[heat123]

Hi hope you are doing well. I was curious about some general information of the mac. Also say if you get a mac how would you install xp or vista with the mac operating system and could I have some instrucitions please to look at how it would work and if it is hard to set up. Also what is the mac advantages over a new vista operating system computer? Could I have some info. I am looking for a mac and would be using it for beginner video editing, digital pictures, and music like itunes. about that as well. Thanks.

Edited by heat123, 28 September 2008 - 06:11 AM.

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Hey, heat123, this sounds like a series of questions easily answered by Apple's website, but I'll give a few quick answers.

You can run Windows on your Mac with Boot Camp, Parallels Desktop, VMWare Fusion. VirtualBox and CrossOver also are partial solutions. If you'd like extremely well-written directions, I'd recommend the $10 eBook "Take Control of Running Windows on a Mac" available here, although you can obviously ask here and elsewhere for basic sugestions.

Why a Mac? Here's Apple's website for their reasoning. My personal reasoning in a nutshell: Macs Just Work™ in a way that no other platform does--Windows has infinite numbers of settings and wizards and files, and Linux is trying hard to be user-friendly and powerful, but is not there yet.

Any more specific questions you have?

[macmaxbh]

Hey, heat123, this sounds like a series of questions easily answered by Apple's website, but I'll give a few quick answers.

You can run Windows on your Mac with Boot Camp, Parallels Desktop, VMWare Fusion. VirtualBox and CrossOver also are partial solutions. If you'd like extremely well-written directions, I'd recommend the $10 eBook "Take Control of Running Windows on a Mac" available here, although you can obviously ask here and elsewhere for basic sugestions.

Why a Mac? Here's Apple's website for their reasoning. My personal reasoning in a nutshell: Macs Just Work™ in a way that no other platform does--Windows has infinite numbers of settings and wizards and files, and Linux is trying hard to be user-friendly and powerful, but is not there yet.

Any more specific questions you have?

[heat123]

Yes I do macmaxbh. I had some questions about it more. Do you do any video editing, pictures, or music. How does that work on their if you do it? How do you type documents and things like that? Is software comptability a issue for you or slowness? What kind of mac do you have mac pro etc. Do you have mac and windows or just a mac. I wanted windows on it to because software compatibilty and typing documents. Thanks for all your help so far.

[macmaxbh]

Yes I do macmaxbh. I had some questions about it more. Do you do any video editing, pictures, or music.

I have dabbled in digital video editing, store my photos in iPhoto, and my music in iTunes. Apple's consumer-level program suite "iLife" contains iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, iTunes, GarageBand, and iWeb and are an extremely strong suite of applications (not perfect, but I think better then any equivalent suite on the PC side) for basic movie editing, photo and music management, music, video DVD, and basic website creation.

My father is an amateur filmmaker and makes movies using Final Cut Express, a pared-down version of Apple's professional software, on a consumer-level computer (an iMac, recently switched from an eMac). He's very happy with it

How does that work on their if you do it?

iLife comes with your computer, and all the applications are pretty user-friendly. Check out Apple's iLife site for more info.

How do you type documents and things like that?

TextEdit is a basic application like WordPad on the PC side, which comes with all Macs. Your computer may come with a version of Pages, Apple's word layout application (like Microsoft Publisher). You can download NeoOffice (like OpenOffice.org, which is itself like Microsoft Office) for free, or buy Microsoft Office:mac (which is quite good, and generally what I use).

Is software comptability a issue for you or slowness?

For all but special-purpose utilities, you should be able to find Mac equivalents of whatever software you're using on a PC (you may have to buy them, obviously). Or do you mean "can windows users read mac files?" The answer to that one is a resounding yes--obviously, Macs can't run (by default) .exe files, and PCs can't run ".app" files, but I have very little trouble reading PC users' files.

Slowness--nope. OS X is not a "bloated" OS, imho--earlier versions felt slow, but 10.5 is definitely a pretty mature operating system and extremely responsive.

What kind of mac do you have mac pro etc.

I have a MacBook Pro, the pro end of their laptop series. I'd highly recommend that unless you're planning on using your computer for high-end editing or scientific research that you really don't need a Mac Pro--those are literally Apple's high-end machines and are priced accordingly. An iMac is perfectly fine for the grand majority of people (as I noted earlier, my dad does semi-professional video editing on his).

Do you have mac and windows or just a mac. I wanted windows on it to because software compatibilty and typing documents. Thanks for all your help so far.

