What made you switch? - Page 3

I switched due to OSX. I frackin hate XP. Its a curse upon man. I dint have my lappy listed, but here is what I got:

IBook G4 w/ 14.1" screen
1.25 Ghz chipset
combo drive
768Mb RAM
Bluetooth/ AirPort Extreme
Bluetooth wireless mouse and keyboard
ATi Radeon 9200 graphics card.

All for a smidge over $1100

Heya guys,

i owned a pb15" Al about 3 months this time last year. due to hardware problems i had it returned for a full refund and went and bought a dell desktop.

However, i have to say i thouroughly enjoyed my experience with osx. I grewup using an lc575 running Mac OS 7.1 and using the mac osx made me feel 'at home' again. But i have been using windows for a long time inbetween the lc575 and my pb. I HATE windows lol. i used it because about 10 years ago until recently there was a very significant software shortage for apple and everyone around me was using windows and i was being left out in the cold all i could really use my mac for was word processing and internet... that was it basically. Winxp suits me but osx was much better in terms of ease of use and appearance... it was very pleasant and easy on the eye which xp isnt... but that is a personal opinion... and i didnt have to care much about viruses etc.... performance wise there was no real difference to me. all apps run smooth on both windows and osx. having a powerbook chassis was really nice too with the illuminated keyboard and the footprint being thin and NO FAN NOISE whatsoever!! if it had a fan i never heard it once!! even using it on max performance settings. the palm places didnt get too hot either from memory but it did get warm/hot at the lcd side.

When deciding between osx and winxp you MUST consider hardware. with osx you are restricted to buying apples hardware. but if you dont want apples hardware and you want something similar to osx you can put linux on your intel/amd. thy are both pretty much the same 'under the hood'... but linux doesnt have great drivers for hardware so apple wins there interms of the os fully supporting the hardware.

as regards software, osx and xp are very similar unless you want games. the notion that you are software restricted (productivity type) when using a mac is becomming more and more insignificant all the time. simply visit apple's website and look in the software section... and also on the right towards the bottom you will have a macintiosh products guide which is a catalogue of all software available on mac... and quite often you have free/open source software.. and there are HEAPS of progs.

It is just a personal preference thing regarding what OS you feel most at home with. you can go to microsoft and checkout their video previews of longhorn and you can get a pretty good idea for what it wil be like to use... and also apples website regarding tiger.. you can see animated video of it in use.

For me... i am waiting to buy an apple powerbook again. I am reading posts regarding powerbooks and waiting on the g5 pb and when it comes out i wil wait for a while to see the reviews and also wait for one revision of the pb and then its review before i buy. nothing worse than spending money and then seeing problems with it. waiting is hard but it is beneficial when spending AU$4k or thereabouts. i have a travelmate 8000 that i got for an excellent deal.. well below rrp and i can sell it for a profit believe it or not lol. So i am still free to choose between mac and xp. It is a very peculiar time in pc history too because we have a introduction of 64 bit processors from amd... and mac already has the g5 but not in a portable ( and the intro of Cell technology could upset things even more). Software for mac is gonna be developing fast with the g5 because it is in a desktop.. and when g5 comes out in portable form, the g4 will kinda get dropped rather hard IMHO lol. But with windows based systems, the portable and desktop form of 64 bit processors will be available at similar times. 32 bit will be alive for a while to come but i am interested in future-proofing. so there is alot to consider.

cheers.
rob.

two main diff with linux/unix and os x

os x has major application support

os x is easy to install and use.

My Mac and Windows based rigs, whether mobile or desktop all have their own unique issues. However, I must agree, my household has never been plagued by viruses nor spyware related issues on our Mac based products.

This is not to say that they will never encounter the same maladies, as experienced with our Windows products . . . We have been quite fortunate for the some past 15 years.

With attention to only that one particular issue, the same experience has been shared with the large majority of our family and friends.

im not really switching over, i just want to learn mac OS on a disposable mac, most macs are made to be disposed of, just look at the Emac, imac, mac mini, they are hardly upgradable when compared to the g5 desktops, just use and throw away.

i was looking at the cheapest ibook, would that be good to learn the basics on?

pr50wner,
it'd be fine. i've had a blast on mine for the last 2+months. if $ is an issue then the mini would be your best bet. the low end one is essentially comparable to my 1.2Ghz iBook for $300-400 less. i'm assuming u have a desktop system already. in the event that u have ps2 input devices, all u'd need would be a USB>ps2 mouse and keyboard adapter. stick your own memory in, 512MB for ~$55 and u'd be set. if u order from a place like amazon where u'd get free shipping and likely no taxes, u'd easily be under $600 all together.

thats the problem with the mini, in its base config it is not desirable, once you make it so (bluetooth + wifi + 80gb + suprdrive) you're way in the $800 range where you can just build a normal PC desktop that will blow that thing away as far as performance goes

Not everyone needs wireless or bluetooth or an 80 gig drive or a superdrive. The base config of a Mac mini is more than enough for the average PC user.

