Tell me about Macs...

[cmyk]

Well, since Stellarium is open source, I wonder how hard it would be to take the Mac OSX code and adjust the Cocoa API to the Cocoa Touch API, then just optimize it from there for iPhone hardware. But I’m no programmer!

I’m also wondering if there’s anything cool and useful that can be done with the accelerometer in such an app.

ETA: Also, since such a thing is open source, there’d be no money in that. Ahh well.

[elelle]

@cmyk

You have to remember, to some, operating systems are like a religion. You are beholden to the OS you were raised on, then hold disdain for all others that can’t see that your OS is the one and true OS.

Windows is like Christianity. There’s a lot of different flavors (almost too many to keep track), and are susceptible to a lot of criticism due do it’s dark and dubious history, and overladen doctrine. They’re also the largest religion in the world, and their faith doesn’t like to play nice with a lot of other faiths. But there is the simple truth that the tenants of the faith work, even thought most of the philosophy seems to be borrowed from older OSs, yet implemented in a much more mechanical and unnatural way.

Mac OSX is like Buddhism. An OS built on philosophical ideologies, with a prominent Dalai Lama showing us all the “way”. Apple thinks that with the right mixture of hardware and software, transcending the typical computing experience, one can experience true awareness, and likely nirvana. However, many computer users are skeptical that there is any such thing to begin with. But most are willing to admit, there is a certain organic, if not mystical aspect to the faith in general… but this has usually hurt them more than help them, since in the past, other OSs point only to these seemingly “unpractical” aspects. Yet, now, more than ever, most are discovering the more liberated ways of the Mac, and are making a conversion.

Or something.

Love this! Have had a long crappy tired day, and this has me smilin’ from the cleverness. Thanks, can now go ta sleep with some glee.

[eleanorigby]

I am not a computer nerd. I have a MacBook, with Windows. I love my MacBook. I love Windows. Like chocolate and peanut butter, baby, some things just go together.

[Labrador_Deceiver]

@SanibelMan

A Mac Mini would probably fit your needs, if you maxed it out with RAM. The rumor going around is that both the iMac and the Mac Mini will be updated soon with Penryn processors, and the Mac Mini will likely get a new GPU.

Should I wait to buy one? I don’t need anything more than a browser, MS Office, QuickBooks, phot editing and maybe a few other pieces of software. Am I going to be able to tell the difference in the current model and one with the new processor? (I’m looking at the most basic iMac available) Keep in mnd that it may be slightly difficult for me to wait that long, due to the fact that my Windows machine is kaput.

Thanks in advance, dopers.

[beowulff]

@Labrador Deceiver

Should I wait to buy one? I don’t need anything more than a browser, MS Office, QuickBooks, phot editing and maybe a few other pieces of software. Am I going to be able to tell the difference in the current model and one with the new processor? (I’m looking at the most basic iMac available) Keep in mnd that it may be slightly difficult for me to wait that long, due to the fact that my Windows machine is kaput.

Thanks in advance, dopers.

This is like trying to “time” the stock market. Apple might release a new machine today, or maybe not until June. Any new machine is going to be an incremental improvement, so if you need one today, buy it.

[Least_Original_User_Name_Ever]

@cmyk

You have to remember, to some, operating systems are like a religion. You are beholden to the OS you were raised on, then hold disdain for all others that can’t see that your OS is the one and true OS.

Windows is like Christianity. There’s a lot of different flavors (almost too many to keep track), and are susceptible to a lot of criticism due do it’s dark and dubious history, and overladen doctrine. They’re also the largest religion in the world, and their faith doesn’t like to play nice with a lot of other faiths. But there is the simple truth that the tenants of the faith work, even thought most of the philosophy seems to be borrowed from older OSs, yet implemented in a much more mechanical and unnatural way.

Mac OSX is like Buddhism. An OS built on philosophical ideologies, with a prominent Dalai Lama showing us all the “way”. Apple thinks that with the right mixture of hardware and software, transcending the typical computing experience, one can experience true awareness, and likely nirvana. However, many computer users are skeptical that there is any such thing to begin with. But most are willing to admit, there is a certain organic, if not mystical aspect to the faith in general… but this has usually hurt them more than help them, since in the past, other OSs point only to these seemingly “unpractical” aspects. Yet, now, more than ever, most are discovering the more liberated ways of the Mac, and are making a conversion.

Or something.

Right. We shall expound upon this Saturday.

