Switching to Mac How-To-Guide @ Futurelooks [Archive]

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Keebler

7 Jun 2006, 01:39pm

Now that you have decided to take the plunge and are "Switching to Mac" what are your next steps to getting your PC stuff over to your new Mac?

Source: Futurelooks (http://www.futurelooks.com/?m=show&id=304)

Gargoyle

7 Jun 2006, 02:09pm

1 - Perform a frontal lobotomy.

2 - Durr....

madmat

7 Jun 2006, 02:09pm

1 - Perform a frontal lobotomoy.

2 - Durr....

You dirty rat, you beat me to it...

QCH2002

7 Jun 2006, 05:13pm

How to induce necessary mental state required for proper use of a MAC. Remove under garments
Cut off female end of extension cord
Moisten testicles
Plug in extension cord
Apply severed end of extension cord to moistened testicles...
Repeat Step 5 as necessary until desired effect is reached or until unconscious.

(Procedure written by QCH2002)

drasnor

7 Jun 2006, 06:44pm

Aww come on, MacOS isn't that bad, though I will admit that anyone willing to fork over the cash for an actual Mac is out of their mind. I like my Macs pre-owned.

-drasnor :fold:

airbornflght

8 Jun 2006, 04:42am

I have no problem with macOS, I have a problem with their pos hardware and how expensive it is. MacOS would actually make an assload of money if Jobbs would pull his head out, and realize that people dont want to pay $$$ for mediocre hardware and a decent os.

but he wont, because that OS is the only selling point for the hardware. If you could put the os on any computer, no one in their right mind would buy one from them, unless they actaully started something called "competive pricing" but I guess the apple freaks Think Different so they just jack the prices.

primesuspect

8 Jun 2006, 05:06am

Uhhh. apple DOES make an assload of money ;)

Sledgehammer70

8 Jun 2006, 05:19am

Evil Jobs!

airbornflght

8 Jun 2006, 12:20pm

but they could make a super ass load of money. Cause I bet >50% of the people using windows would switch.

Necropolis

8 Jun 2006, 01:02pm

but they could make a super ass load of money. Cause I bet >50% of the people using windows would switch.

I would have to disagree. In my experience people tend to stick with what they know, so you would find that it would be alot less than that, I would say <5%. And I couldnt see any corporate networks changing over, too much hassle.

drasnor

8 Jun 2006, 03:30pm

Uhhh. apple DOES make an assload of money ;)On iPods.

-drasnor :fold:

profdlp

8 Jun 2006, 04:28pm

On iPods.

-drasnor :fold:
Indeed.

Apple shipped 836,000 Macintosh� units and 2,016,000 iPods during the quarter, representing a 6 percent increase in CPU units and a 500 percent increase in iPods over the year-ago quarter.

Source: Apple (http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/oct/13results.html)

Enverex

8 Jun 2006, 04:31pm

... "CPU units"?

Thrax

8 Jun 2006, 06:11pm

NIC card.

Animal

8 Jun 2006, 06:49pm

airbornflght

9 Jun 2006, 12:07am

i have enjoyed using my imac 20" much more than i have ever enjoyed using a pc...... for a �1000 show me where i could get a 20" screen with a computer inside that is less than two inches thick... Its all a matter of preference. If you want a dull tower pc then go for it... Its nice to have used both and know which i prefer.

Nor does it have the processing power that a "dull tower" does. Apple just makes stuff look pretty, and if you want to pay for pretty hardware, than that's fine, I will stick with hardware that is fast. And dont say that the mac processors, nad shoddy hardware are fast, why do you think they switched to intel processors, they were too slow. And they still arent the fastest.

primesuspect

9 Jun 2006, 02:11am

Airborn, have you ever used a modern mac?

Gargoyle

9 Jun 2006, 05:02am

Apple will never sell me one of their computers based on the hardware. To me, their software is their one and only selling point. They'd start making money from me if they started porting software to Windows.

airbornflght

9 Jun 2006, 05:08am

Airborn, have you ever used a modern mac?

