Apple computer guys, need your advice.

I agree the G3 ibooks are still great, I have one in the shop, I mean in the shop not the office, it's HAMB dedicated. It's greasy and dusty.
That sucker has been to the Caribbean, Japan, Brazil, England, Italy, Switzerland, Holland etc, I dropped it a couple of times and it still works.

 

Love my imac G5 for better performance, just add ram.

 

I bought a Mac, G4, back in january and haave 0 problems. never thought I would buy a Mac. I always thought Mac people were weird. I had a DELL for a year and half. I hated it. You will be very happy.

 

yep, macs are great, my brothers have been using them for years....but it seems they have a few PCs around the house too so they can actually run the applications they need to run.

I guess that's a thing of the past now if you spend the money for an new intel mac box (is that an oxymoron?)

anways, buy from apple, the Steves need the $$$ (especially Woz, he needs to buy some more nixie watches from my brother)

 

Oh please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Surely I jest....but I don't....Woz's watch uses a circuit board that was designed on a PC because there is no mac software that will do that job.

 

I've used Apple from the very first one made...and have had my share of Macs. I'm working on a G5 dual processor with 2 Gb of memory and have 2 G5 laptops. And I worked for years in a PC based school system in the tech department so I've used both.

For your gaming you would be best with a multi processor G5 and if you are going to part with the $$ get the Intel model. Now your other requirements can be run on machines with less power. spend money for extra RAM memory...it will make your photography fly.

You can save some $$ by getting a refurbished Mac from the Apple Store...same warrentees but less money...buy a nice size monitor so you don't have to look at your photos on a tiny screen...pay the extra for AppleCare on the Monitor and Processor...gives you 3 yrs of coverage and if something goes wrong they usually swap out for new.

As for the memory stick...Go to Best Buy and get the SanDisk ImageMate 12 in 1. It will take any memory stick, card, flash memory, etc. That way if you change your camera next year, you will not have to buy a different reader. Also buy an external firewire drive and make a backup copy of all your photos...one copy on your computer hard drive and one on the backup drive...that way you won't lose all you photos if one drive craps out and it will happen.

For software, i-Life will give you more features in i-Tunes, i-Photo, and i-DVD than what you get with the standard version. Get Microsoft Office for Mac (Bill GAtes still gets a piece of Apple...did you know that Gates and Jobs were partners at one time?) and you will have complete compatibility with anyone using Word, Excel, PowerPoint and be able to exchange files with all PC users. For your photography get Photoshop Elements...much cheaper than the full version of Photoshop and has most of the things you need. Download FireFox to use as your web browser.

Once you get everything all you will have to do is plug it in and it will be up and running.

 

El Caballo , I have a G5 imac that has been online for 4 years now and with the exception of power loss ( storms, forgot to pay the bill , etc ....lol ) have never had a virus , EVER! The only time I had that problem was the 2 years we had a hewlet packard ! I swear by em. Sure , I spent 1300 bucks for it but , I spent alot more than that in repairs and virus software and updates when I had the other thing , yeeesh . swaZZie

 

Yeah any new mac is going to work for you. and as far as viruses, I've be using macs since 87, and never have I got even one virus. I think that OSX is by far the most elegant OS on the market.

 

I think most have been said about the pro's of using a Mac already, like that all the software you requested is installed and ready to use (except Office and the Apple equivalent iWork that are installed but needs a license after 30 days of use). If you don't intend to use it for work, I'd recommend an iMac or a portable. Hook up the camera with the USB cable that came in the box, you don't need a special card reader.

Finally, it's so easy to get running it's almost silly. Hook up the cables, push the button, have your e-mail info at hand. Done!

 

As a die-hard Mac'er, I've done that a couple of times... and everytime the wall won... Crappy PC's

But there is one very positive thing about those PC's though... they're a good source when you need a piece of sheetmetal to patch up one of your rusted rockerpanels with...

 

for gaming, the pc still rules the mac. decent/excellent video cards run cheap; while on a mac, comparable video graphics cards can range anywhere from $300-600. and there's a much lower selection as well.

as for macs being less susceptible to spyware and viruses - that was definitely true of the motorola chips. now that they're running on intels, more macs are falling prey to spyware and viruses. CNN.com recently ran an article about this:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/ptech/10/20/apple.virus/index.html

as far as video goes - macs also have issues with video formats. it's very difficult, sometimes, to find the right codecs to play various video formats. my dual g5 is set up to run avi/div-x/xvid formats (a format which is natively a microsoft format) via third party codecs and VLC, but my browser (firefox) still hangs or crashes whenever i try to visit a webpage or website that has embedded asf, asx and wmv files.

i too am a designer and so i use a mac which is industry standard. but it all comes down to what you plan to use this for. sure, pc's are more susceptible to viruses and spyware, but it's possible also to run a pc that's free of viruses and spyware without having to run adaware, norton or any spyware removal software.

it really comes down to changing your habits when surfing the internet - don't download files from questionable sites; don't click on 'yes' or 'no' when you get popups to install shit (just close the window using the X at the top of the window); don't install google or yahoo toolbars (perhaps one of the biggest culprits of spyware second only to porn and warez sites).

change your habits, and running a pc shouldn't be difficult.

 

I'm telling you, do NOT get anything less than an Intel processor in your Mac. Any of the G5s have been on their way out for several months. They're still great machines, but Apple officially supports their stuff for five years or so. True, OS X versions run on older machines, but as the entire Mac industryis shifting to Intel, you'll be doing yourself a favor in terms of longetivity if you get an Intel Mac.

