How do I convince my IT boss to get a Mac for Web design

[RojoLeo]

I just successfully got a Quad core Mac Pro in a Windows ASP.net development environment. I do design as well as server and email administration.

I run Adobe CS3 on the Mac side, and Windows through Parallels. All Office applications, Visual Studio 2005, etc. run on the Windows side. With 5GB RAM, this thing is still screaming along as I run dozens of demanding applications on both sides.

If you guys haven't used SmartSelect in Parallels 3.0, it is friggin' sweet. Clicking any .doc, .xls, etc. on OSX opens my Windows Office 2007 apps, opening a .psd, .ai, etc. on the Windows side opens my OSX apps. It is the absolute best of both worls (sorry purists).

Point being: no PC could enable me to do what I'm doing now. My productivity has shot through the roof. People will make arguments until they're blue in the face about how OSX is better than Windows or vice versa; the truth is, for me, it's a fine balance between both.

I also keep an installation of SUSE in Parallels, just in case.

 

[yojitani]

Having seen many professional design work environments, I've found it a bit funny that university tech departments stick with windows. That seems unprofessional. Of course, 'everyone else uses them, why can't we (I)' isn't much of an argument. However, when I asked at a very large cosmetics company why only their design (web and advertising) dept. used macs, they said that 1. they can multitask easily with large, system intensive applications running and externals attached. 2. Information recovery is easier.

 

[fingers]

No, I don't do database driven sites. I purely use Dreamweaver, a little Flash and a little Fireworks...what is now the "Adobe package". Next year, I'll probably get cozy with PHP and maybe AJAX since I plan on learning that.

Next year, I would suggest getting cozy with Ruby on Rails and AJAX.
I have used PHP for a while now, but my first steps with RoR have been mindblowing for me.
I installed MySQL, then used Locomotive to get RoR on my MBP. Probably better to install using the terminal, but it's more 'Mac' like, and it works! This setup works like a dream with TextMate too.

I started out using Dreamweaver, but since reading Zeldman's book on web standards, I ditched DW, don't get me wrong. DW is a great product, but I found when doing database driven work that that sometimes it would freak out, so by hand coding now, I have a much greater understanding of html, and also the database queries. Actually the coding for your html is very simple too, if using web standards. (ok, the CSS is a little more daunting - at first) I am sorry if you have heard this all before, but it works for me.

Best of luck getting the Mac. You could say you'll quit if you don't get one.

 

[fingers]

I've read this like 8 times now and am completely lost at how OSX manages how you web browse?
You need web browsers to verify everything working and with Safari 3 being available on windows, a big part of that argument is lost for the Mac.

You would think that Safari on a Mac and on a PC would be identical. Sure, they use the same WebKit engine, but (and to be honest, i haven't tried it myself) I bet it still renders differently in some circumstances. The only sure fire way to check is to test your work in both browsers (plus all the other major ones of course!) Firefox on a Mac and on a PC behave differently, I very much doubt if even Apple have built a level playing field. I really hope I am proved wrong though.

 

[nimbuscloud]

I just successfully got a Quad core Mac Pro in a Windows ASP.net development environment. I do design as well as server and email administration.

I run Adobe CS3 on the Mac side, and Windows through Parallels. All Office applications, Visual Studio 2005, etc. run on the Windows side. With 5GB RAM, this thing is still screaming along as I run dozens of demanding applications on both sides.

If you guys haven't used SmartSelect in Parallels 3.0, it is friggin' sweet. Clicking any .doc, .xls, etc. on OSX opens my Windows Office 2007 apps, opening a .psd, .ai, etc. on the Windows side opens my OSX apps. It is the absolute best of both worls (sorry purists).

Point being: no PC could enable me to do what I'm doing now. My productivity has shot through the roof. People will make arguments until they're blue in the face about how OSX is better than Windows or vice versa; the truth is, for me, it's a fine balance between both.

I also keep an installation of SUSE in Parallels, just in case.

AWESOME!!!

See, that's what I want...more productivity!!! I was interested in VMWare Fusion though, but I don't know if it is better than Parallels.

One thing that I was scared about is of course the price of the Mac and the new software. It'll cost about $500 for and edu copy of Adobe CS3 web suite, about $3000 for a good Mac and $600 for a monitor both with discounts. But the time saved in doing stuff will be enormous.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that my computer stalls on everything. I don't want a Vista PC, XP is ok with me...but I'd love to be able to work with a Mac and use XP on it whenever I need to use something that purely for it.

