[mtroute]

Oh yes, I know. The emulation software has become quite good, recently. You can now run some Windows apps smoothly, albeit at greater cost and slower speed. It is very cool. Or reboot each time to increase performance. But then there are the compatibility issues, driver searches etc. All the same issues as a PC that costs less.

See this illustrates your ignorance. Macs do not "emulate" windows. They run it natively (boot camp) or on a VM (VMWare or Parallels). And VM's are not any slower than running natively if you have enough RAM, which is no different than running a VM in Windows.. Remember, they now have "Intel Inside".

You claim that the fanbois are not using facts when you keep arguing facts but not providing any.

Even InfoWorld thinks the Mac kicks ass...

Mac Pro: The perfect workstation | Mac - InfoWorld

and this is really interesting...

Mac Pro's extraordinary build quality and design

[rparmar]

See this illustrates your ignorance. Macs do not "emulate" windows. They run it natively (boot camp) or on a VM (VMWare or Parallels).

Now you are arguing semantics and not very well. Is that the best you can do to "disprove" all the many facts I laid out? Pick on the use of one word?

"VM", eg. "virtual machine" is emulation give or take, at least in my old-timer's parlance. Boot camp is not. I made this clear in my own quote, when I said you could reboot to not take a performance hit running Windows on a Mac. See? I was saying something positive about the Mac. Many of my points were positive, in fact. Like the quiet running laptops (important to me) and the design aesthetics (also important, though not number one.)

You strive to find me ignorant of the Apple advantages when all you need to do to correct your assumption is actually read what I said.

Even InfoWorld thinks the Mac kicks ass...

"Even InfoWorld"? Major LOLs.

extraordinary build quality

Have I ever knocked the build quality? They are OK, but last time I checked they were made in China like many PCs. No difference then.

If you want military spec computers I am afraid Apples do not make the grade. Not last time I checked. (Open to correction on this one.) But some Dell, BSI, Lenovo, Acer, LG and many other PC brands do. So better not to argue that point too strongly.

[Adam]

I'm going to chime in and suggest everyone save themselves some money. I've done it, and it's sped up my computing (and work here on the site) tremendously:

[trishytee]

Gee, it's is all much clearer now! I feel quite guilty starting this thread. I hope you all shake hands. I have no idea what it is that Adam threw into the equation. Still unsure, but I do like the idea of the being able to calibrate the Mac internally. Forever getting pictures just right but then print poorly. don't even get me started on Dell. Still waiting for my refund. I have to admit a lot of the discussions here flew over my head like a helium balloon, as you are all so into the 'nut and bolts'. I do wish there was a dedicated apple shop here in Mandurah as I do like the idea of having a good play around with one. (computer that is). (It is quite hot down on my level of hell; but the apples are well cooked) trish.

[JHD]

Mac people are religiously fanatical about their computers. I was once part of THAT CULT, but broke away into the mainstream. It's not good to be fanatical about anything, including cameras.

[rparmar]

I'm going to chime in and suggest everyone save themselves some money. I've done it, and it's sped up my computing (and work here on the site) tremendously:

Yes! People with technical knowledge and a depth of experience owe it to themselves to check out LINUX. I run LINUX on a netbook and have used it extensively for server work. But for me it is not the right tool for my desktop since I use some very specific high-end audio apps it does not support.

Mac people are religiously fanatical about their computers. I was once part of THAT CULT, but broke away into the mainstream. It's not good to be fanatical about anything, including cameras.

Hear hear!

I am currently employing a Mac Mini full-time, by which I mean 24/7. It is installed in an art gallery where it runs a custom programme I wrote for a sound art installation. A Mac was the best choice. (Though I almost tore out my hair with some of the limitations and wished for that LINUX machine instead!)

And my desktop is running Windows 7 which is very powerful, highly usable and has a UI that seems to get worse with every version! I also have a NAS running some for of UNIX -- who knows and who cares.

So that's me right now: four computers; three or four operating systems. Right box for the right task.

