Notebook advise

[flyingcheesehead]

Service is pretty much going to suck with every company. How do you compete with all the other companies with cheap service? You get cheap service yourself. It's the new economy. Outsource your service--find someone local that knows the product and go through them for problems.

Or, you buy a Mac and speak with a real live American when you call for support.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

I switched in January and am not going back.

I couldn't use a Mac before because there is one program that I have to use for work from home and it requires Windows (specifically IE 5.5 or 6.0). With the Intel chips and Parallels I was able to install a bare Windows XP virtual machine that I connect to work through a vpn. Otherwise I now do everything on my MacBook Pro 15.

I have absolutely no desire to use Windows. It took me about 3-4 weeks to be completely comfortable in OS X.

And remember, Vista is at best an equal or slightly less polished version of OS X 10.4. In the next few months Apple will be releasing OS X 10.5 and it will in all likelihood blow the doors off Vista.

Then there is the whole thing about no viruses or malware, no antivirus programs, proper management of memory, no registery, no .dlls, better security, keychain, ...the list goes on.

For a laptop there is a real benefit in the stability of the system and its memory management. You close the lid and it goes to sleep. You open the lid and it is back up and fully functioning in about 2-3 seconds. You can literally go weeks or months without rebooting.

There is no reason to get into a big Mac vs PC argument. My purpose in posting is to suggest that you give it serious thought. It might be for you, maybe not. But with the ability to use Parallels and Windows for the odd program that you absolutely have to use and only runs under Windows, the unsolvable roadblock that used to exist is now gone.

Bingo, amen, right on Larry!

It used to be a risk to attempt the switch... If it didn't work, you'd have some hardware to unload, probably at a significant loss.

Now that Apple made the switch to Intel, if things don't work out and you want a pure Windows box, you just wipe the hard drive clean and install Windows.

FWIW, I am not aware of any cases of anyone wiping their drives clean. Many only have a need for one or two Windows programs, and use one of the several (4 that I know of) options for running them. Parallels is the most popular, but I'm using CrossOver for the moment because it doesn't require an actual copy of Windows.

Dave, if you want to know more, give me a call sometime. PM if you don't have my number.

 

[mikea]

I switched in January and am not going back.
...

I have absolutely no desire to use Windows. It took me about 3-4 weeks to be completely comfortable in OS X.

And remember, Vista is at best an equal or slightly less polished version of OS X 10.4. In the next few months Apple will be releasing OS X 10.5 and it will in all likelihood blow the doors off Vista.

Then there is the whole thing about no viruses or malware, no antivirus programs, proper management of memory, no registery, no .dlls, better security, keychain, ...the list goes on.

For a laptop there is a real benefit in the stability of the system and its memory management. You close the lid and it goes to sleep. You open the lid and it is back up and fully functioning in about 2-3 seconds. You can literally go weeks or months without rebooting.

There is no reason to get into a big Mac vs PC argument. My purpose in posting is to suggest that you give it serious thought. It might be for you, maybe not. But with the ability to use Parallels and Windows for the odd program that you absolutely have to use and only runs under Windows, the unsolvable roadblock that used to exist is now gone.

We got one!!!

Like you Larry, I was wary a couple of years ago. I got into Unix along the way so I knew if I hated the Mac Mini I could always just use it as a Unix server. I didn't hate it. I bought another one. I have the Windows screamer I built I use strictly for getting into work. I'm on the MacBook Pro all of the time. I've had 0 failures in the first year.

Folks, I'm the guy who kept telling you to switch to Firefox. Those of you that did ...and it took a while.. know that was good choice. Macs are a good choice, too.

Macs aren't perfect - I have occasional clumsiness with it - but they're a lot closer to perfect than anything running Windows.

 

[jesse]

Or, you buy a Mac and speak with a real live American when you call for support.

We all know how much good that'll do. When my cable internet quits working and I call Comcast I get a real live american idiot.

 

[gprellwitz]

Yeah, Leslie had that experience calling Comcast last night to report a digital cable outage. This, of course, after their "find a network problem in your area" utility on the website is broken.

And I'm thinking about a Mac, but two of the things I'd like to do I believe to be too low-level for the mac emulators, and they may not even work on the Mac hardware at all. One is MSFS X, which is, of course, very hardware intensive. The other is the Garmin G1000 simulator, which doesn't like Intel embedded video or even multithreading. Anyone have experience with either of these on an Intel-based Mac, either laptop or desktop?

 

[mikea]

Yeah, Leslie had that experience calling Comcast last night to report a digital cable outage. This, of course, after their "find a network problem in your area" utility on the website is broken.

And I'm thinking about a Mac, but two of the things I'd like to do I believe to be too low-level for the mac emulators, and they may not even work on the Mac hardware at all. One is MSFS X, which is, of course, very hardware intensive. The other is the Garmin G1000 simulator, which doesn't like Intel embedded video or even multithreading. Anyone have experience with either of these on an Intel-based Mac, either laptop or desktop?

All TV sources suck. After saying the reps at DirecTV were good, I'm looking at the third visit, which is supposed to be arranged once the "escalation rep" calls me. I won't hold my breath.

They all use gypsy contractors and all of those don't care one whit. The two guys who came out to do exactly what the work order incorrectly stated, were from Green Bay. They live in motels and go home on the weekend. When I told the second guy the first guy sucked it turned out he was his brother in law.


