Need advice from Apple users
 

When it comes to x86-compatible boxes, I know exactly what I am doing. I can field strip any IBM-comaptible box in two minutes flat, and I know my way around any version of Windows expertly. I can tinker with the registry without fear, install hardware and software like it's going out of style, and get a PC running smoother than a Menthol Camel dipped in rich creamery butter.

But I know next to nothing about Apple computers. And now I'm thinking of buying one.

I'm thinking of buying one because I am trying to leave the programming racket and get into graphics design, and EVERY graphics design job listing I see requires Apple expertise. I have used Photoshop on the PC for some time, but it's just a different environment.

I want a box I can run OSX on, and which will run Photoshop and other desktop publishing apps smoothly, without choking on high-res graphics. It needs to have USB support, but I imagine most (if not all) newer Apples will. I need at least a 17" display, preferably 19" (CRT is fine, don't need flat-panel). Advice? What to buy, where to get it for a good deal? All of my PC expertise is useless in this endeavor, so I am grateful for any assistance.

Thanks.

Hot Pastrami
http://www.alanbellows.com

You might want to check out an older Mac to start with, and throw in more memory and a processor upgrade. I have a beige G3/233 system at home that I'm going to upgrade.
I'll need to get a USB card for it I believe.

It sounds as if it's not that far removed from upgrading a PC. The newer Macs use commodity hardware -- IDE HDs and CD-Roms, PC133 memory, etc.

What's your price range? I'm a switcher myself (almost two years now), so I can help you out here. I'm obsessive over Apple hardware, so I know the pricing and what's best for what. Just tell me what your price range is and we'll make it work.

Price range
 

Hey Dave,

Well, provided that I can use my existing 19" PC moniitor on the Apple (which should be possible with a cheap adapter, yes?), I can spend up to about $1500 on the box. If for some reason I need an Apple-specific display, then that will have to be rolled into the budget. Naturally though, I want to save money if I can, so if a $1200 box will get me by, then that's fine. But if the $1500 box would kick it's ass, then it's worth the extra money.

When working with high-resolution graphics as I intend to, CPU, memory, and video card requirements will take precedence over features like speakers, power-drive, etc.

Thanks for any advice,

Alan "Hot Pastrami" Bellows
http://www.alanbellows.com

A'ight. Your 19" monitor will work, if it has a standard 15-pin VGA connector, with no adaptor. Apple actually uses mostly standard hardware.

Unfortunately, for a professional system, $1,500 is on the low end. I paid about $4,000 for my Power Mac last year, $3,100 for my PowerBook, $1,700 for Jenni's iMac, about $1,500 for my iBook...

My Power Mac is a dual 800MHz G4 with a GeForce 3, 2x60GB IBM HD's, 1.152GB of PC133 RAM (2x512 & 1x128)... has 2xUSB 1.1, 2xFireWire 400, an AirPort card, gigabit ethernet... it's pretty awesome. It runs Mac OS X great (Photoshop, Bryce 5, etc). It was actually ordered on September 11, 2001, and I've already said what it cost. Fortunately, you can probably find one on eBay for about... $1,500 :) and if not, I might be willing to sell you mine (I was thinking about upgrading anyway).

Anyway, search eBay for Power Mac dual 800 or something. I'll do the same and post you some links. Also, places like smalldog.com might have some refurbished PowerMacs, which still come with the standard 1-year Apple warranty (and the option to extend it to 3 years).

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...category=14912

I'd probably go $1,600 on that one, mainly because of the added SCSI and RAM. Actually, I'd probably go more myself, but I'm telling you that if you have to go $1,600 to get that one, it's worth it.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...category=14912

$1,450, maybe $1,500. You'll want to stick more RAM in there, but that can be had cheap at Crucial.

http://www.smalldog.com/product/42538

Buy that and then add more RAM (2x512MB) and you will be a happy camper.

Well, here are a couple closed auctions that show my $1500 may yeild a dual 867MHz machine pretty easily:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...category=14912
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...category=14912

...also, just over $1500 will get me a brand-new single-processor 1GHz box from the Apple store. You think the dual 800MHz is better than the single 1GHz?

Thanks man, this is really helping me out.

Alan "hot Pastrami" Bellows
http://www.alanbellows.com

Yes. Mac OS X makes such good use of dual processors it's not even funny. It really is like having a single processor at about 1.8x the speed. You would be silly to squander $1,500 on a single processor machine when duallies are available.

I say buy from smalldog - you get the full warranty, it's hella fast... pretty much all you want. You can always add SCSI later (I'm a fan of it)... but it's not necessary.

Now that I have a little more time...

I truly believe that you'll find Mac OS X and a nice Macintosh or two to be your ideal platform (or as close as you'll get this decade).

