Have you switched to Mac? (now just fighting over which is better)

[Philco]

I've been getting ready to buy a new machine and I've decided to switch to Mac. I'm wondering if anybody who's switched to Mac has experienced any drawbacks at all, related to wedding workflow or otherwise, since abandoning the PC. I'm not excited about buying CS2 all over, and I know I'll have to upgrade to CS3 because of the Intel chips. Otherwise, I'm not seeing a downside at all. Should I be?

Thanks!

[picturecrazy]

Oh gosh no, I would never switch to Mac. I'd list all the reasons but that would just open a tired and old debate.

Best of luck with the transition. :)

[mizuno]

10 years ago. :D

I'm not excited about buying CS2 all over, and I know I'll have to upgrade to CS3 because of the Intel chips. Otherwise, I'm not seeing a downside at all. Should I be?

You won't have to buy CS2 again. Adobe will switch the licence format to a different operating system for a nominal fee.

There's no real downside. Enjoy!

[jessiper]

Oh gosh no, I would never switch to Mac. I'd list all the reasons but that would just open a tired and old debate.

Best of luck with the transition. :)

+1 ;)

[mizuno]

I have worked professionally with both platforms.

I choose Mac. :)

[coreypolis]

I'm on the fence, its either upgrade the PC and a new laptop, or grab a 17" mackbookpro loaded and use my monitor for at home work. I just can't justify their desktop yet.

photoshop and lightroom just seem to run so much faster, but theres something about the upgradeability of a PC thats so enticing, not to mention the price. Though a new XPS laptop from Dell is more than comprible mbp

[sam0329]

still using both, but Mac most of the time, at least I dont have to restart my comp THAT offen ;)

[indiamb]

I just got the 24" imac a week ago and will rarely if ever use my PC again. The last mac I had was a beige G3 that never gave me any problems. However I let others talk me into getting a Dell laptop. The Dell is not bad, but I think I prefer macs. The 24" imac looks like a work of art.

[litwinphotography]

Theres a little rumor floating around that since macs are pretty much PC's now, that Apple may in fact be releasing their OS X for PC's. If this happens, you can spend the $2400 it would cost to get a decent Mac on a kick A$$ PC and just instal the mac OS!!

I am hoping this will be the case :)

[mizuno]

Theres a little rumor floating around that since macs are pretty much PC's now, that Apple may in fact be releasing their OS X for PC's. If this happens, you can spend the $2400 it would cost to get a decent Mac on a kick A$$ PC and just instal the mac OS!!

Not a snowflakes chance in hell, in my opinion.

[Philco]

I've always worked in graphic arts, so Mac's have been the rule rather than the exception. Even though I've always had a PC at home, I think a dedicated Mac is going to be a good move, especially since the only negative comments in this thread are coming from people who don't use Macs.

It seems like Microsoft is creating a more mac-like interface, but I don't really think that means the two are becoming more like each other.

India - the 24'' imacs are beautiful, but my understanding from the guys at the Apple store is that the built-in backlight is so powerful that it makes it difficult to correctly calibrate the monitors, even with the backlight turned all the way down. This isn't an issue with the 20" or the 17".

[Wedding Shooter]

I use Macs. There are six of them in the house at the moment. The problem is they keep on going :) One of them is about 10 years old and still runs the latest Mac OS - so my youngest child is getting it.

They just work.

[krista]

I bought my first last Spring - a Macbook Pro laptop. Love it. I really hesitated because of the cost but it's sweet.

[agosling]

I used to use Mac's, in fact I was an apple service technician for about 8 years, I love them and I will be changing back with the next machine I buy, the reason is simple, the MAC with OSX is by far the better platform. The bonus now is of course that if you really have to run something on MS then you can dual boot and run windows natively.

[entrefoto]

i just decided today that i wanted to switch over but i will keep my current laptop as its only a few months old to use for a while until i can afford to rebuy all the software for the mac. i will probably get the mac pro and the smaller macbook with the 13.3" screen. i like smaller laptops for portability.

[picturecrazy]

I don't understand the mac architecture. uh oh, your monitor burned out... now you're totally computerless until it gets fixed for $1200. huh?
I'm running 5 hard drives in my computer for 1.5 terabytes of storage... if you wanna do that on a mac you'll need an external drive assembly. But now you've totally defeated the purpose of being an all-in-one machine with this huge drive system sitting beside the machine that all would have fit into a reasonably sized case in the first place.

I dunno, flexibility and choice is SOOO hampered. PC rules... hahaha
Now I prepare to get flamed....

[coreypolis]

I don't understand the mac architecture. uh oh, your monitor burned out... now you're totally computerless until it gets fixed for $1200. huh?
I'm running 5 hard drives in my computer for 1.5 terabytes of storage... if you wanna do that on a mac you'll need an external drive assembly. But now you've totally defeated the purpose of being an all-in-one machine with this huge drive system sitting beside the machine that all would have fit into a reasonably sized case in the first place.

I dunno, flexibility and choice is SOOO hampered. PC rules... hahaha
Now I prepare to get flamed....
only with an imac. their macpro can hold quite a few drives in it. I dunno, I'm still on the fence. Price is the biggest issue, but if it means I can get stuff done faster :confused:

[mizuno]

I'm running 5 hard drives in my computer for 1.5 terabytes of storage...

Why would you want so much storage in your desktop computer?

I'm a firm believer that storage and processing are two very different tasks which require very different solutions. I would never need that much storage in my computer, I have dedicated storage solutions which are far more scaleable, reliable and portable.

[Wedding Shooter]

I don't understand the mac architecture. uh oh, your monitor burned out... now you're totally computerless until it gets fixed for $1200. huh?
I'm running 5 hard drives in my computer for 1.5 terabytes of storage... if you wanna do that on a mac you'll need an external drive assembly. But now you've totally defeated the purpose of being an all-in-one machine with this huge drive system sitting beside the machine that all would have fit into a reasonably sized case in the first place.

I dunno, flexibility and choice is SOOO hampered. PC rules... hahaha
Now I prepare to get flamed....

Mac Pro's hold 4 hard drives and up to 32GB of RAM along with a seperate monitor and all the usual great Mac software and rock solid OSX. They have great colour management tools and built in support for lot's of cool stuff that Vista is only now just trying to catch up with. Plus they run PC software as fast if not faster than a PC - why bother with a virus prone PC?

Tempt yourself ;)

[coreypolis]

Mac Pro's hold 4 hard drives and up to 32GB of RAM along with a seperate monitor and all the usual great Mac software and rock solid OSX. They have great colour management tools and built in support for lot's of cool stuff that Vista is only now just trying to catch up with. Plus they run PC software as fast if not faster than a PC - why bother with a virus prone PC?

Tempt yourself ;)
while I agree with most of that, there are viruses for macs. theres just less of them, just like there are less macs compared to the number of pcs. its all proportional ;)

mac ads are about the worst propoganda I've ever seen

[Jason Cole]

I totally use MAC's, I have a G5 Quad with a 30" and 23" Cimema display and a 24" Dell (yes three monitors on my main MAC) and a Mac Book Pro Core Duo2 17"

Why do I use MAC's? Simple, they just work, no viruses, no headaches, no configuring, they just work. And I am yet to see a PC that can compete with a MAC running a Cinema Display for colour reproduction either. What I see on my screen is almost exactly what prints out on the frontier.... as close as you can get to the real thing without having a backlight. I changed over about 2 years ago and I love it... I wont EVER go back to a PC again now....I love my MAC.

[mizuno]

We're gonna get along just great, Jason! :D

[Jason Cole]

Im sure we are mate, and no you cant take my MAC home ok.. hahaha

[mizuno]

Im sure we are mate, and no you cant take my MAC home ok.. hahaha

That's ok! I've got my own G5 in the studio and a 17" Macbook Pro on my lap! :cool:

[Sp00ks]

Wow, I have read some interesting misconceptions here about pc. Very interesting opinions.

Jason: yours doesn't count. I don't think your even in the same league. However, I have no problems hooking my pc up to my 42" LCD.

My pc right this second has been up and running for 17 days, 12 hrs, and 58 mins. without a reboot.

Mizuno: I would agree that storage and processing are two totally different task that require different solutions but, I can process on my server or on my desktop. I have about 250 gig of images alone. I can store and process on either machine.

My background is medical imaging. We sell and support a pc that does both of the above processes without any problems beyond user error in most cases. This includes processing, database, large image storage partition, archiving, etc.

Sorry but I wanted to point out the other side, the dark side to some.

[Dandaman_24]

I'm on the fence, its either upgrade the PC and a new laptop, or grab a 17" mackbookpro loaded and use my monitor for at home work. I just can't justify their desktop yet.

photoshop and lightroom just seem to run so much faster, but theres something about the upgradeability of a PC thats so enticing, not to mention the price. Though a new XPS laptop from Dell is more than comprible mbp

If you sit on the fence, you are prone to getting splinters ! :lol:

I use a macbook and a desktop PC and i definately 100% prefer the mac, so simple to use and it doenst crash one tiny bit.

[tommy_london]

I owned a PC about 12 years ago. Never again.

Been using macs almost exclusively since (the odd freelance job requires me to use a PC). Currently have a G5 & 20 inch cinema display and a 12 inch powerbook at home and use a 20 inch imac at work (our studio has 10 of these and a handful of macbook pros).

[picturecrazy]

And what's with people saying you have to reboot windows all the time? I reboot about once every two months. I never turn the bugger off as my backup services run at 3AM.

mizuno I run that much storage for RAID. I also have an offsite backup server that has 900GB. You don't want a hard drive crash or power surge to put you in a terrible legal position...

