mac

[jserio]

my college has 3 mac computers now in one of the labs. just 3. i am using one of them as i write this post. OMFG! this is a really, really, really nice computer! as of right now, i have no clue about it. i don't know the model or anything. i can tell you it has a HUGE screen, a flat/skinny keyboard and a lil white mouse. from where i am sitting, i see no tower or anything, just the massive monitor, keyboard and mouse. wires run out the back of the monitor and down into the lil wiring harness boxes they have under the desk. i can't explain it. you'd have to be here to see this. those of you with macs or with mac experience may know what i am talking about. hell, i don't even know what i am talking about. this thing is so cool! i don't even want to imagine what it costs though. other than that, man........ 

[ohgood]

upper left corner , there is an Apple... click it, then About This Mac... it will tell you what version Apple OS X you're running, along with (if you click MORE) everything it has on it. Processor, ram, specs all right there.

You're using an iMac. Most likely 1-2 years old given how most colleges have money to burn


You can buy a FAST mac mini for $600 or so, plug in your PC monitor, mouse, keyboard, and get rockin... although if you ever use a wireless (bluetooth) mac keyboard and mouse, you'll be spoiled for life.

Call me a fanboy, call me fanatic, whatever.... I've used *BSD, linux (many flavors), unix (real unix), cobal, and everything microsoft sucked at up to vista... Mac os is the best. Period.

Enjoy the ride

postscript - I'm typing this on the bluetooth keyboard, which connects warlessly to the almost 5 year old powerbook laptop, survived several 5+ foot falls from window ledges... spilled water all over it... and has been on 24/7 for years now. Reboots ? HaH ! 3 kernel panics (the equivilant of a BSOD) in the entire use history.

1.5Ghz cpu
1.25Gb ram

ppostscript - and the mac keyboards are the best too !

[DoD#i]

The honker screen would likely be the 24 inch imac - the rest of the computer is in the thickness of the screen - 1500-2000+ depending on configuration. 1200 and up for the 20 inch screen. The bang for the buck is in the mini, just be sure to load it up with memory as the inside is not user (or even tech) friendly. Hang whatever screen, KB mouse and extra disk you like off the box, get away clean for under $1000 if you can shop for beans (and far less if you have the parts sitting around attached to your PC, but if you have a tiny screen, a non-tiny screen is very nice - and not too spendy if you wait for a good sale.)

The other upside to the mini is that separate display and processor can be upgraded separately, even if it doesn't look quite as cool as that thing just hanging there in space - kinda like a TV showing bowling for dollars (someone must be able to get that reference, right? Salty fish, anyone?)

I get by just fine with an ancient old powermac that you could literally get off craigslist for a few hundred bucks - in fact, I did. Upgraded from a really old 400mhz box to a merely old 1Ghz box - works great. I have 10 year old 350 mhz boxes out in use, still working well. The bleeding edge stuff is cool, but a great thing about Macs is that old ones keep working, mostly. I'm now two versions back for the latest OS, but I'm fine with that - I could run one version newer, but there's no point to it for either my work or play.

[TonyKZ1]

Call me a fanboy, call me fanatic, whatever.... I've used *BSD, linux (many flavors), unix (real unix), cobal, and everything microsoft sucked at up to vista... Mac os is the best. Period.

Enjoy the ride

+1000... I'm also using a mac, have for many, many years. At work, I work on macs, pcs, printers, etc. and use an iMac. At home we have macs.

[dohabee]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JixbzFjv_cU&feature=player_embedded 

[natedawg120]

its an i-mac, would almost guarantee it.  They are nice until they break, then you get to trash the nice display after your toilet plunger drops it on the table/floor

[XealotX]

[respite]

I wanted a mac after apple switched to the open source bsd knock off called darwin.

After my girlfriend had issues with an incorrectly unmounted hfs+ drive, i lost all interest. The darwin implementation of fsck and diskutil failed to correctly identify or lead a path to restore the problem. The drive was saved by stealing a commercial application to recover the disk journal.

While i only banged on the machine for a night or two, i found enough about it i didnt like to write it off.

Now that apple has switched to an intel architecture, its even more of a reason. At least the motorola powerpc processors did far more calculations per clock cycle than intel. Apple had some ground to stand on while pushing the price tag. Now you can buy the machine from apple for 2000 bucks with osx installed, or you can buy the same machine from dell for 400 and install osx yourself.

Screw those guys.

[yamahonkawazuki]

Well insted of paying the inflated mac pruices , one can build a pc based box, and install a mac os, aka a hackintosh. same machine. 1/4th price at the most

[ohgood]

oh ya, there is plenty of cool aid, but that doesn't mean we drink it

btw - let me know when the supply of vista cool aid runs out- i'll bet it just in time for the HUGE FLOOD of 7 flavored drink

[tt_four]

Is that supposed to be Jimmy Jones?? I don't actually know what he looks like, but I love references to Jimmy Jones Kool-aid.