I myself am a programmer, and that's what I love most. But there are hundreds of other little things I love too, and the Mac lets me do them with the least hassle. Mac OS X is, I believe, one of the best programming environments available. You have X11 available and most UNIX software will compile pretty effortlessly on OS X (in fact, most of it is already compiled and packaged). Apple's own development tools are quite capable (such as being able to build Aqua UI's on top of Java apps - I don't know if you've done much Java programming, but GUI design in Java SUCKS. This takes the suck away). Perl (as well as most scripting interpreters) are available. So you can program for the Aqua interface, for Qt/GTK, command-line only... it's a beautiful thing.

It also gives you a pretty wide application choice. I break it down into four groups: Apple, ISV's, UNIX and Major Software Companies.

Apple's software is spectacular. If you do any video editing, you'll be amazed with iMovie, just because it's so effortless. I was showing iMovie to my dad last night, and in two minutes I had imported that fun Crab-vs-Pipe video, added a title, added a transition between two scenes (that looked quite professional), made the second scene look like it was taken from aged film and added a soundtrack. iTunes will also become your choice MP3 jukebox software because it's so simple yet so powerful. You'll appreciate Safari, Apple's new browser (that's still in beta). iPhoto absolutely rules for sorting your digicam pictures (or any digital images you have), as well as small touchups (like removing an unsightly pimple in three seconds flat or getting rid of red-eye even quicker). iCal has some ways to go, but it's actually quite good for calendaring and scheduling (if you need that sort of thing, which I do). And guess what - I haven't mentioned even a quarter of all that's available from Apple, most of it absolutely free to you (or included in the cost of your machine, depending on how you look at it).

ISV's put out stuff like the weather program I'm now using (called Meteorologist), nice FTP clients (I recently bought Fetch), Konfabulator, Mozilla, etc. I include shareware and freeware here. Stuff that's written specifically for Mac OS X. Believe it or not, there is a <b>lot</b> of high quality software available here. I've mentioned a few of the really good ones, but there's lots that I haven't. You'll love the software put out by guys like you and me.

The UNIX apps are the ones that are generally written for Linux and then ported to Mac OS X an hour after the source is released. They run great on OS X because of the magic of rootless X servers. Check out this screenshot from my PowerBook. That's Linux's own Xchat running there, recompiled for OS X and installed in about two minutes via fink. I use Apple's distribution of X11, but you can use XDarwin if you prefer. There are thousands of UNIX apps available for OS X. This is really nice if you can't find, for example, a decent IRC client (I'm waiting, shareware people - though I bought Ircle).

And lastly, the platform is supported by a lot of major software developers. Microsoft, Adobe, Macromedia, Aspyr (for games)... just about everyone. If you've been using only Windows, this is no big thing. But for Linux geeks like myself, this is great. Linux sucked hardcore in this regard. And even Windows has something to learn - the Mac versions of the software are arguably better than their Windows counterparts. I kid you not, Microsoft has touted Office X as their best version ever. Microsoft is saying "yeah, if you want the best environment to use Office in, buy a Mac".

It doesn't hurt that OS X has an assload of great stuff built in, either. Here's a good link to click:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/

Read about all the technologies in Mac OS X (especially Quartz Extreme - I can't get over how cool it is).

I'm just getting started! I'mma go to bed now, but I'll add more tomorrow and this weekend. Start reading on http://www.apple.com though - you'll find lots of good information.

Maybe you can help me with something. Every time I get interested in Macs and start to read up on them, I'm lost in a sea of cool-sounding names.

For example, what exactly is Aqua? Is it a window manager? Or is it a desktop evironment?

Does Quartz provide the same function as X11? Does it do widgets? Or does it just provide simple drawing functions?

And what's the difference between Carbon and Cocoa? I know that Cocoa is object oriented, but why do they have two seperate system API's? And why do they need a set of system API's in the first place if the whole thing is based on BSD? I guess Carbon is supposed to be for legacy Mac apps, but then what's the difference between Carbon and Classic?

The essential difference between Carbon and Cocoa is that Cocoa's OSX native, and Carbon'll run on both OS9 and OSX.

Beyond that, I don't really know; most of the C/++ I've done has relied on ncurses or stdio for input, with a smidgen of OpenGL (not really anything significant).

OKAY! Here we go...

<b>Aqua</b> is the interface implementation. An Aqua-app is one that has the brightly colored buttons in the upper-left corner, etc. Think of it as GTK for Macs, except it's easier to program for.

<b>Quartz</b> is the technology that displays the images on the screen. It is based on Adobe's PDF (which is why you can save anything as PDF in OS X). Quartz is the reason that everything is so beautifully anti-aliased in Mac OS X.