Yes. It was decent I have to admit. But it just wasnt what I expected for that much money. I feel that a pc runs faster. The only thing I like about them in the first place is their os and some thier software. Other than that, its just overpriced hardware to be truthful, their really isnt any other way to put it, unless you are this apple fanboy that I ran accross that said Apple hardware was "special". I nodded my head.

Dont get me wrong, I know they arent slow, they are a moddern pc, so they will perform pretty good, but for bleeding edge performance, I have yet to see it out of a mac. I', sure it is there, but how much would it cost? $$$$$$$$

primesuspect

9 Jun 2006, 05:13am

drasnor

9 Jun 2006, 07:36am

by the numbers, of course Apple's hardware isn't worth the premium price... But you get something other than just hardware when you buy a mac. You get precision engineering, extremely high end customer service, and an all around pleasant experience. Taking apart a mac is sort of ... fun. It's so well designed and put together it's just kind of a joy to work on. There's just something to them, I can't put a finger on it. I am very experienced with both platforms, and I just like my mac a lot. I'll definitely buy another one.
I have no idea what you're talking about. I've been part of a tag team that replaced a hard drive in a G4 iBook and I can tell you right now that out of the score and a half screws that came out to remove that particular component we had some left over when all was said and done though there was a little extra blood from the spring-loaded razor blades mounted in the "no-zones" of all Macintoshes, sweat from exertion, and tears of frustration left in the chassis at the end.

G3 and G4 chassis mount passive heatsinks that are prone to overheating. I'm going to be milling an active heatsink for my G3 soon but the combined height of heatsink and fancan't exceed 2cm because Apple thoughtfully placed the 5.25" drive bay directly over the processor. Most aftermarket heatsinks have offset fans with a hot plate over the processor and a HSF hanging off the side of the socket somewhere. Now that's what I call good design. To be fair, the G3 and G4 cases are easy to get into but an inordinate amount of guts have to be removed to install a new optical drive. Oh, and let's not forget that Apple machines won't work with just any old drive, only ones that have Apple-provided drive firmware or drives with revisions "close enough". Perusing the compatibility database over at xlr8yourmac is something I've never had to do on any other platform.

Did I mention why I was pulling the hard drive out of the G4 iBook? It was because the original hard drive had been replaced with a newer, larger, cheaper drive after the owner wanted more space but didn't want to pay the extortion fees the Apple store charges for hard drives and installation. Well, several months later the notebook suffered a logic board failure (that's motherboard for you PC folks). Upon recepit of the laptop, the Apple techs disassembled it only to find the non-Apple hard drive whereupon they sent it back nearly six weeks later, unrepaired. Additionally, there were missing screws when we cracked it open so the Apple techs had lost a few as well as they were putting it back together. Now that's quality service.

I could go on, but I won't. I suppose your mileage may vary is an apt description of Apple.

-drasnor :fold:

Enverex

9 Jun 2006, 10:04am

I mean sure, the OS may be nice, but I'm just against paying their extortionate prices for the hardware. You're paying for the name, not for what you're physically getting. For a tech that is pretty much blasphemy.

profdlp

9 Jun 2006, 02:16pm

...There's just something to them, I can't put a finger on it...
Oooohhhh! It's just so...so...cool! They are probably already fitting you for your black turtleneck and brewing your French Roast coffee. :nudge:

primesuspect

9 Jun 2006, 03:42pm

I'm talking about post G4 Powermacs, dras. NO laptop is fun to work on.

GHoosdum

9 Jun 2006, 03:47pm

Mine was! Or maybe it was just the result that was so fun. ;)

QCH2002

9 Jun 2006, 03:52pm

There's just something to them, I can't put a finger on it. I am very experienced with both platforms, and I just like my mac a lot. I'll definitely buy another one. This coming from the upcoming yuppie with a SAAB!!! ;D

j/k, Brian.... I hate because I am scared to try a MAC... It's so different from a PC that is makes me feel like a noob.

GHoosdum

9 Jun 2006, 03:53pm

This coming from the upcoming yuppie with a SAAB!!!