And yes, I used to use Macs... about 23 years ago. Didn't like them then, don't like them now. I tried it out again in the late 90's but as soon as they came out with all that UGLY CUTESY CRAP I was just turned off of them. Who the hell wants to pay such a premium so your computer can match your shoes?? LOL

BTW, I'm not getting worked up... I'm actually having a good chuckle writing this. smiles all around! :)

[Philco]

Is anyone else turned off by the new Windows OS? That has influenced my decision...MS seems to just get bulkier and more intrusive with every update, plus they want it to interface more like a Mac, so why not just use a Mac?

[picturecrazy]

I yearn for the DOS days.

I would run linux but software supoort for it is lousy. The only thing that would make me switch to MAC is if the tables turned and Apple had all the software support. Face it, most software out there is for PC. But if Apple suddenly had the largest market share... then all the virus coders would also switch to writing MAC viruses.

It's not that MACs are more virus resistant... virus coders just don't care enough about macs.

[wannasmaxx]

I'm kind of contemplating getting a mac mini. They're only like 600 or so. Although, I must admit, all the macs I've used have frozen long before my puny pc would've.

[CyberPet]

I never switched, I've used Mac's since 1985. But there's books for your switchers that might be great to have. One for instance is "Mac OS X: The missing manual" by David Pogue. It has a special chapter for switchers.

[tripletaker]

2 years ago switched to Mac and it's been wonderful. Nothing really bad to say about it.

[Stonedturtle]

i'm a professional commercial digital illustrator .. i have been using mac for 7 years in my profession and it has been such a goood partner in my career ... i used to be a windows user... i would say mac has a stronger platform structure and durability and reliability tooo ... nodoubt about it !!! its a a serious machine !!!!its a productivity machine!!!!

[picturecrazy]

15 years ago, MAC was MOST CERTAINLY ahead of the game as being a multimedia platform. There is no doubt about that.

But this day and age, BOTH platforms are MORE than capable in multimedia. MAC for those who want to plug in and go, and PC for those who want ultimate flexibility in software and hardware. MAC for artists, PC for corporate businesses.

Take your pick, if you don't like one, you'll like the other. And if you like neither, you're one of those bearded Linux/Unix nerds that use The Gimp... ;)

[CyberPet]

Lloyd, or you can say "play on the PC" and "work on the Mac" as there's less games for the Mac ;)

Honestly, don't make this a Mac vs PC war. Answer the questions the original poster asked.

[picturecrazy]

Honestly, don't make this a Mac vs PC war. Answer the questions the original poster asked.


Petra, I HAVE been answering the question. Perhaps in a stupid way... in that case I apologize... ;) (I never said I was smart)

to paraphrase... the OP wanted to know the disadvantages of switching to MAC. I said less flexibility, less general software support, less hardware options, less corporate software compatibility, but all in all, for photo editing either one will do the job well so take your pick; you'll do fine with whatever you choose.

If you work in the art industry a lot, use mac. If you do a lot of corporate stuff, then PC. (Remember, most people here are not full time photographers and work a day job, so corporate compatibility may be important)

[Timm]

You won't have to buy CS2 again. Adobe will switch the licence format to a different operating system for a nominal fee.


Just download the demo version of CS2 from Adobes site and stick the licence in... works just fine - or at least my Mac CS2 licence does on my soon to be gone PC. :lol:

[ErikM]

I was a PC user for my entire life up until 4 years ago when I started working as a graphic designer full time. I now use a G5 at work and a Powerbook G4 at home :D I don't see myself switching back anytime soon!

[islandphoto]

I just switched and I ABSOLLUTELY LOVE IT. I use iweb for online proofing and blogging. It's super easy and it looks really nice. Check out my blog :)

[CyberPet]

Lloyd, but not all you've posted is 100% true, hence my post about not making it into a Mac vs PC war. Like all advice it's of course personal, so what one says might not be true for another person. That's all. It's great that you give some advice, but please be more specific as generalisations is never helpful.

[aLFaDaRK]

Soon I will be using a Mac, but I won't be so much switching as just using a Mac and a PC. Sometime soon I am getting a new PC to replace the one I have, with 2GB ram, huge harddrive, Vista, the works. And the current PC I'm using will replace the older one that I have. Not sure where the old one will go, might sell it or might move it somewhere else in the house. By the end of next year though I'll be getting a Macbook Pro because I'm going into design in university, and it's a huge advantage to use a Mac for that type of work. So I'll be using both systems simultaneously.

[sblais]

Hi, my name is Sebastien and I still use a PC and I'm fine with it.

*Hi Sebastien!*

This thread can be summarized as follows: some people have used Macs all their lives and will never go to a PC because of the bad rep of these machines.

Other people used PC's and have changed to Macs and just love Macs because they are so much cuter, err, I mean better.

Other people use PC's and are comfortable with them and don't want to change because of that comfort.

Some people use Nikon because of... oups, off topic here! IMHO, it's all about what everyone wants. I don't mind macs at all. It's the Mac fan club that I have a hard time with.

[Philco]

I was just looking for feedback from actual Mac users since I could have been neglecting something important that a PC can do that I'd miss with a Mac, but it doesn't sound like that's going to be an issue, so yay for me!

Apparently we can add Mac Vs. PC to the list of things you're not supposed to discuss in polite company, along with religion and politics. : ) Speaking of which, I read an online article this week regarding left leaning versus right leaning political blogs that basically said only 2-3 percent of computers logging into 'conservative' sites were Macs, compared to something like 20% for the "liberal" sites. I guess that will make me a raging lefty when my Mac shows up. Power to the people!

[Pamela107]

( I used to use Macs... about 23 years ago. Didn't like them then, don't like them now. I tried it out again in the late 90's but as soon as they came out with all that UGLY CUTESY CRAP I was just turned off of them. Who the hell wants to pay such a premium so your computer can match your shoes?? LOL)

What is that nonsense- 23 years ago doesnt even compare to now!
Well welcome to hell, because Ive been using a Mac since 1984- Its like this, you get what you pay for.;)
I can dbl ram by using hard drive (pc's?) well forget it Im just going to let this go -


Mac's are like the energizer- they keep going and going and going.
Everyone have a great evening :)

[Jettin]

Interesting topic,

I myself currently use PC and have done so for years, at uni we have both mac and pc, but when i try to use the mac im just lost, i guess its just because its something new to me.

Could someone list the good advantages of mac over pc?

[MegaTron]

Was using PCs for the last 12 years or so. Ive gone through about 4 PC laptops over the last few years. Recently got a Macbook Pro. I dont see myself ever going back to using PC. I still have 3 PCs in my house, and none of them have been used by me since I got my Macbook Pro. I have yet to run into a time where I said, damn, I need a PC to run this program, or damn that device is PC only. I installed Windows XP through Parallels on my Mac just to have on there, but I never run it, because I dont need to run Windows.

[rockabilly808]

Mac, I use a Macbook (black) does double duty as my school comp and my photography comp, just hook it up to an external monitor for the photo editing work, Iphoto for managing photos and I've actually been using aperture (apple's photoediting software) more than photoshop, so I'd say mac, however thats what I've always used so I'm biased, but i've never had any reason to want to switch, personal preferance really.

[slappy sam]

Without getting into a flame war - I see that most people use macs here for a few reasons that have been stated that aren't really true. I use a PC, but I have used macs at school and friend's houses for 6-7 years. With that said...

1. "Mac's don't get viruses." False. As previously stated, coder's don't care enough to code viruses for macs (for the most part). Also, my family has had 3 computers over a span of 10 years and we have never (read never) gotten a virus. And I'm not super careful or anything - I just don't click on anything that is obviously not legitimate.

2. "You don't have to restart a mac as much as a pc." I honestly have no idea where this came from - both machines should be restarted once in a while just because it is good to give the system a fresh restart, but by all means if you want to leave your PC or mac on for 6+ months at a time, go for it. My PC is normally on for weeks at a time without any problems.

3. "It just works." Varies from person to person. Personally, it seems that whenever I use a mac it crashes on me. I will admit, my PC crashes sometimes too, but I can usually figure out why, and it doesn't happen much. I'd say both mac and pc are even in this department, but mac might have an edge (everyone says they dont crash at all...).

With this said, the mac is a very nice looking, sleek, standard, easy to use system. It is harder to upgrade, and I honestly don't understand the computer-in-a-monitor thing; I think something like the G5 with a normal tower is a much smarter idea.

I prefer the flexibilty and interface of a PC, but I do know that the mac has been the industry standard in graphics art and photoshop work forever. And it most likely will continue to be for a while, but the reaosn has changed from the mac being better to the mac being the system that everyone uses - so when someone goes out to buy a system for graphics design it is expected that it will be a mac. Both mac's and pc's will perform equally in this department. In the end choose whichever interface you like better and which features you prefer.

Also, those mac ads are 100% rubbish. This really annoys me, because I guess to an uneducated person they sound great.

Edit: Going to the apple site to listen to them I see this:
You probably need a new computer if you want to upgrade to vista. Perfect. Get a mac and live in a world that's simple, secure, and a lot more fun.

Haha. This is funny because
a) Probably not (needing new computer). To upgrade to vista on my laptop, I don't need anything. My laptop can run vista very well. To upgrade on my desktop, I need a new graphics card. Thats it. My desktop is 2 years old.

b) The apple ad campaign is based on insulting windows (kind of cheap and lame - windows doesnt have the same ad campaign towards mac), however every ad is flawed.

c) To upgrade to a new OS on mac, it is probably a lot more difficult because if you do need a new graphics card for example, you have to send the whole show back to apple and have them do it for lots of money (searching google I actually found that it is apparently not possible to upgrade - this is not verified information so I can't confirm it), or more likely buy a new computer. So their ad is actually backwards.

d) They make it sound like - hey don't get the new latest greatest from windows, instead stay with our old system because you know it. Or... just stay with XP?