I think MSFS will like running under Boot Camp, where it has the whole machine. There are lotsa game players running FPS games.

The video cards are name brands, ATI and Nvidia.

The new 8 core Mac Pro will be announced any day now. There aren't a lot of Windows desktop machines in that class.

 

[jesse]

I think MSFS will like running under Boot Camp, where it has the whole machine. There are lotsa game players running FPS games.

The video cards are name brands, ATI and Nvidia.

The new 8 core Mac Pro will be announced any day now. There aren't a lot of Windows desktop machines in that class.

They are brand name video cards but are generally pretty weak. I haven't looked at the newest offerings so my words I'm typing right now are meaningless.

 

[mikea]

They are brand name video cards but are generally pretty weak. I haven't looked at the newest offerings so my words I'm typing right now are meaningless.

OK, but the Mac Pro has PCI slots (maybe not PCI express?) so you can upgrade the card(s).

 

[jesse]

OK, but the Mac Pro has PCI slots (maybe not PCI express?) so you can upgrade the card(s).

Well PCI won't do it. You'd need PCI express.

 

[mikea]

Well PCI won't do it. You'd need PCI express.

It is PCI Express:

Mac Pro enclosure accommodates up to four drives and 3TB of storage; offers 8 DIMM slots to fill with up to 16GB of RAM; provides up to two SuperDrives. You also have four PCI Express slots, and more I/O ports — including two additional ports up front.
http://www.apple.com/macpro/

...and that's the "old" Quad core version.

It's on my long someday list/

 

[flyingcheesehead]

We all know how much good that'll do. When my cable internet quits working and I call Comcast I get a real live american idiot.

Well, FWIW the Apple folks I've talked to have been very helpful. Like the rest of the user experience, it was actually pleasant to talk to them.

Now if they'd go back to making the machines themselves (USA, Ireland, and yes, Singapore) so I wouldn't have to call in the first place...

 

[flyingcheesehead]

And I'm thinking about a Mac, but two of the things I'd like to do I believe to be too low-level for the mac emulators, and they may not even work on the Mac hardware at all. One is MSFS X, which is, of course, very hardware intensive. The other is the Garmin G1000 simulator, which doesn't like Intel embedded video or even multithreading. Anyone have experience with either of these on an Intel-based Mac, either laptop or desktop?

Grant,

Remember that if nothing else you can use Boot Camp which is a dual-boot setup and when booted into Windows, it's a Windows machine and Windows is getting 100% of the hardware. So, if it doesn't work well with one of the other methods, you can do that.

No worries! Also, remember that this is technically not emulation. It's running on an Intel box now, and so there's no extra processing required.

All that said, I'd be curious how well that stuff works too. If you want to buy me copies of Windows, Parallels, and the aforementioned software I'd be happy to test it out for you.

I do know that AOPA's RTFP doesn't work under CrossOver (none of the text shows up) and the G430 simulator won't install under CrossOver (says the debugger is enabled and to turn it off and try again). Parallels would certainly work better, but I just can't bring myself to buy a copy of Windows.

 

[gprellwitz]

Grant,

Remember that if nothing else you can use Boot Camp which is a dual-boot setup and when booted into Windows, it's a Windows machine and Windows is getting 100% of the hardware. So, if it doesn't work well with one of the other methods, you can do that.

No worries! Also, remember that this is technically not emulation. It's running on an Intel box now, and so there's no extra processing required.

All that said, I'd be curious how well that stuff works too. If you want to buy me copies of Windows, Parallels, and the aforementioned software I'd be happy to test it out for you.

I do know that AOPA's RTFP doesn't work under CrossOver (none of the text shows up) and the G430 simulator won't install under CrossOver (says the debugger is enabled and to turn it off and try again). Parallels would certainly work better, but I just can't bring myself to buy a copy of Windows.

Well, I don't think that either will work under the MacBook, because it has an embedded Intel graphics controlled. The MacBook Pro has a separate 256MB ATI Mobile Radeon, so maybe the G1000 emulator would work, if you could turn off the second core. Note that the problem with each of these programs (MSFS X and G1000 emulator) is their HARDWARE requirements! I think I'll keep looking at this, but I'm not too hopeful. The info about AOPA RTFP is good, but disappointing.

edit: (I thought I remembered reading something in the G1000 simulator about it's not working on multi processor or hyperthreaded machines, but didn't see it when I just looked at the requirements online.:

1.8 ghz Processor, 256 MB RAM, Windows 2000 or XP, 200mb of free hard disk space, CD-ROM drive, Screen resolution: 1280 pixels wide x 1024 pixels high, Four-axis joystick with throttle/power and rudder control (optional), Microsoft DirectX 9.0b (included on this CD-ROM), Video Card: DirectX-capable card with a minimum of 64 MB of memory and video card drivers that support DirectX 9.0b, Note: Intel integrated graphics controllers are NOT supported.

)

 

[jesse]

edit: (I thought I remembered reading something in the G1000 simulator about it's not working on multi processor or hyperthreaded machines, but didn't see it when I just looked at the requirements online.:
)

That shouldn't matter. It most likely just cannot take advantage of the second core.

 

[gprellwitz]

That shouldn't matter. It most likely just cannot take advantage of the second core.

There was some program I was looking at that said that you actually had to disable the multithreading in the BIOS in order for it to work. Yeah, seemed a little "hinkey" to me too. As I said, I thought it was the G1000 simulator. Maybe it's actually in the README on the disk or something.