Brian's going to be wearing a turtleneck and a beret when we show up to the LAN. It's the next logical step!

drasnor

9 Jun 2006, 04:14pm

Oooohhhh! It's just so...so...cool! They are probably already fitting you for your black turtleneck and brewing your French Roast coffee. :nudge:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2002/20020712h.gif
:crazy:
I'm talking about post G4 Powermacs, dras. NO laptop is fun to work on. So only the G5's? I haven't ever had the chance to crack one open; the guys at Frys and CompUSA are pretty good about having steel security cable going into all their orifices. See, when you said "new macs" I thought you were talking about the colored ones. At any rate, what you say may be true but I have no way of knowing. The Apple tech support is true though since that was a recent experience.

-drasnor :fold:

airbornflght

9 Jun 2006, 06:54pm

Like I said, OS is kick ass, I like the UI, and I just wish they would get a mouse with 2 god damned buttons!!! what is their problem? They have to be different and use a f***ed up mouse design. I get tired of holding the apple key or what ever its called to use a right button click. WTF?

And like I said, they may be good, but for what you pay, they better sure as hell be at least adequate. I've used many macs, and in the year book room at my school, that is all we have except for one pc, we have all imac g3's (SLOOOOWWW) and then they try and get me to use photoshop on them hah hah hah, now thats an experience. But I love tiger and the way it runs, I wish I could run it on my pc. But

"pc hardware is so inferior to apple hardware that it cant run Mac OS,"

translation

"Mac OS is the only way we can force people to buy our POS hardware at exorbinate ammount of money$$$!!!"

primesuspect

9 Jun 2006, 08:38pm

They've moved over to two button mice as of about 6 months ago.

airbornflght

9 Jun 2006, 10:08pm

They've moved over to two button mice as of about 6 months ago.

finaly? I mean, o good. That is nice to know that they finally woke up and smelled the two buttoned mouse

n_ver_ending

9 Jun 2006, 10:21pm

Do you think switching from PC to Mac is as hard as switching to Linux from Windows?

airbornflght

9 Jun 2006, 10:24pm

dunno, mac OS is unix, just really refined, but it is unix at its heart. I prefer linux/unix over windows anyday, but I am forced to use windows for 90% of my apps and gaming. But I still like linux/unix better and use it when at all possible.

Enverex

9 Jun 2006, 10:43pm

airbornflght

9 Jun 2006, 10:45pm

"Refined" wouldn't be the term I'd use, more... "labotomised"...
lol

n_ver_ending

10 Jun 2006, 02:17am

hahahaha...

Have any of you partitioned your computers to use both Linux and Windows?

Wouldn't that be having the best of two worlds? [Given you have enough memore for it]

Thrax

10 Jun 2006, 02:22am

Most of us probably have.

drasnor

10 Jun 2006, 03:48am

Do you think switching from PC to Mac is as hard as switching to Linux from Windows?I would say no, though it does depend on what you want to do on your computer (or what you don't want to do, as the case may be). If all you do is surf, Mac isn't so bad. If the software you want to use is only available on one platform then you don't have a whole lot of options.

Setting up and installing Linux is an order of magnitude more difficult than Mac OS X. Keep in mind that very, very few Mac users have ever installed Mac OS since it comes pre-installed on any machine that has it. That said, if I were to describe my MacOS experience in a single word, it would be 'limited'. However, I'll be the first to admit that I have very unique needs in an OS that aren't easily served.

dunno, mac OS is unix, just really refined, but it is unix at its heart.I honestly don't understand how Mac OS Classic is put together. It's wierd and doesn't handle multitasking well at all. Assuming you're talking about Mac OS X and if by UNIX you mean BSD, then yes. Darwin (the core of Mac OS X) is a derivative of BSD that uses the Mach microkernel. Mach operates somewhat differently than a standard Linux kernel but software is easily portable between the two, at least on the same arch (lots of code doesn't port well to PPC from x86 but that's more the fault of the x86 coder being lazy than any fault of the arch itself).

