PC vs. iMAC

[RodLeach]

I'd stick with what you know! Of course it's a personal choice but I for one am lost when I sit in front of a Mac, and very much used to Windows - which I might add I've actually never had a problem, despite hearing complaints from others. Just scan the pc often and keep off the porn sites! I think that's where most people fail - then blame it on windows lol!

Also PC and windows is so widespread, it's cheaper to buy and more help available.

NOTE however stay away from Vista! When I get a new PC I'm getting one without it - otherwise I'll delete it then install XP again or learn how to use Linux (Ubuntu) - that's a cool system but I'd need to learn it's ins and outs.

the mac OS was one thing i was worried about - but the apple site has a video showing how easy it is!

Its just like itunes for different programs! all works the same.

stay off porn?!?? ....

[Snorkel]

Of course everything can be learnt! It's whether you can really be ars'd. My friend is REALLY into the whole Mac thing - good luck to him, but I want to get into Linux I think myself. But Apple does seem to be on the up.

Go into an Apple store like the huge one on Oxford St in London and play around with all their display models. The gear looks nice, but you can also get good looking gear with PC's. I use a silver Sony Vaio laptop and LOVE it!

[RodLeach]

Of course everything can be learnt! It's whether you can really be ars'd. My friend is REALLY into the whole Mac thing - good luck to him, but I want to get into Linux I think myself. But Apple does seem to be on the up.

Go into an Apple store like the huge one on Oxford St in London and play around with all their display models. The gear looks nice, but you can also get good looking gear with PC's. I use a silver Sony Vaio laptop and LOVE it!

I was looking at the sony vaio an they do look awesome!

Theres a Apple store in southampton . Only prob is i need a lift into there now cuz i cant get under the height barrier in the car parks

[Sancho]

OSX is extremely easy to use. Vista is a (shit) copy so even MS have admitted it's better.

[Snorkel]

Ask around about Ubuntu on a Linux system, not many people will have it. But you can 'grab' the side of a window and bend it to see what's behind. Also when you close a window there are various effects like it 'burning up in flames', or minimising it'll turn to rain and weird stuff like that. Also you can effectively have four screens on one screen (a cube) and have windows on each face, with a movie playing it can be wrapped around the corner onto another face. The point? just for fun I guess, but it does look cool/ help stop you getting bored lol.

[Long way 'round]

Macs every time the whole platform is stable. Not more stable just stable. I've had my mac for 2 years now and it's never broken down or crashed on any software. The switch over can be hard if you've gotten used to nursing your pc through every task as if it's some neurotic american, the mac just works. I don't have any anti virus software with no problems. A few weeks ago was the first time a mac virus has been reported masquerading as an up date for an internet video player update, you can only get it if you install the "update". If you only update any software when you've initiated the update you'll be fine as the mac os won't allow anything to install without you entering your password.

If you do get a mac and Romsey isn't too far away I can help you with some software

[MattF]

PLUS - ive found software an seen videos on getting the mac OS to run windows.

You can either dual boot or use WINE which will allow a large percentage of M$ apps to be run under *nix.

one thing - if i get an external hard drive an copy all my music files over, could i plug that into the mac an have access? or am i going to be screwed?

No problem whatsoever. The thing to remember with a standard *nix kernel is that pretty much all base drivers are compiled in by default. Network/disk/comms wise, they'll recognise pretty much everything without any driver installation or other arsing about.


Btw, just on the OSX/Linux thing. When you're working with MacOSX, you are actually running on a base system of BSD, so dropping down to a terminal, all commands and such are pretty much exactly the same as you will see on any Linux system, (other than OS semantic differences). BSD is older and more stable than Linux, which is why one assumes Apple picked it as their base system. They have just then applied all their funky interface and other weird ideas to it, but at its core, it still the same type of beast.

If I remember correctly, it was FreeBSD which they used for the OSX base:

http://www.freebsd.org/


Edit: Just on a side note. Browse the package repository on the FreeBSD site. You'll get a good idea there of exactly how much software you can potentially run on a Mac. Those are packaged specifically for FreeBSD, but all of that is OS software.

[RodLeach]

cheers guys!

I think im pretty set that im gunna order the Imac next weekend.

Everything sounds spot on with what im after

[MattF]

Good choice old chap.

I've never played with Mac's specifically, but I've been using BSD's for years, and you'll honestly wonder why you've been arsing about with Windoze all these years once you make the change.