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Advice on switching to Mac (and why I can't even LOOK at a Windows 7 PC anymore)

L

LincolnsiPod

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 20, 2009
665
98
I bought a cutting edge i7 powered Windows 7 desktop PC last year and nowadays I'm ready to throw it out the window.

Why? Because shortly after I bought that I bought a MacBook for the first time ever. :D I knew things had to change when I was taking videos on my new iPhone and noticed the videos appeared perfectly on my MBP... but cockeyed in Windows because I didn't hold it sideways.

I went through 5 different software video tools before finally downloading Windows Movie Maker and modifying and resaving the video files JUST SO I COULD FLIP THE VIDEOS RIGHT SIDE UP AGAIN.

That was it for me. I noticed once I got used to iPhoto the ease of being able to edit photos on the fly and create gorgeous work that I could instantly upload to Flickr was an absolute joy to do. Editing media content on my MBP that I created was actually fun.

But on Windows? It's like hitting a brick wall. Their Windows Live suite bucket of moose piss can't even touch iPhoto.

I'm done with Microsoft. I simply cannot move forward as a content creator using a Windows 7 computer. Don't even get me started on the bugs, driver conflicts and hardware crashes either. The only saving grace is Windows Media Center, which is awesome.... when it works.

So now, I'm exploring the idea of switching over to an iMac or Mac Pro. As it stands now, basically I use my computer to watch TV, work on web design, light gaming (such as Eve Online, adventure games, etc), and editing photos/videos. I've been using iPhoto but am already graduating on to Aperture for more extensive editing, and may soon invest in Lightroom on top of that. Since I already have a monitor, would I be better served in getting a Mac Pro, or should I dump the monitor on eBay as well and get an iMac instead?

I figure I can get $1500 or so by selling off my PC on eBay, and might put up a few hundred more of cash, so my budget is between $1500-$2000.

I'm also wondering about a TV alternative. I'm using a WinTV tuner now with Windows Media Center, and see the Apple Store only lists the Elgato TV Tuner as a TV solution. Is that the closest equivalent to getting Windows Media Center functionality, or is there something better?

To be honest, the only major thing holding me back from jumping ship is the royal pain in the ass it's going to be to sell off and ship my current desktop PC via eBay. I'd rather just sell it off locally if I could but I'm not sure who might take it (Best Buy maybe?) Could use some advice on this too.

Any thoughts appreciated. Dumping the desktop would rid me of all things Microsoft forever. :D
 
iMac should be fine for you but I would wait for the upcoming refresh. EyeTV is good.

You could try selling the PC in Craigslist since that is meant for local sales.
 
Why not just use your Macbook Pro as your desktop and buy a really nice monitor? That would be the cheapest option.
 
I'm a recently new mac convert as well and while I definitely like that videos and photos are automatically turned properly when viewing them, I'm disappointed it's not true when you upload said videos/photos to websites. For example, if you took a picture sideways, and Apple automatically straightens it up for your viewing ease and pleasure, once you upload it, it'll show up as sideways. So in a way, it's deceiving that the OSX automatically rotates it for you when it's really not rotated.

Speaking of which, any idea how to rotate pictures? Apple is still very new to me. EDIT: If a picture is originally sideways, and Mac auto-rotates it upright, but I rotate it again to make it "truly" upright, will it show up sideways on the Mac always then (while showing upright when I upload it online)?
 
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I'm using eyetv diversity in my iMac and.. Well I don't know what else I could say!

It works great.


God i'm bad at posting suggestions..
 
Hellhammer said:
iMac should be fine for you but I would wait for the upcoming refresh. EyeTV is good.

You could try selling the PC in Craigslist since that is meant for local sales.
Click to expand...

That's an option, though I'd have to hope somebody will snatch my rig up for $1500, or else I'd have to lowball the price.

themac23 said:
Why not just use your Macbook Pro as your desktop and buy a really nice monitor? That would be the cheapest option.
Click to expand...

I was thinking of doing that, since I already have the monitor. I'd just need to get an DVI adapter and keyboard (and eventually an EyeTV).

I'd still dump my desktop, so it gives me the option of saving the money, buying an iMac, or getting two iPads. :D What to do, what to do...
 
onthecouchagain said:
I'm a recently new mac convert as well and while I definitely like that videos and photos are automatically turned properly when viewing them, I'm disappointed it's not true when you upload said videos/photos to websites. For example, if you took a picture sideways, and Apple automatically straightens it up for your viewing ease and pleasure, once you upload it, it'll show up as sideways. So in a way, it's deceiving that the OSX automatically rotates it for you when it's really not rotated.