[rparmar]

Gee, it's is all much clearer now! I feel quite guilty starting this thread.

Er, sorry for that. I for one harbour no-one any ill will. Looks like the same cannot be said of some of the zealots.

You are waiting for a refund from Dell? There is no way you should have to wait at all. Get on the phone and bug the crap out of them. Be sure to talk to someone high enough up their support chain: last time I checked they had three tiers and the bottom rung are just there to field "is it turned on" type questions.

If you've always used Windows stick with Windows and worry more about getting good gear. I am not sure what was wrong with your Dell but they have many lines of products and two or three levels of quality. The business line is much more dependable but lags six months or so behind current tech. The consumer line is built from whatever cheap components the factory can get that week. (I know many people who have worked for Dell, since I live just down the road from their former big European operation... now closed up and moved to Poland.)

Dell have some excellent monitors, like the Dell U2410. Now matter what the fanboys say, Mac monitors are horrible for photography. Don't take it from me, check out Mac fan Lloyd Chambers and his informative site "Mac Performance Guide for Digital Photographers & Performance Addicts". Well worth a read! (Even though he covers Leica, Zeiss, Nikon, Canon... but not Pentax.)

Or skip to the bit about Apple displays. Sites like Flatpanels HD and TFT Central have many reviews -- some for very expensive options!

Best of luck.

---

Last edited by rparmar; 05-04-2010 at 04:56 AM.

[Edvinas]

I was looking at one last week and I didn't see a two buttons.

Mighty Mouse and Magic Mouse have sensors and can detect where you press your mouse. Press mouse on it's right side and you'll get right click.

By the way, by default right click is disabled in Mac OS X, it should be enabled in mouse preferences first.

[FHPhotographer]

Mac comes with BootStrap, a program that allows you to partition your Mac hard drive, dedicate it to Windows and install Windows OS. You can then load any/all Windows programs in that partition; Mac treats it like a separate computer and it runs just fine.
The only down side is you have to log out and log back in to switch to Mac OS, or use a separate software package to allow you to jump back and forth while operating both OSs. I'd advise against the latter, however, because it tends to slow both systems down to a crawl. If I were doing it, I'd bootstrap in XP if you can get it and forget about Vista or 7.
And why go through all that? First, there are some programs that are only available in Windows and this is the way to run them and still get the qualities of a Mac. Second, coming to Mac from PCs (stretching all the way back to the wooden days of CP-M) I much like the Mac interface and the intangible qualities that Mac gives. It may be illusory, but it's no more or less than folks who are pro-Leica and see unique qualities, the famous the Leica look, and people who are anti-Leica and use data to prove the "look" doesn't exist. Oddly, they're both right. So it is with Mac,
Brian

[FHPhotographer]

JHD, unless of course you are fanatical about being anti-cult, in which case it's all right? Hate to see the tiresome battle between fanboys from both camps bring rhetoric like this to this Forum,
Brian

[boriscleto]

Mac comes with BootStrap, a program that allows you to partition your Mac hard drive, dedicate it to Windows and install Windows OS. You can then load any/all Windows programs in that partition; Mac treats it like a separate computer and it runs just fine.
The only down side is you have to log out and log back in to switch to Mac OS, or use a separate software package to allow you to jump back and forth while operating both OSs. I'd advise against the latter, however, because it tends to slow both systems down to a crawl. If I were doing it, I'd bootstrap in XP if you can get it and forget about Vista or 7.
And why go through all that? First, there are some programs that are only available in Windows and this is the way to run them and still get the qualities of a Mac. Second, coming to Mac from PCs (stretching all the way back to the wooden days of CP-M) I much like the Mac interface and the intangible qualities that Mac gives. It may be illusory, but it's no more or less than folks who are pro-Leica and see unique qualities, the famous the Leica look, and people who are anti-Leica and use data to prove the "look" doesn't exist. Oddly, they're both right. So it is with Mac,
Brian

That would be Boot Camp. Boot Camp is really only necessary for running games. For general use you can use a Virtual Machine (not an emulator) like Oracle VirtualBox (free) or Parallels - VMWare (not free).

