Mac OS X: (long read) Thinking about getting a Mac for the first time.

BTW supply is getting short

In Europe, the supply of Mac minis and iPod Nanons and to some extent iMacs is getting wuite low. In the past the supply of Apple products went lower than in the US prior to a product update. A nice wave of new and updates products could come out as soon as next week. It looks like the end of this month is the final time. I hope Leopard and all the new products come out at the end of this month and that the iMacs have updated graphic cards.

RE: Past my bed time - bug here goes...

I recently switched from Windows to Mac and my only regret is that I didn't do it sooner and I couldn't afford the laptop version. As a network administrator, this is definitely crossing over "to the dark side" but I couldn't be more happier.

Following is a list of items/topics and what I use:

(1) First, any students college or otherwise (k-12) should use their education discount to purchase software (or hardware), especially for MS, Adobe or any high ticket items.

(2) Instant messengers. I have found that ichat supports google and AIM natively very easily. You're suppose to be able to use jabber.com to talk to Yahoo, MSN and other chat programs from w/in ichat. I have not fully tested this so I use the mac versions of Yahoo (which supports MSN folks) to communicate w/friends and family. Yes, the built-in insight webcam supports Yahoo and other messenger program (ichat, msn via yahoo) automatically. I prefer yahoo and skype. If I get ichat working w/yahoo, msn & google, I would just use Skype and ichat.

(3) Office Suites. I purchased the student version of MS Office 2004. No difference between student version and others but the cost....NOTE: This is not true in Office 2007 because Outlook is excluded. I do not have any issues sending or sharing docs with any Windows version of Office. I used O2M (www.littlemachines) to convert my Windows Contacts to Mac format for $10. It will convert mail but since I use POP3 accounts, I just re-downloaded the mail into Outlook via POP3.

(4) Photo's. I use Mac's iPhoto just when I'm uploading to iWeb or doine something quick for a friend. I have Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 for Mac (and want to sell) and Photoshop CS2 as part of the premium package. I needed CS2 for a class I'm taking but still like Elements and had no issue with it.

(5) Videos/Movies. Now, this was more complicated. I could play all my videos (.avi) using Quicktime but I could not use them in iMovie or iDVD w/out converting them and/or having an add-in for Quicktime to do the conversion. I had a second issue which is my less-than-one-year-old DVD cam was not recognized by Mac because they ONLY recognize video cams that support firewire or DV cams. In short, firewire cams procude higher quality/lossless type formats.

My solution was to use Mpeg Slipstream (http://www.squared5.com/) to convert my videos. I also purchased an add-in for Quicktime (maybe it was the mpeg2 playback...can't remember right now).

I also swapped my newer cam with a friend who had an older model DV cam (temporarily) to use. I also use Apple's Final Cut Express for video although I have used iMovie. In Windows, I used Cyberlink's PowerProducer and wanted something closer to that. Again, student version.

(6) FTP...I use Fetch (http://fetchsoftworks.com)

(7) Money Management. I CONTINUE to use Intuit's Quicken Home & Business version (from my Mac) using Parallel's Desktop for Mac (www.parallels.com). Intuit hasn't realized that they need to step up the version for Mac and make it just as robust as the Windows version.

(8) Taxes. Both Turbo Tax and Taxcut have a mac version. I still prefer Turbo tax and have used both 2007 versions.

(9) Additional diskspace. It's not cost-effective to get a large hard dive WITHIN the mac because diskspace is far cheaper on external devices. I already had a network-capable Buffalo Linkstation 400 HD so I use that to share files between my iMac and Windows machines.

(10) Remote access. I remotely manage some Windows systems and I use a web-based solution via www.logmein.com for free.

(11) Website development. I've used iWeb for funstuff but I'm considering Freeway4Express at www.softpress.com for more design options.

(12) Anti-virus -- None!! Scary!! In Windows, I use Trend Micro's Internet Security suite (www.trendmicro.com)

(13) PDA Support. I have a Blackberry and there's PocketMail for Mac. It works just like Windows and so far, no issues.

