Should I become a Mac-er?

[Mac Calder]

Most 'new' broadband 'modems' (new as in last 4 years, modems being rather flexible, as a lot are more likely to be routers than modems... anyway) use ethernet (either over cat5 cable, or over wireless), so just like a PC, your Mac will plug straight in.

[sourc3]

Also it should be noted that compatibility issues essentially don't exist. I have 3 windows boxes and 4 macs hooked up to the same network on a combination of wired/wireless using a Linksys (non-Apple) router sharing an AT&T DSL Elite connection. I use a Mac in a windows-dominant environment, with no issues. Good luck! You'll love getting a Mac. :-)

[GalFriday]

I received my Mac in August. Our entire office is PC. I dual boot with bootcamp to work on a few excel documents that do not seem to transfer well to Mac. Tthe show logo will not print on the documents opened from NeoOffice. However, I may have been able to solve that by using Office for Mac, I was not a big fan of it the first few weeks of the trial test and we already owned a muli-computer version of Office for Windows. I decided to use that and have been happy - the reboot is quick. Otherwise, I use my Mac every day on tour. I love it! - Dani

[Scott (formerly Digga)]

Because everything that does run does so almost perfectly.
4 known viruses
some idiot can't hack you for fun

"there are more than 60 known Mac-specific viruses"  (That was as of 2003)  Macs wouldn't support Anti-Virus software if they were immune to virus'. 
And if you'd like to think that they can't hack you for fun or that they're idiots, feel free. 

There's no such thing as a perfect computer or a completely safe computer.  It's just a matter of using some common sense (no matter what your platform is).  I just don't like seeing people believe the misconception that Macs are invulnerable and then spreading said rumor to try and promote them.

[StageMgr2Stars]

I have used PCs for most of my life up until this summer when after repeated harddrive failures, I switched to a Mac. I love my Mac but you're right, but I love it because I can trust it and they're tech support is great. As far as my work is concerned, it doesn't make a differance but for reliability, the MacBook is amazing. I was / am also a Linux user and honestly, if I could get MS office to work correctly on linux (I hate openoffice) I would switch to linux only.


For me. Mac means reliability and AMAZING tech support if something does happen. It was worth the money considering the amount of drama and headache put in fixing and dealing with my old PCs. 

[philimbesi]

Wow I didn't mean to spark up the my computer is better that yours debate.   Also I think I phrased my original question a bit  to vaguely.  Is there a way to connect a cellular modem to a Mac?  Most of the theaters I work in don't have in house networks or a lot of times are outdoor venues.   I need to know that I'll have access to the internet and such. 

[Mac Calder]

Okay. I have received a couple of complaints about this thread regarding the most recent posts, so I have given the issue some thought. Here's the deal - since the Mac vs PC question gets asked all the time, and I want to keep it all together, this thread will remain open, however any and all inflamatory remarks made after this post will go to the great garbage bin in the sky - and I have also trimmed some of the more inflamatory stuff. Let's keep it nice and clean from here on out.

The OP has been answered, so really, the only sort of posts that should pop up should be the "will X and Y work on a mac?" type questions, and posts answering that Q - ie the Cellular modem question asked earlier.

[sourc3]

I think there's a lot of misconceptions out there regarding Macs.

1) While we are not immune to viruses, I have yet to have one, nor have any of the mac users I have encountered - which is a heckofalot. I have to do zero maintenance on my machine, no spyware scans, no adware scans, no virus scans, no defragmenting my hard drive, nothing. I can just use my computer. Something I never had during 19 years of Windows usage.

2) I'm not sure where the "$1000+ more" comes from. I did my market research before buying a mac, and to get a similarly sized Windows machine with the same specs as my MacBook would've cost me $200 more for a decent quality machine. True - Mac doesn't sell a low-end laptop or desktop, but my logic on the issue is this: For a fog machine, do you buy the crappiest dollar store fog-juice you can find? Or do you go out and spend the extra money and get the fog-juice that will actually work, even if it's double the cost? You *can* buy good Windows machines - I custom built them for years, and am planning on building my next desktop to run Windows XP on. It will cost roughly the same as a 24" iMac and probably outperform it slightly.

3) We are almost completely compatible with all file formats, we just have some issues with certain apps. However, there are cheap or free alternatives to almost every Windows app that doesn't exist on a Mac.

All that having been said... I'm really sick of the whole angsty windows vs. mac arguments. Lets have friendly debates, but it's not a huge deal really... both have their uses, both have their positives and negatives, and both are impressive in their own right.

[J]

I am now too considering the switch from a PC to a Mac.  Here are my reasons for considering this move.  Am I correct in my thinking that I would be better off with a mac than a PC?

