[ZippoGeek]

Salutations to all, and thanks to whoever runs this free forum.

I'm brand-new here. Don't tell my Dell, but I'm looking for something new and exotic. Well, that's not entirely accurate - it's actually an old flame I'm hoping to rekindle. We parted amicably in 1995. She was nondescript and a little chunky: my PowerBook 145. I sold her for a song after graduation. Maybe I needed cash to pay off old parking tickets. Maybe I just couldn't see eye-to-eye with her after the business world seduced me to the dark side. Whatever it was, I was a fool.

So here I stand at the crossroads. I've been an M$ guy for so long, I don't know if she'd recognize me (I've put on a few million lines of code). I'm considering the MacBook Pro. Seriously, what's involved in becoming a Mac guy again?

-Can I do everything I do with Bill? (I'm just the average home/small biz user).

-Can I surf the Net and see the same things I see now?

-Will I REALLY be able to run XP programs seamlessly w/an emuator?

-I have an Ethernet-capable Pioneer plasma that I'd like to use as a monitor on occassion. Will the Mac talk to it?

HONESTLY: are there going to be any serious drawbacks to switching? Yeah, my life with Bill is vanilla and often strained, but it's all I know. I have to be confident that a major change will be worth it.

Much obliged,

Jason
Buffalo

[Orion27]

Read this! http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070128-8717.html

[ZippoGeek]

Originally Posted by Orion27 

Read this! http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070128-8717.html

I know...I know...he's abusive and over-controlling. But is the grass really greener on the other side?

[Zarqawi's Eye]

Apple - Get a Mac

[mduell]

Originally Posted by ZippoGeek 

-Can I do everything I do with Bill? (I'm just the average home/small biz user).

-Can I surf the Net and see the same things I see now?

-Will I REALLY be able to run XP programs seamlessly w/an emuator?

-I have an Ethernet-capable Pioneer plasma that I'd like to use as a monitor on occassion. Will the Mac talk to it?

In OSX? Most of it, yea. There are some programs that just aren't available (MS Money), or the Mac version is a poor port of the Windows version (Quicken), but that can be handled with Windows (virtualized or native). And games leave something to be desired (many ports are released 6mo-1yr later, some very popular games are never ported). With Windows (virtualized or native)? Yes; games would require Windows to be running on bare metal, but finance apps (like the two previously mentioned) will be happy in virtualization.

In OSX? Almost, but not quite; some sites require IE+ActiveX. With Windows (virtualized or native)? Yes.

Yes, except it's usually called virtualization instead of emulation since it's the same instruction set. Or you can run them natively on the bare metal.

In OSX? Probably not; I haven't seen any support for displays-over-ethernet in OSX. But you can always boot up Windows and use the same apps you use today.

[Orion27]

Originally Posted by ZippoGeek 

I know...I know...he's abusive and over-controlling. But is the grass really greener on the other side?

http://www.apple.com/iphone/

[Theodour]

Originally Posted by ZippoGeek 

I know...I know...he's abusive and over-controlling. But is the grass really greener on the other side?

--There are some things you just can't do that you can do with Bill ... for instance, anything involving ActiveX.

--That will affect how you surf the net, if it involves said X. I've never been dependent on anything activeX, however, so I've never been affected by this. I've read of others who have been, though.

--Yes. I run parallels on my macbook, with office 2007 (I like 2003 better). It runs faster than my old dell p4 2.8

--Boy, I don't know. Is that an HD TV, or something? If so, it probably will work fine.

The only real drawback to switching that I've seen in people involves software investments. The funny thing is, most people coming from windows were using "free" versions of the software in question anyway. Another issue involves compatibility. I know someone who wants to run Lotus 123 (DOS program... they still run it on their 386) and I've never found a PPC based emulator that will do it right. I have not tried it on the new intel macs, though. Can you imagine running Windows 3/DOS 3.3 on current hardware. That old software might hurt itself!

[ZippoGeek]

Man, this is good stuff you guys...thanks!

[ZippoGeek]

By the beard of Zeus! That iPhone looks amazing!

[walkerjs]

Well, as I sit here posting this on my Macbook with Safari (in the second monitor of my dual monitor setup) I have Parallels workstation running in another screen (using Virtue Desktops) with Windows XP. This is running via VPN my employer's Lotus Notes for email, and Sametime for instant messaging. In the desktop above this one iChat sits waiting for people to talk with me, or video conference with this spiffy iSight camera. All this is being channeled by the Airport Extreme wireless network which is connected to my Linksys wireless router.

