Entertainment For Lively Minds
Now I really feel like one of the Massive
Posted by keefus on 14 October 2011 - 10:26pm.
I am typing this on my new Macbook Pro - cheapest one, bought with the 'education' discount, but still at least twice as expensive as the Windows laptops I was looking at. Winced a bit as I handed over my card...
But holy crap, it's good. Everything I was told about Macs is right so far - they just work. I've been online all evening, reading education links and downloading documents for my (rapidly approaching) first assignment. Every so often, I emit an amazed giggle as it does something clever. Mostly when I do something on the trackpad, but the keyboard is beautiful too. In fact it's all beautiful.
I'm sure I'll find some little niggles as I go along, but at the moment, here's another convert.
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Good move
I made the switch 5 or 6 years ago and you're right - it's a totally different experience. Things do go wrong now and again but you put up with it because the rest is so good.
Speaking of which, the new iOS 5 for the iPhone has some niggly issues.
Yes it does...
...there's a curious feeling of not quite understanding what's going on that I've never quite experienced before. No doubt it'll get sorted, but it's as if they were all a bit distracted over at the Infinite Loop...
But to get back to the OP, well done!
.
.
I knew that
Top man
You will not look back.
You are now
a genuinely better person. And it's a warm, wonderful feeling.
But use your new powers wisely, my friend.
Join the club ...
I've never had a PC, but when I have to use one it seems like a stupid relation of a Mac. Mac users get a lot of sneers from pc users for being cult-followers, but I reckon it's the other way round. Why put up with all that pc silliness unless you're wedded to the idea of it?
When you go Mac, you never go back.
Not sure I agree
I have an Air for personal use and a couple of MacBook Pros for video work. Sure, the track pad is clever and it went off to find printer drivers but I wanted to rename something the other day and it decided I wasn't important enough to let me do it. The beach ball of death pops up quite often and my hugely expensive MacBook Pro got it's knickers in a twist using a video playback programme and had to be restarted a couple of times and that's without getting into why the default gamma setting is way too low for some displays. Considering the massive premium I paid for Apple machines I don't think they offer value for money. I do like the fact that I don't have to deal with constant updates though.
That's what it's called
The beachball of death. I see it all the time. I hate it. I have to keep a Windows laptop in the other room to do the jobs my MiniMac won't do (without shelling out money to put windows software on it). Like eBay Turbo Lister for example. PC v Apple? It's Beatles v Stones or Oasis v Blur innit? You can still appreciate both.
That's the best analogy...
I've read yet. And I work with both. Given the choice I'd rather work with a PC and play on a Mac.
Good, aren't they?
Now try to do a Paste Special in Numbers.
Or eliminate zero values in the same.
Or find out how to do something using Help.
Or use Kodak printers on them.
They are great things. I love my iMac. But we do have to retain a certain perspective.
Kodak?
No problems here - cheapo Kodak printer gets on OK with the MacBook. Agree re: Numbers.
Did I miss a memo?
Since when did owning an expensive brand of computer make you more 'part of The Massive'?
Slippery Slope this..
We'll be discussing the merits and "plus" features of cars next.
The Massive - it's a state of (hive) mind?
Wheels within wheels.
Apple clique vs PC clique anyone?
No comparison!
There's a clique wheel on my ipod nano. I'm not aware on any on any MS based products so I can't compare them!
Since
I realised that I am largely indifferent to The Beatles. I had to have something.
I write...
...everything on a ten year old PC. It does everything I want it to.
Like for Like
I'm one of those people that doesn't believe that there's a right or wrong computer to use. I prefer Windows (although I'm not that keen on a lot of aspects of the WIndows 7 GUI) but if someone made me use a Mac, I would, same with Linux, it's just a different way of working.
BUT..... if you'd spent the same money on a PC, are you sure that you wouldn't have had a similar experience with the trackpad etc?
I tried the high-end laptops too
... and none were as smooth & "finger friendly" as the Mac.
As much as I love my Macs...
...it's very possible for things to get a bit silly on the subject. Apple do certain things really well. Microsoft and others do other stuff really well. It wouldn't occur to me to use anything but Excel for spreadsheets, because it's a mature, heavily supported package that does what it does incredibly well. Luckily, a Mac version exists and is very good. By the same token, there's nothing on the consumer market that touches GarageBand for ease of use and quality. And I'm now wedded to Logic, which is Apple only. And iTunes makes much more sense in OSX.
It's not like Apple's the only sensible choice, or immune from failure (my MBP's HDD failed a few months ago, so grrrr, but on the other hand, I got a free new one - yay AppleCare - and restored my data to it almost seamlessly - yay Time Machine!). So not perfect, but for me at least, it's a very good choice indeed.
Still, welcome to the club!
The PC cult
always paints the Mac user as an uncritical, fawning Steve Jobs worshipper. I don't know of anyone who thinks their Mac is perfect, and every Mac owner needs to find the work-arounds and fixes at some time (the lively on-line community is nothing if not vocal in its criticism). I've been driven to a frothing frenzy by Macintosh's deeply unloveable idiosyncracies and inadequacies. That and the corporate Macintosh "blind eye" and silence in response to grievances.
I wish they were better, and their unbreakability is a thing of the past, but ... they're still better than PCs. For "better" read easier, more logical, more intuitive, more imaginative. Not "cheaper".
