buying a Mac for an office computer

[crapito]

my girlfriend's computer just died, thanks to a cat and a glass of water, so we are looking to get a new computer for her soon. she wants a Mac and neither of us know anything about them, so i'd like some help... we need a general office computer (ie Excel, internet, no games...) that would be similar to this Windows PC config...

1 GHz CPU, 256mb RAM, 40gb HDD, NIC, USB, good 2D video with DVI for future LCD monitor, and a CDRW drive.

we are going to check out CompUSSR tomorrow and go from there. any suggestions on what model/config of a Mac we should be looking at? also, what's a good price for a Mac with these capabilities.

thanks.

 

[Sunner]

The 1.25 GHz PowerMac G4 would probably be the closest thing to that config.
The G4's have dropped quite a bit in price since the G5's started selling, the price at Apple store is $1.299.

 

[0roo0roo]

any mac in her price range.

 

[Corporate Thug]

i STRONGLY recommend going through a school based computer store if u or your girl have any ties to college students as apples offers a good amount of student discount

 

[crapito]

two related questions:

1) do Macs take regular PC SDRAM? i'd rather buy RAM from Newegg than Apple as it's a lot cheaper.
2) do Macs take regular PCI cards? wireless network cards are a lot cheaper on Newegg than Apple.

thanks again...

 

[ViRGE]

1) Yes, but keep in mind that they're on DDR RAM nowadays
2) Yes, but make sure the card is compatible before you buy it. Just because it fits doesn't mean there are drivers

 

[HokieESM]

Just a comment (I'm not anti-Mac, just a personal observation): Don't bother unless you are getting OSX. A Mac running OSX will make an EXCELLENT, stable computer for your girlfriend..... and it will handle any office app you throw at it with ease. But the OS9 CD is worth about as much as the AOL CDs you get in the mail (well, maybe more than that. maybe.).

I bought a Mac not long ago (a used G4) that initially had OS9, and it was easily the most frustrating piece of computer equipment I've owned (since my old Dell was running Win95). But after upgrading to OSX, its been great.... albeit not screamingly fast.

Synopsis: get OSX. Period.

 

[metalmania]

I think all the Macs today are shipped with Os X. I bought an emac last month with OS x installed. eMac uses SDRAM, not DDR, so I bought one Kingston from Newegg. Runs great.

But I still hate Apple.

 

[Robor]

Just a question (and I don't want to start a PC/Apple flameware)... Why does she want a Mac as opposed to a PC? I could see if she was doing graphics but aren't standard PC's cheaper and easier to use in an office environment?

 

[Gunbuster]

she wants a Mac and neither of us know anything about them

Score +1 for apple marketing

 

[Sureshot324]

Originally posted by: Gunbuster

she wants a Mac and neither of us know anything about them

Score +1 for apple marketing

 

[crapito]

Originally posted by: Robor
Just a question (and I don't want to start a PC/Apple flameware)... Why does she want a Mac as opposed to a PC? I could see if she was doing graphics but aren't standard PC's cheaper and easier to use in an office environment?

she wants a Mac cause everyone in her "office" (she works from home) has a Mac. granted, that's all of maybe 5 people, but still, transfering files and such is easier if everyone has a Mac, no? i've tried, unsuccessfully, to get her a PC, cause i know plenty about them and they are about 1/2 the price comparably equiped, and i even have a second computer that she could use... but, no, she wants a Mac cause that's what people at her job use. her last computer was a Mac laptop, the one the cat and water killed, and she liked it, so Mac it is...

thanks for the feedback and input. hopefully today will be a fruitful day.

btw: i've seen OSX, though never used it. sure looks pretty...

 

[slackerinabox]

Hey,
She wants a mac so she gets a mac- don't argue with her I'd suggest either an imac (with those gorgeous built in LCDs) or an eMac.. An 800 mhz G4 is speedy enough for everyday use... Remember to buy lots of ram and a G4 based imac...It uses standard pc133 ram

 

[DaveSimmons]

Stay away from G5 macs if she might ever need to use VirtualPC to run any Windows programs, since G5's won't run VirtualPC.

 

[dkozloski]

Dr. Emilio Bombay says that a Mac is a computerlike device for the dimwitted. Maybe your girlfriend needs to start a new trend in the office.

 

[Booster]

Originally posted by: dkozloski
Dr. Emilio Bombay says that a Mac is a computerlike device for the dimwitted. Maybe your girlfriend needs to start a new trend in the office.

