Community Newsletter: Q&A: Is the Mac right for me?
- 4/5/07 11:48 AM
WHAT??
by macrhino - 4/2/07 9:36 AM In reply to: Macs DO crash by cdhanksSaying that you crashed a Mac 5 times says much much more about the user than about the Mac. Its like saying everytime I drive a Volvo I have an accident. Is it the driver or the Volvo. I vote the driver. IS it the Mac or the user?...
Message was edited by: admin
RE: This is a lie or the user is just dumb!
by dj_erik - 3/30/07 6:00 PM In reply to: WHAT?? by macrhinoNot to burst you're flame there, but as a Network Admin working on both Macs and MS. I can verify that both OSs will crash. It's really just a matter of what software you're running, or if you have faulty hardware. Sounds like to me, that he might have had a memory issue which would cause faults, or a software package that was poorly coded. If Macs were impervious, then they wouldn't have Apple Updates.
As far as which to choose, it's really a matter of software choices and personal preferences. I use my G5 for HDR photography, simply because it's hooked up to my 37" TV, while my MS computer is at my desk in my office. My Mac is a bit slower, but that is simply because it's a bit older. I'm sure that a new Mac will perform the same as a comparable MS computer. Though I would reccomend getting a Mac Pro, if you plan on keeping this PC for a longer time, so that you can upgrade the graphics card as that is a major key to doing serious graphics work.
Be cautious of MS/Mac differences though when you publish. This is neither the fault of Macintosh nor MS, but trying to port documents from one to the other does have it's problems. I've seen problems with MS Office, Adobe products, and Macromedia software personally, but I'm sure there's probably more. As you are probably submitting either jpg or psd files for sale, I don't think you'll run into too many problems in that regards.
All in all both have good points and bad points, I just wished that played nicer together in a work enviroment.
Same with PC
by govthos - 3/31/07 1:30 AM In reply to: WHAT?? by macrhinoI work on other people's computers all the time, I have found that most of the problem people have with windows is carelessness. With regular defrags, responsible internet use, and responsible downloading (using Firefox helps tremendously) your computer can be as stable as a Mac. This is blasphemy to Mac users, I know I used to be one, but got tired of the limited software availability. After using PCs since the awful Windows 3.1, through the much more stable XP, I found the trade offs to tip in favor of the PC.
You said the former poster was lying or dumb, maybe that was your problem with Windows.
Macs a cut above.
by tifffany - 4/1/07 1:04 AM In reply to: Same with PC by govthosI'm the president of a successful Mac consulting company. We also service and work with PCs, because, frankly, they have more problems and it makes good financial sense. Anecdotally speaking, Macs have a clear and significant advantage over all PCs, unless you're a serious gamer. Go into your local Best Buy and look at the "Geek Squad" counter. Most likely, you will see PCs lined up on the counter, waiting to be serviced for everything from hardware failures to spyware/virus infestations. Macs, on the other hand, are very reliable and any system freezes or crashes that may occur are almost always harmless to the computer's system and the user's data. I wish that were true of Windows and MS applications in general. Often, a crash on a Mac is precipitated by the use of a Microsoft application! The do NOT play well together, however, the compatibility issues between platforms with most files have been addressed and are almost non-existant in the newest Macs and operating system. Of course, a great deal depends on the programmers and purveyors of the third-party software, but that is not Mac's fault, is it?
Someone said the interface on Macs in "clunky" and hard to use compared to Windows. I go back and forth all day and Microsoft DEFINES clunky. I've never seen such counter-intuitive foolishness. If you want to use the System Information program, you have to go to the START submenu, then the the PROGRAMS submenu, then the submenu for ACCESSORIES, then the SUBMENU for SYSTEM TOOLS before you can even CHOOSE to open System Information. Does THAT sound like an intuitive, smooth interface? Objectively, people who've never used computers that use both PCs and Macs prefer the Mac for its ease of use. It's customizability and security are terrific, as is its overall look. Vista is a blatant attempt to rip-off the "look" of Mac OS X, but is a cheesey failure. If anyone wants their cyber life to be an open book to the boys at Microsoft, by all means, buy Vista (and a new computer to run it) and have at it.
