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ksirrah

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 7, 2006
2
0
Just trying to anticipate compatibility problems between my work PC and the anticipation of switching to a mac for home? What questions should I be asking myself? Can I do things like update my palm on a PC and a mac? Will there be email issues?
thanks for your guidance.....
 
More info is needed before you'll get good answers...

How much do you take between home and work?

Is it the odd Office document? Or do you need to use Access databases or Visio a lot? Is it your PC at work so you have admin rights over it if you want to VPN into your network? Or will you have to convince IT bods to let you do so with a Mac?
 
Well it really depends on what you do at work. If there is specific Windows software then you would have to consider installing Windows on your Mac as well.

Something like email is definitely not a problem, not sure about the palm but I think most are compatible with iSync.
 
Because of the compatibility of the Mac today, and the fact that you can run Windows on them, there is really no reason at all NOT to buy a Mac. :)
 
because intel macs run office really slowly. Adobe stuff are not UB yet. Most games are made for PC only. All the bittorrent client sucks on the mac. It is expensive. White stuff gets dirtier faster. Some ppl might call you gay. It is hard to find the windows counter part to a lot of free programs.
 
breakfastcrew said:
because intel macs run office really slowly. Adobe stuff are not UB yet. Most games are made for PC only. All the bittorrent client sucks on the mac. It is expensive. White stuff gets dirtier faster. Some ppl might call you gay. It is hard to find the windows counter part to a lot of free programs.
1. True. Rosetta needs a lot of RAM. It's actually tolerable on something with 1GB+ of memory.
2. True.
3. True.
4. False. I find Tomato Torrent to work VERY well... I've been using it for years now.
5. False. Macs are a better value than most PCs. It all depends on how they're configured.
6. Tee hee, true.
7. LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wouldn't care if they did. People talk, don't mean that it's true.
 
CoMpX said:
Because of the compatibility of the Mac today, and the fact that you can run Windows on them, there is really no reason at all NOT to buy a Mac. :)

i agree with this except when it comes to price. if you can't afford one, obviously that's going to factor heavily on your decision.
 
Marlon_JBT said:
1. True. Rosetta needs a lot of RAM. It's actually tolerable on something with 1GB+ of memory.
2. True.
3. True.
4. False. I find Tomato Torrent to work VERY well... I've been using it for years now.
5. False. Macs are a better value than most PCs. It all depends on how they're configured.
6. Tee hee, true.
7. LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wouldn't care if they did. People talk, don't mean that it's true.


bitlord pwns whatever tomato crap mac has hands down. And I am not the only who think so either. O and you 4got to comment on number 8. ;P
 
pianoman said:
i agree with this except when it comes to price. if you can't afford one, obviously that's going to factor heavily on your decision.

However, they are a better value than PCs, as mentioned before.
 
If you're like me and can keep a clean, lean, XP machine, I find myself missing the start menu, the start bar, iTunes and WMP controls in the start bar, and that dock drives me batty at times. Not that it's a bad idea, but when I have 10 instances of notepad open, I want to be able to select the one I want without using expose or anything.

But, on the other hand, if your computer is always getting mucked up with spyware and such, you'll probably become a fanatic about OS X, because it is almost impossible to break... and if you do manage to break it, 50% of the time it can be fixed without a reinstall, and the other 50% of the time, it's one of the most painless reinstallations you'll ever meet. Easier than installing a program on XP at times..
 
Well there is truely no reason not to get a mac because with crossover getting better, you can run windows programs just as you would a mac program. The only reason you shouldn't switch would be if you were going to get one of the older G4 laptops.
 
I hope crossover will eventually run every windows program 100% bugged free but a lot of ppl are saying it is going to get no better than the linux wine counter part which is not very good.
 
why you should not?
1 game
2 game
3 game
4 check if your "must have" softwares have Mac version.
 
breakfastcrew said:
I hope crossover will eventually run every windows program 100% bugged free but a lot of ppl are saying it is going to get no better than the linux wine counter part which is not very good.