(While I'm here, I use "Bean" - a free "word processing" app. that - for me - removes entirely the necessity of cluttering up my hard drive with MS Office to get Word. Bean is rather like very early Word - basic, easy, quick, and entirely adequate for most people's needs.)
its that word again......intuitive
I came late to Mac, only getting my Air because I found using the MacBook Pro difficult when on site working. My reasoning was, if I had a Mac for everyday use then it would become more familiar. Ten months on and its easier but still not intuitive. The problem is, I think, that I used Windows for nearly 20 years and I'm just more familiar with how it works. A friend of mine who has never used Windows and only got a Mac a year ago would agree with you that it is intuitive but then, he started from scratch.
Hilarious
I think it's hilarious that some Mac users really think because they've paid massively over the odds for the same functionality as a PC it is somehow "better". Clicking on links on a Mac is so satisfying. Oh come on. It's a computer. They all do basically the same thing. I have a PC laptop and desktop and an iPad and the iPad has just as many annoyances as the PC. Ever heard of Veblen Goods? Doubtless the storms of Mac fanboi hell will pour down upon me but honestly, you ought to hear yourselves.
**pause before clicking send to remove all the hilarious word corrections the wonderful iPad has introduced. It just works! Then you have to correct it!!**
Done both
Don't much like both. PC has loads to go wrong, but having said that most that does go wrong I can fix without paying somebody else lots of cash to do it. I kept one computer running for nearly a decade, well past it's sell by date. Eventually it just gave up. But the Mac Powerbook I had back in the early to mid part of the last decade worked marvellously until it didn't. And then I couldn't find a fix, was forced to find somebody to fix it who then charged a fortune for the privilege.
My wife still misses Macs though, she comes from a publishing background, where all the computers were Macs and her first comp was a Mac.
I love my Ipod mind, but I hate ITunes. Never liked it.
Funnily enough my favourite gadget/computer thingy has been my Android phone. I've never really been an evangelical tech head until these. Android VS Iphone is the latest argument I guess.
Linux
anyone?
Yeah
I use all three to a greater or lesser extent – Windows, Mac and (Ubuntu) Linux.
Linux is great for breathing life into an old computer. And as all of us are using web browsers for the majority of the time, it doesn't really make much difference on what platform I'm using Firefox.
Really interested
I'm really interested in Linux. I have a decent spec laptop which was given to me and which I don't use - it's a corporate machine from 2006 (Dell) but I can't do much with it because it has the desktop etc locked down by its central IT department past. So I fancy wiping it and installing Linux and some open office stuff and giving it to my mum for email and browsing. Is this a big job or reasonably simple? I'm not afraid of a bit of techy delving up to a point.
Doddle
It really should be a doddle. Just get a good general purpose one (like Ubuntu) and run the install program. It should be just as easy as installing WIndows or OSX. After that, the only thing that really needs to be learnt is the concept of repositories for installing new applications but if you're after a PC that does web stuff and wordprocessing, everything will already be there.
Yeah
Ubuntu walks you through the whole installation process. (It only gets tricky when you want to run Ubuntu and Windows on the same PC.)
If you want to try out Ubuntu without installing it, try this site: Pen Drive Linux. (The other distribution that's particularly user friendly is Linux Mint, which is based on Ubuntu.)
You can download their universal installer and install Ubuntu (or any other distribution) on a USB stick and boot your PC from that.
Dells play nicely with Ubuntu, so you shouldn't have any problems. Firefox is installed by default, as is Libre Office (the fork of Open Office) and the Thunderbird mail client. Skype for Linux you have to install yourself, although it's not very difficult.
What you also probably have to do is go to the central software repository (called Synaptic Package Manager) and download something called Ubuntu Restricted Extras, which will download Flash player, Java, mp3 support and the like.
Another question
How do you suggest I just wipe the drive? Also it has a hardware password which isn't really a problem but I'd rather lose it.
A default installation
will overwrite Windows, so you don't need to wipe the drive.
As for the hardware password, my suspicion would be that it's a setting in the BIOS.
Yes you're probably right
Nit sure I can get at the bios as I'm not an administrator. Maybe once Linux is I charge I'll be able to. It's not a biggie really, just a bit annoying.
Linux live discs
I've got at and cleared quite a few BIOS passwords. There are several different Linux live distributions that will help you. I can't remember any of the names and all my discs are at work. A quick Google for 'BIOS password reset' should give you a few Iso image downloads, once burnt, will give a bootable CD/DVD that allows you to do the reset. Pretty much the only time this fails is when the BIOS won't allow you to boot from a CD in which case you're going to struggle to get anything installed.
Linux live discs
OOps! Impatient post from my phone!
Linux live discs
OOps again!
Nit sure
fucking ipad.
(double post)
I'm not
I don't use a we browser the majority of the time. I use all sorts of things... that's why I prefer a Windows machine. Obviously OSX users mainly use their computers for browsing the web because they're not really computer literate!!!!*
*That really was a joke.
Poor PC users.
With their stuck exclamation mark keys. Must be hell. ;-)
Do I need a Mac for video editing?
Any professional video editors out there? I'm thinking about investing in a Macbook Pro as I might be venturing into video production next year but does anyone use anything other than Final Cut Pro for professional video editing? Any professionals that use PC software rather than Apple?
My colleague uses Adobe Creative Suite
It's pretty pricy but allows editing and output in most formats. The difference in cost between Fianl Cut Pro and Adobe is probably the difference between the cost of a Mac and a PC. BTW, if you're not bothered about having the latest model of Mac, then I got a couple of "last years model" machines at a really good price from Jigsaw24 who seem to buy up a load of stock when the model changes then knock it out cheap.(they sell current stuff too)