<b>Quartz Extreme</b> is even cooler. Basically, what it means is that instead of the graphics on your screen being drawn by the 2D portion of your card and your CPU, they are handled primarily by the 3D processor on your video card. Everything you see is rendered as a 3D texture by the GPU and displayed on your desktop for you to marvel at. This takes all the heavy graphics off the CPU and made for a tremendous performance boost when it was introduced. Mac OS X is very graphics-heavy, and this takes advantage of the hardware you've got. I'm still amazed at this.

<b>Carbon</b> exists to "create a gentle migration path for developers transitioning from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X." Basically, what it means is that you can write your apps to run in both OS X and System 9 (aka Classic). It doesn't quite have all the functionality of Cocoa and it apparently isn't as fast. It's a convenience measure, and it was done to garner developer support.

<b>Cocoa</b> is what you'd want to do any Mac OS X programming in. It's designed for Mac OS X only and you can read more about it here.

The difference between Carbon and Classic is that Classic apps require OS 9 to run whereas Carbon apps generally do not. Carbon apps should look like OS X native apps (when run in OS X, of course), while Classic apps will have that old Mac look (platinum title bar, etc). Classic apps can be run in Mac OS X via Classic mode, where OS 9 is basically running on top of OS X. It's a poor way to do things, and since you don't have any legacy Mac apps, you wouldn't need to worry about it. :)

There is a wealth of information available on Apple's site. One of the best pages for understanding the technologies involved is available here:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/technologies/

When you cut through the buzz, you can see that there really are a lot of cool things going on.

Wow, dave... thanks for all the info. That box at Smalldog is looking like the route to take right now, but it'll take an effort of will to talk myself into it. I am such a hardcore PC guy, and have been for years, that buying an Apple is a totally foreign idea. The fact that I'm seriously considering it surprised the hell out of my friends, who would have thought it impossible.

Ok, another technical question for you... which type of DIMM do Apples use, exactly? Here are the three 512MB PC2100 DDR DIMM types listed on Crucial:

DDR PC2100 • CL=2.5 • Unbuffered • Non-parity • 7.5ns • 2.5V • 64Meg x 64
DDR PC2100 • CL=2.5 • Unbuffered • ECC • 7.5ns • 2.5V • 64Meg x 72
DDR PC2100 • CL=2.5 • Registered • ECC • 7.5ns • 2.5V • 64Meg x 72

Ugh, another thing I realized is that I'll have to fork over another $600 for Mac Photoshop 7.0. So by the time I buy the box, ship it, get the extra memory and buy Photoshop, I'll be somewhere in the neighborhood of $2400. I guess I've got to decide if the expense is worth it for me right now... I want to get onto professional graphics design, and getting a Mac appears to be the only way to do that, but that's a lot of scratch to scare up right now.

Thanks

I'd get the unbuffered non-parity, just because that's probably what they've got in there. But get the machine and match whatever's in there, or if you wanna get the cheapest stuff and they have ECC in there, go ahead and yank the original 256. 1024 will definitely be enough RAM for now.

As far as Photoshop... I had an old Mac license (3.0, I believe), that a friend had given me. His company has a software policy of buying two upgrades and then re-purchasing the product on the third... well, he had bought 4 and 5 and was moving on to 6, so he had all these 3 licenses laying around. I got one, and then bought the Photoshop 7 upgrade ($150).

The other option is to use Photoshop illegally until you can afford it. While it's technically illegal, as long as you're going to eventually buy it, Adobe really isn't going to care. Why? Because it gets you using their product. That's important, because it gets more professionals using Photoshop. If I were a graphic designer doing photo work and my employer said "what are you more trained with, Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro?" - Adobe wants that answer to be Photoshop, 'cause it means more licenses sold.

If you really don't feel comfortable with that (I generally don't steal software either), I can call Doug and ask him if he's got any of the old licenses laying around still. Once you've got that, $150 gets you 7 legally.

Macs aren't cheap, but you're not getting a hunk of junk either. That machine, honestly, will probably last you three or four years (you'll probably want to upgrade the video, but you'd probably want to do that anyway). My Power Mac is a year and a half old and it's still stupidly fast (and gets faster with each OS release, as it becomes more optimized for my hardware). The only reason I'm thinking about getting a new one is because I have insurance money coming to me that I have to spend. But honestly, I still can't even justify that because my Power Mac is just so good.

It's funny that you mention your friends' disbelief, because I went through the exact same thing a few years ago. I used to <b>hate</b> Macs. I'd call 'em "Macintrash", always talking shit about 'em... well, I've seen the light. Apple's hardware is finally something to drool over (for most of the 90's, it wasn't) and the OS no longer sucks ass (I don't care what long-time Mac users tell you - yes, it's convenient and intuitive, but it's not stable at ALL and therefore is stupidly difficult to actually use).