Perhaps, that's somewhat correct. They look so cool and pretty, however, there their merits end (for me, not for those who can actually use them). If I had a Mac, I don't know what I'd do with it. Probably sell it at once, b/c it's useless for me. It's got it's own proprietary software which noone I know uses. What do I need it for? Of course, it looks like your GF does need it. But would it make a good office "PC"? Definitely not, IMO.

 

[thraxes]

Originally posted by: dkozloski
Dr. Emilio Bombay says that a Mac is a computerlike device for the dimwitted. Maybe your girlfriend needs to start a new trend in the office.

Ah yes that may be true, until you fire up the Bash command line on OSX
Now that IS fun and way 1337 of course (tried it, like it, need cash for iBook). Actually I know a few network admins that have recently gone for a apple laptop exactly for this reason: Easy to use for their SOs at home and powerfull with a boatload of 'nix based network admin tools available.

 

[HokieESM]

Originally posted by: thraxes

Originally posted by: dkozloski
Dr. Emilio Bombay says that a Mac is a computerlike device for the dimwitted. Maybe your girlfriend needs to start a new trend in the office.

Ah yes that may be true, until you fire up the Bash command line on OSX
Now that IS fun and way 1337 of course (tried it, like it, need cash for iBook). Actually I know a few network admins that have recently gone for a apple laptop exactly for this reason: Easy to use for their SOs at home and powerfull with a boatload of 'nix based network admin tools available.

Oh, OSX is awesome. I'm NOT a network admin... but a LOT of scientific computing is done on UNIX based computers... so I've had to learn a little. I basically got the G4 to play around on... and I'm VERY happy with OSX. Now, if Apple will only hurry up and come out with G5 PowerBooks.... ;-)

As far those commenting on Apples not being good office computers.... they're fine. They're great. Very easy to learn (you don't notice OSX is Unix-based unless you LOOK)... although you do have to get used to its quirks. Its not like you need speed to run Word. The only thing I've used/made recently that *I* think is better is a Tualatin Celeron "office" computer that's dead quiet.... and its plenty fast for anything that's thrown at it.

 

[newbiepcuser]

Like someone suggested, if you're student etc, try to buy through Apple's educational discount. Don't forget to include the price of software like Office.

 

[Johnbear007]

Originally posted by: Sureshot324

Originally posted by: Gunbuster

she wants a Mac and neither of us know anything about them

Score +1 for apple marketing

 

[Eug]

For office computing:

eMac G4 or else G4 Power Mac. I'd go for the latter if you can spare the dough, since it's faster, has a better video card, it's more expandable, and supports true dual monitor and DVI.

? 1.25GHz w/ 1MB L3 Cache
? 256MB DDR333 SDRAM (PC2700) -1 DIMM
? 80GB Ultra ATA drive
? Combo Drive (DVD/CD-RW)
? ATI Radeon 9000 Pro dual-display w/64MB DDR
? 56K internal modem

Subtotal $1,299.00

BTW, 256 MB is not enough for OS X. Even for basic stuff, I'd stick with 384 or 512. You can buy additional DDR RAM at Newegg or whatever. Hell, I've got 768 MB for my G4 laptop but that's because I do video stuff, etc. There are good educational deals if you're a student.

Why do you need wireless? Anyways, if you were to get wireless I'd stick with Apple's stuff. Other 3rd party stuff works, but it's only maybe $40 cheaper, and you sometimes have to wait a while for updates for drivers. With Apple stuff, it just works, period. All updates are automatic too.

I think all the Macs today are shipped with Os X. I bought an emac last month with OS x installed. eMac uses SDRAM, not DDR, so I bought one Kingston from Newegg. Runs great.

But I still hate Apple.

LOL.

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Stay away from G5 macs if she might ever need to use VirtualPC to run any Windows programs, since G5's won't run VirtualPC.

ever?

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Stay away from G5 macs if she might ever need to use VirtualPC to run any Windows programs, since G5's won't run VirtualPC.

ever?

Microsoft said it's updating the software, but doesn't know how long it will take.

One of the functions of the G4 is not supported on the G5. It's a rare situation, which just happens to affect Virtual PC. Just about everything else works just fine on the G5 (although certain apps might run slowly on the G5 because of architectural differences, until the apps are properly G5 optimized).