(14) Syncing contacts via multiple email addresses. I use the Premium version of Plaxo (www.plaxo.com. This is not as smooth on a Mac so I'm still working out the kinks. It is supported but not as well under the Mac version.

(15) Acrobat (.pdf) files. This is supported natively in Mac. I love it!!! You can just save your docs to .pdf and send them out to the world. Nothing else to buy.

(16) Music. I didn't realize it but there's a whole host of small apps for iTunes that are available via 3rd parties that are only for the Mac. Since iTunes is by Apple, it kinda makes sense but I didn't realize it until I got my mac.

(17) Peripherals. Ensure that your devices are Mac compatible. Mine were...I had an older all-in-one HP 2200cxi and a Canon IP4000R printer...both work well w/my Mac.

(18) Faxing. I did not get the internal modem as I didn't see the point. I fax via the internet using Trustfax's solution. (www.trustfax.com) and/or I scan in whatever I need and then email (or fax) as required.

(19) Burning/Authoring CDs/DVD. I purchased Roxio's Toast (www.roxio.com). It's the best and I have no issues w/it.

(20) TV on your mac. I have a WinTV USB device and I had purchased SageTV (www.sagetv) and it worked great under Windows. I will probably sell it and get EyeTV from Elgato (http://www.elgato.com/.

(21) Reading Newsgroups: Unison (http://www.panic.com/unison/)

(22) Web-browser: I use Mozilla's Firefox (www.firefox.com). I'll update Safari's bookmakrs from Firefox when I want to export my bookmarks to my blackberry.

(23) Extra USB or Firewire ports. I have a 7-Port USB hub that works under Windows & Mac. I will need a firewire one soon but haven't decided on one yet.

I think that's about it or at least all that I can remember.

Queengeek

What kind of dock is that?

It looks like the solution I'm searching for to make my work flow on my PC similar to my mac. What is it called?

grim

(NT) Thanks Whiz, I'll have to ttry it out.

A recent convert

I switched over to a Mac full time in September and I'm so glad I did. I've been using PC's since 1990 but I just got fed up with problems. I guess I'm looking for more simplicity as I get older.

If you have an Apple store where you live, they have free seminars all of the time and one of them is about Getting Started / Switching over. They also have these seminars about all of their software programs and how to use them. (Again, all free)

I'm on my computer pretty much all day and I haven't found anything I can't do on my Mac that I was able to do on my PC.

Another thing I'd recommend is a program called Parallels. It allows you to run PC programs on your Mac. It's very cool because you create what's called a "Virtual Machine" on you Mac, and it opens a window where you are running a Windows PC on your Mac. This is great if you have any Windows-only programs that you still need to run. Paralles is only $99 and you sometimes see it on sale for $79. I would recommend adding some additional memory to your Mac if you go that route so you get decent performance while running Parallels.

One more point (on this long-winded answer), wait until you see how much fun you can have with iLife (which comes free on every new Mac). Powerful, yet simple tools for photos, movies, Podcasts, even websites and blogs.

I hope this helps.

Marc
Tampa, FL

Most do...

Check the various machine specifications at apple.com

There is a difference between "Support for external display in extended desktop" and "Support for external display in video mirroring mode"

MacMini supports 1 monitor.
iMacs support both.
MacPro can support up to 8 monitors, but a video card for each is needed. "Dual-display support for extended desktop and video mirroring modes"
MacBook: "Extended desktop and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 1920 by 1200 pixels on an external display, both at millions of colors"
MacBookPro: "Dual display and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on an external display, both at millions of colors"

Apple.com resources are pretty good for this sort of research.

Parallels Desktop

I have just installed Parallels Desktop on my Mac, and it is way cool.

However, I advise people to set it up so they can only access the Internet through their OS-X. If you set up Parallels to access the Internet through Windows, then the viruses, trojan horses, spyware, and the other security issues come back into play.

You do this by setting Parallels to run as local network only (meaning you can only access the Internet on your primary partition - Mac). The default setting allows you to set your Windows up to run on the Internet as well as your OS-X.

As far as two-monitor capabilities go, I believe the MacBook Pro and the new Mac tower computer can do this, but I don't think the iMac and the Mac Mini can.