It's different in the Mac world than it is in the PC world, because the hardware doesn't become obsolete as fast. My iBook, which was going on two years old, was still perfectly usable until it got destroyed in the fire.

Also, don't tie the Mac totally to the graphics profession. If you want to get it for that, that's fine - but keep an open mind. If you're anything like me, you'll start using it for just about everything else too. And I <b>like</b> Windows XP.

Also consider the Apple Instant Loan. It's financed by MBNA or whatever that bank is. If you have good credit, you shouldn't have trouble getting approval, and I think you can use it on SmallDog's stuff too. Get the loan, pay it off over two or three years... life is good. :)

The alternative is to come work at SAIC. We have a two-year interest-free loan for financing 70% (up to $4,000) of a new computer for employees. That's how I bought my Power Mac. :)

Well, that's damn nice of you to offer to try to find an old license for me, but I don't want you to have to tap such a limited resource for my benefit. You've already helped me out a lot with information alone. I was thinking I might snag an older version of Photoshop off eBay for $50 or so, then buy the $150 upgrade... that would make the price a lot more palatable.

As far as "borrowing" a license goes, I have no objection to the idea as long as I have the real intent to purchase the software later, but I don't know any Apple people I could hit up for it, so I would have nowhere to procure such an, er, Evaluation Version.

I have long regarded Apples as a computing dead end until recently. I appreciated and admired their hardware, but I disliked the OS and the way that Apple did business... not allowing Apple-compatible clones, etc... it just went against my way of thinking. But with the introduction of OSX, I am encouraged by the direction they're going. I'm open-minded and completely willing to give an Apple a chance to be my computer of choice, but they must earn it. There are several Windows apps I'd miss terribly (Trillian, Textpad to name a couple), but c'est la vie.

I thought about the loan approach, but their lowest APR is 9.99%... I have a credit card with an 8.99% I'd sooner put it on. I just refinanced my house and car, so I think I ought to let the dust settle on my credit report before I apply for any more financing for awhile.

I appreciate the help Dave, I can't thank you enough.

Heh, probably a good idea.

As far as obtaining software... I have heard good things about Hotline, but I have personally never used it. But from what I hear, you can find just about anything on there.

Another option is LimeWire (Gnutella client), which I have used (but usually for MP3's). I would imagine you could find it there.

The eBay idea is a great one that I hadn't even thought of. Photoshop's pretty easily worth the $150 + whatever you pay for version 4.0 or something on eBay. Just make sure you get the <b>Mac</b> version - upgrades are not cross-platform, unfortunately.

As far as help... anything I can do to help, let me know. It's cool to me because I think more people should be using Macs. I'm willing to devote some time for advocacy because I believe that much in it. As a matter of fact, I believe so much in it that I believe if you give it a chance, you'll believe that much in it as well. :)

One thing that will bug the hell out of you for the first few months - you're used to doing things the hard way. It's almost easier on Mac OS X, and consequently, you'll find yourself trying to do something the hard way and it won't work. Fortunately, Apple has anticipated this and included the hard way as well. But here's an example of where they haven't (and it's stuff like this that'll drive you nuts until you figure it out and go "Of COURSE that's how it's done!"):

I had an inkjet printer that I wanted all of our Macs to be able to print to. I had been taking it from Mac to Mac, but this was a pain in the ass. Mac OS X 10.2 came out and supported USB printer sharing, so I thought I'd give it a try. In the Print Center, I checked the option for "Share this printer with other computers" (or whatever the actual text says). Then I went to Jenni's flat panel iMac and opened up Print Center. I noticed the old printer info there but didn't think much of it. Hit the Add Printer button... can't find any way to add a shared printer. Spent fifteen minutes trying to find it when I finally realized that Apple's Rendezvous had automatically discovered the shared printer and added it to the list (by replacing the old one). I went to my iBook and, sure enough, there was the new printer, automatically in the printer's list. I did test pages from both computers and it worked flawlessly. And then I banged my head against the wall for wasting fifteen minutes on something so simple. :)

You'll have experiences like this too, but once you get used to the Mac way of doing things, it's second nature (and you'll really appreciate it).

Also... Spring Loaded Folders. That's all I'm saying. :)

I wouldn't worry too much about the differences in Photoshop between the PC and OSX versions. The interfaces [for the program] should be nearly identical, and the files created should be readable by either version. Get that Mac, feel the Mac goodness, and get familiar with the interface. You should be good to go. To be honest, I haven't had much experience with the Mac OSX interface, except my brief encounters at Comp USA. It didn't seem that difficult to grasp, there was some similarity between it and the Mac OS 8.x and 9.x interfaces. As soon as I get the Mac hooked up, I'll be dropping OSX on it.

Grab a used iMac book from your local Half-Price books to get a basic primer on OSX, and then just check the errata that comes with Jaguar for any updates in functionality.