-----

Virtual PC and the new G5 PowerMacs

Returning to Virtual PC, I'd seen some reports about the Virtual PC for the Mac not running on the new G5 machines. Omar Shahine explains why. Its all to do with endianess. Earlier PowerPC processors were bi-endian as this pretty ancient Byte article explains:

The PowerPC is a bi-endian processor; that is, it supports both big- and little-endian addressing modes. This bi-endian architecture enables software developers to choose either mode when migrating OSes and applications from other machines. The OS establishes the endian mode in which processes execute; the default mode is big-endian. Once a mode is selected, all subsequent memory loads and stores are determined by the memory-addressing model of that mode.

To support this hardware feature, 2 bits in the MSR (machine state register) are maintained by the OS as part of the process state. One bit (ILE) specifies the endian mode in which the kernel runs when processing an interrupt; the other (LE) specifies the processor's current operating mode. Thus, the mode can be changed on a per-process basis, which is critically important for foreign OS emulation.

When an interrupt occurs, the processor saves the current MSR and loads an MSR for the interrupt-processing routine. The value of the ILE bit in the old MSR is copied into the LE bit in the new MSR. When execution resumes in the interrupted process, its MSR is reloaded with its LE and ILE bits intact.

It seems that the G5/970 chip does not have this feature, though I couldn't find anything explaining why it has been dropped.

Why don't machines all use the same endianness. Probably for the same reason that every computer manufacturer had to have their own version of Unix. There were even middle-endian machines where the number 0xDEADBEEF was stored as BE EF DE AD. William Verts suggests:

You may see a lot of discussion about the relative merits of the two formats, mostly religious arguments based on the relative merits of the PC versus the Mac. Both formats have their advantages and disadvantages.

In "Little Endian" form, assembly language instructions for picking up a 1, 2, 4, or longer byte number proceed in exactly the same way for all formats: first pick up the lowest order byte at offset 0. Also, because of the 1:1 relationship between address offset and byte number (offset 0 is byte 0), multiple precision math routines are correspondingly easy to write.

In "Big Endian" form, by having the high-order byte come first, you can always test whether the number is positive or negative by looking at the byte at offset zero. You don't have to know how long the number is, nor do you have to skip over any bytes to find the byte containing the sign information. The numbers are also stored in the order in which they are printed out, so binary to decimal routines are particularly efficient.

 

[crapito]

thanks for everyone's input. we ended up getting a demo iMac (500MHz, 128mb RAM, 20gb HDD, CDROM, monitor, keyboard, mouse, ethernet, modem, etc.) for $450 from CrapUSA. it's a little slower than what we were looking at, but it came with OS X and was under $500, about half the price of a newer, faster Mac, so it was a fairly easy decision. i bought another stick of 256mb PC133 from OfficeMax for $20 after MIR, so we should be good to go from here on out. now, we just have to figure out OS X and install some software, like MS Office.

thanks again!

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: crapito
thanks for everyone's input. we ended up getting a demo iMac (500MHz, 128mb RAM, 20gb HDD, CDROM, monitor, keyboard, mouse, ethernet, modem, etc.) for $450 from CrapUSA. it's a little slower than what we were looking at, but it came with OS X and was under $500, about half the price of a newer, faster Mac, so it was a fairly easy decision. i bought another stick of 256mb PC133 from OfficeMax for $20 after MIR, so we should be good to go from here on out. now, we just have to figure out OS X and install some software, like MS Office.

thanks again!

If you're happy with it then fine, but to be quite honest if I had to use a 500 MHz iMac with OS X, I'd probably rip my hair out.

It comes with a Rage 128 ultra, G3 500, 100 MHz FSB, etc. It has NO SUPPORT FOR QUARTZ EXTREME.

I'd much rather spend the extra $300 and get the G4 800 eMac with Radeon 7500. Or better yet, $999 for the G4 1 GHz with Radeon 7500 and DVD/CD-RW.

Mac OS X.2 and X.3 need a Radeon or better to support Quartz Extreme, which adds a significant boost for 2D work, because the OS is 3D accelerated with OpenGL, even in 2D. Furthermore, OS X's core is Altivec-accelerated, something that requires a G4. A G4 800 with Radeon 7500 is quite snappy in OS X. A G3 500 with Rage 128 is painfully slow.

If you can spare the extra cash, I'd take that thing back right now and exchange it for a G4 Mac with Radeon.
By the way, neither machine support desktop spanning for dual monitors. They just support mirroring. If you want desktop spanning with dual monitor, you need to buy the $1299 Power Mac.