So I am leaning towards buying a MacBook [Archive]

Frozen Sooner

6/25/2008, 05:35 PM

Possibly a good idea. Wait until they have Blu-ray drives in them. Should be later this year.

Sure, you may not have any Blu-rays now, but if you know a tech is coming, might as well prepare for it.

Sooner_Havok

6/25/2008, 05:36 PM

Good Idea, or have I been brainwashed by marketing?

I have a 4 year old iBook that still runs like a dream. If you just want a reliable machine, Macs are the way to go.

Sooner_Havok

6/25/2008, 05:37 PM

yermom

6/25/2008, 05:45 PM

so far my MacBook Pro seems teh awesome, haven't used it a whole lot yet though

my Powerbooks had pretty good runs

i was impressed with how zippy the MacBook i used was, nice solid little thing

soonerboomer93

6/25/2008, 05:48 PM

the first thing to ask, is what software/programs do you use and what do you plan to use the computer for?

royalfan5

6/25/2008, 05:49 PM

the first thing to ask, is what software/programs do you use and what do you plan to use the computer for?

Porn mostly, as well as drunkenly looking for awesome music videos on youtube.

yermom

6/25/2008, 05:51 PM

yermom

6/25/2008, 05:52 PM

Porn mostly, as well as drunkenly looking for awesome music videos on youtube.

Macs work really well for multimedia :D

actually Firefox and YouTube work loads better on OS X for me

Frozen Sooner

6/25/2008, 05:52 PM

Bah, when I heard of the switch to intel chips, I went out and bought a power pc mac!

Hey, don't get me wrong, I'm tempted to buy a MacBook right now (as my POS VAIO runs like poo about half the time) but I'm holding out for that BD drive.

Sooner_Havok

6/25/2008, 06:06 PM

Hey, don't get me wrong, I'm tempted to buy a MacBook right now (as my POS VAIO runs like poo about half the time) but I'm holding out for that BD drive.

Old Lappy will be sent of to pasture soon. She is still running great, but I want leopard. That, and if I order a Mac by Sept 16 I get a free ipod touch :D

SoonerJack

6/25/2008, 06:07 PM

i love my macbook pro.

Sooner_Havok

6/25/2008, 06:13 PM

i need to try Boot Camp. VMWare Fusion is passable for Outlook with Unity, but it's still not great

maybe passable is a little harsh, it actually works really well, but you still miss some little things from running it natively in Windows

And boot camp is FTW! My buddy built a desktop to run cad, then got a new Macbook Pro for Christmas. We put windows on there and the damn Mac laptop was outperforming the PC desktop running cad

lefty

6/25/2008, 06:13 PM

Our stats lab switched to Macs that can run Windows XP. We need the Windows platform for SPSS 16.0 which the college has licences. Most of my students use Macs. I am increasingly impressed with the performance of these machines for data processing and analysis. Although I am happy with my Dell laptop, my next purchase may be a Mac.

SicEmBaylor

6/25/2008, 06:30 PM

Possibly a good idea. Wait until they have Blu-ray drives in them. Should be later this year.

Sure, you may not have any Blu-rays now, but if you know a tech is coming, might as well prepare for it.

I don't understand why anyone would ever buy a Mac. Wait for a blu-ray player so Apple can charge you an extra 300.00 for it? To hell with that, get a PC and you can pop in a blu-ray drive for about 125.00.

I've owned two Macs and both of them were a POS. I had OSX crash on me more than I ever had XP or Vista crash, combined.

6/25/2008, 06:34 PM

Most every Mac owner will swear by them. I know I do. I've gone months without so much as a restart.

I'll own one or more as long as they are building them.

yermom

6/25/2008, 06:57 PM

I don't understand why anyone would ever buy a Mac. Wait for a blu-ray player so Apple can charge you an extra 300.00 for it? To hell with that, get a PC and you can pop in a blu-ray drive for about 125.00.