Here is a reason on the mac site about why to use a mac instead of upgrading to vista (which doesn't make sense - if you don't want to upgrade to vista because of the cost of upgrading, why the hell would you go out and buy a mac??)

3. It’s simpler.
"No need to choose from the many (and expensive) flavors of Vista. Every Mac runs the same Mac OS X — with the full set of industry-leading features."

Oh great. So now we can pay extra money for features we don't need. Woohoo. Instead of being able to get the basic edition like you can with windows and save some money by not getting the features you don't want/need, I can pay extra money to get some useless stuff because there is only 1 option on what to get. At least I don't have to think.

P.S. This is not a shot at macs or mac users, but merely pointing out some common misconceptions and taking a quick rant at the apple ad campaign (sorry but its been annoying me for months and months now)

[aLFaDaRK]

1. "Mac's don't get viruses." False. As previously stated, coder's don't care enough to code viruses for macs (for the most part).

That's one thing that really bugs me, Apple always advertises how they focus on security so that they don't need to update later, they don't get viruses, etc. But the truth is that first of all, there are several thousand viruses for Mac - Not nearly as many as for PC which is in the tens of thousands, but still a considerable amount. And second, for a script kiddie who wants to do as much pointless damage as possible...are they going to make something to annoy 5% of users, or 95% of users? It's just a waste of time to them. Now, if somehow Mac took over the market and had 95% of users using, there would be far more viruses for them then for a PC.

The same goes for linux, which has even less market share than Apple, they can claim they're secure all they want, but really, everyone's just too lazy to go after them. ;)

[canonboy]

They can advertise what they want as its true. If it bugs you, then gutted, as for coders not being bothered, most prefer the challenge to prove apple wrong but in the end they just fail.

PC's are convenient and great is your 12 and still play computer games, but me who needs to run Indesign, Illustrator, Finalcut pro as well as my standard Itunes, Limewire and Internet without my computer slowing down or freezing, Macs are far superior. Argue all you want. Theres a reason the media industry use macs and its not cos they look pretty and don't show a stupid egg timer every 5 seconds.

[tommy_london]

But the truth is that first of all, there are several thousand viruses for Mac

Wow I didn't know that. Can you supply some more information on these please?

[CyberPet]

But the truth is that first of all, there are several thousand viruses for Mac)

OK, so are we talking about Mac OS X or are we talking about Mac OS 9 and older? As far as I know there's no known virus for Mac OS X. There is some troyans that was *made* by the virus security companies to scare people with. No evil hackers.

So lets keep the discussion to the truth here (and here we go with the Mac vs PC war again). Yes, there was about 40-45 viruses for the old Mac OS (9 and older) whilest there was 40-45,000 viruses for Windows. How many viruses there's for Windows now, I don't know, but probably not less than 5 years ago when Apple introduced Mac OS X on the market.

Now I'd like to see proof of those "thousands" of viruses you claim there's for Mac OS X, as there seem to have been an extremly increase since the old Mac OS, where there were less than hundred viruses.

[CyberDyneSystems]

Here's the difference between PC and Mac.

It all boils down to my Mother. :lol:

She has been using various Mac's for the last 8 years or so,. and yes they break just as often as any PC,.
BUT...

When she buys a USB wireless dongle for her Mac, or any other peripheral for that matter, she just un-boxes it, plugs it in, and it works.

With the new PC she just received for work stuff, when the linksys wireless USB adapter arrives, nothing works until I drive 45 minutes to her home and install everything, and then configure the wireless networking etc... I'll have to put in a solid three hours minimum including driving time. This is "Plug and Play" on the Windows OS.

As a die hard dedicated PC tweeker,. I am beginning to see the advantages of this whole "Mac thing" ;) :lol: :lol:

[Wedding Shooter]

People are passionate about Macs - they just get into your system, you feel creative just sitting in front of one.

I just convinced someone to buy a Mac for their office after their PC e-mail programme died for the 12th time in six months. They bought an iMac 20" Intel. You should hear them talk about how great it is and excited they are to work on the computer now. They never talked like this about the PC - all they did was moan how they had lost all their e-mail again and had had to spend hours reinstalling their back-up.

As for the virus stuff - there is no way there are thousands of viruses for the Mac.

Cheers,

Chris

[tommy_london]

As for the virus stuff - there is no way there are thousands of viruses for the Mac.


aLFaDaRK says there is. It must be true, surely? ;)

[thebrewer]

I have been a PC user going back to the days of the IBM PC XT. Heck, I used vt52 terminals on DEC PDP 11/70s. Recently my 3 1/2 year old Acer laptop stated to show it's age (poor battery life, small HD etc.). I found a great deal on a Macbook Pro, For the price, it was a heck of a machine (Intel core duo 2 ghz, 802.11g, great screen, magnetic connection for power cord, bluetooth etc.). However, I need a few PC apps (accounting SW), but the photo stuff is fine on either platform. I had considered running XP on it exclusively on the Mac, but I started playing with Parallels Desktop. I now run OSX and XP at the same time. I run my PC Photoshop in XP, and lightroom beta in osx. It is much faster than my old machine while running both XP/OSX (the 2 GB of ram helps!). The mac apps (iphoto,iweb etc.) are cute, but slightly feature limited; They are very easy for someone getting started in the world of computers.

I did play with BootCamp, it is not a very elegant solution (rebooting etc.). However, BootCamp with the new Parallels RC is better if you can dedicate a chunk of HD space. With this setup, you can BootCamp into XP and have full use of all the machines goodies for gamers(ATI 1600 series video card, usb 2 etc.)

Rich

[canonboy]

aLFaDaRK says there is. It must be true, surely? ;)

No its all ...*fails to think of suitable word without sounding insulting*, Either that or im well lucky, as I have been using Macs for 4 years never used anti virus software, download god knows how many programs and shareware and have never had a virus in my life.

the only problem I ever had with my mac, Is in game servers for americas army but end of day I don't buy a computer to play games, thats what dedicated game consoles are for.

[tommy_london]

No its all ...*fails to think of suitable word without sounding insulting*, Either that or im well lucky...

yeah I know, I was being sarcastic. I was implying that he was making it up. As various other posters have pointed out - there are not several thousands of mac viruses.

Started off my mac usage with a lowly LCIII (http://lowendmac.com/lc/lciii.shtml) and i'm yet to suffer a virus.

[aLFaDaRK]

No its all ...*fails to think of suitable word without sounding insulting*, Either that or im well lucky, as I have been using Macs for 4 years never used anti virus software, download god knows how many programs and shareware and have never had a virus in my life.

the only problem I ever had with my mac, Is in game servers for americas army but end of day I don't buy a computer to play games, thats what dedicated game consoles are for.

You are just lucky, as are most Mac users. The viruses made for Macs aren't very fast spreading due to the lack of users, and they're very rare in themselves. But yes, there are viruses for Mac OS X, and combined with older Mac OS's, there are several thousand. I forget where I found that statistic, but it was a website with stats for all different operating systems, windows, mac, linux, etc. It's not that virus programmers for Mac fail when trying to create viruses, they can do it, there's just no point if it will infect one computer and be fixed before the virus can find another Mac to spread to since they're not very common in comparison to PC's.

I think some of you took this as me insulting Mac, which is not true, I'm getting a Macbook Pro near the end of the year afterall. ;)

[Philco]

I placed my order with Apple today, so by this time next week I should be getting first hand experience so hopefully I'll see what Mac lovers rave about. My PC is getting old, so more than anything I just need more processing speed and I'm sure I'll be happy.

On a side note, I don't really understand why PC devotees like to bash Macs for their appearance. I don't care if it's 'cute' or not really, but I don't see what's so great about a big black box of a PC.

[jameelm]

Hey for what it's worth:

It is my understanding that Macs have been the platform of choice for creative professionals because the OS has had very extensive support for issues concerning color management, an issue that Microsoft has aimed to address with the release of Windows Vista (if you Google Microsoft and photography, I'm sure you will turn up links that appear to address this concern as well). I received this information at a MacLive Seminar in NY. There are many subjective differences as well, but from the speakers that were at the seminar who have used the platform for many years, that was the consensus.

[joegolf68]

You are just lucky, as are most Mac users. The viruses made for Macs aren't very fast spreading due to the lack of users, and they're very rare in themselves. But yes, there are viruses for Mac OS X, and combined with older Mac OS's, there are several thousand. I forget where I found that statistic, but it was a website with stats for all different operating systems, windows, mac, linux, etc. It's not that virus

I think you are making claims in this thread that you not only can back up, they are just pure false. If you are going to make such bold statements, you should be prepared to give at least a sniff of evidence. When called on it, maybe you should do some Google searches, or bow out.

http://www.macobserver.com/editorial/2003/08/29.1.shtml




.

[th3r0m]

I took a quick look around and could not find the thousands of viruses for MACs, but there have been a few like the LeapA that affected ichat and a couple of others. As to the article above, it is over 3 and a half years old, not very current in terms of virus data affecting any system. Several people have pointed out that the only viruses out there have been proof of concept types that haven't hurt anyone, but as Apple becomes more and more popular, viruses will eventually start popping up. We all know that windows is as holey as "a swiss cheese warehouse," but with apple continuing to spout about how secure they are, and with people shunning anti-virus because of it, Mac users are eventually going to get burned. There may never be as many viruses for Macs as there are for windows (which is and shall continue to be the leader in that industry), but there will be viruses.

[aLFaDaRK]

I think you are making claims in this thread that you not only can back up, they are just pure false. If you are going to make such bold statements, you should be prepared to give at least a sniff of evidence. When called on it, maybe you should do some Google searches, or bow out.

http://www.macobserver.com/editorial/2003/08/29.1.shtml

.

