Why do we want a Mac?

Poststructural Pub
1

Our 6ish year old Windows PC is showing it’s age: getting really slow, cooling fan is making all sorts of weird noises, etc., so we’re thinking of replacing it. We have Windows Vista on our laptop and are not crazy about it, so we started thinking about a Mac. I hear all sorts of great things about them, but my wife is leery since they’re upwards of $1K and we can get PCs for about half of that.

Why do we want to spend the difference?
Can we network the old computer with a Mac (temporarily) and transfer files directly? Our cable comes into the old computer: can we simply unplug the old connections and plug them right into the Mac? Our only printer is used as a network printer and is connected to the old PC: can we do this with the Mac and still share the printer with the laptop? Thanks

2

Why do we want a Mac?

You don’t.

3

Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onion on a sesame-seed bun?

–James

4

Agreed.

KAC

5

Can we network the old computer with a Mac (temporarily) and transfer files directly? Our cable comes into the old computer: can we simply unplug the old connections and plug them right into the Mac? Our only printer is used as a network printer and is connected to the old PC: can we do this with the Mac and still share the printer with the laptop? Thanks

Sorry about the Big Mac reference, couldn’t resist. :slight_smile:

You can network a PC and a Mac. You need something called a router. Here’s how that works.

Usually the cable comes into your house and plugs into your cable modem, then the cable modem plugs into your computer.

To network both the PC and the Mac, instead of the cable modem plugging into your computer, the wire from the cable modem plugs into the router. Then there are wires from the router to each computer. This lets the computers share the internet connection; it also lets the two computers talk directly to each other through the router.

Routers can be expensive, but don’t have to be. You can get a router for about $25 that will suit your purposes.

If your printer is a network printer, it’ll also plug into your router. (Usually a router has 4 ports). Both the PC and the Mac will be able to print to it.

If you need more than 4 ports, that’s no big deal. You get the router, and also a device called a switch. The switch has usually 4 to 16 ports and plugs into one of the router ports, then more computers and printers plug directly into the switch.

I hope this helps…if you need more specific info about any of this, ask, and I’ll try to help.

–James

6

Why do you dislike Vista? Running multiple platforms can be a larger headache than it is worth, and the two OSes have similarities.

7

You know, it’s funny. I divide my time online fairly evenly now between computers running Windows XP and a MacBook (which will boot into Windows XP when I need it to.)

In general, I do prefer the Mac. But, there are still some things I need to do that I’ve found I either can’t do on the Mac, or I COULD do if I was willing to take the time or do what I have to do to find Mac-oriented solutions to the things I do now with the PC.

Increasingly, I’m doing using web-based apps to do what I need to do. I use Google applications for some things. I’m increasingly using zohowriter.com for word processing. Because my websites were established some time ago with Windows machines running FrontPage, I’ve not really been able to take the time and train myself to make all of that manageable from the Mac. And, unfortunately, I’ve found that I don’t like Microsoft Office 2003 for Mac.

At home, I use my MacBook, and at work I use WIndows Xp. Increasingly, it just doesn’t seem to matter much to me which, since I spend most of my time on the computer online.

8

Pay no attention to these Microsoft weenies. Go Mac!

I have a desktop PC and a desktop Mac, and these are connected to each other by means of a router, which also serves as a firewall, aka router/firewall.

Now, once your computers are connected to each other by a router/firewall, software could be added to a Mac, which then allows you to transfer all of your PC files to a late model, Intel based Mac. On the other hand, you then have the option of putting a PC OS on the Mac, giving you a dual boot system, where you could then transfer all of your PC files directly. And, by then adding software known as “Parallels” you could then run the Mac OS and the PC OS simultaneously on the Mac. That cannot be done on a PC.

Yes, Macs do cost more money, but there’s a flip side to that, too. For instance, if you need Microsoft Office, get ready to lay out about $400 for the software, but iWork 08 for Mac sets you back about $80. Go figure. Basically, although the up front cost of a Mac indeed is higher, it comes back in software savings.

