desktop, but this is a laptop!
I don't expect PC's to last more than three or four years. |
Michael Janay
Citizen
Username: Childprotect
Post Number: 1416
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 22, 2004 - 5:10 pm: | |
Then add in MS office for Mac, and Virtual PC.
That adds another $650
Then theres photoshop, Illustrator, etc that I'd have to buy.
I use Corel 12 which has everything. They don't make it for the Mac though.
Ugh, Maybe I'll stick with the PC |
Michael Janay
Citizen
Username: Childprotect
Post Number: 1417
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 22, 2004 - 5:24 pm: | |
Monster,
If you are comparing what you get for the price of a new Mac VERSUS what you would have to spend on a pc to equal that, the cost is equal to or greater on the pc. In most cases it is greater, at least if you buy your software for the pc.
How do you figure that?
I can get a Dell P4 3.2, 512mb 160 gig, Dual DVD drives, 19 inch flatpanel, 802.11g, with XP Pro, and Office for a little over $1200
To outfit the Imac like that it will cost me nearly $2600
What is worth the extra $1400
Are there really that many fewer headaches? I use Macafee and have no problems with viruses, adware, spyware, etc.
I mean I assume my wife could start a system recovery by accident and screw up a mac as easily as a PC.
I like the look of the mac, but it is a lot more expensive. |
monster
Citizen
Username: Monster
Post Number: 448
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 22, 2004 - 5:25 pm: | |
You don't need MS office, there are other options.
VPC has always been a bust, it's much better to just put a pc in the closet and use VNC or MS's Remote Desktop Connection to control it when you need to.
Unless of course you like to spend time on one, or don't know better, or just plain have to...
Tom, sell the Powerbook and put the money towards a new one, at least you will get more money for it than you would for a pc laptop from the same year. |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 4851
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 22, 2004 - 5:30 pm: | |
Wow, I hadn't even considered there would be resale value from that Powerbook. Mac wins again.
Michael, it depends on the value of your time. The price/performance ratio on Macs is not as good. The price/headache ratio is harder to measure, especially since everyone's time and effort and have different values.
Consider also that antivirus software is not necessary for Mac OS yet. Consider also that when it is necessary, it probably won't be as much of a CPU hog, because the list of definitions is going to be much smaller as long as Windows is the primary target for virus writers. |
monster
Citizen
Username: Monster
Post Number: 449
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 22, 2004 - 5:39 pm: | |
Not to mention that it is a lot harder to write something for the Mac, there has been proof of concept but for the 2 that were written someone actually had to be sitting at the computer and have access to an admin password to apply.
The security on OS X is great, the OS is written much better than MS's.
By the way, I've never had a virus on my pc, or malware, that I didn't put there myself just to see what it did. Or should I say that it may have resided on my pc but wasn't active unless I did it. |
Michael Janay
Citizen
Username: Childprotect
Post Number: 1418
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 22, 2004 - 5:39 pm: | |
Apple .mac charges for virus protection among other things. Its $99, which seems reasonable.
What are the options to Office? Openoffice and the like aren't really compatible and they don't even run native on OSX. I need to be able to write word docs and use excel sheets.
There seems to be very little opensource apps for the Mac. Thats fine for my house. |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 4854
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 22, 2004 - 5:48 pm: | |
Mac OS is UNIX under the hood, so there's more opensource software for it than for any other platform.
Openoffice runs on the mac. I have been using openoffice exclusively on my PC's since August and have had no compatibility problems at all. What problems does it give you?
|
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 4855
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 22, 2004 - 5:50 pm: | |
monster, could you please reword your first sentence at http://www.southorangevillage.com/cgi-bin/show.cgi?tpc=10210&post=319117#POST319 117 ? I don't follow.
