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Hardman Knott
Gym climber
Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Ca
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Tooth wrote:
Hardman Knott...
7/6 is a fraction. Is that what you mean when you say you can get a PC for a fraction of the cost of a Mac?
Didn't really think about it - just having fun parroting an oft-used phrase around here;
I decided to cut 'em off at the pass (note my post occurring one minute after the OP).
Any questions?
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ryanb
climber
Seattle, WA
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JLP, I don't know what field you are in. The majority of developers i know are working on web apps at this point, server based code (running on linx/apache with only a bit of windows/iis) mixed with web client code in JavaScript or action script.
It is easier to sent up a *inx server environment for development on a mac then on windows and you get native copies of things like photoshop which you don't get on linux. Virtualization software has really blossomed in the past year, the last windows server based (ASP.net) project i ran visual studio in a parallels windows xp virtual machine and was quite happy.
At the moment I only use windows for testing javascript compatibility with Internet Explorer...there are a couple of wine based IE distributions for os x (crossover pro and darwine) that run IE pretty well. If I feel the need to use the visual studio debugger to sort out why something is not working I can boot up a parallels VM. (On a side note Crossover even has a product that will run halflife 2 and other valve games via WINE).
The only time I have felt the need to boot into windows natively for work was doing embedded windows mobile development on smart phones before parallels had decent USB device support. Mobile development is a hot area and there are going to be a lot of jobs doing it however, at the moment, it seems most of them are going to be for iphone or google android developers so os x wins here again.
Developers favor os x because it gives them a great desktop environment with support for photoshop, ms office and various text editors and version control systems as well as the ability to interface easily with whatever os or combination of os's (linux on the server and windows on the client is quite common) their boss says they need to target. It might be different for CAD users or other folks running GPU heavy windows code (virtualization support for GPU's is not up to speed yet) but i don't know any of those.
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Hardman Knott
Gym climber
Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Ca
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JLP wrote:
If you load Windows on Mac hardware, you have a Windows box with a pretty case.
You'll also have the Fastest Windows laptop...
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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"You'll also have the Fastest Windows laptop... "
That's over a year old. Did you find that link etched into the wall of a cave? 1 month old is old news. A year is ancient history. Next month Gatway will win, then the next Dell, then maybe the next Mac again. Whatever. It is mostly a statement of time to market with the latest toaster, for this particular group of technology.
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Hardman Knott
Gym climber
Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Ca
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LOL!! Just yankin' yer chain...
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Omot
Trad climber
The here and now
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Nov 14, 2008 - 12:18am PT
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When my Dell laptop's harddrive gave out last week, this thread reminded me of my promise to myself to forego Vista machine and go for a Mac. Thanks for the reminder!
So here I am typing away on the biggest screen I've ever used -- got the 20" iMac. The desktop is nice, well laid out and intuitive, no worries about keeping my virus protection up-to-date, and that beautiful unix command line...I've been waiting years to diff a few simple text files I have wanted to compare. There's probably a way to do it with some XP tool, but I never found one (that didn't cost more money than I was willing to spend). There are no doubt bugs in OSX, but overall it seems rock solid. Imagine, software done right.
The thing just worked right out of the box, and there's free tech support in case I need some hand holding. Looking forward to the free "Intro to Mac" workshop I signed up for at the local Apple store, as well as the next few years of computing with this thing.
Worth the extra $$ for sure.
Tomo
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Jaybro
Social climber
wuz real!
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Nov 14, 2008 - 01:39am PT
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If you just want to do stuff, it's hard to think that anything but a Mac, will do.
On the other hand, if you have certain tendencies/ hobbies/ and are dedicated to the other approach, you're only going to be happy in a non Mac world.
If you are truley undecided, try both, and see what works for you. Go with what you feel comfortable with; but look at the whole picture - $ is always an issue, but there is more to value than the current bottom line.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Nov 14, 2008 - 01:58am PT
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Thats the thing with Macs these days. They'll run both systems. (plus linux)
Not really true for a PC
Peace
karl
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WBraun
climber
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Nov 14, 2008 - 02:11am PT
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That's not true. I have a PC that I built from scratch.
I run windows XP
next hard drive has Mac OS X Leopard
Next hard drive many different flavors of linux.
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nature
climber
Santa Fe, NM
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Nov 14, 2008 - 06:47pm PT
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I'd like to hear more about Werner's statement of getting Mac OSX (10.4 I assume?) running on stock/standard PeeCee hardware.
I can get it running on my old 486? PIII? details man... details.
firmware hacks?
Just plop the DVD in and install?
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nature
climber
Santa Fe, NM
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Nov 14, 2008 - 06:57pm PT
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i'm too lazy for that. i wanna be spoon fed.