I've done google searches in the past on this, and they backed me up, but it took a lot of time to find in the first place, nevermind trying to find the damn thing again.

If you want to believe that all Mac's have some supernatural protection against all viruses, go ahead, I won't stop you. But I know for a fact that there are viruses for Macs, and there ARE viruses for Mac OS X, contrary to the Mac-biased, 4-year old link that you provided. A lot of things change in 4 years, especially in the realm of technology.

[mizuno]

But I know for a fact that there are viruses for Macs, and there ARE viruses for Mac OS X, contrary to the Mac-biased, 4-year old link that you provided. A lot of things change in 4 years, especially in the realm of technology.

Hehe, at least he provided a link.

You're claiming your opinion is fact with absolutely nothing to back it up. :lol:

[aLFaDaRK]

No link is better than a wrong link. I could give you a link to http://www.homestarrunner.com if you want? It's amusing, but provides nothing relevant to this topic.

I'm not claiming my opinion is fact actually, I'm saying that it's a fact that there are Mac viruses - that IS a fact. Yes, it may be very true that you're more likely to win the lottery at the same time as being struck by lightning than getting one of the few viruses there are, but they're still there.

So when something I say is claimed to be "just pure false", then backed up by an irrelevant link, I take it as more of an attack than an opinion. Especially after I said, I'm not saying Macs are bad at all - I love them, and I have to as a website and graphic designer, I'll even be getting one in the near future. But I'm saying that there ARE Mac viruses.

[joegolf68]

If you want to believe that all Mac's have some supernatural protection against all viruses, go ahead, I won't stop you. But I know for a fact that there are viruses for Macs, and there ARE viruses for Mac OS X, contrary to the Mac-biased, 4-year old link that you provided. A lot of things change in 4 years, especially in the realm of technology.


Nice try, diversion using hyperbole and a false premise. I never said any such thing. I said your claims can not be supported, nothing more, nothing less, and I stand by that statement. You may try to distract from that premise as much as you wish, but that is the only point I was making. If there have been thousands and thousands of viruses for the Macs, as you stated, bring on the info, if not, please don't use hyperbole and distractions to deflect from your contentions. It doesn't work. Absurd, truly absurd.

[aLFaDaRK]

I never said that you actually said Macs have supernatural protection, it's just how most Mac users think. Most don't buy anti-virus protection because they think Macs are magical. ;)

So the useless outdated link that you posted wasn't a distraction? Sure seemed like it to me, because it didn't back up your point either. Basically, if you won't believe me and I don't have proof, and I don't believe you, and you don't have proof. We're back to opinions, and I think it should stay that way.

[joegolf68]

If you want to believe that all Mac's have some supernatural protection against all viruses, go ahead, I won't stop you.

"I never said that you actually said Macs have supernatural protection"




:) Misquote?"


I think we'll need to stop here. I don't know how many total viruses the Mac has ever had and have now. I questioned your "guess" as misinformed, but gave you the opportunity to correct my doubts, which you have not. You actually may be correct, I just don't think so. Such a bold statement, you would have to suspect, would be questioned and that you might be asked for your source.

Have a good one. This is a dead issue unless you can back up your contention with some kind of reasonable statistic from some kind of reliable source. If not, this is becoming a house of mirrors. For you to continue to play word games is obvious and not enlightening, except to your personal style. Thanks.

[aLFaDaRK]

I said if you want to believe they have supernatural protection, I never said that you actually had said that. So no, not a misquote, but I agree that we need to stop here. The website that I had, and the link that you posted are contradictory, which means that probably nobody knows the real answer. You may be correct, or I may be, but either way it's not important.

[canonboy]

aLfA do you own a Mac or are you one of these people who believe whatever is posted on the internet?

Theres a reason everybody is disagreeing with you, and funny enough were the ones who own the machienes so im sure we know a bit better.

I don't want this post to sound insulting im just trying to be blunt so you get the point, i still want your babies okay?

[aLFaDaRK]

Once again, I don't dislike Macs, I'll be getting one this year.

No, I don't believe everything on the internet.

The people owning the machines don't necissarily know better. There are users of PC's who probably think they have no viruses, but have about 20 running in the background attempting to steal their credit card numbers, yet they will say that have no viruses because they're "careful". That is not someone who knows their machine better. Also, when someone asks where the "Any Key" is when told to press any key to continue. They do not know their system better.

Some might say that the ones disagreeing are the ones with Macs because they know them, others might say they're disagreeing because they dislike PC's. ;)

[JCR]

It took me a while to see the light but finally I do.

I was an avid binary addict, I would do about 30,000 lines of code a day, were talking free databaseing none of that poofy packet sniffing.
Long nights I spent rooting old discarded boxes for forgotten nuggets of easily digestible hex to satify my crunchie cravings, pinging my pals, tracerouting for treasure, hunting that elusive creature the perfectly compiled penguin. I had hit the ultimate low basemem, I was constantly high on/low off, even my netcat had enough and left me.

Recently I noticed my bytes turning into nibbles, my long words degrading to mere words. The cause for this had my mind in loops initially, then it dawned on me, time... My silicon was growing old, my northbridge was collapsing and my southern not far behind.

I'm now faced with the daunting task of visiting my dealer for a new fix, do I choose the cheaper beige stuff or the expensive silvery white stuff?

Lets look at my choices.
Would I prefer a guru named Bill, or a guru named steve?
Do I prefer big or little indians?
Would the world be safer, more peaceful under the protection of god unix?
Or would old father dos be more fun?
Did I want a safe but slightly restricted home?
Or would I prefer living wild amongst the microbes of the world wide web, surviving off my own wits.

Truth to tell for those still here, all I really want is to crunch lots of 0's and 1's which would I choose?

if you understood that lot and want to save some cash for a lens, go buy a PC.
If you think I am crazy and speaking in tongues go get a mac.
If you understood everything I said and still think I'm crazy your probably the most correct from all three choices, But I don't care because i'm far too busy learning how to take pictures. :D

10 mac = machine
20 pc = machine
30 if mac > pc goto 10.
40 if pc > mac goto 10
50 if mac <> pc goto top of the class.

[canonboy]

I understood everything minus the indians

[aLFaDaRK]

10 mac = machine
20 pc = machine
30 if mac > pc goto 10.
40 if pc > mac goto 10
50 if mac <> pc goto top of the class.

That probably sums up everything the best. :lol:

[JCR]

http://www.cs.umass.edu/~verts/cs32/endian.html :)

[picturecrazy]

On a side note, I don't really understand why PC devotees like to bash Macs for their appearance. I don't care if it's 'cute' or not really, but I don't see what's so great about a big black box of a PC.

Well, congrats on your purchase! Looking forward to seeing lots of wonderful pictures coming from your new workstation!

I know I don't like the 'cute' thing because it fetches a premium price, but doesn't contribute a thing to the computing power. Give me an ugly box, charge $100 less, and I'll get 2 extra GB of RAM or another 300GB storage thank you.

peace

[Philco]

Well, at least I got the extra 2 GB of RAM anyway, cute or not. : )

I still supervise a graphics dept. in education, so I can at least take a small discount.

[Banbert]

For me the OS is becoming less and less important and imo this will get more so as time goes on, whether I use a PC or a MAC doesnt matter a whole lot as the OS adds little or no value to what I do its just a personal choice or in my case because thats what I currently had as hardware when I started shooting weddings.

I currently use a PC and my business partner uses a Mac and no doubt it would make things a little easier if we were both using the same but it doesnt really cause us much hassle being different at the moment anyway.

Things like Google Documents, Calendars, Analytics, Adwords etc let us create some value for our business and give us easier ways of working, PC or MAC choosing between PC or MAC wont make much difference I dont think.

[slappy sam]

Ok since I was the one who brought up the fact that there can be viruses made for OS X, and someone agreed and then got attacked, I will provide a link for him (2nd result on google... im sure there is more) that shows that the point of the matter is not that macs are immune to viruses, but that no hackers care enough about 5% of the market share to program a virus for them.
http://www.techworld.com/security/news/index.cfm?newsid=1798

Infact, if you actually read the article, it says that

"For example, Windows security holes generally receive a lot of press because of the software's popularity, but the statistics show that Windows isn't the subject of significantly more advisories than other operating systems.
Windows XP Professional (http://secunia.com/product/22/) saw 46 advisories in 2003-2004, with 48 percent of vulnerabilities allowing remote attacks and 46 percent enabling system access, Secunia said. "

"Mac OS X (http://secunia.com/product/96/) doesn't stand out as particularly more secure than the competition, according to Secunia. Of the 36 advisories issued in 2003-2004, 61 percent could be exploited across the Internet and 32 percent enabled attackers to take over the system. The proportion of critical bugs was also comparable with other software: 33 percent of the OS X vulnerabilities were "highly" or "extremely" critical by Secunia's reckoning, compared with 30 percent for XP Professional and 27 percent for SLES 8 and just 12 percent for Advanced Server 3. OS X had the highest proportion of "extremely critical" bugs at 19 percent. "

This does not prove that there has been a virus for OS X, merely that there is the possibility, just not many coders care enough to do it. Well, I went back to google and looked down the page where I searched "mac virus statistics os x" and found this:
http://software.silicon.com/malware/0,3800003100,39156946,00.htm

Cool. A known virus for a mac.

Sorry if I seemed rude, its just that everyone seemed to flip out and claiming that he had no evidence, so just out of curiosity I decided to do a quick google search and see if anything actually came up. I didn't even have to go to the end of the first page.

[B-H-P]

Philco...congrats! I bought my first Mac in June 06 and am loving it. I haven't had any problems with it. Don't see myself buying another PC. I have used PC's since 1988 (started before PC's with a Commodore 64 back in 82' lol). Like my Mac the most.