Now stop trolling, damnit.

abf after reading your replies i must say that not a single one of them is no--topic, your are not a mac user and you insist on commenting on a switching to mac forums.

unless your next post is going to be posing reason about why you have switched to the mac platform i will report you.

heheh, go bobx it's your birthday! go bobx it's your birthday!

geez abf, what's it take to get things to sink in for u? pr50wner asked what would be a good system to break himself in on os x, and particularly asked about the basic stockmodel of the 12" iBook. at this point in the story children, triadone noted, "if you're wanting a break-in experience for the least $ the low end mini is comparable to the low end iBook for less money." comparably speaking it has an ever so slightly faster CPU, faster bus, and 10 extra GBs of space than the iBook out of the box, but essentially the same chipset and features. he didn't ask for u to diss a mac, he asked what would be a good model to deliver his os x intro. i answered it. u trolled. get a clue.

the mini is a "desktop" computer, which denies loyalty to that bracket by being so damned mobile and easy to move around the house. so yes, if u have a wireless AP in the house, paying the extra ~$90 for wireless and bluetooth (a bargain as far as i know amongst some vendors, simply for the BT) is worthwhile. which PC desktop computers were u implying came stock w/ wireless cards? not many if any, the last i checked. man, i guess u'd have to pay extra for that kind of stuff on a PC, potentially moving u towards a higher price bracket b4 the computer really got functional...i've heard this somewhere before...is there an echo in here? if u have a wireless router in the house and plan on using it as a desktop system in your "computer room" then by all means, plug it in via the ethernet and don't think twice about wireless, much like how u wouldn't w. any other desktop, cuz on any other desktop, yep, u'd have to pay extra to put it in.

I've been waiting to switch but want to wait for either the dual-core G4 powerbooks or G5 powerbook(I wish!), maybe later this year???

I'm also not looking to switch, but have a niece graduating from HS in May, and she wants a laptop for school. I thought about trying to find her a nice "entry level" and couldn't find anything much below $600. Have been using a Dell 600m (1.3 PM, 384GB, 40 MB HDD, 14" XGA) around the house and for traveling, and have been getting the itch to try something new.

Well, long story short, decided if I'm going to spend that much, I might as well get me something new and clean up the 600m (still a very nice machine) for her. Decided to try a 12", 1.2 G4 iBook, and it's been cool so far. Still stumbing around a little learning the OS, and it needs another stick of ram (256 base, going to add another 512), but I love the size and the screen looks great.

Oh yeah, the punch line, got it for $994 with $100 rebate from Amazon.com, rebate should just about cover the extra ram. Great service from Amazon - ordered on Sunday - estimated deliver about 10 days, showed up on the front porch on Tuesday!

If it is not broken, DON'T FIX IT!!!!

There is one reason why Windows gets a lot of viruses, Well over 80% of the computers out there use some version of Windows. If MacOS had 80% of the OS market every one would be complaining about the security on the Macs too.

first off, great avatar


second off, you obviously have no clue about security. do some reading and you should quickly see why that statement is rediculous.

have a good day!

yeh, seems kinda silly. if that were true u could say things like symantec has a good deal of the system security market stitched up, hence, the software sucks and doesn't perform well. whereas in reality their stuff is typically on the top of the list for reviews of their products. did that make any sense? ;p

i read that MS windows has stronger password protection than linux, and the redhat team admited that.

so far i have had no problems with xp w/sp2

you read way wrong. and if you haven't had problems.. it's because you haven't specifically been targetted yet.

read about ntlm and hash files

read about active x and the .net framework being tied to the os

read about unsigned code running

read about the ability to replace any and all system files as administrator

read about services that advertise in xp

windows CAN have great security, but it takes a LOT of work.

if you turn on the firewall in os x , run as a limited user (less necessary than in windows), and use file vault... you're pretty secure.

one exception to that is that filevault needs to be fixed and is in the next release(aka tiger) to encrypt the swap file.

while you are reading about security, you should check out compusec (google it)

EFS can be cracked in under 5 minutes as it stands on a windows machine (elcomsoft.com i think) and the only way to achieve the mac or linux level of security on windows is to use 3rd party software - s omething unecessary for the mac.

marketshare has a lot less to do with mac attacks than you think, most of it is fundamental differences in how the core of the OS operates.

you may also want to sign up for mark minasi's newsletter.

cryptography is the only truly safe, and even then, it just takes time to crack.

the DOD will not stamp their seal of approval on any machine that isn't in a physically restrictive environment or plugged into a network

anyway, there's a lot to it, and a lot of things that can be done.. but if you use windows, and haven't disabled ntlm and ntlm v2 (left activated by default for compatability in a mixed mode network) that's your weakest link as of now. Net stuff can be protected against with brains and 3rd party tools.. don't use ie, oe, outlook, instead look to the mozilla suite.. use antivirus and spyware protection, run a personal firewall and a nat router, run an encryption too, run privacy tools..

oh yah, and then wonder why pc's NEED a processor that is faster than apple's.. by the time all that crap is running a state of the art pentium 4 machine will be slower than most macs.

NSA Computer security guides: http://www.nsa.gov/snac/downloads_os...ID=scg10.3.1.1

<loud smack!> um, siddeous? u gonna get up after that? me? i'd taken advantage of it and just gets some rest.

take those guide with a grain of salt, PLEASE.. good starting point.. but i doubt gov't is giving walkthru's they can't get around