When it comes to going online, the Mac is virtually bulletproof, and that’s no exaggeration. Yup, they’re just that good. For instance, I’ve been using this Mac online for about fourteen months, in which time I’ve gone all around the e-world, and today it works just as well as it did on day one, no viruses, no spyware, no problems. True, every now and then it will freeze, but it only takes a few moments to unlock it, and then it goes right back to whatever I need it to do as though nothing bad had ever happened, flawlessly, every time. Updates from Apple come in every now and then, but it’s just a matter of minutes to download them, and that’s all there is to it.

Why do I keep a PC on hand? Well, unfortunately there still are a few Web sites which cater exclusively to Internet Explorer, but very few these days, and I’m just about to ditch this PC, goodbye. Besides, by using a free download such as Flip4Mac, the Mac Safari browser can read sites written for IE. Moreover, in general the software currently available for Mac computers is extensive, indeed, every Microsoft application can now be run on a Mac, provided you have the software to do so. Just don’t try to run anything Mac on a PC.

Mac went to Intel architecture in about January of 2006, and since then the historic incompatibilities between Macs and PCs have largely vanished, due to software.

Also, you can say goodbye to disk de-frag, and other such maintenance.

So, the up front money might be scary, but in the long term it all comes back, and then some.

Signed,

Happy Camper

9

Linux

10

Aside from the fact that you don’t really need to defrag very often anyway (I’ve only ran it a few times in my life) why doesn’t a mac need to do this?

The reason you need to defrag are surely the same for Mac as they are for Windows or does it just do it automatically every now and then and not tell you?

A quick internet search reveals the answer is unclear.

Either way this is such a minor argument compared to something like paying over the odds for system to do the same as a cheap PC that I don’t think it’s worth mentioning.

Oh and you don’t need to pay $400 for Office. Just use openoffice if you’re short of cash.



Also I’d recommend the average user look at a cheap PC with Ubuntu before considering an overpriced Mac if they REALLY want to get away from windows that badly.


A pertinent question to ask is what the primary function of the computer is to be? Just web browsing and word processing? Games?

I’m guessing that because you’re making do on a 6 year old XP box just now then raw power isn’t something you require. So why not just go for a cheap, low spec PC that will cater your needs rather than buy an expensive fashion statement with an apple on the front.

11

LOL!

Linux language is related to Mac language, in that they both are Unix derivatives.

Unix has been worked on by some of the finest computer minds on planet Earth during the past thirty-five years or more, and is now virtually bulletproof.

12

A Mac is a UNIX-based system (actually, it’s FreeBSD based, I believe).

UNIX/Linux filesystems, at least modern ones, are designed to not require much in the way of defragmenting under normal use; the filesystem code is written such that fragmentation is minimal.

That said, there are administration utilities for the common filesystems that do allow you to defragment as well as do some advanced tweaking if you have the need. These are usually a free download.

–James

13

No! The filing systems work altogether differently, and the Mac never has a reason to de-frag.

C’mon, try one, and see the advantages for yourself.

I ran PCs for years, but these Macs simply are something else.

And, I honestly have no reason to look back.

:slight_smile:

14

Buy a good pc, get Windows XP sp2, get openoffice.

Then laugh at mac owners for spending about twice the amount to get something of equal or less quality. :smiley:

15

I was about to say that I’m not a MS weenie, I’m more of a Linux Weenie, and I pretty much hate Vista, but know a proper value when I see it. :slight_smile:

The argument about software being less on the Mac OS is total bunk and the availability is limited as compared to Windows. If fact you probably could do everything you need to do on a Windows system using freeware and shareware and not have to spend a cent. I think your choice of machine really depends on what you want to do with it and how comfortable you are with the OS.

KAC

16

I’ve tried one heaps of times. There’s one sitting beside me right now in fact, it’s horrible and I hate it. My friends in support can’t stand the things either as they break more than any of the other computers in the university,

Give me a PC that costs less, I can upgrade myself and that I can run games on any day.

I don’t even have that much against a Mac, I’d use one if it genuinely offered a better deal than what I have. It just doesn’t and I hate the blatant lies and propaganda that the mac zealots espouse in threads like these so I feel I have to balance them up a bit.

