Mac or PC and Why?
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- Alan Andrews
- Jr. Rocketeer
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Ok I've been a PC user for a few decades and I am well versed in hardware. I have a pretty powerful PC and my GF works for a marketing firm with a bunch of "Creative Types" and of course they all use Macs. The more discussions I have with them the more curious I am about the MAC. They swear the Mac if far superior to the PC in the realm of graphics and design. I am just beginning to dive into this new realm and I really enjoy it so far. I have been lurking the forums and leeching ideas from you guys, I have never learned so much so quickly. You guys rock!
A decently powered Mac is 2K+, and before I make that kind of investment I would like to know from you Mac experts here why a Mac would better serve me, or should I stay with my PC. So far the only thing that I am impressed by is the GUI. I can build a monster PC for less than the cost of a new Mac. If I go Mac I am looking at an Imac 24, Mac Pro (Love the 8 cores), or MacBook Pro. (Any suggestions?)
I am looking into developing and multimedia, some of the apps that interest me are Final Cut Studio, Adobe CS3 Suite and Adobe Premier Pro CS3. Please give me your take on why you switched to Mac, How long you have been using a Mac, Your Skill level, and a few must have Mac only apps to help me in my decision.
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- James Spencer
- Preeminent Rocketeer
- Posts: 46340
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Have you been tracking some of the Mac threads on this forum? Might be an idea
Well, all of us at RocketTheme have Macs or will be getting one in the near future. When you really say Mac or PC, that is only half of the story, the real "battle", which one might say is with OS.
Macs have Leopard, PCs have Windows (generally). That is really where the Mac, particularly Leopard excel over the PC, windows. When people talk about them, that is what they are really talking about, the terms get mixed together a lot.
Leopard is far superior to Windows, they just is no comparison. There maybe some areas of Windows which may be better, but they are the exception, not the rule. The functionality of Leopard is better, it is more intuitive, faster, more efficient and will improve your productivity ten fold.
To be honest, you cannot truly appreciate the Mac and Leopard without working on it personally. You really need to have a few days of working on it, and then you shall be converted Trust me.
I will never go back to a PC/Windows after having my new Macbook Pro (only a few weeks ago). All of us RocketTheme Team Members who have converted feel the same way. If you are working with design, the web and similar, a Mac is really for you. As long as all the apps you wish to use are Mac ready, then there is nothing holding you back
- James Spencer / Developer & Support / Hull, UK
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- Ugur Takoz
- Jr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 42
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Mac is better!
I work from the beginning of my "Computerage" with a Mac - i have a PC at work - i hate it! Realy i hate it!
The mac is your friend - when you will work for hours and hours whitout any problems.
Ugur
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- Can we say VIRUS! Totally Mac hands down. Especially now with Fusion and Parallels, Macs give you the best of both worlds.
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- James Spencer
- Preeminent Rocketeer
- Posts: 46340
- Thanks: 50
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Brien McDowell wrote:
Can we say VIRUS! Totally Mac hands down. Especially now with Fusion and Parallels, Macs give you the best of both worlds.
Ah yes, I forgot that point. See www.apple.com/getamac/windows.html
You can run Windows inside Leopard; even ubuntu if you realy wanted to. - James Spencer / Developer & Support / Hull, UK
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- I run MacBook Pro 2.4 with Leopard and VMWare Fusion with two separate windows setups, both XP Pro, but one with IE6 and One with IE7 & Foxfire(PC) for testing.
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- Alan Andrews
- Jr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 25
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- Well security and virus protection was not my main concern, it's productivity. I have been told that productivity is increased with leopard and I would like a few examples. Is it that the Mac versions of the software differ in some some way? Shortcuts within the OS itself? I have seen that I can run Windows on the Mac, even though that's great and all I can do that on my PC. What does the Mac OS bring to the table? Keep in mind I'll retain my PC and use both.
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- James Spencer
- Preeminent Rocketeer
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it is kinda difficult to describe really, everything is fine-tuned and intuitive, a plethora of little features that can increase your productivity by just a few seconds but the few seconds/minutes soon build up with every little thing you do.
You may want to check out this thread www.rockettheme.com/forum/index.php?t=24121&rb_v=viewtopic - Dan, one of the RT moderators, got a new imac and I pointed out a few crazy cool apps. All of which are Mac only.