Speaking of which, any idea how to rotate pictures? Apple is still very new to me. EDIT: If a picture is originally sideways, and Mac auto-rotates it upright, but I rotate it again to make it "truly" upright, will it show up sideways on the Mac always then (while showing upright when I upload it online)?
Click to expand...

Are you editing things outside of iPhoto? That was probably the biggest hurdle for me to figure out when I first started out. I couldn't understand why iPhotos would grab the photos and stash them away in some secret folder that wasn't accessible like a normal folder, so I kept trying to stop that. Once I let it go though I realized how that simplified things, and whenever I upload to Flickr from iPhoto or export photos to a separate folder, they always show up correctly (no sideway problems that I've found).

If you're not first exporting the photos from iPhoto before uploading them somewhere, that might explain why some are showing sideways when they should be right side up.
 
Keep in mind that the video you shot on your iPhone agrees with your other Apple hardware. This is where it begins; stay with Apple, and it just works.

...until the time when it doesn't work quite the way you want it to, then good luck. You're back in the same boat where you need to dive in a little deeper and figure something out.

For $119, you can get the Photoshop / Premiere Elements bundle for your existing PC, and those two applications are head and shoulders above anything built-in to OSX or Windows 7.

Maybe you should download the trial before you completely give up on your Windows PC.
 
Cheswick said:
Keep in mind that the video you shot on your iPhone agrees with your other Apple hardware. This is where it begins; stay with Apple, and it just works.

...until the time when it doesn't work quite the way you want it to, then good luck. You're back in the same boat where you need to dive in a little deeper and figure something out.

For $119, you can get the Photoshop / Premiere Elements bundle for your existing PC, and those two applications are head and shoulders above anything built-in to OSX or Windows 7.

Maybe you should download the trial before you completely give up on your Windows PC.
Click to expand...

That might be worth checking out too. I've always used Paint Shop Pro in the past when working on photos in a Windows settings. Just found the interface more intuitive. $120 for a Photoshop bundle sounds very attractive though.
 
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Hi Cheswick,
with your quote:
"For $119, you can get the Photoshop / Premiere Elements bundle for your existing PC, and those two applications are head and shoulders above anything built-in to OSX or Windows 7."
- you showing that you don't know much just about anything.
1. For your info, do you know that Photoshop was developed on Mac (Macintosh Plus) & for 4 years was available only for Mac? ( 'till v.2.5, when it was finally ported to Windows by Adobe, who bought the licence from Knoll brothers).
2. LincolnsiPod wants to switch because of 'fluidity' overall between Mac programs - which buying 'Adobe Photoshop Premiere Elements' on a PC will NOT give him.
3. 'Adobe Photoshop Premiere Elements' is off course available for Mac…
4. Please don't try to tell me about 'virtues' of 'Windows world' ➤ I have 3 PCs and 4 Macs...
 
Cheswick said:
Hi Stan,

LincolnsiPod already has a PC.

I'm sorry I offended you.
Click to expand...

For the record, Cheswick, I've never used the photo-editing software you suggested, but I reckon I agree with you.
I love iPhoto, but I'm not sure it's fair to call it photo-editing software. I think it's a great tool for photo management which happens to allow for some retouching of photos, but not much in the way of editing.

Neither platform has any real photo editing software built-in. Which is fine, there's no reason why they should.
So, um, yeah, I think Stan was pretty harsh. :)
 
LincolnsiPod said:
That's an option, though I'd have to hope somebody will snatch my rig up for $1500, or else I'd have to lowball the price.



I was thinking of doing that, since I already have the monitor. I'd just need to get an DVI adapter and keyboard (and eventually an EyeTV).

I'd still dump my desktop, so it gives me the option of saving the money, buying an iMac, or getting two iPads. :D What to do, what to do...
Click to expand...

Check out Bookendz and Henge Docks (http://www.bookendzdocks.com/ and http://hengedocks.com/).

If you've got a new MBP with Sandy Bridge processors, just ditch the PC (but maybe keep your copy of Win 7?) and dock your Mac. You could still run Windows natively or as a VM if you needed it for something. Or just run an app (Crossover Mac or the DarWINE project).

Cheers.
 
