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Apple Macs make being a geek cool - discuss

in support of this I submit the following link

sorry wrong link, 2nd time lucky

http://www.engadget.com/2006/05/25/smackbook-and-macsaber-best-two-reasons-to-buy-a-macbook/


;)
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  • Locked on.
  • I have always used Macs as they are my tool for my day to day job, So i am biased to the fact that they are better than PC's (please don't start a thread on that!) Macs have definitely made computers much better to look at with their sleek design and ideas. Gone are the days of the completely beige tower, monitor, keyboard and mouse!! Apple have made computers cool, as for the operators or "Geeks" who use them.....I think Apple have given them a hand in doing so.
  • Skint are there any free picture/graphic editors for the mac i.e like paint on the pc. I tried looking for some but cant find any.

    I thought that mac would have one 'built in' as its such a grapic artist friend.
  • I am being seduced by the idea of an IMac - Never used a mac before, what do I need to look out for?
  • [cite]Posted By: BDL[/cite]I am being seduced by the idea of an IMac - Never used a mac before, what do I need to look out for?

    Apple stores ;-)

    I switched about 18 months back to a Mac and love it. If you're happy with your keyboard and monitor then you might benefit from doing as I did and getting a Mac mini, which is about the size of a Guinness Book Of Hit Singles and will work with your existing set-up - it's a nice transition into the world of Macs.
  • edited February 2019
    What a great thread this was...  :D:D:D:D

    Any Mac lovers out there. I'm looking at getting an external drive to back up my mac, that I can boot from immediately should my hard disk go down, being able to use it for additional storage would be good too.. anyone out there done this?

    Also trying to get out of (paid) iCloud dependency, and use local hardware including a 'time machine' drive/router to store the majority of my stuff which is pictures mainly from family holidays over the last 15 years, amazing how much you can accumulate, although I guess I am a bit of a photography enthusiast (23,000 photos and 500 videos). About 105gig..

    PS I backup on both iCloud and time machine, but I like the idea of a bootable hard drive so I can quickly get back working if my SSD fails.
  • SSD’s are extraordinarily reliable, do you mean HDD ie one that has a disk?

    id say buy another ssd (they’re cheap as well as being fast and reliable) and have an ssd Dock connected via thunderbolt 2. They need to be formatted for Mac however. 

    As for macs generally they’re great, although severely lacking in gpu power (which is how the graphics and 3d world is going) they’re far more reliable and longer lasting than pcs 
  • Always used macs, desktops and laptops, never had a virus on one, they are stable as hell, and user friendly, unlike my PC user mates, its a bit like having a 4 wheel car over a 3 wheel car.
    The final endorsement for me is my brother who is head of programming for a huge Yank bank (careful). Up to 6 years ago, he hated Macs wouldn't have one in the house (even though he'd never used one) then he started writing apps and borrowed a Mac, changed his mind within a few weeks, junked all his PCs.
  • I have a 2016 mac book pro - had an SSD on a mac book Air reset itself a while back
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  • I know a number of former Mac-nuts who switched to the Surface Pro and absolutely love it. 
  • Chunes said:
    I know a number of former Mac-nuts who switched to the Surface Pro and absolutely love it. 
    nuts being the operative word
  • Chunes said:
    I know a number of former Mac-nuts who switched to the Surface Pro and absolutely love it. 
    I'm sat here using a surface right now, great bit of kit for what it cost. Three years in of daily use and still as quick as the day I brought it. It's also running SQL Server which is one of the most memory hungry application you can buy.

    The only difference between Macs and PCs these days is the software...All this more reliable, longer lasting, less viruses is all crap and down to the user. The internals are all the same. Macs don't have some special version of an intel processor specially reserved for Apple use only. The exact same one will be sat in a PC. Basically, protect your machine, don't go looking at dodgy sites and they'll both last years. It's all down to preference on what OS you prefer.
  • cafcpolo said:
    Chunes said:
    I know a number of former Mac-nuts who switched to the Surface Pro and absolutely love it. 
    I'm sat here using a surface right now, great bit of kit for what it cost. Three years in of daily use and still as quick as the day I brought it. It's also running SQL Server which is one of the most memory hungry application you can buy.

    The only difference between Macs and PCs these days is the software...All this more reliable, longer lasting, less viruses is all crap and down to the user. The internals are all the same. Macs don't have some special version of an intel processor specially reserved for Apple use only. The exact same one will be sat in a PC. Basically, protect your machine, don't go looking at dodgy sites and they'll both last years. It's all down to preference on what OS you prefer.
     Software is a huge thing though surely, not that I agree about the hardware. I use both on a daily basis, having come from a windows background, and detest clunky PCs
  • cafcpolo said:
    Chunes said:
    I know a number of former Mac-nuts who switched to the Surface Pro and absolutely love it. 
    I'm sat here using a surface right now, great bit of kit for what it cost. Three years in of daily use and still as quick as the day I brought it. It's also running SQL Server which is one of the most memory hungry application you can buy.