VirtualBox
Parallels
VMWare

The advantage to Virtual Machines is that you can run just about an X86 based OS from the earliest versions of Windows to the latest Unix-like OSs. You can even run OS X Server, the EULA says you can't run regular OS X. If you want to run Vista or Win 7 the EULA stipulates that it has to be the Ultimate version. There are no limits on XP.

Parallels has a nice feature called Crystal Mode which lets you access Windows programs from the Mac dock, it also has a Mac theme that makes Windows programs look more like Mac programs.

[Russell-Evans]

Gee, it's is all much clearer now! I feel quite guilty starting this thread.

Sometimes it is good just to try things out. Apple Retail Store - Free Workshops Maybe take a filled SDHC card and card reader to get an idea if it really works as advertised for what you want to do? The Aperture or Iphoto workshop looks like the one to hit. I'm a little lucky as there seem to be five stores in the area and at least one is doing the Aperture workshop. Good luck.

Thank you
Russell

[tenpointnine]

Who'd a thunk it?

A thread titled "mac or windows", and it breaks down into bitchy handbag swinging.

[Spex]

I heard a lot good thing about Mac. And first time I had an opportunitiy to use it - fail!
It was one of MacBooks, and it had to be connected on just an ordinary LCD projector. Ok, plug the prjector on DVI output . nothing. Press one of those buttons on keyboard, voila, projector gets the picture. But Mac screen goes blank?! Press again, projector loses the picture. Go to options, try to switch it manually - again, no picture at the same time. After many tries of everything, only thing that worked was turning off Mac, and repluging the projector shen system starts to boot. It happened with two of them. Don't know which Os X was on them. Third one couldn't give 16:9 on screen and 4:3 on projector, only the same on both.
Last week, 3 Macs to connect on eduroam network here were I work, everything done step-by-step like the manual says (because there must be some encryption set up, it's not just "find network -> connect -> surf the internet"), but no, it connected when Mac desided it's the time to establih the connection! And what's even more weird, on two of them it established the connection while I was entering the password for it?!
Of course, that doesn't mean that they're all the same - on the contrary, many of them worked flawlessly. But that's what I expected from ALL of them, after hearing so much praise about Macs. And especially when it's about such simple task as connecting LCD projector, or establishing Wi-fi connection, in spite of those encryptions, it should be like any other
So for that, it fails...
And what I also think is that Mac is much more appropriate for light users, who just wants everything to work, no mather how many programs are there installed, how many windows opened, and with less as possible of their interference with any settings. I, as a power user, are much more familiar with how things work and I can set up anything how I like, and get the most out of system. Probably that's why Windows 98 were the last Windows I had headache with ) Ok, never tried ME, I had Win 2000 then, but you know what I mean

[esben]

Sorry - I'm just so tired of listening to Macbashing - I use a Mac but I've never felt the urge to bash Windows users... What is it you guys find so provoking? All those long long long long rants..... Really I would love to know - I'm so fed up. What's it to you what brand my computer is???

It's a totally legit question the OP raises

Look Macs are great products - saying anything else is just nonsense.

Does everybody like them?

No.... apparently

Is a Mercedes Brabus a great car? Yes.

Do I want one?

No... I wouldn't even drive it if I was given one - I'd sell it and buy an old Mustang.

But Id be certifiably crazy to call the Brabus lineup anything but quality.

Now...

I ead the OP say something about being able to calibrate the Mac internally...

Colormanagement is not calibrating - It's profiling to compensate for how the colour reproducing or recording equipment misreads or represents the colour.

a 255,10,20 red in the computer is just that - but the display might show something different - So we measure the color on screen and knowing what it should have been we tell the videocard to compensate. And this is a lot easier on a mac if you have 2 displays - or more. Because of Colorsync.

This is in no way macreligious - it is pure fact for the benfit of the OP in case it is a relevant parameter for choosing