I have a dual G5 Power Mac that's 3 1/2 years old and a brand new MacBook Pro laptop and I love them. The laptop is MUCH cheaper than Dell's, feature for feature, and it is essentially two computers in one because it can run either Windows or OS X or BOTH at the same time. Perfect for a professional field computer. Plus, my 4 year old Powerbook 12" was just sold for $700 after 2 days on the market! Try THAT with a 4 year old PC. Odds are, you'll have to PAY the dump guy to dispose of it.
Happy Mac!
Jeffrey Wrobel
hear hear
by gavandtra - 4/1/07 9:41 AM In reply to: Macs a cut above. by tifffanyCouldn't agree more. I have been using a Mac now for about 12months now, after years of using various Windows machines, and the difference is incredible, OSX is light years ahead of Windows in every way. Firstly its amazing stable, apparently it crashes but I've never experienced it. Secondly there is no current need for Anti Virus software, this may change in the future but at the mo it's fab !! Thirdly I have found the UI very simple and intuitive and the bundled software is brilliant, from music to photos to movies to DVDs almost every base is covered. Finally from an aesthetic point of view the computer is great and really makes you feel that you have purchased something rather special. I for one am in no hurry to return to the Windows world !!
If You choose pc
by ppollack - 4/1/07 1:39 PM In reply to: Same with PC by govthosIf You decide on using a PC I have a few suggestions You may want to consider.The information I have gotten lately says with the advent of XP operating system is that now both are equal in ablity. My Dad bought his because at that time everyone said that for photography MAC was the only way to go. I use a PC and with adobe photoshop for windows....great. but one program I have found that helps is the previous program that was #1 on MAC before adobe photoshop came to be #1. it is available for windows now and is called KAIS PHOTOSOAP I use this with adobe and the results are really good Kais is easy to use and fills in some spots that adobe makes hard to do.hope this helps in Your decision
Mac or PC? mmmmm
by ASANCHEZD - 3/31/07 11:24 AM In reply to: WHAT?? by macrhinoChaz,
I have read verry good answers for your question and very honest ones as well, let me give you a diferent perspective, i Live in Cancun and been a PC guy most of my life i even had a business of PC´s and recently i bougth a Mini Mac that i set up with a plasma TV, it is really neat, the thing is that, not untill this year Macs starting to really appear in Mexico, i mean they where here but the only people who use to have them where Media & Graphic designers since they where quite expensive, not until lately the price became very competitive with PCs.
I agree with barry in most of his coments, A friend of mine own the biggest Companny of Graphics Design in Cancun, (They do all the banners for the Clubs, Advertising Adss, Menus for hotels ETC. and they all use Macs, not because there pretty but because on there own experience they work trouble free 99% of the time and maybe they could do the same job with a pc but on the ones they have
suffer for Virus attacks etc.
Like Barry Said you can get verry good results with a Brand PC but lets face it i will cost about the same of a Mac so if they both PC and Mac will do the same for about the same $$$.
So what is left to see:
1.- The Coolnes of the Mac look
2,- No more Virus
3,- Crashes less often *
4,- Can run XP on Mac
5.- iMac specially 24" saves a lot of space.
* well not to get any one mad but they both are capable of crashing, in my own experience it happend to me because i started to test a lot of Beta Sofware once i stop using it i had no trouble.
Now to finish the subject, I was a PC guy and love it and when i started using the OS X it was kinda Wierd but after a few days it all was very simple.
Windows is oriented to the guy who likes to costumize evry litle thing and OS X is made to work and it does.
For me having a Mac is like having Linux Like software with out all the Geeky Stuff.
After all on my experience about Mac * IT DOES WORKS * and verry whell.
Sorry 4 My typos...