17

Linux language is related to Mac language, in that they both are Unix derivatives.

This is a rather meaningless statement, as everything in Microsoft came out of the UNIX world as well, so there is really no point being made here at all. In each case, someone else has made most of the choices for you and prepackaged everything so that it is ready to run. The packages come in different wrappers and have different flavours, but the basics underneath are the same - just different options are preselected.

djm

18

The reason I finally got a Mac was because I had so much trouble with
recording through my M-Audio box on my PC. There were so many
buffering problems on the PC that the Mac does not have. Also, I’ve
always liked Unix and enjoy being able to open a terminal window and
use the command line. But the advantage over Linux, for the casual user,
is that you never have to use the command line, or even have to know it
exists…

If you decide to go the Mac route, the cheaper option (the one I went for)
is to buy a Mac mini for about $500-$700 (shop around) and use the same
monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. that you are already using for your PC. The
windows keyboards work fine with a Mac, the only confusing thing is that
Mac keyboards have an “option” key, which is mapped on a Windows
keyboard to the “start” key between the left Ctrl and Alt keys. The other
thing that I had to get used to was that the menu bar is not part of an
application’s window, but instead is always at the top of the entire screen.
I’d seen this before when using old Macs in high school, but it still takes
some getting used to.

As for networking, I had a LOT more luck sharing files between my PC
and Mac than I ever did trying to share between two PCs. When I tell
the PC to share a directory (as long as I tell the Mac the correct login ID
for the PC), the Mac’s Finder shows me all the directories that are shared,
I choose one, and it opens it in the Finder. Then I can copy-paste files to
a Mac directory, like shooting fish in a barrel.


I agree up to this point, but not past that. DOS, on which Windows was built,
never included the security and multiuser environment that was built into
Unix. Then, the two OSs took different evolutionary paths making DOS
diverge further from the Unix ideal. Microsoft tried to add security and
multiple user accounts back into Windows later, but without the underlying
structure in DOS, this was just window-dressing. They sacrificed security
and stability for ease of use.

19

Microsoft started with MS-DOS, which was essentially CP/M+ with extensions for a directory structure that was based (very loosely) on UNIX.

The first versions of Windows were built on top of DOS.

Microsoft now runs its own kernel, which is unrelated to UNIX, and uses its own proprietary tools, commands, and filesystems, which are again unrelated to UNIX.

Now I’ll grant you the look and feel of Windows has moved much closer to the look and feel of an X destop in both XP and Vista…but that’s appearance, not substance.

Windows has some nice features…very wide hardware compatibility (somewhat reduced in Vista), many many cool games widely available in all genres, very good multimedia capabilities, very good upgrade and expandability on the hardware.

Mac / Linux / UNIX has some good stuff going for it as well–rock-solid stability, built-in immunity to almost all malware and viruses, extreme ease of use once you get past the initial learning curve, and of course, the vastly powerful UNIX command line (the shell).

There are things that can be said on both sides, but if you are an avid gamer, you’re probably not going to be as happy with a Mac as with a Windows system. If you are looking for a solid, dependable computer for doing almost anything else, then UNIX / Linux blows Windows away. If you are a gadget-obsessed hardware fanatic, then a Windows or a Linux box have the ability to “get under the hood” and upgrade and change things more than a Mac might let you.

All depends on what you want.

:slight_smile:

–James

20

I’ve heard that before. I’m sure it’s easier to tell in a multi-computer
environment. Any idea what sort of failures are most common in the Macs?
I’ve always been disturbed by the lack of fans in Macs. My understanding
was that Steve Jobs hated the sound of fans, and refused to let them be
integrated into early Apple computers. This required some fancy-schmancy
engineering, but that can only go so far with today’s hot-running processors.

I’m pretty sure there’s a fan somewhere in my Mac mini, but it must be on
a variable speed controller, because it’s almost silent if there’s no CD in it.
It actually scares me a bit, I’m just getting around to leaving it on for more
than 8 hours at a time.