Forum Moderators: travelin cat
I am a PC user for more than 15 years now and I have never used a macintosh before. But one thing that puzzles me is that all mac users tell me I don't know how different and better it is to use a mac - 'Use it and you'll fall in love with it...', they say. :)
So I have some questions which I would like to ask some of you, Mac users, as I would like to know what do macs have more that PCs don't.
- I heard you can run Windows XP along with mac OS. Is this true?
- what kind of processors/memory/video cards/HD (specifications) are available?
- is mac that better than PC? Why so?
- I am a software developer, and also recently I started developing websites, would you still recommend it to me?
Thanks in anticipation,
(and please excuse my ignorance ;) )
d#Nimrod
in over a year it the computer has not crashed, frozen or otherwise misbehaved. the worst thing that happened is the web browser freezing when it hit some bad code.
Like i said, when I started this post, I am completely ignorant about Macs and I have always used Intel based computers all my life (I don't even want to mention the fact I am Microsoft-dependent...).
Therefore, when someone says it is difficult for a Mac to crash, freeze, whatever, I just feel I should get myself a Mac and see that with my own eyes.
There is something bugging me though. My life depends on developing software for Microsoft platform (only) and I would like to know if it is 100% guaranteed I could develop this kind of work in a Mac whilst maintaining total compatibility with Windows. Is this possible?
Regards,
My life depends on developing software for Microsoft platform (only) and I would like to know if it is 100% guaranteed I could develop this kind of work in a Mac whilst maintaining total compatibility with Windows. Is this possible?
Heavens, that's a tall order. Certainly, if you bought a PC, your machine still wouldn't be 100% guaranteed to be compatible with needs that came up in the future.
I was actually in a situation similar to yours in my last job. I had a Mac when my job duties drastically changed, and I had to develop a Web site for MS SQL Server. I was able to do much of the work on my Mac normally, and what I couldn't, I was able to remote-desktop into another machine and use. (Remote login was also a great way to work from home.)
It all worked fine, but I do wonder, if your career is to develop Windows software, why consider anything but a Windows machine? Owning a Mac would be a great way to learn about Macs and Unix.
(I am writing this post on a dual 2.0 GHz G5 with a 20 inch cinema display.) :D
I recently aquired a dual 2gig G-5 box for my use about a month and a half ago, and am simply blown away. After setting up my preferences and going through the usual looking up all the files I didn't understand and general tutorials.
I now can do far more per day than I could even imagine with any flavor of windows. I use Windows XP and Server 2003 daily but use my G-5 to run our networks, and many many other things. As well as I am now able to quickly edit video and audio tracks that we have had issues getting right.
In my uses, the MS Office version for the Mac simply works amazingly better than the one for PC. I can really drag and drop complex word docs into dreamweaver and publish them with little further editing and vice versa, taking a web site and converting it to a word doc to make a manual took me about 5 minutes. It kept the formatting, fonts etc with little changes needed. That one project was quoted as being a 10k job by our publisher. They were blown away when I did it with them sitting there. And gladly gave us a nice discount on the printing... That one task alone more than covered the cost of my G-5.
I will say its not without faults, but with all the open source X11 options available and its extreme ability to not crash I can honestly say this is the computer I dreamed about as a kid programming basic on a TI-994A with a tape cassette harddrive. As a geek I can proudly say I have never loved a machine before, but this has changed everything...
I can only hope you find a machine that can instill a similiar happiness in your day to day use of a keyboard as I have.
There is something bugging me though. My life depends on developing software for Microsoft platform (only) and I would like to know if it is 100% guaranteed I could develop this kind of work in a Mac whilst maintaining total compatibility with Windows. Is this possible?
I'd forget getting a Mac and stick to PC and Windows. There's no point in trying to jump through hoops to try and compile programs that don't even run on the platform that you would be developing on if you worked on a Mac.
Sid
From Hissingsid:I'd forget getting a Mac and stick to PC and Windows. There's no point in trying to jump through hoops to try and compile programs that don't even run on the platform that you would be developing on if you worked on a Mac.