The Windows VM is currently downloading cygwin so I can do my UNIX-ish things for the corporate administration stuff, while Mail is checking periodically for email (personal email) from my friends all around the globe. In a little while I might take a break and play some Unreal Tournament 2004 (Universal binary now, thank you very much) to blow off some steam. Later this afternoon, after checking some servers via remote desktop in the Parallels windows VM I'll probably edit some music, and possibly burn an audio CD or two to play in my car after encoding the same music to sync to my iPod. My wife might work on some of her stuff with Photoshop on her Macbook (black, mine's white) or check the status of her most recent Amazon purchase.

Most of this is stuff that any Windows laptop could do. With a Macbook ALL of this is that and more than any Windows laptop could do.

So yeah, it's kind of like having your cake and eating it too.

[mitchell_pgh]

ZippoGeek,


When you talk in absolutes, you will always be disappointed.

Originally Posted by ZippoGeek

-Can I do everything I do with Bill? (I'm just the average home/small biz user).

No, you can't do EVERYTHING, but you can do most things. It depends upon the applications you use. Most programs worth their salt are Mac and PC, but there are a handful of programs that are only PC, and it's always going to be that way.

Originally Posted by ZippoGeek

-Can I surf the Net and see the same things I see now?

For the most part, yes, you will see the same thing, but on ocassion, a website just won't work, and it's usually NOT the fault of the Mac. If a web programmer doesn't know what he/she is doing, they can cripple their site to ONLY work for Internet Explorer. Most companies are smarter than that, but not all of them. I would recommend going to a Apple store and testing your most common sites (bank, CC, online bills)

Originally Posted by ZippoGeek

-Will I REALLY be able to run XP programs seamlessly w/an emuator?

Most of the time, yes, but again, nothing is 100% [even Windows]. There are some great applications out there that can make this happen, or worst case, you can just install Windows and have a great looking Apple built PC.

Originally Posted by ZippoGeek

-I have an Ethernet-capable Pioneer plasma that I'd like to use as a monitor on occassion. Will the Mac talk to it?

Does it talk to Windows? What model is it? I'm guessing you could connect the Mac to the TV, but I'm not sure about over Ethernet.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by walkerjs 

The Windows VM is currently downloading cygwin so I can do my UNIX-ish things for the corporate administration stuff...

I'm just wondering why you're doing this. Mac OS X is a full UNIX operating system. Just fire up /Applications/Utilities/Terminal and you're good to go. You can also install X11 under Mac OS X.

[besson3c]

iTerm is an awesome multi-tabbed terminal replacement.

[walkerjs]

Originally Posted by goMac 

I'm just wondering why you're doing this. Mac OS X is a full UNIX operating system. Just fire up /Applications/Utilities/Terminal and you're good to go. You can also install X11 under Mac OS X.

My employer uses a VPN which is Windows only, so I need to do some shell programming within the VM while IT's VPN is authenticated. I also use cygwin's X server whlie the VM is connected through VPN. Even if I'm at the office on the company's wireless I have to VPN in to do anything. The only way I can get the Mac on their net without doing the VPN thing is to physically plug it in to the gigabit ethernet. I'm kind of averse to that for my own reasons.

Believe me, I use Terminal to run a whole lot of shells that I wrote to do useful things over on the Mac side. Some of them I originally wrote on my Linux computer and pretty much worked as written under Mac OS X, especially once I got the correct Darwin ports. And use vi instead of TextEdit (or emacs if there is the occasional keyboard macro I need) over on the Mac side.

Besides, I install cygwin on every windows machine I touch even fake ones. With the Mac I don't have to, and that's quite a cool thing.

I've never really gotten into doing tabbed terminals. For some reason I kind of like having a bunch of them laying about (green on black, about 65% opacity.)

[mitchell_pgh]

Originally Posted by walkerjs 

My employer uses a VPN which is Windows only, so I need to do some shell programming within the VM while IT's VPN is authenticated. I also use cygwin's X server whlie the VM is connected through VPN. Even if I'm at the office on the company's wireless I have to VPN in to do anything. The only way I can get the Mac on their net without doing the VPN thing is to physically plug it in to the gigabit ethernet. I'm kind of averse to that for my own reasons.