The only part of Mac OS X I would call refined is the GUI. Mac OS X runs a slick OpenGL-based user interface (Aqua) on top of a fairly standard BSDish system. Make no mistake: Aqua is pretty and it should be since Darwin is Open Source so the rest of the cost of the OS goes to marketing and paying the Aqua developers. Though Aqua is a decent GUI, I would've been more pleased if Apple had just made Aqua a freedesktop.org-compliant window manager running on top of X. This would make porting GPL software a breeze instead of having to re-code how the software talks to the desktop on a per-application basis. Apple thoughtfully included X with the developer tools though so if you don't mind running your software in a virtual desktop a la Classic you can still use applications that haven't yet been ported to Aqua. Of course, this is only important if you're like me and the vast majority of the software you use is GPL.

Have any of you partitioned your computers to use both Linux and Windows? Wouldn't that be having the best of two worlds?I have on multiple occasions and no it isn't the best of the two worlds. Actually getting both OS's installed without causing bootloader problems is challenging, both OS's take a long time to load, and you can't use software from the other OS without rebooting your PC. Working with files from the other OS is a royal pain since MS has not seen fit to release the specs for NTFS so Linux's NTFS driver is read-only and refuses to include drivers for common non-MS filesystems. Maintaining separate storage for both Windows and Linux is a waste of hard drive space.

That being said, dual-booting is likely the best you're going to get. The best of both worlds would be if all your Windows software ran full speed in WINE or Cedega or if you're a better hacker than I am and all your Linux software ran full speed under Ming or Cygwin. Or, if nothing you do needs to be 3D-accelerated you could run VMware and run both on virtual machines simultaneously.

-drasnor :fold:

airbornflght

10 Jun 2006, 06:15am

I would say no, though it does depend on what you want to do on your computer (or what you don't want to do, as the case may be). If all you do is surf, Mac isn't so bad. If the software you want to use is only available on one platform then you don't have a whole lot of options.

Setting up and installing Linux is an order of magnitude more difficult than Mac OS X. Keep in mind that very, very few Mac users have ever installed Mac OS since it comes pre-installed on any machine that has it. That said, if I were to describe my MacOS experience in a single word, it would be 'limited'. However, I'll be the first to admit that I have very unique needs in an OS that aren't easily served.

I honestly don't understand how Mac OS Classic is put together. It's wierd and doesn't handle multitasking well at all. Assuming you're talking about Mac OS X and if by UNIX you mean BSD, then yes. Darwin (the core of Mac OS X) is a derivative of BSD that uses the Mach microkernel. Mach operates somewhat differently than a standard Linux kernel but software is easily portable between the two, at least on the same arch (lots of code doesn't port well to PPC from x86 but that's more the fault of the x86 coder being lazy than any fault of the arch itself).

The only part of Mac OS X I would call refined is the GUI. Mac OS X runs a slick OpenGL-based user interface (Aqua) on top of a fairly standard BSDish system. Make no mistake: Aqua is pretty and it should be since Darwin is Open Source so the rest of the cost of the OS goes to marketing and paying the Aqua developers. Though Aqua is a decent GUI, I would've been more pleased if Apple had just made Aqua a freedesktop.org-compliant window manager running on top of X. This would make porting GPL software a breeze instead of having to re-code how the software talks to the desktop on a per-application basis. Apple thoughtfully included X with the developer tools though so if you don't mind running your software in a virtual desktop a la Classic you can still use applications that haven't yet been ported to Aqua. Of course, this is only important if you're like me and the vast majority of the software you use is GPL.

I have on multiple occasions and no it isn't the best of the two worlds. Actually getting both OS's installed without causing bootloader problems is challenging, both OS's take a long time to load, and you can't use software from the other OS without rebooting your PC. Working with files from the other OS is a royal pain since MS has not seen fit to release the specs for NTFS so Linux's NTFS driver is read-only and refuses to include drivers for common non-MS filesystems. Maintaining separate storage for both Windows and Linux is a waste of hard drive space.

That being said, dual-booting is likely the best you're going to get. The best of both worlds would be if all your Windows software ran full speed in WINE or Cedega or if you're a better hacker than I am and all your Linux software ran full speed under Ming or Cygwin. Or, if nothing you do needs to be 3D-accelerated you could run VMware and run both on virtual machines simultaneously.