I've owned two Macs and both of them were a POS. I had OSX crash on me more than I ever had XP or Vista crash, combined.

your doing it wrong

seriously, i'm not sure how that is even possible

yermom

6/25/2008, 06:58 PM

Most every Mac owner will swear by them. I know I do. I've gone months without so much as a restart.

I'll own one or more as long as they are building them.

mine only restart when the battery dies, or some update nags me long enough

Frozen Sooner

6/25/2008, 06:59 PM

Where are you finding a BD drive for a laptop for only $125?

Sooner_Havok

6/25/2008, 07:19 PM

Where are you finding a BD drive for a laptop for only $125?

It was on woot a few weeks back :D

Frozen Sooner

6/25/2008, 07:23 PM

DAMMIT!

Sooner_Havok

6/25/2008, 07:33 PM

DAMMIT!

BWAHAHAHA

Wait, what?

SoonerKnight

6/25/2008, 08:04 PM

Yes, I saw it $125 BD!!!

SicEmBaylor

6/25/2008, 08:58 PM

Where are you finding a BD drive for a laptop for only $125?

Sorry, I was talking desktop.

nmsoonergirl

6/25/2008, 08:59 PM

Add me to the haters. I have a macbook for work that crashes at least once a week while doing simple things like word processing. There is quite a bit of software I'd like to use and can't, and the whole interface is very unintuitive for me (granted, I'm not a techie and haven't been motivated to really try very hard to learn it).
I DO however LOVE quicksilver, and would almost consider getting another mac just because I can't find a very good PC equivalent.

But anyway, since there are only 12 people in the entire world that don't love mac I guess it can't be that bad...

bluedogok

6/25/2008, 09:20 PM

If you don't have any Windows specific software and just want a good general computing laptop, Macs are good. I am not much of a fan of them, Autodesk doesn't port to them anymore so I don't have much use for them. After working on DOS/Windows boxes for so long they seem backwards to me but then most everything now (Mac or Windows) is much more point and click than I like.

yermom

6/25/2008, 09:32 PM

BudSooner

6/25/2008, 10:25 PM

some of the point and click stuff i like, for example, sharing your internet connection. that **** is fast to set up. for the majority of stuff though, i'm very much into the CLI. but for the majority of work i do, i'm connecting to another computer from my Mac. it's great at that

We were playing around with the Mac Mini, and I could not believe how easy it is to setup a network(helps that it has built in WiFi)not to mention the ease of setting up a modem.
Uber easy.

yermom

6/25/2008, 10:47 PM

the Mac Mini is the low point of Macdom. it's probably the only thing i can think of, other than the Shuffle, and maybe iPod Touch that i don't think i'd suggest to someone. ok, and probably Apple TV or whatever they call that, although, i think you can hack those to do cool things

it's like a MacBook without a screen, which means you have a desktop with the guts of a laptop. slower drives, ram and bus. and less ability to upgrade

they are small though, and if you have low expectations for performance and like the smallness, they aren't bad

47straight

6/25/2008, 11:14 PM

I vote brain-washed. But then, I will not suffer a system without a right-mouse button.

SicEmBaylor

6/25/2008, 11:19 PM

If Mac and PCs ever declared war upon one another then I'd sign up to be a suicide bomber for Microsoft.

http://www.selectec.co.nz/zen/images/Microsoft%20Logo.gif

(though in the interest of disclosure I'm typing this from my Ubuntu system)

yermom

6/26/2008, 01:35 AM

I vote brain-washed. But then, I will not suffer a system without a right-mouse button.

they have supported te 2nd button for a long time, the new Apple mouse emulates a second button, but i haven't been trilled with the reality of it. i still prefer a MS mouse, which works plug and play

and SicEm, i just am not a fan of Ubuntu, i can use it but i like Fedora better

SicEmBaylor

6/26/2008, 01:46 AM

they have supported te 2nd button for a long time, the new Apple mouse emulates a second button, but i haven't been trilled with the reality of it. i still prefer a MS mouse, which works plug and play

and SicEm, i just am not a fan of Ubuntu, i can use it but i like Fedora better

The first time I ever tried Linux, I used Fedora. It was an absolute nightmare to get everything working having never used Linux before, but I learned a hell of a lot by tinkering around with it and getting everything working. I haven't used a Fedora distro. since then but I always liked Fedora.