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msiddens
Trad climber
Mountain View, CA
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Nov 14, 2008 - 07:02pm PT
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don't ask, buy it and don't look back.
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Jaybro
Social climber
wuz real!
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Nov 14, 2008 - 07:03pm PT
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I'm a Mac guy from a while back. I do what I do and am not a computer hobby-ist. I don't have much $, but value my time. Is there a convincing argument that I should switch into the PC world?
I'm off till sunday night.
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Nefarius
Big Wall climber
somewhere without avatars.........
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Nov 14, 2008 - 07:23pm PT
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HK wrote:
"JLP wrote:
If you load Windows on Mac hardware, you have a Windows box with a pretty case.
You'll also have the Fastest Windows laptop..."
Which is kind of ironic, because the fastest laptops running MacOS are PC based. I've been running MacOS, native (no emulater BS), on PC based systems for a couple of years now. I've benchmarked my systems against the fastest Apple hardwear out there and they simply don't compete. This is also true of the very PS test that was highlighted in threads here a while back (using radial blur, etc).
That being said, and being that I use both frequently, they both have their pluses and minuses. Vista is highly under-rated and runs fine. Shutting down single apps, using dual monitors and all that jive mentioned above works just as flawlessly in Vista as it does on a Mac. Setting up a wireless network between systems and a router is also just as brainless on Vista as it is on MacOS.
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Hardman Knott
Gym climber
Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Ca
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Nov 14, 2008 - 07:27pm PT
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I've benchmarked my systems against the fastest Apple hardwear out there and they simply don't compete.
OK then, please take the Photoshop test and try to beat the 8-core Xeon Mac Pro from a year and a half ago...
*Extreme Geek Alert* Take the Photoshop test...
(see the 4th to last post in that thread)
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Hardman Knott
Gym climber
Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Ca
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Dec 29, 2008 - 06:28pm PT
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The sound of crickets is deafening...
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luggi
Trad climber
atwater california
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Dec 29, 2008 - 07:25pm PT
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Mac...no .bugs to get it sick...I have two kids taking them to school never a problem...PC Dell would crash all the time and hard drive issues....blah...Desk top for home all great..IT guys at work hate macs...mainly from what I understand is they can't tweak them...macs there is never a need to mess with them...
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nature
climber
Somewhere else....
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Dec 29, 2008 - 07:33pm PT
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My mother, after 15 years or more on a PeeCee just purchased an iMac. I can't wait to the hear the stories.
Go Mother Nature!
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DonC
climber
CA
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Dec 29, 2008 - 10:46pm PT
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I work for a large software company and use Windows based machines all day at work. I make my living off that operating system.
I have a Mac at home where my interests are more simple. I really like the seemless integration of pictures, video, music, etc. Everything just works. With the right software from this vendor and that vendor I could do all the same stuff on a Windows box, but its not as nicely integrated.
I also have an Apple TV devise so all the slideshows I create in iPhoto I can watch on my TV, listen to all my iTunes music with my surround sound, watch all the movies I rip, etc. Wirelessly. Whenever I have friends over it takes 5 minutes to drag a bunch of pictures into a slideshow, create a playlist in iTunes, and have great pictures cycling through with background music on my TV. Again, it just works.
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klinefelter
Boulder climber
Bishop, CA
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Dec 29, 2008 - 11:39pm PT
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Sheesh... Mac users have to be one of the most enthusiastic religious cults in the world.
At home I use XP systems exclusively -- not because I'm an MS fanboy, but because it's what I'm used to, and it's a more open, non-proprietary system. It also runs games and software that simply aren't availaable on Macs. I don't run anti-virus and rarely need to clean malware. I just use common sense when browsing the web and installing apps. I customize the UI to fit my needs, choosing from a wide variety of themes and hacks that allow me to customize however I like. I edit video using Premier and Vegas, and extensively use Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Fireworks for web design. My system never crashes, and I reboot rarely.
At work I use OSX on the latest Mac Pro hardware (quad Zeons, stupidly expensive ram, unnecessarily proprietary video cards, etc.). I run Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, and whatever other utilities for video production in a deadline-intensive environment. Several times a week FCP crashes (and any unsaved work is toast). Working from networked drives is problematic, at best. And the UI, while elegant, is not superior -- it's just different. I've watched $5,000 workstations melt down because of design flaws in the cooling system, and had more full-system crashes than I care to recall (google "spinning beach ball of death").
Basically, my $1200 Dell laptop runs Photoshop and Premier better than a $5,000 Mac Pro. Mac users are paying a premium for shiny cases and expensive marketing campaigns, and anyone who tells you otherwise is probably using their $2,200 Mac Book for email, MySpace, and coffeehouse credibility.
Whatever system you use, stop drinking the kool-aid! Macs are not problem-free, and Windows machines just don't crash (much).
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