Newbee to OSX

[sman789]

yeah...i'm about to head off to college and i'm trying to get a lightweight-ish wirless notebook and a desktop PC for around $2000

And im look at the 700mhz ibook which is very low priced with an airport card then i could spend some money on a pretty good performing middle class desktop

What are the downsides of going to Mac since the whole world is PC
What could i be facing like file compatibility and such

 

[Zim Hosein]

sman789, IMO, it all depends on what you plan on doing w/ your new computer. For example, do you plan on using your new lappy for general internet and Office applications or games and maybe both. Also, file compatibility might be an issue. Tell us what you need to use the lappy for and I believe we can steer you in the right direction.

 

[sman789]

my major is computer science(and the school has wireless B network, thats why i wanted the airport) so i'm guessin i should go with a windows laptop....i was thinking of buying the mac just for notes, little school things....just to carry around but i guess a windows laptop will let me do more work that goes with CS

should i look for a centrino notebook?

 

[drag]

OS X is a fine operating system. I am not to familar with wireless stuff, but I am assuming that it is compatable with standard stuff used in PCs.

As far as writing reports and dealing with papers and stuff like that, you have three options if your school has a windows-based enviroment.
OpenOffice.org free office suite made to compete directly with MS office suite (word, excel ect. etc.). Able to deal with propriatory MS file formats.

StarOffice commercial spinoff from Openoffice.org. Made by Sun microsystems (a MS player hater company)-- very cheap

MS office suite. One of only 2 software packages that is actually profitable that are produced by MS. (the other one being windows itself).

You are able to access and mount windows shares in a w2k domain with the addition of the MSUAM (microsoft user authentification module) and TCP/IP is fully supported with appletalk just slowly becoming a bad memory so networking is not a problem. Most printers are fully supported (only usb printing is not, ironicly)

For browser you have choices between Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, Safari among others.

So as far as compatability OS X is pretty much covered, (since MS owns 1/3 of the blasted company).

So unless some class is going to ask you to install some windows software for a specific reason, you will pretty much be covered. Unless you can think of some problem I am missing. Although admittidly I do not know a whole lot about wireless stuff.

BTW a 700mhz g3 is about equivelent to a 1 to 1.2 ghz pentium proccessor in terms of speed.

 

[sman789]

the only requirement for my CS class is that it be able to run Mandrake Linux and i see the OSX can...so i guess its cool.

I just love how the ibooks look and the price is very very nice

ahh heres the requirements
http://www.cs.vt.edu/academics/ugrad/pc_req_03-04.html
"Q: Do I have to use Windows XP Professional on my computer?

A:
Certain assignments or software in some classes may require the use of Windows which is available in the Computer Science undergraduate labs. If you do not run Windows on your computer, you will miss an educational opportunity to learn Windows administration, which is a marketable skill. "

dang, time to look for an afforordable notebook the lighweight(affordable/lightweight is hard to find)

 

[DeadMilkman]

Just as a minor thread fart first...
MS owns 0% of apple...they sold their 150million stock at considerable profit about 2 years ago (when apple was in the 80s before the split)

Now back ontopic

As far as .doc compatibility there is also Appleworks which will save as and open any .doc document.

OSX bonuses for CompSci majors..... ability to compile gcc or do any testing/work with x11/unix code
OSX is pretty damn good for java dev

ability to run winXP (Virtual PC, slower since its Emulation, but handy dandy save states.) BUT if you are going to be doing intensive things or have several Win only custom apps you plan to use then by all means go Windows.

personally if its possible...I would try to get ahold of both for a week...then make your own decision...both have advantages and drawbacks.

 

[mikecel79]

Sman I highly recommend you look at the Dell Inspiron 600Ms. Very nice, fast, and can be had fairly cheap. IMHO it's a better value than the iBook. The iBook is still based off the G3 processor right. :frown:

The 600m is Centino based and right now you can get an extra battery for free from Dell and $100 mail in rebate.

 

[GL]

I just bought a 700MHz iBook. Load it up with 640MB of RAM (upgrade yourself to save expense). It flies. OS X is a dream, and I'm coming from using Linux/Windows XP exclusively. I was also in a CS program and all the tools needed (GCC and the GNU toolchain) are available for OS X. The G3 is not going to set the world on fire, but it's plenty fast for everything I do (I'm a developer). The G3, IMHO is like a P3 700 without vector processing capabilities. So, games and photo-processing might lag. I definitely would not just brush it off though.

Where I live, there was a deal that if you purchased Office at the time of iBook purchase, you could get it for CDN$299. MS Office for OS X rocks...I like it better than Office for Windows. There is a demo available if you'd like to try before you buy. Up here in Canada, I don't know of any university that uses Microsoft software in comp. sci. programs. Everything is UNIX (where I was it was Solaris) using GCC as a compiler and the GNU toolchain. So, if your program is UNIX-friendly, the Apple will definitely be able to hold you over. Plus, once you get a look at the Cocoa framework and Objective-C, you'll fall in love with it. It's such a powerful and elegant programming infrastructure. Apple provides a Visual Studio-like IDE called Project Builder for free that you can download if it does not come with your iBook.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Certain assignments or software in some classes may require the use of Windows which is available in the Computer Science undergraduate labs. If you do not run Windows on your computer, you will miss an educational opportunity to learn Windows administration, which is a marketable skill. "

Selling porta potties is a marketable skill too, that doesn't mean much.