My Mac experiences
by zamboknee - 3/31/07 1:17 PM In reply to: Mac or PC? mmmmm by ASANCHEZDI have had macs since 2001 and haven't looked back. I started with an iMac (table lamp looking one, 800mhz, 15 inch screen, Mac OS X 10.1), then moved on to a Powerbook G4 laptop (what I'm typing this on now) and about a year ago bought a Mac Pro to do my audio editing/voicework with. I have had no crashes but a couple hangs, only on the iMac and those are usually taken care of by just restarting the computer. It was probably because I was using the iMac for photo,audio, multimedia purposes that were beyond it's capabilities. That and they came soon after I upgraded to Jaguar on that computer. Jaguar's had it's burps and hiccups and the Mac OSX since then (Tiger, and HOPEFULLY Leopard) have gone leaps and bounds as far as speed and stability.
Most of my work and documents are usable on PCs at work too. Granted I had to buy iWork to create my Word documents but Pages does a good job of exporting to, and opening of, Word docs. The rumor is that the next edition of iWork will have a program that will open and save Excel documents too. And I think Pages is TEN TIMES better than Word, and cheaper too!
Photoshop files will open on mac or PC and the latest edition of Photoshop is available on Intel Macs (finally!) so if you're becoming a serious photographer the switch shouldn't be that bumpy of a road to go down.
I've had great experiences with the Mac and the OS is nothing short of inspiring. It's easy, sophisticated and fast. The only thing I have a problem with on Apple and Macs is they make great products but they make you pay for it. Though, I think I saw a review here on Cnet that showed a Mac Pro compared to a similarly priced Dell is actually the better deal. I guess I just contradicted myself there.
Regardless, I would probably pay $1300 for a laptop that I know will be stable, powerful, and able to do just about anything I ask of it than pay $800 for one that might crash in 2 weeks.
Just my rambling 2 cents.
Go Mac - It's the Only Computer You'll Ever Need
by mikesessler - 3/31/07 2:14 PM In reply to: Mac or PC? mmmmm by ASANCHEZDGreetings all,
I've been using the Mac since 1986, so I'm quite familiar with them (and maybe a little biased). However, I also use a Windows XP machine at work all week long. Since our IT guy built my new PC at work in late December of '06 (a 3 Ghz P4 for video editing), we've had to re-build the C: drive 3 times. Once because we tried to install Flash on it, followed Adobe's tech support and it completely corrupted the OS. In contrast, I just bought a MacBook (not the Pro), took it out of the box, loaded my software and went to work. I also used Parallels to load XP on it, so I can print to the PC only printers at work, and run any PC only software. Even running XP, the MacBook feels faster than my 3 Ghz P4 desktop.
Another issue is longevity. At church, we have a ton of Dells. They seem to last about 2-3 years before we have to replace them. In contrast, the MacBook just replaced a 2000 Pismo PowerBook that still works great and can run the latest OS from Apple (try running Vista on a 7 yr old PC!). I also have a 5 year old desktop Mac at home - still runs great.
Sure, Macs may cost a few more dollars up front, but when you think of their total operating life and the rarity of crashes and viruses (the last virus I had was in 1992 - and I've used or managed 3 dozen or more Macs in that time frame - and I can count the number of OS crashes on 1 hand in the last 4 years since I switched to OSX), it's a better investment. Plus the ability to run Windows at full speed if you want/need to really makes a lot of sense. I know at least a dozen people who have switched from PC's to Macs in the last year. None are sorry. I know of no one who went the other way. So that's my 2 Pesos...
I do see a Mac, occasionally
by ehymel - 3/31/07 2:51 PM In reply to: Go Mac - It's the Only Computer You'll Ever Need by mikesesslerI've spent the past couple decades working on the environment for my Fortune 10 employer, and of course interfacing with the various Fortune 100 clients that I have worked with. My employer has no Macs that I know of, among the 300,000 employees. The Fortune 100 companies that I have worked with on a daily basis, and built networks for, don't use them either. These are mostly financial institutions, defense contractors, media corporations, and the like. Macs are, in our environments, generally not permitted, because they are hard to suppport and don't conform to industry wide standards, and we can't hire technical support staff for them as Apple trained support technicians don't exist. In the dozens of RFPs I have participated in I can't recall any vendor proposing Macintosh or Apple computers. I have myself never put out a Request for Proposal that allowed Apple systems. I do see the odd Mac, though, I think my dentist has an Apple network. It looks very cute and runs nice software.