Thanks again and I like hearing your stories!

 

[jng]

AWESOME!!!

See, that's what I want...more productivity!!! I was interested in VMWare Fusion though, but I don't know if it is better than Parallels.

One thing that I was scared about is of course the price of the Mac and the new software. It'll cost about $500 for and edu copy of Adobe CS3 web suite, about $3000 for a good Mac and $600 for a monitor both with discounts. But the time saved in doing stuff will be enormous.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that my computer stalls on everything. I don't want a Vista PC, XP is ok with me...but I'd love to be able to work with a Mac and use XP on it whenever I need to use something that purely for it.

Thanks again and I like hearing your stories!

You don't necessarily need a powermac to do web stuff. A 20" iMac @ $1500 or the 24" at $2000 with CS3 suite for $300 (when you buy an edu mac this summer) and you're set.

Once they update the iMacs, it'll be just like an MBP. I use an MBP right now with a 20" cinema display. I wish I had a desktop, but mostly for larger real estate. I use CS3, photoshop and dreamweaver (always in code view) concurrently and have IE and Firefox open in Parallels when I'm debugging. I'm usually also listening to iTunes and I have adium, mail, etc open too. It runs fine. It doesn't even miss a beat when I'm batching photos from iPhoto for a web gallery.

If I weren't leaving the country next month, I'd buy an iMac (when they update them soon).

Also if your school currently has a CS3 license, depending on how it's done, if it's not just site wide, you could have them convert a single PC license to mac. They'll just mail you the CDs.

I think we pay a little extra to get CS3 for PC. We have 16 Macs and 1 PC in the classroom.

 

[nimbuscloud]

You don't necessarily need a powermac to do web stuff. A 20" iMac @ $1500 or the 24" at $2000 with CS3 suite for $300 (when you buy an edu mac this summer) and you're set.

Once they update the iMacs, it'll be just like an MBP. I use an MBP right now with a 20" cinema display. I wish I had a desktop, but mostly for larger real estate. I use CS3, photoshop and dreamweaver (always in code view) concurrently and have IE and Firefox open in Parallels when I'm debugging. I'm usually also listening to iTunes and I have adium, mail, etc open too. It runs fine. It doesn't even miss a beat when I'm batching photos from iPhoto for a web gallery.

If I weren't leaving the country next month, I'd buy an iMac (when they update them soon).

Also if your school currently has a CS3 license, depending on how it's done, if it's not just site wide, you could have them convert a single PC license to mac. They'll just mail you the CDs.

I think we pay a little extra to get CS3 for PC. We have 16 Macs and 1 PC in the classroom.

Well, I want a powerful computer because I don't know the next time I'll be getting an update lol. Not only will I have to do web design, but I'll be doing large format printing and maybe a little video editing, that's a maybe though.

I'd love to get an iMac since it'd be cheaper, but I want something that will last a good long time and won't have trouble running Mac OS X and Windows XP at the same time with. Not to mention, I won't be paying for it. So it's best to get the best thing...or something pretty strong while I can...if I can.

Thanks though.

 

[RojoLeo]

Well, I want a powerful computer because I don't know the next time I'll be getting an update lol. Not only will I have to do web design, but I'll be doing large format printing and maybe a little video editing, that's a maybe though.

I'd love to get an iMac since it'd be cheaper, but I want something that will last a good long time and won't have trouble running Mac OS X and Windows XP at the same time with. Not to mention, I won't be paying for it. So it's best to get the best thing...or something pretty strong while I can...if I can.

Thanks though.

I can appreciate that, and if the budget is there, by all means get a Mac Pro. However, if they're only willing to spend $2k or less, don't settle for a PC, a lower-powered Mac would still be much better.

Fight the good fight.

 

[jng]

I can appreciate that, and if the budget is there, by all means get a Mac Pro. However, if they're only willing to spend $2k or less, don't settle for a PC, a lower-powered Mac would still be much better.

Fight the good fight.

Agreed.

All 16 of our macs, we had to write proposals for to get them. If you just try to max things out just to get power, you run a higher risk of getting your proposal rejected.

We also didn't buy all our macs at the same time, rather retired and introduced new machines/models in shifts about 6-8. We only recently (2 years ago) retired the 1993 G3s we had inherited from a lab.

Anyway, what we did was write a proposal to get some macs and they worked out really well. Then we got the opportunity to do it again.

I'd recommend starting out with the iMac and slowly adding more machines as needed. An iMac will be better than your PC anyway, as said before.