Believe me, I use Terminal to run a whole lot of shells that I wrote to do useful things over on the Mac side. Some of them I originally wrote on my Linux computer and pretty much worked as written under Mac OS X, especially once I got the correct Darwin ports. And use vi instead of TextEdit (or emacs if there is the occasional keyboard macro I need) over on the Mac side.

Besides, I install cygwin on every windows machine I touch even fake ones. With the Mac I don't have to, and that's quite a cool thing.

I've never really gotten into doing tabbed terminals. For some reason I kind of like having a bunch of them laying about (green on black, about 65% opacity.)

I give great respect to anyone that prefers vi over anything. In my limited use, it reminded me of WordPerfect 1.0, but not so easy to use

[ZippoGeek]

I agree about the disappointment from "absolutes" - that's where the free market can get a little nutty. But it's nice to feel like I have a legitimate option again. Apple is making a ginormous statement. 5 years ago I would have laughed my butt off if someone even suggested I would be considering one.

Originally Posted by mitchell_pgh 

I would recommend going to a Apple store and testing your most common sites (bank, CC, online bills)

Great tip...I hadn't even thought to stop at the new location by me; was going to just order!

Originally Posted by mitchell_pgh 

Does it talk to Windows? What model is it? I'm guessing you could connect the Mac to the TV, but I'm not sure about over Ethernet.

Pioneer Elite - here are the inputs (I'm as new to high-def as I am this forum):

Independent Dual HDMI
Component – RGB HV (2 rear/1 side)
Composite (2 rear/1 side)
S-Video (2 rear)
SR (in/out)
RS-232C
LAN (10/100Base-T) – Ethernet
USB (Mass Storage Class)
PC

And should I wait a bit longer for Leopard?

Thanks for all the info,

Jason

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by mitchell_pgh 

I give great respect to anyone that prefers vi over anything. In my limited use, it reminded me of WordPerfect 1.0, but not so easy to use

vi and emacs are extremely powerful, they just have steep learning curves.

I'd say that vi is better suited for editing config files, while emacs is better for development, but maybe that's just me...

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by walkerjs 

My employer uses a VPN which is Windows only, so I need to do some shell programming within the VM while IT's VPN is authenticated. I also use cygwin's X server whlie the VM is connected through VPN. Even if I'm at the office on the company's wireless I have to VPN in to do anything. The only way I can get the Mac on their net without doing the VPN thing is to physically plug it in to the gigabit ethernet. I'm kind of averse to that for my own reasons.

Believe me, I use Terminal to run a whole lot of shells that I wrote to do useful things over on the Mac side. Some of them I originally wrote on my Linux computer and pretty much worked as written under Mac OS X, especially once I got the correct Darwin ports. And use vi instead of TextEdit (or emacs if there is the occasional keyboard macro I need) over on the Mac side.

Besides, I install cygwin on every windows machine I touch even fake ones. With the Mac I don't have to, and that's quite a cool thing.

I've never really gotten into doing tabbed terminals. For some reason I kind of like having a bunch of them laying about (green on black, about 65% opacity.)

The two VPN protocols are PPTP (Windows) and IPSec. I've seen cases where the VPN server has a hard time negotiating connections with Macs, but just to be clear, the problem here is not the network itself.

[NeilCharter]

Originally Posted by ZippoGeek 

I agree about the disappointment from "absolutes" - that's where the free market can get a little nutty. But it's nice to feel like I have a legitimate option again. Apple is making a ginormous statement. 5 years ago I would have laughed my butt off if someone even suggested I would be considering one.



Great tip...I hadn't even thought to stop at the new location by me; was going to just order!



Pioneer Elite - here are the inputs (I'm as new to high-def as I am this forum):

Independent Dual HDMI
Component – RGB HV (2 rear/1 side)
Composite (2 rear/1 side)
S-Video (2 rear)
SR (in/out)
RS-232C
LAN (10/100Base-T) – Ethernet
USB (Mass Storage Class)
PC

And should I wait a bit longer for Leopard?

Thanks for all the info,

Jason

You can easily connect a macbook to a HDTV via HDMI. The video connects from the DVI output to the HDMI input on the TV using a DVI-HDMI cable. The sound goes through the mac output and into the TV via the sound input. Works like a dream on my old powerbook and should be way better on the new intel books.

[EricTheRed]

Originally Posted by ZippoGeek 

Salutations to all, and thanks to whoever runs this free forum.

