Should i buy a macbook?
Discussion
TheCarpetCleaner said:
I personally don't like Macs as they dont fit into my way of working,
What does that mean ??
Way of working? Sounds fascinating!
TheCarpetCleaner said:
and they make it as difficult as possible to export out to other types of computer. Try exporting out of the Mac email client to a PC and you will know what I mean 
Try following the published email standards and see why you are reversed here! Have you never heard of 'Embrace and extend' - a more subtle variation of 'Dos ain't done 'til Lotus won't run':Microsoft mail format problems
The rest of the world works and plays together pretty well outside of Microsoft, that isn't a coincidence either. Read up about the Samba team if you really want to see how tricky it is following a hidden mutating standard.
One thing to watch for new PCs these days is Microsofts own tactics biting it in the arse - with Vista it's taken even MS quite a while to get everything working properly - - from graphics to suspend/resume - and they are still working on it.
MS Word itself has a troubled upgrade path - each version obsoleting the last, preventing you from even reading files from newer versions, luckily now we have ODF for new document standards, although Microsoft won't be allowing you to use that so if you buy MS Office, it's tough luck
Macbook:
When I bought my 12" (first) Apple - one reason was that it was the cheapest branded quality 12" available - the toshiba was a bit lighter but £500 heavier. I think the macbook is fantastic value for what you get in hardware alone, and leopard is streets ahead of both Vista and KDE (linux) in usability. The combination of Core 2 duo and OS/X gives you huge amounts of speed and power, multicore shines with OS/X and Linux.
You will be glad you went for a macbook.
Noger said:
Maemo/Debian is already on the Nokia MID Devices.
Totally OT, I know, but very good it is, too;
And it works well with a Bluetooth keyboard;
I just carried it round India for 2 weeks and used it to make notes of all the photos I took. It's far and away better than the iPaq which preceded it, and is now gathering dust on a shelf.
Edited by Zumbruk on Tuesday 18th December 12:37
I have just read through this thread and it has had some interesting things going on. I can understand why anyone would call Cyberface a fanboy when he labels stuff as Windows shit box etc, however he is a very knowledgable chap and quite interesting to boot. I do think his view is slightly biased towards Apple however he does have a informed and reasonably well balanced view of the industry.
Points I would like to make:
1. 2K/XP & Vista are all very reliable OS's when used properly, although if I know someone is a numpty I would probably recommend the Mac. Vista has never crashed or had a problem for me. People who say it crashes or needs to be rebooted x amounts of times a day probably needs to try and figure out why or find someone with the knowledge to fix it.
2. Mac's are good bits of kit but my view has been slightly tainted with the number of laptop's I have seen with poor build quality, simple things like the lids not shutting properly. I will probably buy the MK2 Iphone and another Mac at some point. I love the simplicity of I-Tunes and my nano.
Does anyone know when the Mac's are going to be able to run high end graphics cards like the PC has?
Points I would like to make:
1. 2K/XP & Vista are all very reliable OS's when used properly, although if I know someone is a numpty I would probably recommend the Mac. Vista has never crashed or had a problem for me. People who say it crashes or needs to be rebooted x amounts of times a day probably needs to try and figure out why or find someone with the knowledge to fix it.
2. Mac's are good bits of kit but my view has been slightly tainted with the number of laptop's I have seen with poor build quality, simple things like the lids not shutting properly. I will probably buy the MK2 Iphone and another Mac at some point. I love the simplicity of I-Tunes and my nano.
Does anyone know when the Mac's are going to be able to run high end graphics cards like the PC has?
GHW said:
cyberface said:
Besides, the reason you should buy a Macbook is that cats like them.
That's my cat, and he only likes PPC macs 
I'll take it off my server if you like. And yes, the power light position gives the game away re: iBook vs Macbook (along with a few other über-geeky details) Noger said:
I have both those devices sitting on my desk. Although the Q1 I have is the newer version.
