Thinking about buying a mac. Good idea?
Good idea? No. Damn fine idea? Yes indeed.
Uhhhh…perhaps you missed the point…tell me why.
[Moderator Hat ON]
Asking for opinions? IMHO looks like the place to start. Off ye go.
[Moderator Hat OFF]
The Mac is free of a lot of stultifying, bewildering, exasperating PC chaos.
Out-and-out PC geeks do everything with their PCs and don’t let horrific experiences faze them, but the midrange PC user is often scared of doing anything unusual or new because after a few experiences like this:
http://home.earthlink.net/~ahunter/temp/Installing_PC_harddrive.txt
…you start to think of the PC as a Rube Goldberg invention held together by fortuitous proximity of loosely soldered transistors and an accidentally stable and unrepeatable convergence of disparate device drivers; and installing new software and hardware is considered with trepidation and worries about what might stop working.
(the example provided above was excepted from something Jerry Pournelle said but I don’t have the specific context available, sorry).
I can take apart my PC and put it back together in my sleep. I’ve installed RAM and upgraded BIOS like popping a pill. And I’m on the lower end of PC-users. If you want to be able to do anything worth while, don’t buy those aerodynamic hunks of lime-green junk 
I own a dusty-magenta-pacific-twilight-mist colored imac (and?) and I also have installed RAM and OS (what is a BIOS. . . is that something that gets corrupted in PCs but Macs don’t need?).
I think by “anything worthwhile” we mean getting a lander to Mars or something. See other thread for details.
Myrr:
Come by and watch me install RAM in my G4 sometime in all of six seconds flat
Myrr, you’re on the dark side? Oh no!! Well, at least it adds an element of danger to our flirting…
What do you mean, “worthwhile”? Being able to tweak the insides of a PC? I’d rather spend my time posting here. And don’t think that means I’m an idiot when it comes to the inner workings of my aerodynamic graphite machine: I’ve installed RAM and tweaked my computer, too. But I don’t think it’s any big deal; any computer owner worth his/her beans SHOULD be able to do this.
I do agree- if you want something that will challenge your intelligence and patience and take up your time doing exciting things like upgrading BIOSes, then definitely, get a PC.
Hmm, I like the sound of that…wanna stop on by and help me install Win2K?
…Damn that sounds pathetic
Actually, the more realistic thing is that if you’re good enough, it doesn’t matter what you use–you make it do what you want. I work with some really computers used to run NMRs and Theoretical Chem programs…and while technically PCs, they all use linux and are so far beyond anything you buy for your home. Man I wish I had the money for one of those things–when it’s running slow and having trouble crunching numbers, it still runs faster than any home PC/Mac I’ve ever seen…
::drool::
Noticing Audrey again…
::continues to drool::
fending Myrr off I know what you mean. My friend’s installing Linux on one of his boxes and I’m envious. I’m going to invite myself over one of these days… Win2K, eh? Let me show you this iMac of mine…
Asmodeus:
Practical Advice:
I presume your PC is at work. If you’re going to be taking work stuff home, or just want to be able to work on anything both at work and at home, then you should get a PC, I agree.
Biased Advice:
But if not, if it’s just a matter of which one strikes your fancy, get a Mac. You’ll never regret getting a Mac.
Objective Advice:
The other thread has some interesting talk about the pros and cons of Macs. You’ve already posted there, so I know you’ve seen it.
When you decide, go with what you think will suit your needs. Think about what you’ll be using your computer for: letters, games, doctoring your boss’s picture, etc. Don’t get caught up in the mine-is-better-than-yours war. Do some research on what you plan to buy: visit manufacturers’ websites, and get product descriptions/specifications sheets. Find out what software you need as well as what you want, and what titles will come pre-installed on your computer. Compare specs and prices, at both computer stores and catalog merchants (but be sure to figure in shipping costs). It can be a lot of legwork, but in the end it’s worth it. Good luck to you.
Legwork, eh? 
::cowers in corner hoping to avoid smack upside the head::
A Mac is like an automatic car. Think of the new Volkswagen Beetle, or the Mazda Miata. Real high on the aesthetic scale. Incites fierce brand loyalty. Serves as a “status symbol” of sorts. But more importantly, you can flip the switch on the Mac and go. The installation/configuration guide for my graphic iMac DV SE was a three-panel color brochure with six photos and no text… that was it! Take it out of the box, plug it in, turn it on. If you want that kind of ease, go for it.
