Mac or not?

Moneymaker

knightstyle wrote: »

As an old codger I get on fine with Macs, plus updates are free and lots of good basic software out there for free.
.....
So to all the oldies out there, don't be afraid of getting a Mac.

Another old codger here. I didn't get where I am today without using a Mac.
:cool:

cymrugirl

Marty_J wrote: »

Hhmmm, that is kind of annoying.

You could always:

(a) use MacTheRipper to rip your DVDs, removing the region coding in the process and then burn them to a blank DVD;
(b) rip them and just watch them on your computer using VLC without burning to a DVD (ripping should take less than 15 minutes on a fast computer); or
(c) rip them and convert to mp4 using HandBrake, and keep them in iTunes.

Arg - was reading up on this a bit more and no one has been able to get around this problem (including the solution above) because of the superdrive. I thought it wouldn't be a deal breaker but the more I think about it, the more I seem to want it :mad::D

Can anyone recommend an external dvd burner that would be compatible? some people have mentioned buying it from other worldly computing but not sure I want to buy it from america (shipping +customs etc).

Sorry for hijacking your thread carbootcrazy Did you end up making your decision yet?

Marty_J

MacTheRipper doesn't work? Are you sure? I thought it's success depended on the DVD in question, not on the drive.

Any external DVD writer should work though. Just plug it in and off you go.

judderman62

isofa wrote: »

As you know I use (and need) both, but a lot of your post is likely to come across as misinformation.

Not like for like with a quality brand, also remember the software you get with it to, which you don't get with PCs (iLife for instance), also Firewire as standard, and all sorts of other neat additions which would be extras or not even available on a PC.
But you can't legally run OS X on a PC due to hacks and licensing restrictions from Apple, so legally you can't run *any* Mac only software on a PC. But a Mac can run OS X, Linux/Unix, Windows, X11 (free with OS X) etc.
Running the OS you like, and then running a couple of Windows only apps in virtualisation (parallels etc), is really getting the best of both worlds - should you need an odd PC app, not available for the Mac.

This is a personal taste thing, manufacturers who ignore design, miss offering some key advantages to users. Who wants to use a poorly designed laptop, or squint at a badly resolved screen? The thing they have IS function and design together, you suggest they don't.

Having used both since their main commercial incarnations, I've never had an issue being able to do anything on a Mac, and I do everything from designing software systems, websites, high end DTP/design through to pro photography and some amateur music. On a PC I have more of an issue working with imaging and music because they aren't built for this from the ground up, IMO. Many pro photographers and musicians use Macs.
I can however look way back with a wry smile, when I was using PageMaker, Macs and a LaserWriter printer, creating quality DTP material which would have be impossible using PC technology available in the mid to late 1980s.

I could list plenty of Mac only apps, Logic Studio and Final Cut Pro just to begin with are at the top of their game and cutting edge. Tons of Apple only software (iPhoto, iDVD etc.), and reams of third party apps be it from shareware companies to commercial ones.
I freely admit that they are millions more tools available on the PC though.

Each to their own, if you like a PC/Windows and are happy with it, then use it, same for a Mac, but it's important to be armed with the facts.

IMO there isn't much either platform can't do well, but each excel in areas the other doesn't.

(Excel btw was first released on the Mac )

thank you - that is an excellent and informative post. I am considering at long last moving away from the dreadful microsoft (have entertained the idea for some years) and am weighing up both a linux based box or the top of the range iMac (ouch how expensive :eek::eek::eek:) I am leaning towards the Mac and I too have heard so, so, so many people say that once they got a Mac there is no way they would ever even consider going back to a windows based system - this includes my brother, who switched last year and would not go back and his brother in law's son - who has a degree in IT and works in an IT capacity and does all sorts with his mac and also says no way would he go back. It's difficult, for me, not to be swayed - and oh my god how beautiful are they too (though I see that as a bonus **NOT** my main reason for being drawn)

judderman62

can a computer be more beautiful than this:

DatabaseError

Beauty is only skin deep...look under the surface and you have mediocre components...thankfully the OS is optimised to get the best from them.
Thankfully macs now have sporty Intel processors...as supported by microsoft since...er...forever...so they do have some 'power under the hood', and they can now run mainstream apps

Awec

Would love a macbook myself.

If I ever won the lottery....

Cat695

Leopard wrote: »

14 August 2008


:rolleyes:



3 April 2009

:rotfl:

Least I had the balls to go and try one.....so your post pointed what out??? other than showing you have a rather boring life looking through old threads!

All it shows is that I try things....

Marty_J

Awec wrote: »

Would love a macbook myself.

If I ever won the lottery....

You can get one for around £700 (less if you know a student), so it's hardly lottery winning stuff.

If I won the lottery, I would get a Mac Pro with two 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors, 32 GB of RAM, 4 TB of HDD space, four NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 graphics cards with 2 TB of memory, and two 30-inch HD Apple displays.

Leopard

judderman62 wrote: »

can a computer be more beautiful than this:

Yes.

And I'm posting this on one.

Mine is eight years old, 1.2 GHz (Powerlogix upgrade) CPU, GeForce 3 graphics (64 MB), 120 GB 7200 rpm, 1.5 GB of RAM, Harmon Kardon Soundsticks, 100-T Ethernet, Firewire x2, USB x2, Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, Airport 802.11 b/g, running the latest Mac OS 10.5.6 (with iLife 08, iWork 08, Office 2008) and displaying it on a 23" Apple HD monitor.

Taking one apart to upgrade it (which I last did 6 years ago) confronts you with an truly awe-inspiring work of interlocking precision engineering.

You could even, God forbid, run Windows on one if you were mad. :eek:

It was, and remains, the masterpiece of a genius.



Cat695,

No searching required at all; it was easy to find.

I remember that particular thread well. I watched it unfurl in a corner of my monitor as you spent a whole afternoon demonstrating your ignorance and illiteracy by wasting the time of a bunch of Mac regulars who ought to have known better than to spend their time arguing with you. I even, as I recall, got a PM from markymoo - bless him - urging me to enter the fray.

But I wasn't tempted. I was busy, instead, ensuring that I nailed for £88 the only only $300 (plus intercontinental shipping and VAT) Bookendz docking station for a FW800 MacBook Pro that has ever been offered on eBay UK over the last two years.

It was a greatly more profitable use of my time and I was extremely grateful to you for keeping distracted everyone else on here who might otherwise have raised the price I had to pay for it. (Not that anyone else was ever going to outbid me on that one - I had three Macs, running three different browsers, on three different ISPs training their gunsights on it)

So, I remembered you for the very great great favour you did me, quite inadvertently, on the afternoon of 14 August 2008. :money:

I think of you and chuckle every time I dock a ProBook into that invaluable Bookendz.

I'm glad I finally got to thank you.