The knockout punch was that the original Samsung had a 2 hour battery life. This is now 6 hours. So not so knockout. It probably needs to be more, and will be.
It is fairly pointless excercise to compare the two, what is more interesting is to imagine what the offspring would be like.
The Newton does a lot of things so very very well it makes you wonder whether the people who design Windows ink based apps ever even bother to say "How would the Newton have done this". I doubt they do.
You've got me interested with that battery life and the ability to put Linux on it... that means there's an off chance of squeezing OSx86 on it... currently one of the main people trying to get OS X working on the Eee so I could do without more projects though The knockout punch was that the original Samsung had a 2 hour battery life. This is now 6 hours. So not so knockout. It probably needs to be more, and will be.
It is fairly pointless excercise to compare the two, what is more interesting is to imagine what the offspring would be like.
The Newton does a lot of things so very very well it makes you wonder whether the people who design Windows ink based apps ever even bother to say "How would the Newton have done this". I doubt they do.
The Newton was so far ahead of its time it's shocking... I wonder if Jobs could swallow his pride and have someone in his company more visionary than himself....
cyberface said:
GHW said:
[
That's my cat, and he only likes PPC macs
Sorry for stealing your pic and sticking it on my server mate, it's the wallpaper on my 3rd monitor I like it so much That's my cat, and he only likes PPC macs
I'll take it off my server if you like. And yes, the power light position gives the game away re: iBook vs Macbook (along with a few other über-geeky details) I keep looking at buying an Intel machine.. he keeps giving me sad kitten eyes looks. I think he wants me to max out the ram in the iBook, give it a big disk upgrade and stick Leopard on it..
GHW said:
cyberface said:
GHW said:
[
That's my cat, and he only likes PPC macs
Sorry for stealing your pic and sticking it on my server mate, it's the wallpaper on my 3rd monitor I like it so much That's my cat, and he only likes PPC macs
I'll take it off my server if you like. And yes, the power light position gives the game away re: iBook vs Macbook (along with a few other über-geeky details) I keep looking at buying an Intel machine.. he keeps giving me sad kitten eyes looks. I think he wants me to max out the ram in the iBook, give it a big disk upgrade and stick Leopard on it..
I'd hold off on Leopard though with the iBook, Leopard manages to eat all the RAM in my Quad... which has 4.5 GB installed... and claims to be using 79 GB of swapfile which has to be bullshit since the entire boot disk array is only 140 GB in size
cyberface said:
apart from their big table demo which I'm not sure is scalable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cog8b8ojji0 WARNING: the annoying voice will do your head in..
MS Surface works on an almost standard Vista install I think... interesting in that they already have one in a couple of hotels and plan on wall mounted units for restaurants and the like. People will be able to drop their credit card on the table and pay for their meal etc etc.... I love the sound of Surface and its possible uses but at 10 grand a unit - it maybe a while til we see em in all our local caf's
As for the rest... I think the revived interest Linux is great and Apple's pressure too because in the end - more competition will always mean better products for us the consumer.
Edited by LDNrevs on Tuesday 18th December 19:22
_Lee_ said:
I can understand why anyone would call Cyberface a fanboy when he labels stuff as Windows shit box etc,
'Fanboy' is supposed to be an insult I guess, but while I've seen many Apple fans and seen their enthusiasm - I've never seen that for PCs or Windows. Apples are machines that you can really get to appreciate. You get MS fanboys and microsoft shills too of course - but without enthusiasm and almost always without any historical knowledge of how microsoft got where it is, and why one format or program is incompatible with another.I think Apple fans exist because the apple is clearly designed for people.
Windows is designed only partly for people, the rest is designed to embrace, extend and kill all competition - and sadly, that often gives the product serious problems. The most famous being the myriad of security holes due to the user running as administrator combined with 'ActiveX' - an entirely unnecessary Javascript 'killer'.