On the other hand, PCs let you do a lot more. There’s a lot more software (especially if you’re into gaming). You’ll find all sorts of third-party stuff to add onto your system. Howevever, you DO take your chances with the OS crashing, with applications not really being compatible. With a PC you’re expected to know what’s under the hood, and to tinker around a bit.
So… do you want a cool-looking Beetle? Or do you want a Ford Mustang that MIGHT require you to tinker under the hood, but is “cooler” by most auto-mechanic afficionados?
Your choice.
Me? I use a Windows NT box and a Sun sparc5 at work, and I have my graphite iMac DV at home. The only thing missing is a Linux box acting as a server at home. We’re working on that one.
The PC experience: Imagine going to the doctor with an ear infection. He hands you a petri dish of penicilium mold and says, “There you go.” You protest that you don’t know what to do with the mold. The doctor rolls his eyes and says “What, you don’t know how to read the manual?” and hands you ‘The Manual’: 783 pages beginning with the natural history of the molds, written at the fourth grade level, but presuming a thorough knowledge of eukaryotic genetics. You take it home and a few weeks of tedious confusion later you find the procedure you need to prepare penicillin from your mold. But wait. You need a tabletop centrifuge, and you don’t have one. Well, my friend, you’re behind the curve. You’re just going to have to go buy one if this is something you want to do. If you do finally manage to extract some antibiotic and by some miracle can use it successfully to clear up your infection, you will be acknowledged a total stud by all the other mold-heads out there until you actually buy into the asinine belief that you have done something that is actually rather clever, as opposed to fundamentally stupid. Then you find out that penicillin is getting to where it won’t work anymore, as it has been overused. So if you get an infection next year, you will neeed Penicillin v2.0, also known as ampicillin. Unfortunately its preparation is not nearly so simple, and is almost completely unrelated to everything you just learned for penicillin. (It is whispered that amoxicillin works even better than ampicillin, and is easier to prepare, but Microsoft just bought up the rights and took it off the market.)
The Mac experience: Imagine going to the doctor with an ear infection. He hands you a bottle of an the best antibiotic currently available and tells you to take one twice a day for two weeks. You do this, and your infection clears up.
APB9999: Thanks, you summed it up perfectly!
Believe it or not, some of us have better things to do that to learn the inner workings of our computer. We want to DO THINGS with it.
If you are not seriously into gaming, and you are not a tech-head who derives pleasure out of taking everything apart, tweaking and fiddling with settings on your computer (and then spending hours trying to “fix” what you just did) then a Mac might just be for you.
I have both Mac and PC (and if you can afford both, that is really an ideal situation) and there is a marked difference between how they work. One of my first experiences with my Mac clearly demonstrated this.
I have been a PC user for about 2 years. I installed an external Zip drive on my PC, and thought I knew what it would entail with my Mac. But there is a BIG difference. Let me go through it for you:
Installing an external Zip on PC:
Install Zip driver from floppy disk. (I had trouble doing this on my laptop and had to make several attempts to get the driver to install.) Restart the computer. Hope the Zip drive is recognized by Windows.
Installing an external Zip on Mac:
Plug Zip drive in. Turn on Mac. Zip drive installed!
There are other dramatic examples on the difference between how these two platforms work. It does depend on what you want to get out of a computer, of course. But for many consumers, a Mac is an excellent choice.
Funny then, how my Zip drive purrs right along–as does every other PC user’s that I know–but the two people with Macs and Zip drives both have problems:
Person 1: Not enough ports to have Zip drive and printer hooked up at the same time. This is even with daisy chaining some components. It’s rather obnoxious; if you want to print from the zip, you have to copy to HD, then hook up printer, then print. Sure you can buy an adapter, but it’s ridiculously expensive for something that is just fixing a stupid design flaw
Person 2: Zip drive crashes ethernet card. How this happens, nobody knows. If it was a PC, should this problem arise, there are about 15 people wuithin shouting distance who could fix it in 5 minutes, tops. But it’s a Mac, so Zip drive sits on the shelf, growing mold.