As a quirky aside, I've been playing with Basilisk II, an open-source 68K Mac emulator for PC's.

Just get a Rom image file -- from a living Mac or Google, pick up a used OS 8 CD, and you're golden.

Emulates: 68040
ROM Required: Yes - 512 KB or 1 MB
Memory: Unlimited
Sound: Supported
Mac OS supported: 7.x - 8.1
Modem Support: Yes
Ethernet Support: Yes
Hard Drive size: Unlimited
Current Version: V0.9-1 (Win - Build 143)
Creator:Christian Bauer
Price:Free
Runs On: Amiga, Linux, UNIX, BeOS, Windows 9x, Windows NT (and Win2000 and WinXP)

Well, I went and bought myself a Power Mac. It's basically identical to the one at SmallDog that Dave pointed me to, except it's new instead of refurbished, and it's got 2GB of RAM rather than 256MB. It cost $200 more, but the savings from buying the 2GB of RAM myself more than makes up for that. It's supposed to arrive sometime this weekend, and then I get to dive into the wonders of the Mac world, one I have scarcely touched or even seen.

Thanks for the advice and stuff, I may need some more once I get the box and start trying to figure it out.

I'm gonna PM you my cell number and instructions - you can call me when you need help.

I'll also write up a list of links that I check out and I'll point you in the direction of some apps that'll make life easier for you. Mac OS X has a lot of conveniences built it, but with a few apps it'll be... well, let's put it this way: I actually <b>like</b> using it and the few shareware apps I own. It's not that it stays out of my way; it's also a joy to use.

By the way, where'd you buy the Power Mac? That's a damn good price with the RAM included.

I grabbed it as a Buy-It-Now purchase from an eBay seller....

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=3401833834

...And shipping is $34 for 3-7 day ground freight, not bad at all. I still need to buy a couple cheap KVMs so I can use dual monitors on both my PC and the Mac (once you've used dual monitors you can never go back), and then figure out how to get ahold of Photoshop, Illustrator, and maybe QuarkXpress and Bryce without committing financial suicide, and I can really dig into learning what I need to get into designing graphics professionally.

Again, thanks for the help... and useful apps you can point me to would be... well, useful.

Do a search for über here in the technology thread and look at the KVM I'm using - its Mac support is pretty decent (USB *and* audio switching) and its price was... hey, expensive. Nevermind :) Might wanna look at it anyway. It's a Belkin.

I wouldn't recommend cheap KVMs. They tend to really screw up monitors. The expensive ones are much more gentle and safe with your equipment.

Hmm, it harms the monitors to use cheap KVMs? I can't see how that could be unless they forced some wierd refresh rate or something. My problem is that I need two KVMs to support the two monitors, so even two cheaper KVMs will be pricey... here's the one I was thinking of going with, which I can get for about $40 from a local place:

http://www.trendware.com/products/TK-200.htm

I know it's hokey, but I was going to use the KVMs for the monitor switching, and just move my USB trackball from the PC's USB hub to the Mac hub manually when switching. The PC has a cordless keyboard, so I'll just put that one aside when using the Mac. I won't be switching very often, so convenience is not as critical as finding a low price.

One thing I haven't figured out yet is how to have my speakers work on both boxes... I either need to get a Y cable and just deal with the signal loss, or buy a cheap amp and wire it all into that. Hmm.

Yeah, I'm not really sure <i>why</i> this happens, but I know that it does.

I got a KVM off ebay for like $5-10, and it promptly killed my MS Intellimouse. Whenever I would switch between computers, the cursor would jump all around the screen whenever I moved the mouse, opening and closing programs at random, and just causing general chaos. I think this was because Windows sets the mouse to one protocol, and Linux uses another. So when I would switch from Linux to Windows, and then back, the number of bytes being used for the X and Y position was different, and thus the number was different. But even after I stopped using the switch, the mouse still did this, so I can only guess that some sort of permanant damage was done. I had to throw the mouse away and buy another one!

I also found that my monitor was flickering in weird ways whenever I switched over to windows. I think you might be right about it having something to do with a refresh rate problem. Anyway, after I stopped using the switch, the display problems mostly went away, although I still occasionally get vertical lines rolling across my screen whenever I use Windows, and this just didn't happen until I started using the KVM.

I do know that difference between the cheap KVMs and the expensive ones is that the former is purely mechanical, while the latter is software based. The good KVMs send a fake signal to the non-active computer, fooling it into thinking that the device is still there. This way, the OS doesn't lock up or drop the device if it tries to poll it and discovers it isn't there. Also, with the mechanical KVMs, you have to leave a computer switched on while it's booting up, otherwise you won't get keyboard/mouse/monitor support.