Which is why Parallels and VMWare exist.
 
ksirrah said:
Just trying to anticipate compatibility problems between my work PC and the anticipation of switching to a mac for home? What questions should I be asking myself? Can I do things like update my palm on a PC and a mac? Will there be email issues?
We need to know more about what stuff you use at work to be able to say if you can do what you need in OS X. But ultimately it doesn't matter since you can just install Windows anyway! You can use Boot Camp, Parallels, or even Crossover (which doesn't actually require Windows AFAIK). The later two solutions don't require you to boot Windows, they work right in OS X.

Don't pay any attention to breakfastcrew, he/she's just trolling.
 
Get windows if you're not apt to find ways around incompatibilities. There are few, though. Most everything I do on a pc, my mac does better. Get windows if gaming is important to you.

If you get a mac, to ease the switch - Get flip 4 mac, to play wmv files in quicktime.
Get NeoOffice, a great substitute for microsoft office. It has a native intel version.

Get VLC player for the other stuff quicktime won't run.

Windows can't handle the onslaught of viruses and spyware it encounters everyday, unless you are nerdy enough to take good preventive measures. Even if you are, why bother with having to worry? I don't on my mac.

Individual program crashes hardly ever crash OS X. Unix is far more stable than Windows. Don't be fooled by people who tell you macs are for babies who don't know anything about computers - it is far more advanced than windows.
 
ksirrah said:
Just trying to anticipate compatibility problems between my work PC and the anticipation of switching to a mac for home? What questions should I be asking myself? Can I do things like update my palm on a PC and a mac? Will there be email issues?
thanks for your guidance.....

get a mac, and use windows if necessary.

plain and simple.
 
The ugly truth is that MS Windoze has a huge user base and because of that there is a vast collection of hacked/pirated software. Whatever you want, you can get, and what you can't get, then learn Mandrin and get it from Chinese servers. Some of this S/W works very good and others not so good.

With Apple you've got to buy most of your software, but most of it works well thanks to the robust OS-X.
 
thejadedmonkey said:
If you're like me and can keep a clean, lean, XP machine, I find myself missing the start menu, the start bar, iTunes and WMP controls in the start bar, and that dock drives me batty at times. Not that it's a bad idea, but when I have 10 instances of notepad open, I want to be able to select the one I want without using expose or anything.

But, on the other hand, if your computer is always getting mucked up with spyware and such, you'll probably become a fanatic about OS X, because it is almost impossible to break... and if you do manage to break it, 50% of the time it can be fixed without a reinstall, and the other 50% of the time, it's one of the most painless reinstallations you'll ever meet. Easier than installing a program on XP at times..

Get sizzling keys for keyboard control of itunes, i set command+option+left or right to change song.

Also right click on the dock icon to get a list of all the windows open.

Personally i think i'm going to get a pc desktop again. I'm without my macbook for two weeks now because of of RSS/RSD. I don't want to go through that again with an iMac which is basically a laptop in a screen. Fixing a PC is much easier, and at least i can do it myself.
 
Why should I NOT switch to a mac?

Some people find change of any sort incredibly difficult.

There's an old saying.
What the farmer doesn't know, he won't eat.

Some people earn their living in a MS certified Windows environment
and are perfectly content with the routine they must follow to keep
Windows and their applications running.

Some people work by the hour so they could care less how long it takes for the IT department to fix their desktop or maintain the servers.

Some people are just plain cheap and they'll get what they pay for.
IF they are paying for it at all.

Fortunately, more and more people know better.
 
thewhitehart said:
Windows can't handle the onslaught of viruses and spyware it encounters everyday, unless you are nerdy enough to take good preventive measures. Even if you are, why bother with having to worry? I don't on my mac.

One of the reasons i got a mac was because of the lack of viruses. However i'm starting to realise that in all my years with windows i only ever got one virus. That was the blaster virus and it's variants. I've never got any other one. Also i've never got spyware (i checked regularly).

When a mac works it works well, but after seeing the negative side windows is looking a lot more appealing :(
 
®îçhå®? said:
That is a stupid question. Run windoze on the mac.

Why? When you can get a cheaper PC and run windows on that. Or for the same price get a way more powerful (if not as pretty) PC.

For the price of a 20" iMac i could get a 2.4GHz Conroe with 2GB ram, 320GB Drive and a 7900GT graphics card. All together that will whip the A$$ of the iMac. Plus i can get a zalman reserator to keep it all quiet. However i can actually put it all together myself.
 
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