I don't specifically have anything against Macs, but I'm so used to windows that any time I try to use a Mac, I spend half the time just trying to figure out what's going on. I don't need anything more than this to check my email and craigslist, and that's about all I need in life. I do feel bad for them always picking on that guy in the commercials though. I like him more than the dark haired kid from Waiting, and Patrick Warburton, I LOVE Partick Warburton.

Same thing with the verizon/cable commercials. I like the red headed guy way more than the verizon guy, so the commercials seem a little poorly thought out to me.

[ohgood]

Is that supposed to be Jimmy Jones?? I don't actually know what he looks like, but I love references to Jimmy Jones Kool-aid.


I don't specifically have anything against Macs, but I'm so used to windows that any time I try to use a Mac, I spend half the time just trying to figure out what's going on. I don't need anything more than this to check my email and craigslist, and that's about all I need in life. I do feel bad for them always picking on that guy in the commercials though. I like him more than the dark haired kid from Waiting, and Patrick Warburton, I LOVE Partick Warburton.

Same thing with the verizon/cable commercials. I like the red headed guy way more than the verizon guy, so the commercials seem a little poorly thought out to me.

ya, that's all we do on our computers-

email
cl
forums

but we do a ton of digital photo play (i won't call it work because we aren't paid for it    )
and a little audio

thing is, after you learn to -not- spend a good chunk of your time cleaning up with virii / whatever scans, stuff starts to turn productive. right now i'm dumping the contents of a 4Gb sdhc card from the G1 to LightRoom, and uploading to Picasa (with geo tags) and there isn't a hickup at all.

then, throw in the 7 email accounts that sync every 5 minutes, AuctionSieve (ebay snipe program), and a few other network intense things, and you begin to understand why win32 just won't cut it for us.

yes, it's like a new world when you first change over, but it should be. it -is- a different kernel, different gui, different filesystem heirarcy, different everything.

i'd dare say macs are for dumber people instead of smarter though. i don't have to memorize 5 different ways of finding a system setting, or re-hash a registry to make things work- therefor, it must be making me dumbererer. or something.

dunno, just seems easier to me.

[XealotX]

oh ya, there is plenty of cool aid, but that doesn't mean we drink it

btw - let me know when the supply of vista cool aid runs out- i'll bet it just in time for the HUGE FLOOD of 7 flavored drink

What is this "VISTA" you speak of? Is that some sort of kernel update to SUSE 11.1 that I'm typing this in?
Though, if I get one more system update that screws up my audio drivers I just might format this thing and install Windows ME.

[JChivell]

My favorite Apple video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BnLbv6QYcA

[yamahonkawazuki]

is it worth the sometimes 3 to 1 cost tho, nothing against macs, but i can build one legally alot cheaper, but it wont run well any of the programs i use, if it werent for that, hell id be making a hackintosh, shoot i might when i
get a 1.5tb hdd soon (a gift)

[94suzuki500]

I have a macbook pro and it is 10x better than any other laptop I have seen or researched.  It was expensive but when it all comes down to it, if you buy the most decked out "pc" you still dont have the same, you have alot less and then you can spend 200-300 more and get the mac.  Tell viruses goodbye and sending error reports...you wont have that on a mac.  I dont have the wiggly screen that "pc's" get on the laptops and my macbook is thinner and just flat out performs better than the "pc's".  I got 2.53 GHZ processor and 4 gigs of RAM.  Its in all reality the bomb.com haha. One thing that always made me questions "pc's" was the updates that would come out...they werent refined enough so they would have to rework them...good job on not doing it right the first time. 

[Bluehaze]

lol,.. mac users....

[birdman561]

Mac = 

PC  =

= Open Source Linux  box

[yamahonkawazuki]

again oner can build a mac at a quarter the cost, anyone here, have a mac desktop?, give me the spoec list on it. ill see what a build would run. also hte cost of said mac desktop. if i am wrong, ill admit it, if i am right, will you?

[birdman561]

again oner can build a mac at a quarter the cost, anyone here, have a mac desktop?, give me the spoec list on it. ill see what a build would run. also hte cost of said mac desktop. if i am wrong, ill admit it, if i am right, will you?

You can build a smokin' box for less a lot less than a Mac but the reality is, how many people really
want to take time to do that ? Not many.  The cost of a Mac over the average PC is not a lot  relatively speaking,
over a MS/PC and worth it to lots of people, me included. I just started a new job at a PC shop and am reminded
daily now how much more I appreciate a Mac over wacky, illogical PC architecture. Those 600.00 PC's that Dell,
etc are coming out with are just what they seem, junk. Refurb MAXTOR HD's and other cheepo stuff that you
will pay for later after the checkout counter. With MAc too, there are a just a few OS's that integrate pretty well
with each other, its insane that people buy into a MS based OS that is going to be outdated 14 months later and
have to go through all the crazy reconfigure and compatibility issues when you need to "upgrade".
MAc does have some issues, like dealing with the idiots at a "Genius Bar" but I'll take that over driver issues and all
that other crap you get with MS product.

Here is what Im getting next --------->  www.system76.com