Not that it's possible to measure it quantitatively, but most of the industry says it's easier to develop in unix than Windows. |
Michael Janay
Citizen
Username: Childprotect
Post Number: 1421
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 22, 2004 - 5:58 pm: | |
I understand its unix under the hood, but that doesn't mean that unix apps will run on it. And what flavor of Unix? I don't believe you can run Linux apps or Sun Apps on a Mac. If I'm wrong, that is definetly a big plus for the Mac.
With OO I have problems moving word files back and forth, Excel sheets with macros that span multiple sheets never work, and annotations don't transfer. Also the formatting never keeps. Too much of a pain. |
monster
Citizen
Username: Monster
Post Number: 450
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 22, 2004 - 6:05 pm: | |
http://www.apple.com/appleworks/
http://www.nisus.com/Express/
http://www.redlers.com/mellel.html
http://www.marinersoftware.com/sitepage.php?page=12
http://www.thinkfree.com/
|
monster
Citizen
Username: Monster
Post Number: 451
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 22, 2004 - 6:21 pm: | |
Tom, there has been proof of concept that a virus can infect OS X, but to implement it someone would have to actually be sitting at the computer they are trying to infect (at least so far), this is because of the way security is implemented in OS X.
Granted that you have to have everything set up right and the user is the weakest point if they execute an app or do an install. that's why users should have limited rights and capabilities, no matter what OS they are running.
More info:
http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,63000,00.html
http://www.macuser.co.uk/macuser/news/55939/os-x-virus-warning-criticised-no-thr eat-exists.html
|
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 4857
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 22, 2004 - 10:23 pm: | |
monster, I've been a unix system administrator by trade since, um, 1983. Wow. Well, I spent a few years as a programmer, so that wasn't my title all these years. But anyway, you are right, monster. There are all sorts of ways to write viruses, and they don't all require the user doing something to enable them on the console. As I said earlier, programming in unix is easier than windows, though of course that's a matter of opinion. So yes, viruses can be written. And if you broaden the definition of attacks, there are tons of attacks on unix coming out all the time. Check out the bugtraq mailing list.
I agree that a regular user having superuser privileges most or all of the time is a bad model to work under.
Michael, true that linux and Sun binaries won't work on the mac, because, after all, different processors have different instruction sets. But when you get stuff in source code, you can compile it for your machine. Not all code compiles on all versions of unix, but you have a fighting chance, and lots of authors like to make sure their code runs on all the popular flavors of unix and linux.
Sorry to hear about openoffice. My usage has been little more than cursory, which must be why I've been satisfied. I do hope it progresses, because it seems so promising. |
Michael Janay
Citizen
Username: Childprotect
Post Number: 1424
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 23, 2004 - 12:15 pm: | |
Tom,
Me too, I would love to be an openoffice user. It would save me thousands of dollars a year.
When I started my company here, we tried to run all opensource.
Suse Linux, Openoffice, etc.
We failed miserably. Its just not ready for the desktop. The filesystem is too complicated, having to compile binaries, getting different systems to network together and then to share peripherals. It was just too much work. Then we had the OO difficulties when sharing files, no ability to track changes, and other things just made us go to Microsoft.
I also understand about compiling source, but I didn't think there was a true working OSX unix compiler available outside of an apple developer kit. Do you know of one? And do you know what flavor of Unix OSX is based on? |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 4862
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 23, 2004 - 12:27 pm: | |
I admire your courage for giving open source a try, in the way you tried it. In fairness, while I do believe unix/linux is cheaper overall, the learning curve is steeper in the beginning, and you need more expertise for the easy or basic things. For medium and large size companies, this is fine. You hire higher-paid people, but you have fewer of them, and you save money. For small businesses, you have only zero people or a fraction of a person or one person devoted to IT infrastructure, and it isn't easy to get someone with the right knowledge and skills. That's one big reason Microsoft wins, and it is very much to their credit.