When you've had enough time with enough OS's, I can well understand hostility to MS and Windows. I personally dislike how MS has held the PC world to ransom for two decades, and having seen other OS offerings, realise how much damage is done to the personal computing world by having an inferior product as the monopoly OS. Frankly if IBM had made OS/2 Warp stick, we'll be way ahead of Vista on the PC right now.
Way Ahead.
_Lee_ said:
Points I would like to make:
1. 2K/XP & Vista are all very reliable OS's when used properly, although if I know someone is a numpty I would probably recommend the Mac. Vista has never crashed or had a problem for me. People who say it crashes or needs to be rebooted x amounts of times a day probably needs to try and figure out why or find someone with the knowledge to fix it.
People who? A friend bought a (acer?) new PC this year with Vista. His PC is twice as fast as his previous XP one but appears to run at half the speed. Suspend/resume fails 50% of the time too. His USB vodaphone broadband is also temperamental to lock up the machine - it worked fine with XP.1. 2K/XP & Vista are all very reliable OS's when used properly, although if I know someone is a numpty I would probably recommend the Mac. Vista has never crashed or had a problem for me. People who say it crashes or needs to be rebooted x amounts of times a day probably needs to try and figure out why or find someone with the knowledge to fix it.
He is trying to run a business and has not time to 'try and figure out why'.
His solution is to wipe Vista and install XP.
Lets face it, these 'whingers' usually had XP working a lot better than XP - it's not them, it's issues in Vista.
For a monopoly solution - this is pathetic.
_Lee_ said:
2. Mac's are good bits of kit but my view has been slightly tainted with the number of laptop's I have seen with poor build quality, simple things like the lids not shutting properly. I will probably buy the MK2 Iphone and another Mac at some point. I love the simplicity of I-Tunes and my nano.
The macbook (all intel macs IIRC) have magnetic catches now. OTOH my PPV 12" catch works fine._Lee_ said:
Does anyone know when the Mac's are going to be able to run high end graphics cards like the PC has?
I thought they were high performance, but the macbook (and macmini IIRC) have cards not suitable for games - true.I think Macs are not really designed as games machines, most people with Macs in my experience seem to have games consoles for games. There again many people have PCs purely for games - so I guess for many people a PC IS a games console
_Lee_ said:
I have just read through this thread and it has had some interesting things going on. I can understand why anyone would call Cyberface a fanboy when he labels stuff as Windows shit box etc
I think that's where the choice of words on my part was suspect. I said £400 windows shitbox, I should have said £400 shitbox - since what I was getting at was that any laptop at that price point will be shite. The 'windows' inclusion was to make the obvious distinction that Apple doesn't make £400 laptops so there is no valid comparison here, which was the whole point of the post, which unfortunately got derailed._Lee_ said:
however he is a very knowledgable chap and quite interesting to boot. I do think his view is slightly biased towards Apple however he does have a informed and reasonably well balanced view of the industry.
Errrr, thanks. I make no bones about my preference for OS X - it's an operating system thing, not because I'm a fanboy for the brand, nor is it for fashion, nor do I think teh Steve is God, etc. FFS I bought my first Mac (a G4 Cube) for the engineering, promptly ripped Mac OS 9 off it and installed Linux on it When Apple brought out the first public beta of OS X, which was unix with a nice front end (and could run MS Office, which I need) - I bought into the cult in a big way.OK so that makes me sound like an Apple 'fanboi' but in reality I am an OS X fanboy. And yes, I do have problems with Microsoft's business practices over the years, but I love some of their products (Excel and SQL Server 2000 - what were they thinking with the 2005 management console?????) - and ironically Microsoft's most profitable business unit is, surprise, the Mac Business Unit i.e. MS software for Apple computers...