This should be based on what you will enjoy more. If you enjoy a mac and enjoy having unix around, then go for it. If you enjoy using windows, go for windows.

 

[drag]

I don't know. It's kinda up to you. You should go to a computer store and play with a laptop or if you know somebody who owns a MAC, ask them if you could try them out.

That MS windows "being a marketable skill" is probably mostly b*****t. Universities are not as nearly "honorable" as they once were and do tend to sell out more then would seem appropriate. I remember walking down the hallway of the local university while attending some classes their. Suprise suprise a damn stand sitting right in the middle of the halway a gigantic ad and a stand holding a couple hundred pamflets for visa cards. To me this is wholy innapropriate. My taxes and tuition go to pay for the school to provide a learning enviroment to provide a service to sociaty, not a marketing medium for corporations. Thats what 7-11's are for, not the arts and sciences colleges. More then likely they get a bunch of MS-supplied computers and software at a discount, and this is just expressing their "appreciation".

What matters more is productivity. If you feel that you can get more work done and feel more comfortable using a MS laptop, use it. If you like the Apple laptop, get that. This is infinitely more important then "marketable skills". You will always have the computer lab to putz around in if you realy need to use windows. This is also extremely true it your laptop isn't your only computer.

But thats just my opinion. I tend to be a bit of a anti-MS bigot

 

[sman789]

I will still have my PC in the dorm room and laptops arent required for the class but i was jus wondering about getting the files from one computer to the other and using them. Right now the iBook is winning cuz its really low priced (a lot lower priced than the dell 600m)

 

[drag]

Oh, well then. File sharing is pretty simple. Just enable file and print sharing on your PC. OS X doesn't have a problem using that. Just be sure to lock down your PC and use strong passwords. The generic name for the protocol that MS uses for file sharing is SMB. Pretty simple stuff.

file format incompatabilities are a thing of the past with Macs vs PCs in a networked enviroment, and any ways that was mostly only with floppy formats and graphical file formats.. tiff's psd's etc. No problem.

 

[kevinthenerd]

Most printers are fully supported (only usb printing is not, ironicly)

With some work at the unix level, my iBook can print to anything. Just download the opensource drivers.

 

[kevinthenerd]

Originally posted by: sman789
you will miss an educational opportunity to learn Windows administration, which is a marketable skill.

marketable now and at least a couple of years from now, but I seriously see Microsoft's long-term future numbered once opensoure hits the mainstream

 

[kevinthenerd]

Originally posted by: drag


That MS windows "being a marketable skill" is probably mostly b*****t. Universities are not as nearly "honorable" as they once were and do tend to sell out more then would seem appropriate. I remember walking down the hallway of the local university while attending some classes their. Suprise suprise a damn stand sitting right in the middle of the halway a gigantic ad and a stand holding a couple hundred pamflets for visa cards. To me this is wholy innapropriate. My taxes and tuition go to pay for the school to provide a learning enviroment to provide a service to sociaty, not a marketing medium for corporations. Thats what 7-11's are for, not the arts and sciences colleges. More then likely they get a bunch of MS-supplied computers and software at a discount, and this is just expressing their "appreciation".

AMEN!!! My school is full of ads.

Even though Saint Leo University gives every student an iBook, it has no course in unix/linux and does strictly M$ garbage in all the computer classes. They teach you Visual Basic and Visual C++ with no real work in efficient programming. I worked in their office of information technology last spring, which is entirely unaffliliated with their Computer Information Systems degree program. Half of their servers ran Unix or Linux, and the other half were due for an upgrade from NT4, presumably to something a little less M$-like. They're such hypocrites. They don't even teach you what they themselves are using. Their grade system is on some sort of Alpha-based Unix, and their mail server runs Red Hat 6, but they'll turn around and teach you nothing but Windows, Office, VisualStudio, and the occasional IIS.

I'll be open about my bias... I hate corporate favoritism, and I hate it even more when a university, supposedly a bastion for the freedom of thought and information, shows such extreme partiality.

 

[kevinthenerd]

Originally posted by: sman789
I will still have my PC in the dorm room and laptops arent required for the class but i was jus wondering about getting the files from one computer to the other and using them. Right now the iBook is winning cuz its really low priced (a lot lower priced than the dell 600m)

I bought a fairly cheap 10/100 switch and networked a few computers in my dorm. I had Windows 98 SE, Red Hat 8.0, and OS X all talking to eachother via SMB (Samba) and SSH (an encrypted version of telnet that also supports secure ftp connections).

Your iBook will come with these. You'll come to love the Terminal application.
Mac HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal

From there, you have access to your basic set of unix commands.

If you want a compiler, you can go to Apple's website, register for free, and get their developer tools. With that in hand, you can compile just about any console application.

If you want X support, get X Darwin, also available, I believe, from Apple's web site.