-drasnor :fold:

I am really hoping that in the next 5 or so years, virtualization tech will become so mainstream, that you will be able to switch os's with a hotkey.:rockon: I I could do that, without rebooting, or any other crap.

drasnor

10 Jun 2006, 07:59am

I am really hoping that in the next 5 or so years, virtualization tech will become so mainstream, that you will be able to switch os's with a hotkey.:rockon: I I could do that, without rebooting, or any other crap.Fat chance. In 5 years every computer will have a trusted platform module and there will only be one OS, one office suite, one DRM-protected music format, and one IM client/protocol because it will be illegal for there to be otherwise, at least in the US anyway.

-drasnor :fold:

airbornflght

10 Jun 2006, 03:21pm

Fat chance. In 5 years every computer will have a trusted platform module and there will only be one OS, one office suite, one DRM-protected music format, and one IM client/protocol because it will be illegal for there to be otherwise, at least in the US anyway.

-drasnor :fold:

Which is why, as soon as I graduate from college, I really want to find a job in europe. Always wanted to see it, and I like it. And I think I have it figured out over there too. Because I dont think I would have to forfeit my citizenship to live there, so I would still have a valid us drivers license, and then, I am hoping since I already had a us license, that I wouldnt have to take a test or anything, I just walk in, say I need to renew it, and they hand me a new license, because from all of the horror stories on here about uk licenses:hair:.

Yeh, the us is screwing up computers and the internet for the rest of us. Has that legislation actually passed? I also know that they are trying to make private key encryption illegal also.:sad2:

profdlp

10 Jun 2006, 03:35pm

Wow.

Gargoyle

10 Jun 2006, 04:23pm

Alternatively, Airborn, you could write your senators, as a big telecommunications bill without Net Neutrality just passed the house. We need the senators to put Net Neutrality in their bill and get the house to add it to theirs during negotiations. There are large bi-partisan grassroots organizations (http://www.savetheinternet.com/) trying to make a difference.

Then, maybe, you won't have to move to Europe and try to find a way to get a work permit.

airbornflght

10 Jun 2006, 05:55pm

dont we have an agreement with at least the uk as far as work goes? I'm sure it cant be that hard to get one, but I've wrote my senators/congressman many times. The problem is, are senators arent educated in the subjects. We need to lobby and educate the senators so that they know what they are doing.:buck:

Gargoyle

10 Jun 2006, 06:37pm

There was a thread a long time ago with Shorty & Prime talking about how hard it is to get work permits in UK and US. I believe that in both countries the employer needs to show to the gov't that they couldn't find a suitable candidate in the country to fill the position (for long-term jobs).

profdlp

10 Jun 2006, 06:59pm

...I believe that in both countries the employer needs to show to the gov't that they couldn't find a suitable candidate in the country to fill the position (for long-term jobs).
I guess Madonna's presence indicates a dearth of sleazy women in the UK. :range:

Gargoyle

10 Jun 2006, 07:16pm

I guess Madonna's presence indicates a dearth of sleazy women in the UK. :range:

But... how does that explain Hugh Grant?

/me gets the memo.

HE'S A MAN?!

Enverex

10 Jun 2006, 07:16pm

OT: I'd always wanted to move to another country (preferably colder) but I had been looking into immigration of places lately and it looks like it's impossible to actually move and stay in another country unless you fill one of a certain amount of criteria, which most people don't. No wonder there are so many illegal immigrants in this country.

airbornflght

10 Jun 2006, 08:46pm

Gargoyle

10 Jun 2006, 09:09pm

Yeh, its hard to get citizenship to the us. I just want to go work in europe and see the sights. (and the women:D) I think if I could work there for even just 1 year that would be awesome, but I would like to stary there for 5 or more i think.
Just do a semester or year abroad in college. Student visas are easy to get, and I was told at OU that very few classes you take there can transfer back as letter-graded. Meaning, you just have to pass them. Gives you some more freedom to see the sights and relax a bit.