Still, what I do know about KVMs doesn't really explain why it destroys my devices, so maybe it's just me. I don't see any instances of fouled-up monitors on Usenet, but I do see lots of broken Intellimouse incidents.

How's the Power Mac-ing going? I just got my PMG4 back yesterday and I'm loving having it back. I'm amazed by how <b>fast</b> it is. I had forgotten, but Jesus! It's smokin'.

There are some apps you might wanna check out.

http://www.unsanity.com - I have purchased their Window Shade X, Fruit Menu, Labels X and Mighty Mouse products, and use a few more (that are free). Fruit Menu is the most useful - you owe it to yourself to check out the demo.

http://www.obdev.at - LaunchBar is, simply put, awesome. I split it with a friend, but I'd buy it even if I weren't going 50/50 with someone. Jesus it's great. I think I'll buy another copy just because it's so awesome.

Also, search for Fetch at http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/index.html for a good FTP client. I was so impressed with it, I bought it the first day I used it.

There's a lot more you'll want. I can burn you a CD if you like.

Sorry about the slow reply, I've been out of town since last Thursday. The computer arrived just in time for my departure, so I didn't get a chance to hook it up and turn it on until last night.

First impressions....

* By and large, setup as been pretty easy. Got it hooked up to the home network and grabbing an IP off the DHCP server, so I was connecting to the Internet via DSL within minutes.

* I love the anti-aliased display, it looks very nice. It makes small fonts a bit fuzzy at my preferred resolution (1600x1200 on a 19"), but not terrible.

* The dock is cool, but I wish it has a system clock on it like Windows, I kept glancing down to check the time.

* Impressive speed... I only got to try a few things, but what it did it did FAST... I downloaded and installed Mozilla 1.2.1 and it took mere seconds to install.

* Spring loaded folders = cool.

* The AIM client is a liitle annoying with the balloon text, but it's not so cutesy that I can't overlook it. I just wish <a href="http://www.trillian.cc">Trillian Pro</a> had an OSX build.

Question... when typing in text input boxes, like a browser URL area or the text box in webmail, the Home and End keys don't behave as they do on a PC, in fact they do nothing. I use those keys a lot, particularly in software development, so being without them was a little crippling. I presume that these keys are supposed to do something, probably exactly the same thing they do in Windows... any idea what might cause them to do nothing? Well, in one app they did insert little null-character boxes into the text, so that's something, just not very useful.

Another question... can a Mac connect to a Windows file share (XP) over TCP/IP? I couldn't find anything about it in the Mac help system, only info on how a Windows box can connect to a Mac share.

Anyway, I'm still in tinkering/learning mode, but I won't get a chance to dig in too deep for a few days. I'll probably start downloading demos of the apps you've suggested later this week, once I'm more comfortable using the system. One thing I'll need to find is a good text editor for HTML... any suggestions?

Thanks a bunch, I'll keep you aprised of my progress. From what I've seen so far, the only big thing that would be a showstopper for converting to Apple is the lack OSX versions of several useful, beloved apps. But maybe I can find suitable alternatives.

Later,

You may want to play with the anti-aliasing options. They're in System Preferences, I think under the Displays preference pane. I'm not with a Mac right now, so I can't check, but they have like four settings there that you might wanna try out.

I just got used to looking into the upper-right hand corner. I'm sure there's a fix for this (perhaps by running Apple's clock program and placing it where you want it), but I don't use it.

You'll probably notice a nice boost when you get a better graphics card, too. GF2MX is okay, but with a GF3 or higher, it will be wicked fast.

These are to die for. I wish Windows had something like this, because it's so stupidly useful it's not even funny. I'm super used to it now, and I feel crippled on Windows because I can't do it.

You can turn this off. It's on the main iChat window, one of the buttons on the bottom pops up some prefs. I have mine set to just lines of text, which makes it way more usable. You can also install X11 and use GAIM, which I find to be the best AIM client on any platform.

I don't use those keys and I don't have a Mac with me right now, but I'll check when I get home. I'm gonna run to the Apple store tonight anyway, so I'll ask 'em there too.

Absolutely, and it's super easy. In Finder, hit CMD-K (Apple-K) or click the "Go" menu, I think it is, and select "Server" or "Connect to Server" (I forget exactly, I always use the shortcut). You'll be able to figure it out from there, but basically, in the text field you can type

smb://192.168.1.1

where the IP is that of your server. But the server name will probably show up in the server browser if it's local.

BBEdit and its little brother TextWrangler - http://www.barebones.com - are quite good, though they are pricey. But I might be willing to go splits-o with you on BBEdit (it's kinda expensive). TextWrangler is a great editor but lacks HTML syntax highlighting. You can always use jEdit - http://jedit.org - which is free, but written in Java and therefore a bit of a hog.

I'm sure you'll find 'em, or you can always use RDC from Microsoft to connect to your XP box and use 'em over the network.