 

[nimbuscloud]

Agreed.

All 16 of our macs, we had to write proposals for to get them. If you just try to max things out just to get power, you run a higher risk of getting your proposal rejected.

We also didn't buy all our macs at the same time, rather retired and introduced new machines/models in shifts about 6-8. We only recently (2 years ago) retired the 1993 G3s we had inherited from a lab.

Anyway, what we did was write a proposal to get some macs and they worked out really well. Then we got the opportunity to do it again.

I'd recommend starting out with the iMac and slowly adding more machines as needed. An iMac will be better than your PC anyway, as said before.

Well, I only need one Mac. The private college that I work for doesn't have a ton of money, but I was surprised to see decked out PowerMac G5s in the communication lab...about 8 of them. I'm sure that one more good Mac, now the MacPro, won't hurt.

I will make a proposal, but I'll start with the MacPro in mind. Perhaps I'll also do one for the iMac, but I know that an iMac revision is coming soon...I'd be scared to get the iMac approved and trying to tell my boss to "wait for the new models". A decked out iMac would be nice, but I do want more power to be more flexible. I can't tell you how many times people would need me to do something AT THE LAST MINUTE, yet my Dell XP computer chokes on fricken Adobe Acrobat.

Thanks again for all the replies, keep 'em comin' if you have more info! I really appreciate the help, guys.

 

[nimbuscloud]

Now that I compare iMac and MacPro prices, the iMac looks very reasonable. I guess it's just that I saw that we had a lab of decked out G5s that made me feel that one more (for me) would be ok.

I wanted about 4GB of ram, but the iMac only goes to 3GB. Hmmm, I'll compare them a bit more.

Edit: Wow, the iMac seems really good. Do you think 3GB will be enough to run both Mac OS X and Windows XP at the same time? I really wish it had a max of 4GB of ram, but maybe 3GB will be enough. I wonder if the iMac revision will really come in August.

 

[jng]

Edit: Wow, the iMac seems really good. Do you think 3GB will be enough to run both Mac OS X and Windows XP at the same time? I really wish it had a max of 4GB of ram, but maybe 3GB will be enough. I wonder if the iMac revision will really come in August.

3GB is more than plenty for web design. I have 2GB and I run Windows (IE+Firefox) alongside photoshop, dreamweaver, Safari, Firefox, and Transmit all the time - while blasting iTunes.

The only time I feel like I need more RAM is when I'm working with lots of photos for a gallery in iPhoto and/or processing them - but that's also a processor thing.

 

[cvkaiser]

You could wait some more weeks until the new iMacs arrive - they should support 4GB RAM like the new MBP does.
Best regards - Christoph

 

[nimbuscloud]

You could wait some more weeks until the new iMacs arrive - they should support 4GB RAM like the new MBP does.
Best regards - Christoph

I hope so! I've been reading about the rumors, I hope it's true. Thanks Christoph.

 

[nimbuscloud]

If you attend any sort of web development seminars or presentations you will notice that 90% of the presenters and attendees will be touting Mac laptops. I would say for any sort of Ruby on Rails work the Mac is the industry standard, and TextMate won't run on a PC.

If your web development is for the college's intranet, with only Windows machines able to access it, then get a new PC. But if it is an open system, checking browser issues on a Mac is essential. So just tell him/her that you need to check how it renders on a Mac.

What exactly is Ruby on Rails? What is it good for? Is it hard to learn?

Please excuse my ignorance, but some programming languages...I'm still a novice at. Thanks for your time.

 

[jng]

http://www.rubyonrails.org/

It's a newer scripting language for development. I actually want to learn some myself - when I find the time.

I think if you do a search here, you'll find a thread about ruby.

 

[fingers]

Yes, it is a scripting language (Ruby) with a framework (Rails) that allows for rapid web app development. I am still getting up to speed on it myself, but from my first steps it is nothing like I have ever tried before.

There is a great book called Agile Web Development with Rails (2nd Ed) which comes highly recommended by many RoR developers. I have just signed up to Lynda.com and (so far) the RoR tutorial is fantastic. Great for novices like myself.

The great thing about RoR is the methodology, the mantra is DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) and it's based on the MVC (Model View Controller) model. Which means that instead of say in PHP you would typically have all the PHP code, html etc on one page, this is split into different locations. Making everything much, much faster to develop, and also maintain.

The other nice thing is that Rails evolved from 37signals. They use Macs, so all training ( I have seen ) sort of assumes that you will be using one too. It does work crossplatform on Windows and Linux etc, but for once it's nice not to be told to use Notepad.