[Labrador_Deceiver]

@beowulff

This is like trying to “time” the stock market. Apple might release a new machine today, or maybe not until June. Any new machine is going to be an incremental improvement, so if you need one today, buy it.

Thy will be done. Thank you.

There is one new Mac convert in the world today.

[Labrador_Deceiver]

Hit a big snag, all of a sudden. It seems as though QuickBooks for the Mac really sucks, and there is no other decent financial software available for the platform.

This could be bad.

[beowulff]

@Labrador Deceiver

Hit a big snag, all of a sudden. It seems as though QuickBooks for the Mac really sucks, and there is no other decent financial software available for the platform.

This could be bad.

Oh, sure there is: Business - Apple

[Athena]

@Labrador Deceiver

Hit a big snag, all of a sudden. It seems as though QuickBooks for the Mac really sucks, and there is no other decent financial software available for the platform.

This could be bad.

My friend who has a Mac and an accountant who wants QuickBooks files just installed Windows on her Mac and boots into that when she needs to do financial stuff.

[Labrador_Deceiver]

@Athena

My friend who has a Mac and an accountant who wants QuickBooks files just installed Windows on her Mac and boots into that when she needs to do financial stuff.

That’s what the folks at Intuit suggested. How expensive is it to do that? Do I have to buy the Windows software for a zillion dollars? Additionally, will I need to go with a zippier machine to do this?

Thanks for all the help, everyone.

[Labrador_Deceiver]

@beowulff

Oh, sure there is: Business - Apple

Isn’t that just pointing me to QuickBooks and/or Windows access solutions?

[beowulff]

@Labrador Deceiver

Isn’t that just pointing me to QuickBooks and/or Windows access solutions?

You missed MYOB.
There’s also: http://versiontracker.com/php/qs.php?mode=basic&action=search&str=accounting&srchArea=macosx&submit=Go

[Sunspace]

@Labrador Deceiver

That’s what the folks at Intuit suggested. How expensive is it to do that? Do I have to buy the Windows software for a zillion dollars? Additionally, will I need to go with a zippier machine to do this?

I believe that any new Mac should have enough oomph to run Windows XP without problem. You can also run Windows Vista on a Mac; the top-of-the-like MacBook Pro was described by PC magazine as the fastest Vista laptop they’d ever tested.

I bought XP because it runs faster than Vista on the same hardware, and I was planning to mostly use it for connecting to work anyways. Then things changed, and I started studying AutoCAD. I have no problem running AutoCAD on Windows on my Mac either.

I bought Windows XP (with service pack 2) for $150 at Tiger Direct.

It was the “OEM” version, which is intended for people who build machines and sell them; it has no help support from Microsoft, and is supposed to remain on the specific machine it is installed on. If you are not comfortable with that, I recommend the full retail version of XP, because it has documentation and access to help from Microsoft, and it may be uninstalled and reinstalled on another machine later. I believe the full retail version of XP was around $300.

How to install Windows on a Mac?

First, I used Apple’s Boot Camp utility to partition the Mac’s hard drive and create a second partition for Windows. Then I installed Windows.

After installing WIndows, I installed the drivers that Apple provides for its hardware in Windows. These let you do Mac-specific hardware things like press the Eject button and have the disc pop out.

Then I connected to the Net and Windows Update and downloaded all the updates for XP. In the first week of January, there were 106 of them. There have been more since.

I then installed anti-malware programs and was ready to use Windows.

The whole process takes about five hours. Be sure to back up your data first. SuperDuper! is a good program for doing that on the Mac.

[Labrador_Deceiver]

@Sunspace

I believe that any new Mac should have enough oomph to run Windows XP without problem. You can also run Windows Vista on a Mac; the top-of-the-like MacBook Pro was described by PC magazine as the fastest Vista laptop they’d ever tested.

I bought XP because it runs faster than Vista on the same hardware, and I was planning to mostly use it for connecting to work anyways. Then things changed, and I started studying AutoCAD. I have no problem running AutoCAD on Windows on my Mac either.

I bought Windows XP (with service pack 2) for $150 at Tiger Direct.

It was the “OEM” version, which is intended for people who build machines and sell them; it has no help support from Microsoft, and is supposed to remain on the specific machine it is installed on. If you are not comfortable with that, I recommend the full retail version of XP, because it has documentation and access to help from Microsoft, and it may be uninstalled and reinstalled on another machine later. I believe the full retail version of XP was around $300.