Not because you dont see them means there not out there...
by ASANCHEZD - 4/2/07 10:47 AM In reply to: I do see a Mac, occasionally by ehymelI agree you dont see a Mac in ant place but they are really good machines, of course there is the issua that the 90% of the market share its own by MS and even some websites are especificaly design for IE but not all is lost if you really need some aplications of MS you can use Boot Camp (Free Ap) or paralels and there you go.
Oh about not see them all the time i found this on google
http://www.apple.com/itpro/profiles/army/
THE US ARMY REACHES OUT TO THE PUBLIC WITH APPLE
Xserve gives the Army website crucial security, stability, and performance.
As the public face of the U.S. Army on the Internet, www.army.mil is a vital tool for education and public relations. It’s also the target of hundreds of attacks every day. That’s why the Army hosts the site on an Xserve running Mac OS X Server.
No Need for Apple technicians
by leelostutter - 4/10/07 9:23 AM In reply to: I do see a Mac, occasionally by ehymelAnyone who has used Macs in a large installation knows that there is usually one person there responsible for troubleshooting what few problems Macs might have.
Of course we all laugh at the fact that the PC networks must have a full IT department just to keep up with the everyday problems on the PCs.
Too bad the Fortune 500s don't know what the dentist does! We might be paying less for their products if they didn't have to spend all that money keeping their computers running and updated!
Saving internet content
by 1Chris - 3/31/07 8:34 PM In reply to: Mac or PC? mmmmm by ASANCHEZDI've been using pcs for 15 years or so, although my first computer was an Apple IIc...anyone remember those?
I sure like what I hear about Macs. They have been used exclusively at my university, although they're mostly transitioning to pc's for some reason. My experience using them there (Macs) has been that they crash excessively. It might be due to student abuse, but it has happened often.
I frequently grab text, pdf's, graphics, from the internet and plug them into MS Word, etc on my pc. Would I be able to do this with a Mac, and switch back and forth between pc and Mac applications?
Yes you can, either use OS X or XP or Xp under OS X
by ASANCHEZD - 4/3/07 6:17 PM In reply to: Saving internet content by 1ChrisActually yes u can download Boot Camp, thats a free Ap that let you start either with Xp or OS X or if you prefer for comfort you can get paralells for 79.99 and run Xp under OS X in a window, i had not use it but for what i read in blogs it work as fast as you where runing Xp.
It may be all about looks but i sure like the way Apple computers look.
There so COOL : )
Hope this was Helpfull.
You can google for booth Boot camp and Paralells
Insults / Macs vs PCs
by sdc100 - 3/31/07 6:16 PM In reply to: WHAT?? by macrhinomacrhino:
> I vote the driver. IS it the Mac or the imbecile?...
Ah, so there it is. I was wondering when the first insult would be hurled and there it is. Was it so hard to write "the Mac or the user"??? How does using "imbecile" add anything to the conversation or the person's quest for answers? Sad.
re: Mac vs. PC, I did simultaneous tech support a few years back for both the Mac and PC. My environment was a major medical school in NYC, where the PC-to-Mac ratio was about 15-to-1. Only one researcher in the dept used Mac, and he had 3 of them. While this was about 3 years ago, I think my points still apply today. And in consulting purchases, cost is always an issue.
1) Crashing: pretty much the same in our environment. I got roughly the same average amount of calls per computer on both platforms. I also did database programming on both and personally experienced similar number of crashes with both OS. I cannot tell you about the latest Mac OS or Windows Vista. But I can say that Mac users touted its stability over Windows back then and it was proven wrong in our case.