I do have Windows on my machine, running through Boot Camp and VMWare Fusion, but I hardly use it, just for one or two Windows-only apps. Otherwise, I'm 100% Mac.

What software do you use now that you're worried about?

And yes, you can definitely type documents on the Mac--I personally prefer Office:mac to Windows Office, it's written by Mac users for Mac users and is a pretty nice set of software.

[heat123]

Thanks for all that very useful info. I was concerned about Mcafee or Norton, Adobe Reader, java, and typing documents and a few other programs like how do you connect to the internet internet explorer or what?

[macmaxbh]

Thanks for all that very useful info. I was concerned about Mcafee or Norton, Adobe Reader, java, and typing documents and a few other programs like how do you connect to the internet internet explorer or what?

Let me address all of your applications one by one:

• McAfee / Norton: Frankly, you don't need antivirus or antimalware software on a Mac, because there are no Mac OS X viruses, period, and OS X malware exists generally more in the "proof for concept" stage, and I haven't heard of ANY widespread attacks. However, both McAfee and Norton have Macintosh products--McAfee has the little-used Virex and Norton has the more well known Norton AntiVirus for Mac. Other programs exist, such as the Mac-only Intego VirusBarrier, the free but underpowered ClamXav, MacScan (a Mac antimalware scanner), and the free anti-malware iAntiVirus I just learned about. I frankly don't think you need any of them.
• Adobe Reader: Mac OS X can read PDF files without needing Adobe Reader, it's built into the system at a core level. This means you can make PDFs easily by just going to "File -> Print -> Save as PDF" in ANY application, and that Apple's default picture viewer program Preview displays 99.9% of PDFs extremely well. However, Adobe Reader definitely exists for the Mac. Adobe actually got its start on the Mac platform--did you know that the first versions of Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator were Mac-only?
• Java: Mac OS X comes with Java installed, and any Java updates are managed through Apple's built-in Software Update program (the equivalent of Windows / Microsoft Update). Java Just Works™ without you having to do anything.
• Typing documents: As I said, office:mac is an excellent product, and there are many other alternatives.
• Web browsers: You have a large multitude of Mac browsers--the default and most well known is Safari, Apple's browser, but you can also use Firefox, Camino (a Mac-only branch of Firefox), OmniWeb, Opera, iCab, and quite a few others. Google Chrome is coming to the Mac as well.

[heat123]

As far as web browsers is internet explorer compatible or have they created a version you can use on it?

[macmaxbh]

As far as web browsers is internet explorer compatible or have they created a version you can use on it?

Internet Explorer is not available on the Mac anymore. There was a version of IE 5 for the Mac (which actually used a different rendering engine, so pages looked different then IE 5 on Windows), but Microsoft discontinued it quite a few years ago and recommends Mac users use Safari. Frankly, I don't miss Internet Explorer at all.

[heat123]

For what I am doing beginning video editing, music with itunes, and photos what mac do you recommend. I need a laptop because I am going back and forth between places and need to bring it with me. THANKS

[heat123]

sorry about posting twice I don't know how to delete one.

Edited by heat123, 04 October 2008 - 06:26 AM.

[macmaxbh]

For what I am doing beginning video editing, music with itunes, and photos what mac do you recommend. I need a laptop because I am going back and forth between places and need to bring it with me. THANKS

Well, it sounds like you don't need the extra power / non-integrated graphics that a MacBook Pro has (unless you'll be doing serious video editing in Final Cut Express. I assume what you mean by "beginning video editing" are things you'd use Windows Movie Maker for, short home movies, etc, stuff you'd use iMovie for on your Mac) so I'd recommend a MacBook, Apple's consumer laptop model. A few tips regarding buying a MacBook, if you do on it:

a) Don't get the black model unless you're willing to pay an extra $120 or so just on the finish.
b) Don't buy your RAM through Apple, they charge you outrageous amounts of money. Go somewhere else for your extra RAM (go to dealram.com, look up your computer, buy some good RAM).
c) If you're a university student or anyone else in your family is in education, you can get a good educational discount through Apple--when you go to their online store, click "Education Store" and follow the prompts. Also check with the computer store in your affiliated university--univerisities often run discounts on Mac above and beyond what you can get online.
d) Use this link to see if you have a local Apple store (select "Mac" from the dropdown). If you do, go out to the store, check the Mac out, play around with it, ask questions to the support-person. If it's an official Apple Store, you can buy the Mac there with your educational discount, if it's not, see if they have any special deals on their current laptops.

[heat123]

Thanks I will have to take a look at the educational discount. Thanks for all your help so far. Will post back if I have any more questions.