[Philco]

Bill Gates is chiming in on this very subject, if I may link to it:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16934083/site/newsweek/page/2/

Brian - thanks, you're experience is consistent with many others I've heard.

[tommy_london]

Ok since I was the one who brought up the fact that there can be viruses made for OS X, and someone agreed and then got attacked, I will provide a link for him (2nd result on google... im sure there is more) that shows that the point of the matter is not that macs are immune to viruses, but that no hackers care enough about 5% of the market share to program a virus for them.



I doubt anyone will deny that there can be viruses made for OS X.

But I think what got peoples backs up was the claim: "there are several thousand viruses for Mac". It's a bit of a far fetched statement to make. We're all entitled to our opinion as to what we like and dislike but trying to back up those opinions with fabricated evidence is not exactly clever.

[joruiz]

Extremely far fetched. The guy found ONE virus (actually, the Leap.A virus was only a proof of concept, not a virus in the wild), when he assured there were thousands. It only comes as mac basher.

There is the possibility of real viruses for macs. I don't care why coders aren't writting them, I'm just glad I've been a mac user for more than 20 years, and never encountered a virus on my machines. Never. It may sound like a lie to PC users, but it's true, there's a life without viruses and malware out there.

Since OS X, I have never installed an antivirus program on my macs. If there are no viruses, I need no vaccine.

[aLFaDaRK]

Extremely far fetched. The guy found ONE virus (actually, the Leap.A virus was only a proof of concept, not a virus in the wild), when he assured there were thousands. It only comes as mac basher.

*sigh* I am the one who "fabricated" the evidence of thousands of viruses. I can't find the proof anymore so I won't even try and argue that part because my fire retardent suit has been worn down. Anyway, I am NOT a mac basher. I am getting a Mac at some point this year - how could I bash something I will be purchasing? I was simply stating what I thought (and what a source that I can no longer found backed me up on.) Furthermore, I said viruses for Macs in general, not Mac OSX, of which there were over 500 - half of a thousand is getting close to the statistic I read. Back on topic now.

[Jason Cole]

I would like to make a point about this topis too:

MAC User LOVE their MAC's and never protect their brand loyally
PC Users hate their PC's and feel stuck with no other options ...

LOL who is the winner here... I would say the subject is decided...

Go MAC.... long live Apple... give me a Dual core MAC any day... happy MAC days...

:-)

[Jason Cole]

OH OH One thing that PC's KILL MAC's over is Hard Disk Control.

On my MAC its either on or its off, so I constantly have to wait for my hard disks to spin up... on my PC (yes I have a PC too) I can set the hard disk power down to what ever I like (usually 2 hours).

Does anyone know a MAC solution for this issue? Its my only beef in an otherwise green and leafy world :-)

[grego]

Mac Pro's hold 4 hard drives and up to 32GB of RAM along with a seperate monitor and all the usual great Mac software and rock solid OSX. They have great colour management tools and built in support for lot's of cool stuff that Vista is only now just trying to catch up with. Plus they run PC software as fast if not faster than a PC - why bother with a virus prone PC?

Tempt yourself ;)

Whether you use PC or Mac, usually 3rd party has a good lead with both markets, like with Adobe products, for instance.

only with an imac. their macpro can hold quite a few drives in it. I dunno, I'm still on the fence. Price is the biggest issue, but if it means I can get stuff done faster :confused:

Build your own!! That's the best way to get best bang for your buck. Quality parts, and only the stuff you want.

You can control the size of your tower(although a midtower is generally enough).

My new computer will be 1/3 of the price of anything bought from mac or dell. I'm not doing video so i know where I have to focus. But I got a system that will do what it needs to do without the extra prices and extra clutter.


On a side note, I don't really understand why PC devotees like to bash Macs for their appearance. I don't care if it's 'cute' or not really, but I don't see what's so great about a big black box of a PC.

I do have to say, that there are so many different cases out there, that the "big block box" isn't really characteristic anymore. Step into a Frys and have a look or check out newegg.

[tdodd]

I just bought a Dell XPS M1710 laptop to replace my ~6 year old Dell Inspiron 8000. I was definitely considering a Macbook Pro, especially since my brother in law has got one and he is a professional photographer. Aperture looks very sweet on that. There would also have been one or two software issues for me, unrelated to photography, but if Apple had the hardware I want I might have been persuaded to overlook those.

But at the end of the day I crave high resolution on my screen and Apple simply don't have a 1920*1200 option on their notebooks so for me the decision to stay in the Windows camp was made for me by Apple. Plus, to get like for like hardware and warranty, were that even possible, would have cost me several £100 more for the MacBook Pro. If I'd specced an Inspiron 9400 instead of an XPS M1710 I could have saved another few £100 and still been ahead of the Apple in the graphics department and equal on the rest of the hardware and warranty.

The Apple styling is beautiful and by comparison the XPS M1710 looks like a pig wearing lipstick but I use my notebook to get things done and not to sit back and admire.

I do think MS has lost the plot with Vista and that's why my new purchase (4 days old) was specced with XP but I shall be getting the free Vista upgrade to leave in a drawer until Vista offers something worth having.

I might add that with the acquisition of the new M1710 I now own three laptops and a PC, all running XP Pro or XP MCE 2005, and my girfriend has an Acer Ferrari running XP Home. All our kit is networked, stable and works as it should. I'm not really sure how running a Mac environment could be any simpler or more reliable.

[Jason Cole]

Why is Vista so bad? I mean I havent read anything either way, its just so many people are saying its crap... i know its way too expensive...

[tdodd]

The problem with Vista is that it just adds so little to what you can already get from XP with few freebies from Google thrown into the mix. For the amount of time it's taken to deliver and the great whoopy-doo surrounding its arrival the reality is that there's virtually nothing radical/revolutionary to get excited about. Plus when you consider the extra hardware requirements to run it properly in all its glory it seems a bit of a backward step for progress.

Here's what's so great about Vista, from the horse's mouth....

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/help/639a0593-b990-4f53-82be-857fcea5a5061033.mspx

It is pitiful. Taking each point in turn....

1. I have IE7 right now in XP. I don't need Vista to get it.

2. I have tried the Google widgets and sidebar and got rid of it within a day. It occupies space on my screen that I'd like to keep for work. I don't need to know the temperature in Seattle 24*7. I have a watch on my wrist. If I want up to date news I'll go to a news website. It's a gimmicky waste of space that serves little or no useful purpose.

3. Aero - so it looks pretty and needs shed loads of graphics power. Do I need it? Does it allow me to work faster? Not really. It's another gimmick, maybe to match OS X features but I'm quite happy with Alt-Tab and a static economical background. Why waste CPU cycles on a "video" background. It's pointless.

4. Mahjong - Please. This is why I would buy Vista? No!

5. Start Menu Search - I know where my stuff is. I'm well organised. XP has a search function (Windows-F to Find files). If you want your stuff indexed XP has indexing too but most people disable it as a resource hog. If you want another deep search alternative then use Google Desktop Search for free (and save a wasted key click).

5.5 I can cope with cascading menus thanks. I've done it for years. I'm a big boy and very brave.

6. What the hell is this? I've used the classic control panel for years. I know where to find everything. Why would I want to search for control panel features?

7. Photo Gallery - is it better than Bridge? Is it better than Lightroom? Is it better than the free Google Picasa software? Is it better than Zoombrowser? I don't know but since all those have ample features for organising photos and displaying slideshow I hardly need yet another way to achieve the exact same thing.

So really there is nothing there that adds value that can't be achieved for free and with almost no effort on an XP base. The only real improvement is in security but I'm happy with my router firewall, Windows firewall, Nod32 antivirus and common sense approach to clicking dubious links in emails or websites.

On the downside there is the DRM infection that limits what you can view and in what quality depending upon how your monitor is connected - No HDCP or HDMI link means no HD AV. Vista really doesn't have a lot going for it to encourage an upgrade. For a first time user I guess it's about equal to XP but with a heavy price on hardware.

[Philco]

I do have to say, that there are so many different cases out there, that the "big block box" isn't really characteristic anymore. Step into a Frys and have a look or check out newegg.

In terms of an off-the-shelf-ready-to-use-machine, black or some comination of black/silver still seems to be the norm. I've seen a bunch of other cases at Fry's, but they're often plain, or they're geared toward avid gamers with neon and big fans everyewhere. I've never played Doom for hours while strung out on Pepsi and Frito's, so that's not for me. ;) I like that I can buy an apple that's aesthetically pleasing right out of the box, but I do acknowledge that there's nothing individualistic about it per se as I'm just conforming to another ideal, but it's an ideal I like.

[slappy sam]

As already stated, vista is kind of a letdown. I know it is for me. Besides the fact that it is expensive, it doesn't really have anything notable (as already said). In all honesty, it is a lot like Mac OS X (not trying to say mac os is bad). Vista has become more "flashy" and now has widgets and stuff... a lot of the way the windows pop out and down is very mac-like in my opinion - and when you can cycle through multiple windows its very much like on a mac.

[grego]

Why is Vista so bad? I mean I havent read anything either way, its just so many people are saying its crap... i know its way too expensive...

Vista is like XP is when it first came out. Eventually people will upgrade and be fine with it after the 1st service pack. Then the future OS(after Vista) will have the same reaction when it's nearing release. Same cycle.

In terms of an off-the-shelf-ready-to-use-machine, black or some comination of black/silver still seems to be the norm. I've seen a bunch of other cases at Fry's, but they're often plain, or they're geared toward avid gamers with neon and big fans everyewhere. I've never played Doom for hours while strung out on Pepsi and Frito's, so that's not for me. ;) I like that I can buy an apple that's aesthetically pleasing right out of the box, but I do acknowledge that there's nothing individualistic about it per se as I'm just conforming to another ideal, but it's an ideal I like.