Stan Mikulenka said:
Hi Cheswick,
with your quote:
"For $119, you can get the Photoshop / Premiere Elements bundle for your existing PC, and those two applications are head and shoulders above anything built-in to OSX or Windows 7."
- you showing that you don't know much just about anything.
1. For your info, do you know that Photoshop was developed on Mac (Macintosh Plus) & for 4 years was available only for Mac? ( 'till v.2.5, when it was finally ported to Windows by Adobe, who bought the licence from Knoll brothers).
2. LincolnsiPod wants to switch because of 'fluidity' overall between Mac programs - which buying 'Adobe Photoshop Premiere Elements' on a PC will NOT give him.
3. 'Adobe Photoshop Premiere Elements' is off course available for Mac…
4. Please don't try to tell me about 'virtues' of 'Windows world' ➤ I have 3 PCs and 4 Macs...
Click to expand...

Strangest post of this thread. :rolleyes:
 
I see where the OP is coming from. Back in Feb I was contemplating replacing my 2009 21.5 C2D iMac with a 27" i7. My Windows desktop had components from 2006 and wasnt performing well with newer games... but I knew I would likely do some heavy gaming once in awhile.

Concerned that the 27" wouldnt fit my needs for long in the future I rebuilt my desktop and bought a 27" Dell U2711. I have since switched over to a MBP at my work as well. Now that I'm using the Mac at work for 8-10 hours a day in addition to normal use at home... I have no desire to use my Windows desktop. It just sits and collects dust except for the random time I feel like playing a graphically intense game.

I have recently been using my new 13" MBP with my Dell monitor via a MDP > DP cable. While I cant stream 720P or 1080P video fluently at 2560x1600 resolution... it does everything else just fine. I've decided to use my old iMac for heavier applications such as iTunes synching, Adobe CS5, Final Cut Studio, etc since my MBP has a small SSD in it.

Pending on the specs, I know the new 27" iMac's will tempt me - but I will have to resist the urge. :)
 
Those docking products look nifty! Only problem is I use a case for my MacBook so it would be a pain taking the covers off to dock and placing them back on afterwards. It would defeat the purpose somewhat unless I lose the case.

Garestaylan, yeah it's an interesting spot to be in. I've been using my MacBook more and more and the question keeps popping up: "Why exactly am I still using Windows again?"

What's maddening is that I have so many possible choices. I didn't mention it before but my parents own a Windows PC and hardly a day goes by when they're not calling me frantically because a software crashed, the computer locked up, they can't find their photos, the backup wouldn't work, Media Center won't change channels, etc, etc, etc, etc, on and on and on...

The next time they have a problem I'm tempted to solve it by simply getting them an iMac.

So presuming I dump my Windows desktop, I have the choice of getting THEM an iMac and keeping my MBP as my only rig from now on, getting myself an iMac, or getting two iPads, one for them and one for myself.

My MBP is last year's model, so it doesn't have the Sandy Bridge unfortunately. :(
 
Mac apps (iPhoto, Preview) don't physically rotate all the pixels in an image. They just save the new orientation (upright, 90 degrees, 180 degrees, 270 degrees) in the image metadata. The problem is, online services that you upload files to won't read this metadata, so the picture will be sideways.

I've come across this problem before. In the end, I ended up rotating images in GIMP or Pixelmator.
 
YanniDepp said:
Mac apps (iPhoto, Preview) don't physically rotate all the pixels in an image. They just save the new orientation (upright, 90 degrees, 180 degrees, 270 degrees) in the image metadata. The problem is, online services that you upload files to won't read this metadata, so the picture will be sideways.

I've come across this problem before. In the end, I ended up rotating images in GIMP or Pixelmator.
Click to expand...

If you use the sharing tool in iPhoto and upload to specific services the photos display as they show without the need to physically alter them. I've also noticed this to be the case when exporting photos from iPhoto as well, but only if you're exporting altered or resized photos (which is what I almost always do.) Within this controlled environment using and sharing photos is incredibly easy.

Exporting originals though is too much of a hassle if I intend to transfer photos to Windows for safekeeping, so I usually just upload them straight from my camera. That's when I have to manually rotate everything to my liking, obviously. Pain in the ass. Windows simply creates more work for me than is necessary.

It's getting to where I'm not sure why I transfer photos to Windows to begin with, except as a backup solution in case King Kong eats my MBP. :D
 
I just did what the OP is thinking of doing. I took my PC apart and sold each item on eBay. Worked great and now I have money for the new iMac
 
applemike68 said:
I just did what the OP is thinking of doing. I took my PC apart and sold each item on eBay. Worked great and now I have money for the new iMac
Click to expand...

WOW, you must have a lot of patience to have accomplished that. I'm too lazy to even box and ship one desktop let alone all its parts separately. :D
 
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