Hope all goes well.

Chat...Grab an App called Proteus - handles every protocol, well thought out interface, some nice options.
I'm loving my 12" powerbook.

As for netowrking with windows, i've had mixed experienced. I added a user to my windows box for network access (remember to disable the 'change passowrd at next logon' option). Shared a few things i wanted to copy across. Connected, authenicated. The share turned up on my desktop, i clicked on it and is dissipeared! Not amused.

The other way round i can open shares but i can't write to them, i can't find an option to set permissions either, i'm guessing i'll have to dig out terminal and do it that way. A little dissapointing. Anyone got any advise?

Cool, thanks for the tip. I poked around the preferences a bit just looking around, but I didn't spot this one.

This machine actually has a GeForce4 MX card. The display is very smooth, I've been impressed with it.

Don't worry, Microsoft will eventually catch on, steal the idea, then brand it with their own name and take credit... "New Windows PP with pop-open folders"

Excellent, I'll have to find that. I like cool-looking stuff, but that balloon text was too cute for my taste.

I wasn't familiar with X11 until I did a search prompted by your mention of it... I'll have to dive into that one of these days soon so I can make more apps available.

Thanks for the suggestions and stuff, once again your advice has proven extremely useful. I owe you, dave.

Jaguar... thanks for the tip on Proteus. It looks like exactly what I'm looking for in a chat client, I'll have to download it and try it when I get home tonight.

What are the specs on yours? I know 867... but tell me RAM, HD, AirPort or no, SuperDrive or no, etc.

Also, why'd you decide to go that over the 17"? I checked out a 17" PowerBook at the Apple Store (they don't have a display model, but they do have a single PowerBook 17 in the store, and I'm well liked there) and it's really not as big as I thought it would be. The screen is hella awesome though, I will admit that.

I'm amused! :) It's always worked perfectly for me, but I chuckle at that story. That's pretty humorous :)

I swear you can do this from the Get Info dialog (select a file/folder and hit CMD-I (Apple-I)).

Oh, another question...

Apparently my box came with OSX 10.15 (according to the auction description, I wasn't sure how to verify the exact version in OSX)... is 10.2 as big an improvement as I've heard over previous versions, and if so, what's the best way for me to get an update to 10.2.x?

Hmm, it looks like Microsoft's RDC requires 10.2.3 or higher either way, so I guess I'll definitely want to do the update, I'm just hoping I can do so without having to pay the full $129... but I don't see an upgrade version.

Thanks for any help,

Get info....that could do it.
Still new to OSX.
12"PB, 640MB, 60G, SuperDrive, Airport Extreme. Basically decked to the max. Why the 12"? I wanted *portable*. I spend most of my day on the move, the ability to work on things virtually anywhere, knowing i've got around 3 1/2 hours of battery time is fantastic. As soon as i can i'll grab a second batt and be able to work a full day without needing to find and outlet. The 17" is nice, as a desktop replacement, but try using it on your lap on a crowded train (i actually do this all the time). When i'm at home i use a Sony 17" E220 (bloody nice) and MS optical mouse. Airport extreme basestation at home of course lets me move around, check cellar @ breakfast, leave chat open on the coffee table while i'm watching tv etcetc, it's ultraconvenient. 17" was too big and too expensive.

I find the 12" snappy, i mostly use it for lightweight stuff, wordprocessing, coding, some dreamweaver is about as heavy as it gets though i'm often running a few apps at once. The extra 512 made a HUGE difference. I loaded up the War3 demo as an experiment, before the extra ram is was often choppy, afterwards is was smooth as.

If you're thinking about it and you can - get a RevB when they come out. I've been kinda lucky, no warped case, no dodgy latch, no dead pixels, trackbutton is good now, was a little dodgy at first. The front of the case is starting to worry/annoy me though. Where the button to release the screen comes out the front strip bends out, then bends in both sides and it MOVES WHEN I PRESS IT (the area in front of the battery). I bought applecare, if i feel like it i'll take it in and see if they'll do anything about it. I've heard stories of guys that have returned 4-5 of these things before getting one that was defect free, right now i need my machine, i can't afford a week's downtime.

The whole shares thing is very odd, iv'e had all sorts of different error numbers but the vanishing share took the cake. It's kinda frustrating to have not only wireless but a full wired network running round the place as well (total of 7 comps, 2 ppl) and end up burning things to CD out of frustration.

And yes, the wireless is throughly locked down, WEP (yea, i know how to crack it too but it stops the lazy), closed network and locked to MAC address.

I'm on dialup so I'll keep this short...

hp - Click the Apple menu, go to "About This Mac..." - that will show what version you have. Right off the bat, if you have iChat, you have a 10.2.x box.