As much as I'd like to reccomend an iMac for you, I'm more siding towards a MacBook (not even a MacBook Pro, just a MacBook - PowerBooks haven't been made in Months). You can take it with you if you wish, but you have the ability to plug in a regular old monitor, keyboard and mouse and use it as a desktop while not out-and-about. Besides, while on vacation, you can hookup your cel phone to it via USB, and use it as a modem to get online via the cellular network and check your email enroute.

If you want to play games, get a copy of Windows Vista or XP. If you install a bit of free software called "Boot Camp", you can install Windows onto your Mac and boot up into it. Then you can play PC games all day.

~Jason

 

NEVER buy 'em off of eBay. If you're really wanting a used Mac, get one from http://www.macofalltrades.com or http://www.powermax.com - tell 'em Jason from MacResQ sent ya.

~Jason

 

Been running a Mac for most of the last 6 years. Out of the box they will blow away all pc's accept for your custom built work station and even then they work better in my opinion. I have used both and Mac's are just so much nicer. Anyway, all of your Microsoft apps like work, excel etc. will run the same, you will have to buy and install them! Music, hey they invented iTunes and its the standard now, pc's use they program also. If you have a digital camera it should have come with a cable with a USB connection. This will plug right into your Mac and the icon will pop up on your desktop. You can then drag and drop the files where you want them, most likely iPhoto. iphoto will allow you to resize the pics and email directly through the program, very nice feature! One huge bonus, NO VIRUS's. You cant go wrong with a Mac. Where I love there are Comp USA stores, they sell Macs, you can go in and play with them, ask questions etc. There are also Apple stores though out the nation. Go to apples web site and it will tell you, hope this helps a bit.

Thanks

Lance

 

If playing games is high on the priority scale when it comes to computing there are window emulating enviornments for *nix based OS'es. Which allow you to play windows oriented games, use software etc... VMWare is one amongst a few. Word Processing is easy with Open Office. Music, video and any sort of multimedia is a breeze. Network capabilities are extremely robust to say the least and digital camera compatability is also a no brainer when hot plugs are enabled.

I just thought that spending a couple days learning a new operating system would be a lot more cost effective over spending a few hundred on a new box or setup.

 

Games are for playstation.

 

Bet ur thinking im a dumb ass too I check weekly for everything...
Dave
ps: i used to have my own business building pc's but every joe blow thought they could do it so I quit and went back to drinking......

 

Uhhhh.. bullshit... spyware and viruses are not based on the processor, it's the OS... there still is no known virus for OSX, there have been papers written on it, but no proof of concept even... The only known Trojan you have to actually execute and put in your admin password for... Pure FUD....

Why even bother.. There are plenty of goods games that are OSX native. The majority of popular games are available for OSX and the Intel chips as universal binaries.... Yeah there are a 1000 games available for Windows... and 900 of them suck...

Uhhh Bullshit on the emulation... Once again if your time is worth anything, spending the hours needed to get this shit running is worth a fortune. Why bother? There are plenty of games available for OSX if you want to play. Or get a damn Playstation (except for FPS, they suck on Playstation, anyone up for some UT 2004?). And you have to go through it just about everytime you want to try another game. Not cost effective if your time is worth anything.... And damn if you want to sync your phone, your camera, really edit pics (Gimp doesn't count, it's useless for anything besides web graphics), graphic design, music, etc...

 

Yeah but most of the real circuit design software doesn't run on Windows either, usually runs on a *nix... A lot of the apps run on Solaris, but I'm seeing more and more moving to Linux and BSD... Which means it would be trivial to recompile for OSX... which has X11 support built in and there is the fink project as well...

 

Aside from being physically smaller,
what's the story on the Mac Mini ?

Less money ?
Still in production ?
Suitable for internet ?

Will any of the new Macs run old programs,
like Photoshop and Illustrator,from OS 9.2.2 ?

Thanks.

Ian

 

They're pretty affordable, I use them for all our copy edit stations at work. Great for the internet and basic functions. The new ones are pretty decent spec wise.

As for running OS 9 apps, you'd be better off with something that is at least OSX native. What version of Photoshop and Illustrator are you running. I may have some older versions (legit ones) that I can send your way if you pic up a mini.

I try to test everything we use in production on a number of different machines. The biggest thing I've noticed with the mini's is that adding RAM makes the biggest performance increase...

 

I got a mac mini 6 months ago or so.
It was the best thing computer wise I ever did.
It is great.
Especially if you have kids
(the imac with integral screen is risky,
when a good flatscreen is 2-300 bucks)

Just by the best one you can afford.
TP

 

The old imacs are entertaining

 

G5 laptops? I'll bet you can put a grate over 'em and grill burgers.

~Jason

 

I totally agree. It's juat about a given to go for what runs natively first.

~Jason

Why even bother.. There are plenty of goods games that are OSX native. The majority of popular games are available for OSX and the Intel chips as universal binaries.... Yeah there are a 1000 games available for Windows... and 900 of them suck...

 

I cannot believe the response and information within, thanks fellas...

 

G5 laptop... Yeah there is no such thing.... so you could probably time travel with one of those after cooking your burger...

 

What's the group choice for web hosting pictures-
need linking (for forums)- ebay & other sales sites would be good.
easiest way to post photos here/

photobucket? twango?

Been Mac since '85 (17" PB last 2 years) guess I don't know any better!

thanx, mike