- QuickSilver www.blacktree.com/
- Mamp www.mamp.info/en/index.php
- TextMate macromates.com/
- CssEdit macrabbit.com/cssedit/
QuickSilver is a magnificent application, which should have been a part of Leopard personally. It is basically a super shortcut tool. For example, if I click ctrl + space on my keyboard, the menu appears. I would then proceed to to type F I R E F O X and it would instantly find Firefox on my Mac and with a Enter key, open it straight away. This works for any app on my Mac as well as files, folders, even links and much more, depending on what modules you installed. Like I said, basically the ultimate shortcut tool.
I only use QuickSilver to its most limited capacity, it is actually I highly advanced tool to allow you to do almost anything with your keyboard.
Mamp is just a localhost setup for the Mac, similar to xampp but much simpler and easier to use.
TextMate is one of the best code editors I have seen, much better than DreamWeaver IMO.
CSSEdit is another brilliant tool that makes CSS more productive.
Like I said to Dan, check out the guide for new Leopard features www.apple.com/macosx/guidedtour/ - remember, these are just the new features.
My favourite of the new features is spaces, which allows for multiple desktops, I think the limit is 20. I personally use 6. You can run, assign, switch applications between each space. You have different ways of accessing spaces depending on what suits you. You have the option of an icon in the dock which I don't personally use. I use the Keyboard commands of ctrl + arrow which allows to switch to each space, depending on the direction. Also, I have activated hot corners which allows me to go to the spaces main page (see all spaces at once) by scrolling my mouse over to the top left.
Naturally, leading onto Hot Corners. Hot corners are basically the the immediate corners of your screen, top left and right, bottom left and right. You can assign roles to each corner when you scroll your mouse over. I use Spaces for the top left, All Windows Expose for Top right, All Applications Expose for bottom left and Show Desktop expose for bottom right. Very handy to move and identify different elements running on your Mac at any one time.
Leading onto Expose, one of the coolest features around, IMO. On my Macbook Pro, it was originally set for keyboard commands but changed to hot corners but on the macs, i.e. imac that come with the mouse, Expose is activate via the mouse which appears to be highly intuitive. Basically, Expose allows you to view everyone on your screen. For example, the All Windows Expose option "zooms" all windows on your desktop out. So, if you had 3 windows overlapping each other on your desktop, they would all zoom next out and be spaced between one another allowing you to select another window etc... (works with spaces). Another productive feature. The All Application and Show Desktop options are as titled.
The dock was something that I didn't like at first but have grown to love. Your active applications (their icons) appear there etc... Similar to the Start Menu bar in Windows but more robust. Stacks is a new addition to leopard which I personally like. I prefer the grid view over the fan, as the fan just seems rather pointless to me. You should watch the demo video that I linked to see them in action. I downloaded a little extension which added little overlaying icons to the stacks to make them as they should be (from: www.appletell.com/apple/comment/ultimate...pard-tweaking-guide/ ) The dock is certainly something that is a great but takes a little adjustment from Windows to really like.
The search features (spotlight) is something that really impressed me over windows. Leopard has instant search, and I mean instant. Let me take a little example from when I was installing all 15 RocketLauncher packs and obviously needed to delete the installation folders. Found /installation folder straight away and delete. Obviously, that is something small as it is much more advanced but you can see the advantages of of instant search and an adaptive search.
Quicklook is yet another superb feature. It allows you to preview files without opening the application. I will take an example from the design world. Maybe you have 10 source files in Fireworks which have slightly differences. Just highlight all the files and hit space and Leopard will preview them all instantly in a nice, easy slideshow. It has lots of file formats that it can process, coded files, image files, text/doc/pdf files etc... Similarly, a lot of the icons are previews as well. For example, a HTML file will usually look like it would on a website but in thumbnail view, quite a querky little feature that is nifty.
There is just so much more which you just become accustom too and wonder how you could do without it on windows. Some of the general points that are great about the Mac/Leopard are
1. As the core of the operating system is open, unlike windows, it allows developers to access the full power of the OS to make better applications.
2. Almost everything is customisable either by settings, application or command line.
So many things and so much more, you are always discovering new ways to work better, work easier with the Mac. It truly is better.
Hope that helps lol Got a bit carried away.
- Last Edit: 16 years 10 months ago by James Spencer.
- James Spencer / Developer & Support / Hull, UK
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- GollumX
- Elite Rocketeer
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"Spaces" has been available on various Linux OS's for almost a decade
- Say no to Internet Explorer 6.
twitter.com/mark_up
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- James Spencer
- Preeminent Rocketeer
- Posts: 46340
- Thanks: 50
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GollumX wrote:
"Spaces" has been available on various Linux OS's for almost a decade
A feature is a feature and I am glad Apple included it this time around, but it is the whole OS package. I personally don't like the way Linux does it but personal preferences
- James Spencer / Developer & Support / Hull, UK
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