If you somehow don't, man you'll be impressed when you get 10.2, 'cause it's way faster than 10.1... but I'm sure you have 10.2.

Also, the anti-aliasing options I mentioned earlier are under the "General" prefpane. I'm on my PMG4 now and just checked.

I dunno about the Home/End thing, I'm getting the same thing here. I'll ask 'em tonight.

jag - w0rd. I find my 15" actually really portable, more so than I thought it would be. I love the damn thing.

You're having problems that I've never experienced, and I push my machines pretty good. All I can say is, make sure you have 10.2.4 and all the updates, and I'll ask tonight at the Apple store.

Yup, all updates installed. It's all very...interesting. I've managed to get the PCs to be able to read/write the mac now but i really want to be able to do thinkgs the other way round.

Search Apple's Knowledge Base (on apple.com under support) and see if you can find something. I talked to a Mac Genius (their official job title) at the Apple store and he said that it definitely sounded possible, like a bug. I just thought of this - try checking under /Volumes in Terminal.app and see if the network servers are still mounted. It might just be a bug in Finder. If no luck, submit a bug report to Apple.

Hey dave,

Ok, it says I'm running OS version 10.2.1... so I guess that means I can use the update feature on the Apple site to uprade to 10.2.4, yes? Hopefully I'll be able to find some time to start using the system more often, I've hardly touched it since I got it. Spare time is just such a rarity these days.

Later,

System Preferences -> Software Update, hit the "check now" button and install all updates. Some updates can't be installed until others are, so do this as many times as it takes until there are none left. Also, stuff like "iPod Updater" and "Brazilian Language Packs" you won't need to install, so select them and use the "Make Inactive" menu item.

10.2.4 is the latest; it's a 70 meg download for the combined updater. You'll probably also need the latest QuickTime and a few other things.

There's really a lot for you to download probably. I'll write up some more stuff later, when I'm not at work.

So, Dave got his dual 1.42 with a Radeon 9700 Pro. My dual 800 was so fast, and this is even faster. I'm a huge fan of SMP boxes (this is my third now), and I'll continue to buy them as long as they're available.

Anyway... How's yours working out, hp? I use my P4 for gaming, but even Q3 looks awesome on my dual 1.42. I also bought a 20" Apple Cinema Display which is gorgeous. I'm loving it, and I think I'll buy another one (gotta spend this insurance money) and set up dual 20" displays. The only complaint I have is that the refresh on it is like 35-40ms and that means really quick Quake movements are a little blurry, which is more an annoyance than anything else. But since I have a P4 2.66 with 2GB of RAM and a Radeon 9700 Pro (and U160 SCSI hard drives), I'm not going to waste my Mac on Quake.

My setup is shitty now 'cause I don't have any decent desks, but I'm still having a blast. I can't wait to get set up in the new house.

But yeah. How are you liking yours? Any problems you're having with it?

http://msdelta.net/~dave/images/computers/temp-desk.jpg

Hey Dave,

Nope, no problems with the Mac, but I haven't been using it a lot. I have scarcely touched a computer outside of work in the past month or so... About the only Internet use I have these days is hitting te Cellar while on breaks at work (such as right now).

I get home and get right to work on stuff that needs fixin on the new place. Almost everything that requires immediate atention is now fixed though, so we should be able to finish settling in and resume a few of the normal day-to-day activities, like sleeping and computing.

Of course there's a HUGE list of things to do which aren't urgent but still important. I haven't had a relaxing, lazy day in weeks. And there are none on the horizon. Blah. I acknowledge that life is good... I have a woman I am madly in love with, a house, and my health... but it is also a little exhausting.

So, that's the long and involved way of saying that what little time I'v had to tinker with the Mac , I've enjoyed it. Hopefully I'll find more time someday.

That dual 1.42 sounds pretty spiffy. Very nice. Gotta love Apple's cinema flatpanels.

Interesting... Motorola has made progress with .13 micron chips to get ~20% more speed for PowerPCs.

I was salivating over those recently. I know LCD monitors weren't very good for high-fps games at first; has this really improved that much? There are no points where Quake becomes difficult to play because of it?

You can buy other monitors that have better pixel response times; the Formac 2010 is a 20" LCD that has a 15-25ms response, which is supposedly blur-free.

No, it's not difficult to play; like I said, an annoyance. Just like I turned off the blurring in GTA: Vice City, I wish I could get rid of it on the Power Mac. But, as I also said, I don't have a Pentium 4 2.66GHz w/2GB of RAM and a Radeon 9700 Pro to <b>not</b> play Q3 on. :)

I'm extremely happy with the 20" display (think of having USB and power and the digital video signal all going through one cable - very very nice), and as I said, I'll probably buy another one. The image quality is great, I had exactly zero dead pixels, and it puts off practically no heat. What's not to love?