How to install Windows on a Mac?

First, I used Apple’s Boot Camp utility to partition the Mac’s hard drive and create a second partition for Windows. Then I installed Windows.

After installing WIndows, I installed the drivers that Apple provides for its hardware in Windows. These let you do Mac-specific hardware things like press the Eject button and have the disc pop out.

Then I connected to the Net and Windows Update and downloaded all the updates for XP. In the first week of January, there were 106 of them. There have been more since.

I then installed anti-malware programs and was ready to use Windows.

The whole process takes about five hours. Be sure to back up your data first. SuperDuper! is a good program for doing that on the Mac.

Great information. I truly appreciate the help.

You too, beowulff.

[Sunspace]

@Labrador Deceiver

Great information. I truly appreciate the help.

No prob! I’ll add that, once you’re done, you can have the choice of Mac OS X or Windows whenever you turn the machine on. Hold down the Option key to bring up a pair of icons, one for each partition and operating system. Select the one you want, then press Enter or click.

If you con;t hold the Option key down, the machine will boot into whichever is the default operating system. The default OS can be selected through System Preferences in Mac OS X and through Control panel in Windows.

I have found that Windows XP runs very hot when booted on my Mac. Very fast, but very hot.

A little Mac OS program called SMC Fan Control helped with that. Using it, I whack the computer’s fans up to about 4000 RPM, then reboot into Windows. The fans remain at 4000 RPM and the machine runs much cooler. It seems that XP doesn’t have as good a control of the hardware as Mac OS X. I don’t know whether that’s the fault of the Apple drivers or XP’s hardware abstraction layer or what.

[Sunspace]

Another point: I’ve described how to make your Mac dual-boot OS X or Windows. In this situation, you can use one OS or the other.

It’s possible to use both at one time. To do this, you use a virtualisation software such as Fusion or Parallels. This runs Windows on a ‘virtual machine’, which is really another program in the Mac OS system. You end up with Windows programs on the Mac OS desktop, and you can drag and drop files between Mac OS X and Windows. It’s much more convenient, but Windows runs slower, and there’s a bit of additional setup.

[SiouxChief]

I use a Mac all the time–a 20" iMac–and I use Parallels (with Windows 2000 installed on top) to give me access to any windows programs I need. As of now there are only 3 reasons why I start the Windows virtual machine:

1. For testing web sites in Internet Explorer
2. For Windows development. As Athena would require. I just finished a moderately large Visual C++ project (175MB of source alone), and worked on it only on the Mac, inside the Windows Virtual machine. No discernible performance loss at all…with the VM full screen I couldn’t even tell it was a mac.
3. For QuickBooks. I do have QuickBooks for the Mac…and it’s actually quite good, and the newest version even has an invoice designer which was previously lacking. BUT, there is still no support for the QuickBooks SDK on the Mac, which I will be needing, so I’m sticking to the windows version for now.

I’m a life-long Windows (and Unix) developer, and I run a small consulting business, and my machine of choice is the 20" iMac. I absolutely love it.

Just downloaded the iPhone SDK, too…can’t wait to wrap my hands around it.

For the OP, the mini would probably be fine, though I haven’t used one so can’t say for sure.

As far as “When to buy”, here’s a page that helps: http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/

[gotpasswords]

@SiouxChief

I use a Mac all the time–a 20" iMac–and I use Parallels (with Windows 2000 installed on top) to give me access to any windows programs I need. As of now there are only 3 reasons why I start the Windows virtual machine:

1. For testing web sites in Internet Explorer
2. For Windows development. As Athena would require. I just finished a moderately large Visual C++ project (175MB of source alone), and worked on it only on the Mac, inside the Windows Virtual machine. No discernible performance loss at all…with the VM full screen I couldn’t even tell it was a mac.
3. For QuickBooks. I do have QuickBooks for the Mac…and it’s actually quite good, and the newest version even has an invoice designer which was previously lacking. BUT, there is still no support for the QuickBooks SDK on the Mac, which I will be needing, so I’m sticking to the windows version for now.

I don’t do any development, but I do have one graphics application that strangely, has no Mac equivalent. And, from time to time, I run across weird websites that absolutely demand to be viewed with Internet Explorer running in Windows. Even the red-haired stepchild known as IE for Mac doesn’t cut it.

Is Parallels vital? No. Is it easier than re-starting and booting Windows, then re-starting and going back to Finder? Yes. Is it faster? By far.