Buying a case doesn't necessairly equal being a pepsi hooked gamer. :p
But then I guess to me it doesn't matter much. As long as the equipment delievers(black, white, grey, etc.)

[Paul007]

I liked this bit...
So you feel in 2010-2011 Microsoft will be back with the next big one?
Absolutely. We'll tell you how Vista just wasn't good enough, and we'll know why, too. We need to wait and hear what consumers have to tell us. We don't know that, otherwise, of course, we would have done it this time.

from here http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16934083/site/newsweek/page/3/

way to go Billy Boy


Paul

[Damian75]

With vista MS rolled in most of the features that have been in OS X for the last few years only they found less productive ways of implimenting them.

[grego]

With vista MS rolled in most of the features that have been in OS X for the last few years only they found less productive ways of implimenting them.

Well 3rd party software has been filing in the gaps for those years, which is nice.

[aLFaDaRK]

Here's what's so great about Vista, from the horse's mouth....

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/help/639a0593-b990-4f53-82be-857fcea5a5061033.mspx


Well I agree that Vista isn't worth the upgrade if you're using a PC that would have to be modified to have it installed, but I like widgets, I like the new look, and hopefully it would cope better with dual monitors - I'll have to look into that though. Oh, and the 3-D Alt-tab replacement is useful to me too, because I have so many windows open with the same icons all the time that I like to see a preview. I have a windows tool that allows me to do this with Alt-Tab on XP, but it only shows one at a time and they're very small - not that useful.

One thing that isn't mentioned on their website however, is that Vista actually uses a completely different file system - it's not based on NT, so it in fact works a whole lot differently, but it's not listed on the website since that's generally only what a basic user would need to know. I also find file browsing and other things easier on vista with some "gimmicks" that have been added, but that's not enough for an upgrade.

[tdodd]

There is a 10 minute video intro/review of Vista by the BBC here....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_6320000/newsid_6325000/6325041.stm?bw=bb&mp=wm

[HouseOfTofu]

My two cents...

I switched from a PC when I became a graphic designer twelve years ago. I typically don't ike to diss PCs, but I prefer a Mac mainly because I don't use a ton of software. I don't play games on my computer (I use a Playstation for that), and I just use a few, really expensive apps, such as Adobe CS, Aperture, etc.

Last night my wife couldn't copy and paste text from Microsoft Word without the text screwing up all the spacing for no good reason. I monkeyed with it for awhile, converting to TXT, etc. until I finally just emailed it to my Mac and took care of it in two minutes, WYSIWYG.

It's what just slays me, that seven years into the 21st Century, and a platform hasn't eliminated word processing glitches? And every time I think I should save $200 and get a PC, all I have to do is spend some time with one and I remember how lucky I have it.

Apple torques me off occasionally, and I've had my share of frustrating evenings trying to get WiFi stuff to work, etc. But it seems to be about 20 percent better than Windows, and when you think about a 20 percent productivity gain in your workflow...

... it's the difference between sanity and slashing your wrists.

[bpuppy]

Simple solution ... buy a Mac at Best Buy and use it for 2 weeks. If you don't love it in 2 weeks. take it back.

But give yourself 2 solid weeks in OS X to get used to it.

There's lot's of people who 'hate macs' and have never tried one. There are precious few people who have given OS X a solid try out and have not loved it.

If after 2 weeks you hate it, then take it back and get Vista and never look back.

[joruiz]

*sigh* I am the one who "fabricated" the evidence of thousands of viruses. I can't find the proof anymore so I won't even try and argue that part because my fire retardent suit has been worn down. Anyway, I am NOT a mac basher. I am getting a Mac at some point this year - how could I bash something I will be purchasing? I was simply stating what I thought (and what a source that I can no longer found backed me up on.) Furthermore, I said viruses for Macs in general, not Mac OSX, of which there were over 500 - half of a thousand is getting close to the statistic I read. Back on topic now.

Didn't mean to sound rude, sorry for that. But being a mac user for over 20 years (it's been THAT long??) It surprised me your argument that there were lots of viruses for the mac. There were some for the classic OS (OS 9 and older) but there were very few compared to the Windows OSes at the time. And are practically none for OS X. Anyways..

Vista looks like lots of eye candy. Hopefully it is accompanied with solid features and easier workflows but only time (and reviews) will tell.

I can't wait for Leopard.

[joruiz]

Simple solution ... buy a Mac at Best Buy and use it for 2 weeks. If you don't love it in 2 weeks. take it back.

But give yourself 2 solid weeks in OS X to get used to it.

There's lot's of people who 'hate macs' and have never tried one. There are precious few people who have given OS X a solid try out and have not loved it.

If after 2 weeks you hate it, then take it back and get Vista and never look back.


I know people who needed more than two weeks to fall in love with OS X (depends on the amount of time you use a computer during the day I guess), but at the end they all fall in love and never look back. I know only one person, a very good friend of mine, who wasn't attracted, and as you said, he upgraded his PC and never look back.

[Tony-S]

Getting in late here, but a couple of things need addressed. I won't revisit the virus claim, since it's been thoroughly debunked.

2. "You don't have to restart a mac as much as a pc." I honestly have no idea where this came from - both machines should be restarted once in a while just because it is good to give the system a fresh restart, but by all means if you want to leave your PC or mac on for 6+ months at a time, go for it. My PC is normally on for weeks at a time without any problems.

The reason you don't restart Macs is because they are really BSD Unix with a nice GUI on top of it. A number of cron tasks run (daily, weekly and monthly) while the machine is idle, oftentimes at night, which help keep the filesystem in good shape. It also does journalling, which helps in the event of a system crash. Macs with OS X should stay on all the time so that these tasks can complete.

3. "It just works." Varies from person to person. Personally, it seems that whenever I use a mac it crashes on me. I will admit, my PC crashes sometimes too, but I can usually figure out why, and it doesn't happen much. I'd say both mac and pc are even in this department, but mac might have an edge (everyone says they dont crash at all...).

I've been running OS X since it first came out. With the exception of one time with 10.0 (now at 10.4) none of my Macs have ever crashed. I've only had one Win 98 PC and within a few months of using it I routinely got the Blue Screen of Death, and within a year the only way it would shut down was if I unplugged it.

With this said, the mac is a very nice looking, sleek, standard, easy to use system. It is harder to upgrade, and I honestly don't understand the computer-in-a-monitor thing; I think something like the G5 with a normal tower is a much smarter idea.

Depends on your needs. I love the small footprints of my 24" iMac and my Mac Mini. I do other things at my desk besides using a computer.

Also, those mac ads are 100% rubbish. This really annoys me, because I guess to an uneducated person they sound great.

This may or may not be true, but they are funny as hell.

c) To upgrade to a new OS on mac, it is probably a lot more difficult because if you do need a new graphics card for example, you have to send the whole show back to apple and have them do it for lots of money (searching google I actually found that it is apparently not possible to upgrade - this is not verified information so I can't confirm it), or more likely buy a new computer. So their ad is actually backwards.

I installed OS X 10.4.8 (the current version) on an iMac G3 and iBook G3, both of which are about 9 years old. No need to send them in for anything - I just installed the OS. Simple, and it worked.

[joruiz]

Agree with you Tony-S. Macs rarely crash (at least my macs, I have 4), I have three types of macs: an all-in-one, a laptop and two towers. And all of them make sense for the use I give them. I also have installed the latest OS on a 6 year old computer, working like a champ. About the ads.. I love the new one 'security' it has to be the funniest yet! Go watch it:

http://www.apple.com/getamac

[grego]

Nikonz >>>>>>> Canon Wooo!!

[frame]

I made the switch to Mac and have run into a number of compatiblity issues. Mac is asthetically pleasing and more logical in the way it operates, but as far as value for money goes, stick to PC. I don't find any huge differences in terms of its performance for PP...

[Tony-S]

I made the switch to Mac and have run into a number of compatiblity issues.

What do you mean by "compatibility issues"?

[frame]

What do you mean by "compatibility issues"?

Well I guess this might be a little more specific to my needs, but I'm not able to run certain software programs that I'd like. The first being IrfanView which is a great program for batch conversition / renaming of your pics and its free, haven't found a solution for mac yet so if you have any suggestions.....?

The second was not photography related, but was a trading program that's not supported by Mac.

I had lent out my card reader and had an issue connecting my camera direct to the mac, it said that the Canon software I was using is only supported on the older versions of Mac operating system but I'm sure just visiting the Canon site will sort that out

Anyway these aren't huge issues, but have caused a degree of headache and extra expenses. As far a PP goes, working on the Mac is great but doesn't provide me with anything thats not available on PC :)

[tdodd]

As far a PP goes, working on the Mac is great but doesn't provide me with anything thats not available on PC :)
This is what puzzles me about the whole Mac vs PC debate....... In hardware terms a MacBook Pro is pretty much the same as any number of "Windows" notebooks. Sure, it definitely looks pretty, but the hardware options are very limited and there is definitely a price premum.

As far as the OS goes, well it's there to run the application software and get the hardware bits to talk to each other. I know there are many apps now supplied within the OS but at the end of the day I run the apps I choose. Once I have an app opened and running full screen it doesn't matter a toss to me what the underlying OS is because it is invisible to me. If I want to switch apps it isn't rocket science and I couldn't care less whether it's XP, Vista or OS X doing the switching. What's the big deal?

In terms of OS stability, I've no experience of OS X but I've been running XP Pro since October 2001, XP Home since 2004 and XP MCE 2005 for the last couple of years and I can't say that I'm plagued with crashes. That's on four laptops and one homebuilt PC ranging from 8.5 years old to one week old. Once in a while my video driver may go tits up following a standby/resume but that's about twice a year. Occasionally an app may lock up but I can kill it from Task Manager and for safety do a clean boot but there is nothing alarming or exciting about the event.