When you have good infrastructure, which isn't necessarily justified for a small business, you have automated OS load procedures and automated ways to keep applications up to date. Better yet, in linux and unix, you can install applications on file servers and have workstations load directly from them at run time, without installing onto workstations' hard disks. This way, the system administrator installs a new copy in ONE place and it's done, for all users, all at once. Consider how much money that can save!
Yes, there is GCC for Mac OS X, but I don't know how well it works. See http://gcc.gnu.org/install/specific.html. It says you have to compile it, which, of course, requires the Apple compiler. This sounds too bad to be true. Surely, someone must have a compiler available for download, in binary form.
I haven't used Mac OS X for more than a few minutes at a time, so I don't know much about it yet.
How many people are in your company? |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 4863
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 23, 2004 - 12:29 pm: | |
Oh, and I don't know which flavor of unix they based Mac OS X on. |
monster
Citizen
Username: Monster
Post Number: 453
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, December 23, 2004 - 12:56 pm: | |
Apple's UNIX is based on FreeBSD, see this page at Apple for more info: http://developer.apple.com/unix/
You might like this link too: http://fink.sourceforge.net/
|
gemini
Citizen
Username: Gemini
Post Number: 338
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Friday, December 24, 2004 - 2:39 pm: | |
tom, can i just ask what basic pc should i buy? dell? circuit city? it's a second one for the home, basic use. (?)
i'm confused. thanks! |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 4883
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Friday, December 24, 2004 - 10:37 pm: | |
That seems like an easy question, but unfortunately, it's not. It depends on how you use it, which expands to at least a dozen questions. If you want, I can help, as a friendly neighborly thing. My email is noglider@pobox.com, and my phone number is in the book and at http://www.anywho.com.
If you really want a pat answer, get a Dell Dimension 2400 or so. They're pretty good, and the prices is good, too. You can configure it at the http://www.dell.com site. |
gemini
Citizen
Username: Gemini
Post Number: 340
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, December 25, 2004 - 8:23 am: | |
Thanks a lot, tom. i'll probably do the dell thing. I'll drop you an email after the holidays, thanks so much for the offer. It's hard when there are so many choices. i used to like gateway b/c you could go touch/feel them in the stores. Happy new year!. |
Michael Janay
Citizen
Username: Childprotect
Post Number: 1427
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Monday, January 10, 2005 - 4:29 pm: | |
Imac therfore I am.
Well, I took the plunge, and bought an Imac. Been using it for a couple of days and I have to say I may be converted.
It is really nice.
Elegant.
It wasn't cheap. You do pay a premium of about 100%, but the value is there... like buying a high end car. No one needs a Rolls, but it sure is nice to have one. A toyota will get you from one place to the other too, but not in nearly as much style.
Thats how I see Apple.
OSX is really great, everything windows wants to be. They just introduced the Xserver and I may buy one for the office to develop on. It seems to be a kick butt Java server.
The only problem is that I feel more and more like a communist every day. |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 5069
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Monday, January 10, 2005 - 4:38 pm: | |
Thanks for weighing in, Michael.
I hope to be even more satisfied than you are. I hope to find that it's not just a luxury but rather that I get back my investment in quality and quantity.
My wife's experience suggests that I might. |
Michael Janay
Citizen
Username: Childprotect
Post Number: 1429
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Monday, January 10, 2005 - 5:20 pm: | |
WRT your wife's experience, I wouldn't count on it Tom...
I have an old Imac here at my office and its little more than a pink paperweight. Supposedly I can put OS X on it, but it will be slow... really SLOOOOOW.
It is mainly luxury. The Mac doesn't do anything that the PC doesn't, it just does it in a much more elegant way. The unit itself feels solid and like a real quality piece of equipment. Kind of like the difference between an audiophile stereo component and a high end mass market one. I'd say that Apple = Mark Levinson and Dell = Yamaha.
I'd expect to get 3 years out of it, but you're a geek like me, and after 3 years when the new units come out, you'll crave a new one.
