I DO NOT WANT TO START A PLATFORM WAR! [Insert many exclamation points here.]
That said, I’m going to start grad school (PhD program in cell bio) shortly. My parents are giving me a computer system as my college graduation gift, and I’d like to buy the thing shortly, since I’d like to move in with it rather than my (very) old computer. (A 133-MHz Pentium 1, with 1.58 gig hard drive. It takes it 23 seconds or so to load Netscape.)
The major questions have become Mac/PC, and exactly what to get within either category. I know that many labs are Mac-using; of the two I’ve interned in, one was entirely Macs, and one was mixed. How necessary is it to get a Mac for my own personal use? I’d rather get a desktop than a laptop, given that you can get more for your money with a desktop and that I’m not usually that mobile a person.
I’m a reasonably-educated-about-computer-stuff layperson, enough that I can get through the Circuits section of the New York Times and other similarly nontechnical stuff, but please don’t get too technical on me!
Pros for Macs for Me:[ul]
[li]Not affiliated with Microsoft, which I find scary in its take-over-the-worldness.[/li][li]Common in labs.[/li][li]Very good for imaging-related things.[/li][li]My computer-knowlegable friends say good things about OS X.[/li][/ul]
Pros for PCs for Me:[ul]
[li]I’m very comfortable with the PC.[/li][li]All of the benefits of having the same platform as everybody else, including much more software, easier to share files, etc.[/li][li]I’m fond of disc drives, given that I use the school printers rather than my own.[/li][li]PCs are a bit cheaper.[/li][li]All of my files now are on a PC, and I’d like to keep them.[/li][li]I’m slightly embarrassed to admit it, but I’m very fond of Minesweeper.[/li][/ul]
So, given that if I weren’t going into biology, I wouldn’t be considering a Mac, how important is it to have a Mac at home if one is working in a lab?
I have a couple of questions before I would reccomend anything. At the same time I am not into biology at all.
First, do you know why the labs are using Macs? Is there a Mac specific application that the labs use? I ask because labs using Macs, in my experience, are very rare. Macs are generally used for graphics and page layout stuff. The labs I have encountered, usually physics and math based stuff, use Windows or a Unix variant. Obviously, if there is a Mac only application that the labs use that is probably the way to go.
Second, what tools do you-the lab use on the computer. This is directly related to question #1. Most likely they probably use standard file types that work on Macs and PCs. If that is the case get a PC. You will get more bang for the buck that way.
Nearly all, if not all, of the computers used in the science departments at my grad school were PCs. PCs are simply much more common because they’re so much cheaper. It’s convenient to have the same platform as everyone else.
The whole mac/pc thing in labs is TOTALLY up to the PI, after all they are paying for the computers that people use.
And since you’ll be picking a lab more based on the research being done rather than the OS in use, you’ll probably have to take what ya get.
For your personal use? Well, the IT people should be able to have no problem to connect a PC or Mac to the department’s network and give you access to the Online Jounrals that they subscribe to, so that won’t be a problem.
And GilaB, I’m gonna be totally honest with you.
The ‘work’ you’ll bring home with you will be papers to read and grant proposals to write. For that, you pretty much need a typewriter All of your data will be in the lab or at your office (if they give gradstudents offices where you are going).
Hrrm, what I’m getting at is: As long as you can have access to the online subsciption the department has from home (so you can get some work done without having to head in to work to access it) I doubt it matters one way or another.
Depending on the department they may use Mac or PC based programs for certain things. Where I work our FACS machine uses a Mac program to run. But they only let FACS technicians run the FACS machine.
One thing you need to keep in mind, a lot of the analysis programs used in labs are VERY expensive $2000+ per license. So there will be NO way that you’ll be able to get a copy to run at home to work with your data, unless your PI is insanely well funded. And regardless, after you get your data from those programs you’ll transfer it to spreadsheets and graphs, which unless you are using some of the bio-specific graphing programs (which are also expensive) you’ll use excel.
If you’re getting a new computer for home, think about what sorts of things you want to do at home and get a computer based off that. You’re not going to be emailing the raw data of a protein structure to and from work so you can work on it after you go home at night.
All of your data will be in the lab or at your office (if they give gradstudents offices where you are going).