It's no surprise that Apple has an easy time of it with control over the hardware and the OS. Microsoft, on the other hand, has to cope with unlimited permutations of hardware and is reliant on the hardware manufacturers to write their drivers properly.

At the end of the day I chose to stick with "Windows" for my latest purchase because Apple can't supply the hardware config I want. The choice of OS was secondary in importance because at the end of the day I run applications and the OS should be of little consequence, so long as it works.

[Tony-S]

Well I guess this might be a little more specific to my needs, but I'm not able to run certain software programs that I'd like. The first being IrfanView which is a great program for batch conversition / renaming of your pics and its free, haven't found a solution for mac yet so if you have any suggestions.....?

Both Aperture and iPhoto can do batch renaming and conversion. I haven't used it in a while, but I think DPP does as well.

The second was not photography related, but was a trading program that's not supported by Mac.

But this was known in advance, right?

I had lent out my card reader and had an issue connecting my camera direct to the mac, it said that the Canon software I was using is only supported on the older versions of Mac operating system but I'm sure just visiting the Canon site will sort that out.

That's strange too. I cannot comment on most cameras, but my Mac can import from all 4 Canon that I have (had) (A70, A95, XT, 30D), and a Nikon DSLR and Olympus PS that I've tried using both iPhoto and Image Capture, both of which have shipped with new Macs for several years now. Certainly a visit to Canon's web site for software updates should fix the problem with their software.

Anyway these aren't huge issues, but have caused a degree of headache and extra expenses. As far a PP goes, working on the Mac is great but doesn't provide me with anything thats not available on PC :)

Agreed. Everyone should think about their software needs and choose the platform that fits them (seems counterintuitive to most people, but it really makes the most sense, IMO). My only experience with a PC was a Win98 machine that I was forced to use by our IT department for about a year and a half because I was told that our network didn't support Macs. (I turns out that the IT people didn't support Macs; the network supported them just fine.) Within 6 months I was getting the Blue Screen of Death every few days, and at a year the only way I could shut it down was by unplugging it from the wall. My experience with XP Pro is limited - I have it installed on a partition of my Mac Mini and I haven't had any problems with it. I don't use it much (I have two work-related software packages the only run on XP), but I get these annoying little text bubbles at the bottom of the screen every 15 min or so telling me that there are software updates available and that my computer isn't secure on the internet. It's really distracting. Is there a way to turn those things off and only manually check for updates?

[SoaringUSAEagle]

Where else are you gonna find such a compact laptop... Comparing it to my old HP, the mac is much lighter. And for my workflow, once cs3 is released I will be cookin lol.

I use both mac and pc. And each have their own pros and cons, as does anything.

[tdodd]

My experience with XP Pro is limited - I have it installed on a partition of my Mac Mini and I haven't had any problems with it. I don't use it much (I have two work-related software packages the only run on XP), but I get these annoying little text bubbles at the bottom of the screen every 15 min or so telling me that there are software updates available and that my computer isn't secure on the internet. It's really distracting. Is there a way to turn those things off and only manually check for updates?

Why on earth would you want to ignore advisory notices that your OS was not secure and there were critical updates to be applied? You do have the option to have critical updates install automatically, without user intervention, or turn off automatic updates altogether and only do manual updates. It seems a bit silly to moan about the pop up bubbles. They are there for your own good. If you act on them they will go away until the next critical update is released. If you ignore them you will continue to be irritated by them and your system will remain unsecured.

[Damian75]

One word UNIX

At this stage in the game the MAC has become the swiss army knife of computers. You have the best GUI on the planet for ease of use you have full BSD Unix under that so out of the box you have access to all the OS X software out there and the UNIX software. For those getting started in digital photography you can use an opensource app like GIMP (which is free) for image editing which has most of the features of the full version of PS. You can install Linux on a partition if you want and now you can install Windows XP or Vista and even use an app like Paralles workstation and run all three in Virtual Machines at the same time. This is the reason why many of us in the IT community are now useing MAC we have one laptop that will let us troubleshoot all the systems the company has. Oh and just a side note for any of you that have multiple MAC you can enable x-grid and pull processing power from other idel macs to speed up things like photoshop rendering.

[Tony-S]

Why on earth would you want to ignore advisory notices that your OS was not secure and there were critical updates to be applied?

Sorry; just being a bit fecicious. Being a Mac guy, there generally aren't any OS updates or malware issues that are considered "critical".

[tdodd]

I thought it might be a wind up but didn't want to take the chance ;) I do a bit of PC support for friends and rels and it horrifies me just how few of them have a clue about the MS/Windows/Office updates. Mind you, they have no better clue about anti virus or firewalls either :(

[canonboy]

frame why dont you just import using iPhoto if you dont have a card reader?

[frame]

frame why dont you just import using iPhoto if you dont have a card reader?

Once the camera is connected it shows it as a folder on the desktop. I would normally copy the pics from that folder onto my machine or view them with the Canon software, but when I tried to open the folder or view them I got the same error about the version of OSx thats was running.

Haven't really used iphoto much but will give it a try...thanks

[sam0329]

OS X is rock soild and I love it so much, so recently I brought myself a MacPro and Aperature to speed up my workflow a little bit, so far it works flawless and I use Parallel to run windows XP in virtual machine if I do ever need to run any Wintel program, if it hangs? just close it like an application and reopen it. But I think it really a personal preference. Mac VS PC? The war will never end, kind of like we have chicken first? Or Egg first? :lol:
As for me, I m a 100% Mac guy now and "The transition is completed" ;)

[Pamela107]

Sam

Have you made a photo album using Aperature?
If you have
Can you custom design the pages?
Is it worth buying the program?
Have you run into any problems with the software?


Thank you

[aLFaDaRK]

Has anyone seen the previews for Mac OS X Leopard?

The Time Machine looks very useful, but I'm wondering how much extra harddrive space it must take to store everything from the past that's been deleted...

[Rumjungle]

I like both. PC for price, flexibility, control over os/hardware. Mac for it's tight integration and user friendliness. What I'd like to know is if they make a MacBook with a 7200rpm HD yet? Also, why do MacBooks have to run so damn hot?

[CaptainShenanigans]

I love my Mac, it completes me :)

[mizuno]

What I'd like to know is if they make a MacBook with a 7200rpm HD yet?

Yeah, you can get 7200rpm HDD in built to order units.

[Rumjungle]

Well, that changes things. I'm a PC whiz, so I really don't have any issues with the OS. I can make XP as stable as I'd like. However, I just can't seem to settle on a PC notebook. The Macs really shine in this department...especially since they can still run XP. And with 7200rpm hd's, they can match the performance of the faster PC notebooks.

[Rumjungle]

Nevermind, the 7200rpm hd is only an option on the 17" books. That's bigger than I'd like for toting to weddings.

[mizuno]

Nevermind, the 7200rpm hd is only an option on the 17" books. That's bigger than I'd like for toting to weddings.

I have the 17", specifically for weddings. Makes for a great reception slideshow machine.

[Rumjungle]

Don't get me wrong, it's very nice. My friend has one and it's great. But it's just a bit to big for me. I'd like something more portable.

[mizuno]

Don't get me wrong, it's very nice. My friend has one and it's great. But it's just a bit to big for me. I'd like something more portable.

Fair enough, each to their own.

Having said that, I had a 15" powerbook previous to my 17" macbook pro and to be honest, the size difference in terms of portability is really not an issue at all. It's actually thinner than my 15" was anyway.

The screen resolution is the massive bonus, 1680 x 1050 in a portable unit is sensational. It's the same as my 20" cinema display!

[Rumjungle]

Hmmm, food for thought, Dan, food for thought.
I think I'm going to pay another visit to my friend to play with the 17" one more time...:lol:

[Throlkim]

Sam

Have you made a photo album using Aperature?
If you have
Can you custom design the pages?
Is it worth buying the program?
Have you run into any problems with the software?


Thank you

I can help answer a few of these:

I haven't used it much, but I have toyed with it.
There are quite a few guides around for customizing them: http://www.completedigitalphotography.com/?p=427
Yes, very much so. But I'd recommend getting a trial of both Aperture and Lightroom and seeing which suits you best. Both my dad and I chose Aperture, and we both work very differently :)
I've had no problems with it at all, it's a very well thought-out program, and there's often a simple solution for what you want in there somewhere.

I've been using a mac for the last 5 years or so, recently got myself a 20" iMac, and it's a wonderful machine. I actually enjoy being at the computer, which I couldn't say about Windows. It's well worth the extra money for stability and good design. I'm a design student, and I can really appreciate how much better designed it is over Windows.

[sam0329]

Sam

Have you made a photo album using Aperature?
If you have
Can you custom design the pages?
Is it worth buying the program?
Have you run into any problems with the software?


Thank you

Hi,
so far I havent fully understand every single feature of Aperature yet, I usually use it to covert RAW to Tiff and than edit, than convert to JPG or pick some nice one and retouch in PS. Its not as fast as Capture One Pro, but I like the interface, pretty easy to use. I know you can do custom album using the build in layout functions. And I m going to try it out on my next wedding, hope this help

P.S. the program is pretty soild on my Mac pro so far, never quit on error, not even once. If you use Mac, its worth it, unless you re going to buy CS3 and lightroom.

[sam0329]

I guess I m in troble, I m so addicted to MacTel, I think I m going to trade in my 2 years old Powerbook today for a 17" Macbook Pro. Damm Mac, just.... look so sexy... LOL!

[Pamela107]

I can help answer a few of these:

I haven't used it much, but I have toyed with it.
There are quite a few guides around for customizing them: http://www.completedigitalphotography.com/?p=427
Yes, very much so. But I'd recommend getting a trial of both Aperture and Lightroom and seeing which suits you best. Both my dad and I chose Aperture, and we both work very differently :)
I've had no problems with it at all, it's a very well thought-out program, and there's often a simple solution for what you want in there somewhere.