I'm not as extreme as teh Glob
when it comes to anti-MS sentiment, for Apple under Jobs have done some similarly cynical lockouts (why do you think I was one of the hackers on the iPhone project and had it on Vodafone in September? A true Apple fanboy would have done as teh Steve said).Just trying to make my position clear here
As to the graphics cards, I'm an owner of a Quad G5 with PCIe graphics and zero choice of aftermarket card. It's a very sore point for me, given I've got two cards that struggle to carry my dual 30" screens and the extra couple of 18" LCDs
Globulator said:
_Lee_ said:
I can understand why anyone would call Cyberface a fanboy when he labels stuff as Windows shit box etc,
'Fanboy' is supposed to be an insult I guess, but while I've seen many Apple fans and seen their enthusiasm - I've never seen that for PCs or Windows. Apples are machines that you can really get to appreciate. You get MS fanboys and microsoft shills too of course - but without enthusiasm and almost always without any historical knowledge of how microsoft got where it is, and why one format or program is incompatible with another.I think Apple fans exist because the apple is clearly designed for people.
Windows is designed only partly for people, the rest is designed to embrace, extend and kill all competition - and sadly, that often gives the product serious problems. The most famous being the myriad of security holes due to the user running as administrator combined with 'ActiveX' - an entirely unnecessary Javascript 'killer'.
When you've had enough time with enough OS's, I can well understand hostility to MS and Windows. I personally dislike how MS has held the PC world to ransom for two decades, and having seen other OS offerings, realise how much damage is done to the personal computing world by having an inferior product as the monopoly OS. Frankly if IBM had made OS/2 Warp stick, we'll be way ahead of Vista on the PC right now.
Way Ahead.
_Lee_ said:
Points I would like to make:
1. 2K/XP & Vista are all very reliable OS's when used properly, although if I know someone is a numpty I would probably recommend the Mac. Vista has never crashed or had a problem for me. People who say it crashes or needs to be rebooted x amounts of times a day probably needs to try and figure out why or find someone with the knowledge to fix it.
People who? A friend bought a (acer?) new PC this year with Vista. His PC is twice as fast as his previous XP one but appears to run at half the speed. Suspend/resume fails 50% of the time too. His USB vodaphone broadband is also temperamental to lock up the machine - it worked fine with XP.1. 2K/XP & Vista are all very reliable OS's when used properly, although if I know someone is a numpty I would probably recommend the Mac. Vista has never crashed or had a problem for me. People who say it crashes or needs to be rebooted x amounts of times a day probably needs to try and figure out why or find someone with the knowledge to fix it.
He is trying to run a business and has not time to 'try and figure out why'.
His solution is to wipe Vista and install XP.
Lets face it, these 'whingers' usually had XP working a lot better than XP - it's not them, it's issues in Vista.
For a monopoly solution - this is pathetic.
_Lee_ said:
2. Mac's are good bits of kit but my view has been slightly tainted with the number of laptop's I have seen with poor build quality, simple things like the lids not shutting properly. I will probably buy the MK2 Iphone and another Mac at some point. I love the simplicity of I-Tunes and my nano.
The macbook (all intel macs IIRC) have magnetic catches now. OTOH my PPV 12" catch works fine._Lee_ said:
Does anyone know when the Mac's are going to be able to run high end graphics cards like the PC has?
I thought they were high performance, but the macbook (and macmini IIRC) have cards not suitable for games - true.I think Macs are not really designed as games machines, most people with Macs in my experience seem to have games consoles for games. There again many people have PCs purely for games - so I guess for many people a PC IS a games console
I appreciate fans of 'a product' but I can't comprehend fans of a 'brand'. These core users often ignore poor products or bad business practices for the sake of supporting the brand's image / without even knowing it sometimes. For example (once again) my own experience of three Macbooks all with misalligned lids had me WAY pissed off. When I finally gave up and rang Apple for my refund, the guy simply said 'yep, there's loads coming back.. we already know..' Poor build quality / or poor quality control - either way; not a happy customer.
As for games, a Mac Pro or Macbook Pro could steam games no problem.
cyberface said:
You've got me interested with that battery life and the ability to put Linux on it... that means there's an off chance of squeezing OSx86 on it... currently one of the main people trying to get OS X working on the Eee so I could do without more projects though
The Newton was so far ahead of its time it's shocking... I wonder if Jobs could swallow his pride and have someone in his company more visionary than himself....