I've also used Suse which was so-so. I really prefer Ubuntu because of the ease of use -- the fact that I can install it on the same partition as windows and even easily uninstall it via add/remove programs in Vista is great. I also only had one driver problem with Ubuntu which was easy to fix since you can use Windows drivers for it.

yermom

6/26/2008, 01:53 AM

that's nuts. i have no idea what you are talking about. that almost sounds worth installing Vista

almost :D

SicEmBaylor

6/26/2008, 02:08 AM

that's nuts. i have no idea what you are talking about. that almost sounds worth installing Vista

almost :D

Yeah, that part about Ubuntu is fantastic. I ended up installing it on a different partition, but in either case you can still choose to uninstall it from add/remove programs. Another cool feature is that when you uninstall you can choose to backup the entire thing onto a DVD that, when you reinstall, will restore all of your settings, drivers, etc.

Another cool thing is that you can use the CD as a live-cd and then install ubuntu from within itself.

OUstudent4life

6/26/2008, 07:21 AM

Definitely try Boot Camp.

But definitely print out the instructions on partitioning and setting up the drive...you can royally screw up, there.

The wife has to use windows to access the OUHSC web-based EMR and a coupla other things for work. Which means the computer has to run a VPN over my Airport, which for some reason I was worried about. I just had to write out that 14,359 digit code for my secure Airport network, and it logged right in. Now we just restart the Mac into XP, start up the VPN, and we're set.

Stupid IT at OUHSC. It's a freakin' WEB-BASED PORTAL to their EMR, and they won't tell you how to access it from a Mac (you have to have a program from the company that designed it to securely log in, I think).

I'm betting when Exchange comes to the iPhone in 2 weeks I still won't be able to do push email :mad:.

yermom

6/26/2008, 10:01 AM

Yeah, that part about Ubuntu is fantastic. I ended up installing it on a different partition, but in either case you can still choose to uninstall it from add/remove programs. Another cool feature is that when you uninstall you can choose to backup the entire thing onto a DVD that, when you reinstall, will restore all of your settings, drivers, etc.

Another cool thing is that you can use the CD as a live-cd and then install ubuntu from within itself.

Fedora and Knoppix will do this as well

royalfan5

6/28/2008, 12:32 PM

I'm now longer leaning, and actually own a MacBook. It's pretty slick so far.

King Crimson

6/28/2008, 12:48 PM

I'm now longer leaning, and actually own a MacBook. It's pretty slick so far.

they are good machines. it's just that you pay 400$ extra for the logo and lifestyle implications.

i'm also running Ubuntu like Sic. i think it's great.

yermom

6/28/2008, 03:09 PM

tell me the wireless on Ubuntu works as smooth as it does on a MacBook...

soonerboomer93

6/28/2008, 07:58 PM

brainwashed people

yermom

6/28/2008, 08:07 PM

Pepsi Challenge, i'm telling you

try to make a wireless connection work on a laptop with Windows, Linux and a Mac and tell me which one is better, especially using 802.11g. even once it's set up it's more stable. my only complaint with the Mac is the lack of an external antenna for WiFi

i've been traveling with all three for something like 8 years and started out with Windows. i've used all three pretty extensively

soonerboomer93

6/28/2008, 08:29 PM

straight up honesty

it depends on what network card is being used in the windows and unix machines

i know for a fact intel network cards are far more stable and work just plain better then dell branded cards

a significant number of times, my vista machine is on wireless before i even think about it because it just remembers the settings. I worked a macbook pro and could not get it to connect, tried many things, my vista machine worked in about 3 clicks