BTW, I also picked up a set of Klipsch digital multimedia speakers for this puppy and the sound is absolutely unbelievable.
Also, Its not foolproof... I've already crashed Safari (the browser) twice, my photo printer ( a Sony) is not compatible with OS X, Canon USB scanner works so so, and my logitech webcam doesn't work with native OS X apps. The one thing I really don't like is that there is no "Disk in use" light. The thing is so quiet that sometimes you have no idea if you singe clicked or double clicked and the computer is hashing. Not a big deal, but in PC land, that HD light is many times the only way to know if the system is still alive. In theory I just have to trust the Mac.
It really is a sweet computer though, and I really love it. The screen is awesome, and the thing is FAST! |
monster
Citizen
Username: Monster
Post Number: 488
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 11, 2005 - 2:05 am: | |
ahhh...another one comes to the light side of the force.
Michael, you say you have an older iMac, is it running OS X?
Some say that OS X runs as fast as OS 9 on their iMac's.
If you would like to try OS X on the iMac, check out this page, http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86117
for information on firmware upgrades to enable older iMacs to run OS X.
As far as knowing when a Mac is still alive, I like to set the time seperator for the clock to flash, if the computer is not completly frozen it will (in most cases) continue to flash. Sometimes you just need to give it time to complete whatever is hanging it up.
In OS X you can force quit an app by pressing "command-option-escape", this will present a window with apps that are open, giving you the ability to force quit them.
At least most apps that is, some apps such as background system processes you will need to use the terminal or a 3rd party app such as Mac Army Knife, http://chaoticsoftware.com/ProductPages/MacArmyKnife.html
to force quit the process. As an example, I recently needed to quit the crash reporter, it had hung up, I tried MAK but it didn't work so I opened Terminal and typed in "top", this gave me a list what was running, and then I typed in "kill" and the PID # of the process, the name would have worked as well. The crash reporter quit and I went about my merry way.
As far as Safari goes, make sure you are using the lates updated Safari, and "Safari Enhancer", for a few more items check out this page at Versiontracker, http://www.versiontracker.com/php/search.php?mode=basic&action=search&str=safari &plt%5B%5D=macosx&x=0&y=0
If you have more questions, you know where to go, the "Mac Cult of Maplewood". |
Michael Janay
Citizen
Username: Childprotect
Post Number: 1431
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 11, 2005 - 10:47 am: | |
Monster,
Thanks, I'll try the upgrade, but it is an old Imac, 300 mhz or something like it. It was never fast to begin with.
I know about force quitting, my problem was that I unstuffed a large disk image, I wasn't sure if I had doubleclicked or not, there was no indication that the system was doing anything, so I doubleclicked again after about a minute. Of course I ended up with 2 unstuffed packages on the desktop. Not a big deal, but if I could have seen the HD light flashing I would have known.
I'm using the latest Safari, didn't know about enhancer... thanks!
I still don't know about this "Light side of the force thing, I really like it, but the MS vs Apple prejiduces seem to me to be even sillier now that I use both.
I said it above, The Mac is like a high end piece of audiophile equipment. The MS PC is like a mid range setup. Both give you good listening experiences, no one can dispute that an audiophile setup is better, but there comes a point where it becomes silly. I think that with OS X and the Imac, Apple has hit the perfect balance of price/performance/luxury.
I do think that Apple is far better for the home user. Business users are a different story, and the jury is still out on that one as far as I'm concerned. |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 5079
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 11, 2005 - 10:53 am: | |
And the jury will be out forever, because there are so many variables and different metrics.
Total cost of ownership has to place a value on time for maintenance and troubleshooting. A lot of that is hidden costs. I used to be in a very small team that supported hundreds of desktop systems. It's easier with unix, because you have complete control, remotely, and because there is no registry, and because the desktop can run software that is on a file server and isn't installed locally. But of course, this is just my point of view. I don't see how one can compare apples and apples, pun intended. |
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