The Mac is a good machine if you want to just plug it in and go to work; however, the Mac is also a good machine to have if you are a tweaker and geeker:
a) Install WordPerfect 3, Microsoft Word 98, Nisus Writer 5, Nisus Writer 4, MacWrite Pro, Microsoft Word 5.0, and MarinerWrite. Open them concurrently, comparing their functionality and how well they can handle text formatted in and copied and pasted from each other. Write an article on word processors.
b) Open the case, take out the CD-ROM drive and put a hard drive in its place; the hard drive came from someone else’s Mac. Boot computer, open borrowed hard drive, launch applications installed on it, talk to friend over phone about problems experienced with those applications, give advice.
c) Partition 18 GB hard drive into several partitions. Install different versions of the operating system on each partition. Use machine as reference machine when trouble-shooting folks’ problems, switching startup disk easily using Startup Disk control panel.
d) Take Mac laptop to client sites. Go to any Mac, connect crossover ethernet cable, go to AppleShare and copy needed files from laptop to client’s computer without having to mess with stuff like workgroups and domain logons.
e) Take Mac laptop to cross-platform client sites. Troubleshoot PC problems launching VirtualPC with choice of VPC hard drives for Linux, NT, W2K, W95, and W98. Run PC and Mac software concurrently. Log on to PC domains or workgroups if need be.
e’) Get lethal PC virus while doing so. Delete virtual C drive file, create new C drive file, continue as before.
f) Add PCI breakout box, six extra video cards and monitors. Add USB-to-serial converter and Firewire-to-SCSI converter. Hook up daisy chain of 7 elderly hard drives, removable drives, flatbed scanners, 2 new state-of-the-art RAID arrays, digital camcorders, live feed from audio studio mixer, VCR player, 3 extra keyboards and associated mice, MIDI serial interface, electronic keyboard and drum set. Place video-mirrored dual-monitor setups along with 1 each of keyboard and mouse on 3 different desks. Boot computer. (do not add drivers. we don’t need no steenkin’ drivers). Create commercial.
g) Using ResEdit, modify the behavior or appearance of your operating system files. Change the rename delay interval. Customize the mouse acceleration curve. Make Command-T automatically empty your trash. Add a “quit” command to the Finder and quit it when you aren’t using it.
h) Add a couple thousand freeware, shareware, and commercial control panels and extensions to modify and extend the functionality of your operating system. Add a NetBIOS stack so you can access shared PC volumes on your network. Extend the “Get Info” OS function so you can change file type and creator on-the-fly. Make sure when you go to “open” or “save” or “save as” that you rebound to the last selected file, with a menu of recently visited folders available to you. Rename, move or delete, change the file type or creator of any file from “Save”, “Save As”, or “Open” dialogs. Switch active font sets on-the-fly. Take screen captures of any portion of any screen, or just the text as editable text capture. Change the interface look and feel so that it behaves like an X-Windows environment, or go retro with Mac System 6 look-and-feel. Disable the “home” key and remap it to F13 if you find yourself hitting it by accident. Record macros in QuickKeys and call them in AppleScripts that make use of custom Scripting Additions and set up a looping script that will automatically open your garage door if the cat miaows at it, or activate your automatic coffee maker at work when you shut down at home to head for the office.
h’) Crash due to extension conflicts caused by one of the couple thousand beforementioned extensions and spend the day moving around extension sets and restarting.
In other words, we’re as geeky as we wanna be! But yeah, it works right out of the box and you don’t HAVE to deal with this stuff.
It’s cute and pretty and costs a lot more then a Win/Tel machine. Therefore you know that you are getting a high quality item. I mean if it costs more it must be better. And the good thing is it is so easy to use. Unlike those Windows machines that are so hard to figure out with it’s GUI and menus and icons and stuff. I mean, who the hell wants to have to “click” and “double click” on things just to get them to work. Not me! I want a MAC so I can just sit in front of it and watch it do everything I wish it to with no intervention from me! Yea, Macs!
See Mac.
See Mac run.
Run Mac, run!
See me.
See me sit.
Sit me, sit!
You get what you pay for. And when you sell your old Mac? You’ll get a lot more money for it compared to when you sell your old PC. Go figure.
Oh yeah. We just sit in front of it and watch it like a TV. And all the Photoshop and video work being done in graphic houses with Macs? All the publishing work done on Macs? (They’ve even designed some of Microsoft’s publications using Macs.) And the fact that they use Macs (along with PCs) at JPL? (I have a friend who works at JPL. she loves her Mac.) Oh no. They don’t really do anything like that on a Mac! It just exists to be stared at, like a toy, or a TV.
Ah, PC software is easy to get from the newsgroups, they are very generous. Mac software is not, they are like selfish or something, you know, if it was a Napster thing, there would be very little Mac music to get.