It's all open source too, so that will keep your IT boss happy. A friend told me to get started with RoR a year ago, I wish I had listened. Sure, PHP and other scripting languages can be used in an OOP manner like RoR, but, the conventions used by RoR make you code in a very specific way, which when/if you get started with it, make it ten times (at least in my experience) faster than developing in PHP. Again, I am not an expert in PHP, but even though I have enjoyed working with it over the years, RoR is a breath of fresh air. I highly recommend it.

 

[nimbuscloud]

Thanks for the info.

So, it's best to put PHP on the back burner and start getting into Ruby on Rails? I think I'll look into some beginner literature on that. Sounds interesting.

 

[fingers]

Yes, PHP is amazingly popular, but RoR would be my choice.
Also, Mac OS X Leopard will come with RoR already installed which is cool.

 

[stainlessliquid]

Any professional web designer would test on both platforms. Regardless of how much people think they are teh code genius, browsers treat some things differently and theres no way to get around that. Testing on IE is REQUIRED for any professional website (Windows IE). End of story.

If they are serious about web designing then they should have both platforms. Telling them that you need to test websites on both platforms because websites can display differently should be good enough of a reason.

Personally I hate the Mac for coding. Windows Dreamweaver is simply in a different league than the crappy Mac version. I thought Adobe would finally make Dreamweaver good on a Mac, but its still the same piece of garbage compared to the Windows version. I would rather design the page on a Mac then use Windows for the coding, its also a lot easier to determine if the site is Windows compliant right away.

 

[jng]

Personally I hate the Mac for coding. Windows Dreamweaver is simply in a different league than the crappy Mac version. I thought Adobe would finally make Dreamweaver good on a Mac, but its still the same piece of garbage compared to the Windows version. I would rather design the page on a Mac then use Windows for the coding, its also a lot easier to determine if the site is Windows compliant right away.

How is it better? IMO, Dreamweaver is just as bad as any WYSIWYG. When I use DW, I'm always in code view. I like using it as a fancy text editor because of tabs, quick search-and-replace, and it predicts which tags I need to close

My pages are made on a mac from conception to fruition.

 

[radiantm3]

Any professional web designer would test on both platforms. Regardless of how much people think they are teh code genius, browsers treat some things differently and theres no way to get around that. Testing on IE is REQUIRED for any professional website (Windows IE). End of story.

If they are serious about web designing then they should have both platforms. Telling them that you need to test websites on both platforms because websites can display differently should be good enough of a reason.

Personally I hate the Mac for coding. Windows Dreamweaver is simply in a different league than the crappy Mac version. I thought Adobe would finally make Dreamweaver good on a Mac, but its still the same piece of garbage compared to the Windows version. I would rather design the page on a Mac then use Windows for the coding, its also a lot easier to determine if the site is Windows compliant right away.

Some would say dreamweaver sucks in general and textmate provides the best coding/markup experience.

 

[radiantm3]

I like using it as a fancy text editor because of tabs, quick search-and-replace, and it predicts which tags I need to close
.

Textmate does all that and a whole lot more. The only thing dreamweaver has over textmate is FTP capabilities (I prefer SVN) and inline error checking (I prefer firebug + tidy). Other than that, Textmate is much faster, and far more powerful as an editor.

 

[fingers]

I think this brings up an interesting point:

It's not the tools you use that really matter. It's what you prefer, and are more productive with that is important. You wouldn't tell a carpenter to use a particular type of saw, so why should the web developer be told what to use? If you prefer the PC experience, stick with that, there is no real need to change. I know what I prefer, and if you only want to have one machine, then a Mac will be able to test browser compatibility with all Mac and Windows (using Parallels or similar) browsers, so for me, it's a no brainer. Your mileage may vary.

 

[stainlessliquid]

How is it better? IMO, Dreamweaver is just as bad as any WYSIWYG. When I use DW, I'm always in code view. I like using it as a fancy text editor because of tabs, quick search-and-replace, and it predicts which tags I need to close

My pages are made on a mac from conception to fruition.

Have you ever used the Windows version? Its night and day. The features are more or less the same but the GUI is much better in Windows. Its a lot faster, less buggy, and just much more pleasant to use. It feels like a modern professional program instead of some crappy freeware. Flash used to suffer the same fate, but Adobe made huge changes to update it on the Mac. Its just too bad they didnt do the same to Dreamweaver since it still has the same horrid UI its had for years.