I'm brand-new here. Don't tell my Dell, but I'm looking for something new and exotic. Well, that's not entirely accurate - it's actually an old flame I'm hoping to rekindle. We parted amicably in 1995. She was nondescript and a little chunky: my PowerBook 145. I sold her for a song after graduation. Maybe I needed cash to pay off old parking tickets. Maybe I just couldn't see eye-to-eye with her after the business world seduced me to the dark side. Whatever it was, I was a fool.

So here I stand at the crossroads. I've been an M$ guy for so long, I don't know if she'd recognize me (I've put on a few million lines of code). I'm considering the MacBook Pro. Seriously, what's involved in becoming a Mac guy again?

-Can I do everything I do with Bill? (I'm just the average home/small biz user).

-Can I surf the Net and see the same things I see now?

-Will I REALLY be able to run XP programs seamlessly w/an emuator?

-I have an Ethernet-capable Pioneer plasma that I'd like to use as a monitor on occassion. Will the Mac talk to it?

HONESTLY: are there going to be any serious drawbacks to switching? Yeah, my life with Bill is vanilla and often strained, but it's all I know. I have to be confident that a major change will be worth it.

Much obliged,

Jason
Buffalo

I play games with Bill (real games like Oblivion and NWN2) and I'm forced to use Bill with my trading software and it all works fine. I'd like Apple to eventually just support Bill's applications so I wouldn't need to run Bill whatsoever but until that time, Bill seems to run well except configuring more that two monitors causes Bill problems (fits really but Bill does that on any PC so I'm told) and for reasons beyond my ability to solve, Bill refuses to recognize the number pad of my keyboard. Why the three key above the W but not the 3 key, Bill?

People tell me it is Bill's problem.

[legacyb4]

What you also need to ask is "what won't I have to do now that I don't have Bill?"...

Originally Posted by ZippoGeek 

-Can I do everything I do with Bill? (I'm just the average home/small biz user).

[ZippoGeek]

>>>What you also need to ask is "what won't I have to do now that I don't have Bill?"...<<<

I like the thought of not running Spybot 3x a week...

>>>You can easily connect a macbook to a HDTV via HDMI. The video connects from the DVI output to the HDMI input on the TV using a DVI-HDMI cable.<<<

Awesome. I'll make it work. All I've dreamt about is running my fantasy league draft on the big screen.

Will Leopard be a big jump jump forward?

[NeilCharter]

Originally Posted by ZippoGeek 

>>>What you also need to ask is "what won't I have to do now that I don't have Bill?"...<<<

I like the thought of not running Spybot 3x a week...

>>>You can easily connect a macbook to a HDTV via HDMI. The video connects from the DVI output to the HDMI input on the TV using a DVI-HDMI cable.<<<

Awesome. I'll make it work. All I've dreamt about is running my fantasy league draft on the big screen.

Will Leopard be a big jump jump forward?

Leopard will have some very cool new features. Time machine, an automatic backup system, is probably the standout item at the moment.

Apple have said there are many unannounced features so we could be in for a nice surprise.

Tiger is already fantastic but Leopard could really expand on Macs ease of use, leverage the power of Unix even more and make more improvements in interoperability.

Now the big question is when it will be released. I had though the end of March was going to be the date, but I think it may be a bit longer. Maybe not until June. The WWDC is set for June and may be the forum for launching the OS.

[phoenix78]

ZippoGeek, if you get a mac you will need to buy new software for your mac because Bills stuff wont run on mac unless you go and buy windows of course and instal it on your mac. so consider the exrta expense beyond the hardware.

It wouldbe worthwhile searching for the mac equivalent of the software you use on your dell. This way you can make a seamless switch by having the same software and you wont have any problems. Otherwise you will need to buy and learn a new program todo the stuff you currently do.

I have a mac and run windows under bootcamp. i must say im alot more paranoid about using windows than i am a mac. This is because of viruses/spyware on windows and poor stability on windows... On my mac im just using it without a care in the world from any malicious software lol.... although i dont lower my guard on my mac its just nice to know that viruses are a rare thing and my mac wont crash at the drop of a hat.

Also, the thing you get with a mac is some seriousy nice hardware. Once you use a mac its really hard to turn and use any other manufacturers products. Its never as nice as a mac.

ALSO macs are becomming competitive in price compared to some other manufacturers... for what you get in a mac you will be paying a similar price for a different manufacturers junk.

Hope i have helped evangelize you!

cheers,
rob