1. Size and style. I find the Mac computers to be much nicer to look at, more solid, and sleeker.  I currently have a Dell and it's a 14'1 inch screen...that's the smallest they really go now.  I can get a 13'5 inch screen with a Mac which actually shrinks the overall size of the computer down quite a bit.  They look much nicer, package-wise, and take up less space on a desk.

2. Performance. I do have lots of error messages, lots of time spent doing the scans, and lots of oddities with my PC. Granted, I am running the new Vista, so some of those were expected, but overall, I've been told that I will have far less "maintenace" related issues with a Mac.

3. The world is going.... I think the market is moving towards Macs.  Nuf said.

On my computer, I currently do these things the most.  What will I need to purchase along with a standard Macbook to be able to continue this?:
- internet searches
- banking/bill pay
- Word Documents for work
- Excel Documents for work
- Outlook for email, calendar, contacts, tasks, notes, etc. (it's my lifeline)
- Website editing with Yahoo Sitebuilder --- not compatible with Mac
- a little photo editing
- Thank You 5 Line Notes program --- not compatible with Mac

does the bootcamp program cost money?  Do all the mac programs that mimic word and excel work just the same? 

My one hesitation in switching is losing word/excel/outlook.  Are the programs on Macs comparable?  I don't see the point in switching to a mac only to use the windows Vista OS on it.

Advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Mac Calder]

Slightly outside the box - but look at Fujitsu, if you are looking for a small laptop. I put in a purchase order for one the other day - an S7210, it will be one of the first in Australia. It was a little bit pricier than a Macbook 13", but it is also a fair bit beefier as far as processing power goes. It comes with an "upgrade" disk to Windows XP.

Fujitsu make really nice small format notebooks, at a decent price, for those who don't want to switch to Mac. Me - I am fairly indifferent - however the higher specs won me over

[GalFriday]

I use bootcamp every day. It is available for free in a Beta form but only until the end of the year because it is included with Leopard. You will also need to load a windows operating system. I was not happy with Word or Excel for Mac and all of our office paperwork (casting sheets, wardrobe... everything) is in Excel or Word. So, I found that I needed to have Office in a Windows platform. On the Mac Side, I downloaded NeoOffice (free) and it will allow me to open Office documents but does not have complete functionality for editing or even printing. For example, the casting sheet prints without the show logo. I could probably work around this but I have not had the time to do so. I do not find the reboot back and forth to take too long and in a way it makes me so much happier to be back on the Mac side at the end of the day.

My roommate runs Parallels. (79.99 for the new version) He currently uses it to run AutoCAD and has had no performance issues with it. The advantage is that since you are not actually partitioning you can have access to all programs at once. Something that can be annoying when I want to say play from iTunes while doing paperwork.

As for all of the other aspects; I bought the Black Macbook - It is sleeker, It is lighter when I am dragging it to a new venue every day on European public transport, I do not miss the maintenance aspect at all and I have been exceptionally happy with my purchase.

I hope that helps a bit. Feel free to PM me.

 - Dani

[Baz]

I've always been fairly ambidextrous when it comes to the 2 mainstream OSs (useful when some companies have an in-House network of one kind or another - and rarely cutting edge), while my current personal primary computer is a WinOS notebook.
Really, its whatever you're most comfortable with and/or how specialized is the software you use on it is. Well, that - and if you can justify to yourself (or your Accountant) that paying the premium for a MacBook is necessary or worth it.

That being said, I'm currently experimenting with the ASUS eeePC subnotebook which, at 9" x 6.5", is certainly portable.  Its running a version of Xandros Linux (which, set in Advanced Mode, looks very XP) and which has happily loaded all my usual docs, pictures - and 3+ hours of music - on its internal SSD. Not bad for $400...

[zayit shachor]

My roommate runs Parallels.

There's another program called VMware that does the same thing.  Both are excellent - if you're interested in learning more about them, there's a great David Pogue article from a couple of years ago that explains the basics: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/13/technology/13pogue.html.

[J]

Well, thanks for the advice everyone! I went ahead and purchased one last week! I'm SOOOO giddy for it to arrive (today!) My word of advice to all: don't purchase from the apple store. Research for the best deals (I did Amazon.com) because you can find places where you don't pay shipping OR tax, and sometimes extra goodies can come along with it too.  Amazon is a authorized seller so it's safe.  Also, buying extra memory and installing it yourself is WAY cheaper than what apple charges.  $150 for 1gb from Apple, $60 for 2gb online.

[BeckyGG]

Another way to get a Mac for a bit less is if you buy a refurbished Apple thru the Apple store - the selection online varies from day to day.  Since they do all the refurbs themselves they tend to be top quality and carry the AppleCare warranty.   I saved hundreds of dollars by purchasing my iBook this way - I've had it for 2 years now and still no problems!