2) Viruses, etc: Not a problem in our environment since we had firewalls and protection. Mac had a theoretical advantage with its Unix core but there were no differences in practice. Even today, outside of the academic environment, friends who use Windows don't experience any more problems than friends who use Macs, assuming they have the proper protection (I recommend ZoneAlarm).
3) Graphics work: We did video editing and medical imaging, but my hands-on experience was very limited. With identical software on both platforms, I would say that there were no differences. As someone else pointed out, the Mac advantage seems to be one of momentum. That is, many graphics artists were trained on the Mac so it became their platform by default. Very early on, the Mac did indeed have an advantage and the momentum never stopped. But the PC caught up years ago so if not already used to the Mac, the momentum doesn't apply to you. This is really more a matter of software than OS or hardware. (see software discussion below)
A sidenote: because PCs cost so much less than Mac's, especially if you don't demand top tier brands (we even had a few no-name basement-built PCs that ran without a hitch), we were able to afford more memory and better hard drives for the PCs which made them faster than the Mac in some cases -- for less money. Memory and a good hd are crucial for graphics work.
4) Software availability. Generally-speaking, the PC wins hands down. But specifically-speaking, especially if you are doing photography, it either doesn't matter or the Mac may have a slight advantage. Again, this was beyond my expertise and I'm going to ignore the fact that Macs can now run Windows. This is a true story that took place about 7 years ago. It was a week before a major medical conference so everyone was scrambling to make posters. I was asked to purchase software so I went to NYC's J&R, arguably the largest computer store in the country. On the PC shelves were about 12 different titles, from $12.99 to about $80. On the Mac shelf were two titles, with one targeting children. I decided on a $34.99 PC title and the $79.99 Mac title (Printshop?). As it turned out, the more expensive Mac software couldn't even do what we needed (up to 6 lines in the title with fine adjustment) so the physician had to use a colleague's PC.
The lesson was this: because of its much larger user base, there is a lot more software available for the PC in terms of features and price. But this also means that there is a lot of bad software out there. Mac software is much more limited (thus expensive) but tend to be better in quality. But they're pretty much similar at any given price. Again, identical software should make no difference in quality, usability and cost on either platform. If you know that photography is all you want to do, then you can't go wrong with a Mac, although as some have pointed out, you can do as well running the cheaper Corel on a PC. But the Mac probably has an advantage in terms user groups support and online forums. That's just a guess based the momentum theory above; more graphics artist were probably trained on a Mac.
As an aside, the relative dearth of Mac software can be a good thing. It means that Mac users tend to have more similar configurations than PC users. There is more homogeneity among Macs. This makes tech support easier because you can more easily find someone who has your problem.
5) Hardware availability: same issue as software availability. More hardware and wider price range for PC, but any serious photography or graphics peripheral would most likely offer Mac compatibility.
6) Cost: PC hands down. The fact is, if you want the Mac OS, you must buy Apple. They stopped licensing to Mac compatible makers over a decade ago. There is no competition. PCs have fierce competition and many more choices in terms of features, speed, etc. For some apps, we even used $399 no-name fly-by-night basement-built PCs. A name brand equivalent would have cost at least twice as much.
The $499 Mac did not yet exist, but even when it came out, it did not outperform the cheaper no-name PCs. It's simple economics: competition = lower prices, and monopoly = higher prices. Thus Apple relied on the snob and Wow! appeal to sell their more expensive computers. I have to add though that Macs generally come with a lot more usable software than much cheaper lower-tier PCs, so factor that in.
Lower PC prices mean that you can splurge on memory, peripherals, etc. If done right, you can end up with a more powerful PC than a Mac at the same cost.
In summary, if cost is not an issue and you're focused on photography (no pun intended), you won't regret getting a Mac. Even if there are no practical advantages, you get to join an elite group that contains many photographers. It often takes up less space, and looks bether than a PC. But if cost is an issue, you can't go wrong with a middle-tier PC, especially if you value software/hardware availability for other projects. You should first see what software you like, and what hardware you need. If the hardware is only available on one platform, your question is answered.
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