Yes, I know what you mean. But when you develop applications which use lots of system resources (computing speed, memory allocs/de-allocs, etc) and when after some time of use your Windows crashes with no apparent reason just because it couldn't handle all the work, it makes you wonder... That is because I am intrigued about Mac. I mean, how can it be that better than the PC?
From Techrealm:I will say its not without faults, but with all the open source X11 options available and its extreme ability to not crash I can honestly say this is the computer I dreamed about as a kid programming basic on a TI-994A with a tape cassette harddrive. As a geek I can proudly say I have never loved a machine before, but this has changed everything...
That is how I would love to feel whenever I had to use my computer! But unfortunately, nowadays, I do not know such a feeling... :(
Though in my early days of programming, when I used an ATARI (which also worked with a tape drive), I did not know what "crashes" were -- the computer did everything I asked it to do, whatever the degree of complexity it was.
I know PCs and Macs are far more complex machines which should not even be compared but I it just felt good remembering the good old days. :)
Anyway, I take it there is no Windows Visual C++ (or something like that) for Mac, which could allow me to deploy applications for Windows using a Mac?
Anyway, I take it there is no Windows Visual C++ (or something like that) for Mac, which could allow me to deploy applications for Windows using a Mac?
Not native to Mac no, if you load up on ram you can use a G-4 with Virtual PC and the flavor of Windows you choose. How ever the G-5 currently is not compatible with Microsoft Virtual PC, they promise to release that about the time they release the new office version. For more info see:
[microsoft.com...]
Mac Developer info - helps a little
[developer.apple.com...]
[developer.apple.com...]
There are many programming tools available on sourceforge as well that will work on the mac - of course only you will know if they are applicable to your work.
Cheers and good luck!
Techrealm wrote:
Not native to Mac no, if you load up on ram you can use a G-4 with Virtual PC and the flavor of Windows you choose. How ever the G-5 currently is not compatible with Microsoft Virtual PC, they promise to release that about the time they release the new office version.
So what kind of options has a developer got? I mean, if I plan using a Mac to develop software, will I be limited to Mac platform only?
And please note: I don't see this as something against Mac or anything like that, because Microsoft software does not allow you to develop software for different platforms... :)
because Microsoft software does not allow you to develop software for different platforms
What makes you think that?
because Microsoft software does not allow you to develop software for different platforms
What makes you think that?
I will rephrase: most Microsoft Software such as Visual C++ does not allow you to develop software for different platforms such as Mac.
developer.apple.com/sdk/
Although Xcode would be a better choice for Apple programming, you can create almost anything w/MS VS and compile it to work with OSX, you'll just need to read the Apple SDKs, ex, the iTunes Visual Plug-ins SDK for Windows, which includes a VS sample project
How about the reverse process? Could I develop in a Mac (by means of using a Microsoft SDK) and deploy a 100% compatible Windows application?
developer.apple.com/macosx/win32porting/
Most people doing Windows dev on an Apple do so via a "Virtual PC" type setup - running their dev software on the virtual machine. If you have enough RAM, anything is possible.
If you are writing aps for Windows I still think that you would be better sticking with the Windows platform. You need to keep thinking in that Windows way.
For example you need to remember to click "start" when you want to shut down ;)
You need to remember to overcomplicate things and add too many options that you can only get at with difficulty. If you bought a Mac you would soon forget how to do that sort of stuff.
Best wishes
Sid
This is why I don't think slow scrolling is much of a downside...
I bought an Imac G4 1.25 Ghz, 512 mb ram, 120 GB HD. Basically, the only major problem that I found, was getting hold of the software.
With the PC... well let's just say that my software sources were a little on the 'dark' side.. ;-) I managed to buy some old versions of photoshop and illustrator on Ebay. But I forked out £100 for MS Office X.
Also developing on the Mac, was a bit different because I used Homesite on my PC, but I found a great shareware program that was almost similar in comparison. Also I used to develop using VB (on the PC), instead on the mac I use RealBasic, which is virtually the same.