I've been using a mac for the last 5 years or so, recently got myself a 20" iMac, and it's a wonderful machine. I actually enjoy being at the computer, which I couldn't say about Windows. It's well worth the extra money for stability and good design. I'm a design student, and I can really appreciate how much better designed it is over Windows.

I have been using mac since 1984, and love them.
Thank you for the info - Im looking into the link you sent , right now.

[Pamela107]

Hi,
so far I havent fully understand every single feature of Aperature yet, I usually use it to covert RAW to Tiff and than edit, than convert to JPG or pick some nice one and retouch in PS. Its not as fast as Capture One Pro, but I like the interface, pretty easy to use. I know you can do custom album using the build in layout functions. And I m going to try it out on my next wedding, hope this help

P.S. the program is pretty soild on my Mac pro so far, never quit on error, not even once. If you use Mac, its worth it, unless you re going to buy CS3 and lightroom.

Sam

HURRY !
Go buy that Mac- I have one and LOVE it.
I have CS2 and Im not planning on buying lightroom either.
Aperature is really what I want to get next, first I guess I would have to add ram, if I have the info right, I thought the requirement is 1gig of ram.

Thankyou

[Rumjungle]

Well, my friend with the 17" macbook pro is looking to sell it in favor of the 15" so I may be in line for one of those. He says it's just too big to use on airplanes if you fly coach.:)

[Village_Idiot]

I'll stick to PC's.

I got a Dell inspiron e1705 17" notebook a few months ago.

Specs:

Core 2 Duo e7200 2.0ghz cpu
17" 1900x1200 wxuga screen
2gb 667mhz ram
100gb 7200rpm hdd
nvidia g0 7900gs video card
DVD burner
Blue tooth
6usb ports
1 firewire
5 in 1 card reader
etc, etc

for just under $1500 new.

I'm running Vista Ultimate on it right now and it's golden. And I didn't have to spend $2800 to get it...

[mizuno]

Well, my friend with the 17" macbook pro is looking to sell it in favor of the 15" so I may be in line for one of those. He says it's just too big to use on airplanes if you fly coach.:)

He'll find the 15" too big to use in coach, too.

I could never use mine effectively on planes. If that's his main priority he should look at a 13" Macbook.

It's not a major consideration for me, I don't fly enough for it to be an issue.

[Rumjungle]

I agree about the Dells as I just priced them out...$900 is a hefty premium for a Mac! So, I guess it depends on how much my friend is willing to let the 17 go for. It's already got parallels on it but I'm not sure on the rest of the specs. However, I remember it to be a pretty big (but slim), heavy, and hot machine.

[coreypolis]

I agree about the Dells as I just priced them out...$900 is a hefty premium for a Mac! So, I guess it depends on how much my friend is willing to let the 17 go for. It's already got parallels on it but I'm not sure on the rest of the specs. However, I remember it to be a pretty big (but slim), heavy, and hot machine.
but you also get most of your software with that, its far more ready to go than a Dell is out of the box. A 15" is pretty well priced, the 17 is definetly a premium. They have refurbed 17s for $1999 though, thats a pretty sweet deal

[Rumjungle]

You're right, Corey. That's a big selling point for many people. Luckily, I have a everything I need for the PC so I could go with either. Still, macbooks are just nice. Does any pc notebook compare in terms of packaging? Sony maybe?

[Throlkim]

You're paying for integrated design and stability. I have no problem with paying a premium to have access to OSX - it's a wonderful OS with features Windows just never thought of.

And I very much doubt any company can match Apple in packaging or design, I'd be wary of Sony products right now - their profits dropped 94% last year, and they're axing a lot of their departments (computers aren't likely, but you never know).

Yeah you'll probably need 1gb of RAM to use Aperture smoothly, I have 2gb because I got a student discount. ;)

To all the people on the fence - if you buy a mac, you will enjoy using the computer. I can guarantee that. It doesn't have multiple versions that remove features or add others, you get things out of the box that Windows has to cover with third party applications.

I'm using a 20" 2.16ghz Core 2 Duo iMac, 2gb of RAM, 256mb ATI card, 250gb HD (with 500gb external). It is blindingly fast, and churns through any program you throw at it. Aperture is beautiful, and very intuitive to use.

I will say that Parallels is quite good, but useless if you want to play games or do graphically heavy work. Install Bootcamp instead and have a small windows partition, and it'll run fine. It's actually easier to install Windows on a mac than on a PC - honestly.

For those switching, here's a list of nice applications that are either cheap or free (which is the great thing about OSX, much of the useful stuff is cheap):
Firefox (duh!)
Camino (basically firefox optimised for mac)
Newsfire (RSS reader, very nicely designed)
Thunderbird (alternative to Mail, both are good)
Adium (messenger program)
Toast (bit more expensive, but a great CD/DVD writer)

Many people will probably want a word processor too, there are some great free ones on the internet, like Open Office. But I will say that iWork and Office for Mac are both very good too, although iWork leaves out complex controls for better designs.

Hope that helps a bit!
Now, go buy yourself a mac, and you won't regret it. Ever noticed how every Mac user touts how great they are, but Windows users are either looking to switch, or mock Mac users?
It's because they can't hold shift and minimise applications in slow motion ;)

Oh yeah, and for those who don't know - hold ctrl and use your scroll wheel to zoom in or out (very smoothly) - it's great for those with bad sight.

[Rumjungle]

Deal fell through on my friend's 17-incher...so I wound up with new one!:eek:
Dan, I have you to thank for this...:-P

[sam0329]

Traded in my 2 years old 17" Powerbook couple days ago (worth $1000 CAD) for a new 17" Macbook Pro, holy, its so speedy, not much slower than my MacPro or I should say its really hard to tell the difference. And its stable, I finished editing 245 photos without slowing down or restart the machine. My P4 now just serve me as a backup server...

[Village_Idiot]

Hope that helps a bit!
Now, go buy yourself a mac, and you won't regret it. Ever noticed how every Mac user touts how great they are, but Windows users are either looking to switch, or mock Mac users?
It's because they can't hold shift and minimise applications in slow motion ;)



Quite the opposite of every forum I visit....

And don't start on the Mac commercials. This so much misinformation and pc bashing from the company itself, that they end up looking like morons and act like little kids throwing insults on a playground to most serious PC (and even a couple mac users) that I know.

It's always good to win over customers by telling them things that aren't true. I don't think I've once seen an ad by Microsoft saying that Macs are bad because they can't do this or that...

[dcyphert]

I've been getting ready to buy a new machine and I've decided to switch to Mac. I'm wondering if anybody who's switched to Mac has experienced any drawbacks at all, related to wedding workflow or otherwise, since abandoning the PC. I'm not excited about buying CS2 all over, and I know I'll have to upgrade to CS3 because of the Intel chips. Otherwise, I'm not seeing a downside at all. Should I be?

Thanks!

I've been a Windows user for over 20 years, and I thought I'd try a Mac, mainly because I had a bad experience with a new PC with Vista (big mistake). I couldn't find the drivers for most every piece of hardware...it sucked! I couldn't sync my iPaq PDA (Windows Mobile 5.0)...although the interface looked cool, it was a memory hog.
I bought a Mac Pro system tower, pretty much maxed out, quadcore, 4gb ram, 500 gb HD, 20" flat screen, etc. about 4-5 months. Even though I have a dual boot system on it, XP and OS10, I find myself in the Windows side more often. I don't use Photoshop at all, never have. I have used Paint Shop Pro since the days of Jasc (version 1 or 2 in the early 90's)...and Corel doesn't make a Mac version...so, hence the reason I'm in Windows most of the time.

I just got frustrated (with the Mac) because it slowed down my workflow, and one of the main things, although small, was the fact I couln't rotate photos inside 'Finder', as you can in 'Explorer'. Apple told me I had to use a 3rd party software to that...what? There were other issues too, but too lengthy to explain. I'm selling my whole system and getting a desktop replaceable laptop, with XP.

[Banbert]

I don't use Photoshop at all, never have. I have used Paint Shop Pro since the days of Jasc (version 1 or 2 in the early 90's)...and Corel doesn't make a Mac version...so, hence the reason I'm in Windows most of the time.


I used to be a paint shop pro user when it was Jasc and always found it more intuitive than Photoshop, but as soon as corel got their hands on it that was a good enough reason to make the change to Photoshop. Think it was x10 or something the last version of PSP I tried and it was dire, took even longer than CS2 to load.. and was horrid once it had.

Now ive been using Photoshop (CS2) for a while I can see that PSP isnt a patch on it, once you get your head round CS2 then you can see why they are able to charge a lot more for it and its worth it.

Also started using a mac this year (although I still also use windows as I work in IT) and am loving that, so much less hassle than a PC.

Regarding the thumbnails, I would never look at them through finder myself, I would always use Bridge so that wouldnt be an issue for me.

[Stonedturtle]

I'm a photo Retoucher for commercial Photography for 8 Years ... before that i was a pC user...it hangs so frequently ... i change to mac 8 years ago due to compatibility of files given from Mac user clients ...after a while i realise this computer works ... no calibration problem ... easy setup .. reliable ... and no virus .. add more Rams it will FLY i tell you .. .. imaging having 10 Psd files open .. each weighing not less than 1 Gig in size each .. and still having no problem ... in slacking of performance ... and it never gives up on me ... its really a good platform if you're ever serious into creative work ...now with the new intel mac processor gives so much more power and flexibility

just like all mac users say .. you're never turn back once you're a Mac ...furthermore their srvice is tip top...

[tim]

Hey, do you guys like coke or pepsi?