Hehe, yes have thought about that, and did look into the possibilty briefly (for interests sake). But those that have done so didn't find the experience too good. There is youtube video somewhere, of OS X on a Asus R2H.The Newton was so far ahead of its time it's shocking... I wonder if Jobs could swallow his pride and have someone in his company more visionary than himself....
You are so right about the Newton. I can understand why people still revere it so. I picked it up, switched it on and just started writing some notes. Without thinking I used my usual TabletPC gesture to delete (just scratch out the word - works the same no some paper
) and bingo, the word deleted in a little cloud <puff>. My Samsung had met his Grandad Newt It isn't that stable, and some of the under-the-hood stuff is pretty clunky, but the overall experience is so intuative and just plain fun. Not quite sure I would want to run my life on it -although I am certain I could with some effort.
Edited by Noger on Wednesday 19th December 09:01
Globulator said:
The most famous being the myriad of security holes due to the user running as administrator combined with 'ActiveX' - an entirely unnecessary Javascript 'killer'.
I work in network security and the issues that Microsoft have brought to your network are just Vista has introduced a few new components which should start to address the longer term security issues. We are starting to see some benefits of this already, but its going to be the subsequent versions which will build on this. Microsoft are talking about a life cycle of around 4-5 years per OS now, so don't expect major changes in the short term.
Are Macs and Linux better? Yes, but they also suffer problems too. However, as a starting point there are in a better position. Is this really a problem? Actually I believe it to be a massive issue. If we remember what we needed to do on our Windows PC's 5-6 years ago, and compare that to what we need to do now - well you get the idea. What the hell will it be like in the next 5-6 years?
Which is better - MacOS or Windows? Hard to say. Each has their own benefits and advantages. What is important though is that the tools that most people use today are no longer tied to just one OS. Obviously there are notable exceptions, but these are the exceptions that prove the rule. When we break down the real requirements, there is direct compatibility between MacOS and Windows anyway. Its a non-issue these days. Basically comes down to personal choice.
Edited by off_again on Wednesday 19th December 14:24
Edited by off_again on Wednesday 19th December 14:25
off_again said:
Globulator said:
The most famous being the myriad of security holes due to the user running as administrator combined with 'ActiveX' - an entirely unnecessary Javascript 'killer'.
I work in network security and the issues that Microsoft have brought to your network are just untrue. Its fair to say that they are doing a lot to rectify these problems, but equally its also a case of trying to do something with the gate once the horse has well and truly legged it across the field!
Hmmm
off_again said:
Vista has introduced a few new components which should start to address the longer term security issues. We are starting to see some benefits of this already, but its going to be the subsequent versions which will build on this. Microsoft are talking about a life cycle of around 4-5 years per OS now, so don't expect major changes in the short term.
Given that a) Microsoft are the richest and biggest software company in the world
and
b) They've already had over twenty years to 'address the longer term security issues'
I see no merit in your argument at all. Sorry.
The state of PC software today is pathetic.
Security hasn't even reached 1980's Unix levels yet.
Ah, I see what happened there - sorry my poor use of the English language meant that it didn't quite come out as I intended!
What I meant to say is that
ing Microsoft are a bunch of s and the complete lack of any form of security in their products is utterly shocking.
Sorry for any confusion - now, carry on....
What I meant to say is that
ing Microsoft are a bunch of s and the complete lack of any form of security in their products is utterly shocking. Sorry for any confusion - now, carry on....
_Lee_ said:
_Lee_ said:
The most famous being the myriad of security holes due to the user running as administrator combined with 'ActiveX' - an entirely unnecessary Javascript 'killer'.
Can everybody please stop misquoting! I never said the above! off_again said:
I like wearing women's clothes
and how do you know about the women's clothes thing?
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