    The only difference between Macs and PCs these days is the software...All this more reliable, longer lasting, less viruses is all crap and down to the user. The internals are all the same. Macs don't have some special version of an intel processor specially reserved for Apple use only. The exact same one will be sat in a PC. Basically, protect your machine, don't go looking at dodgy sites and they'll both last years. It's all down to preference on what OS you prefer.
    I take your point re the processor but you are still making a very bold claim there. I think that the Consumers Association, for one, may say "not what our members say, Mr Polo..."

    Written on my second hand 2011 Macbook, built like a tank even if it is correspondingly heavy by today's standards....
  • cafcpolo said:
    Chunes said:
    I know a number of former Mac-nuts who switched to the Surface Pro and absolutely love it. 
    I'm sat here using a surface right now, great bit of kit for what it cost. Three years in of daily use and still as quick as the day I brought it. It's also running SQL Server which is one of the most memory hungry application you can buy.

    The only difference between Macs and PCs these days is the software...All this more reliable, longer lasting, less viruses is all crap and down to the user. The internals are all the same. Macs don't have some special version of an intel processor specially reserved for Apple use only. The exact same one will be sat in a PC. Basically, protect your machine, don't go looking at dodgy sites and they'll both last years. It's all down to preference on what OS you prefer.
    Not in mine, and most design based industries across the world, it isn't.
  • Greenie said:
    Always used macs, desktops and laptops, never had a virus on one, they are stable as hell, and user friendly, unlike my PC user mates, its a bit like having a 4 wheel car over a 3 wheel car.
    The final endorsement for me is my brother who is head of programming for a huge Yank bank (careful). Up to 6 years ago, he hated Macs wouldn't have one in the house (even though he'd never used one) then he started writing apps and borrowed a Mac, changed his mind within a few weeks, junked all his PCs.
    For some balance to this Apple love in, my 4k Dell XPS 15 with 32gb ram with absolutely destroy a top spec Macbook Pro.  Its 3 years old and as still as quick as it was the day I bought it.  Thats using it as a Professional Photographer, not someone who just uses Google Chrome and and Microsoft Word!  Some of my panoramas are 200mb in size alone and it doesn't even flinch when handling them.

    razil said:
    What a great thread this was...  :D:D:D:D

    Any Mac lovers out there. I'm looking at getting an external drive to back up my mac, that I can boot from immediately should my hard disk go down, being able to use it for additional storage would be good too.. anyone out there done this?

    Also trying to get out of (paid) iCloud dependency, and use local hardware including a 'time machine' drive/router to store the majority of my stuff which is pictures mainly from family holidays over the last 15 years, amazing how much you can accumulate, although I guess I am a bit of a photography enthusiast (23,000 photos and 500 videos). About 105gig..

    PS I backup on both iCloud and time machine, but I like the idea of a bootable hard drive so I can quickly get back working if my SSD fails.
    At least you are backing up.  About 13 years ago, I lost 6 months worth of images of my newborn daughter.  Learnt my lesson the hard way.  I was lucky that I had a friend in IT who managed to remount the failed hard drive and I managed to get some photos off of it.

    I've now got 2 x 4bay NAS drives set up in RAID5.  1 on its own holds 12tb.  1 sits in my office, 1 sits offsite and the office one automatically backs up to the offsite one every night.  That includes all RAW files and all finished jpegs.  If you've got Amazon Prime, you can take advantage of their free unlimited cloud storage, jpegs back up there every night too.  Synology (what I've got), QNAP and Drobo offer excellent integration with cloud services, including backblaze.  Was eyewateringly expensive to start off with but given I'm shooting weddings these days, I just cant afford to lose clients photos.  Please people, dont just rely on one hard drive to store family photos, hard drive faliure happens more than you realise.

  • This was my first mac and been through the lot, Quadras, Performas, PowerMacs, original blue imac, ibook. One of my kids had a PC and what a terrible UI. Yes they are expensive but worth every penny. Now have a macbook pro hooked up to an apple cinema display. Have 2 hard drives one for time machine back up and one to store work video footage. Also back up to the cloud through backblaze.
  • JohnBoyUK said:
    Greenie said:
    Always used macs, desktops and laptops, never had a virus on one, they are stable as hell, and user friendly, unlike my PC user mates, its a bit like having a 4 wheel car over a 3 wheel car.
    The final endorsement for me is my brother who is head of programming for a huge Yank bank (careful). Up to 6 years ago, he hated Macs wouldn't have one in the house (even though he'd never used one) then he started writing apps and borrowed a Mac, changed his mind within a few weeks, junked all his PCs.
    For some balance to this Apple love in, my 4k Dell XPS 15 with 32gb ram with absolutely destroy a top spec Macbook Pro.  Its 3 years old and as still as quick as it was the day I bought it.  Thats using it as a Professional Photographer, not someone who just uses Google Chrome and and Microsoft Word!  Some of my panoramas are 200mb in size alone and it doesn't even flinch when handling them.

    razil said:
    What a great thread this was...  :D:D:D:D

    Any Mac lovers out there. I'm looking at getting an external drive to back up my mac, that I can boot from immediately should my hard disk go down, being able to use it for additional storage would be good too.. anyone out there done this?

    Also trying to get out of (paid) iCloud dependency, and use local hardware including a 'time machine' drive/router to store the majority of my stuff which is pictures mainly from family holidays over the last 15 years, amazing how much you can accumulate, although I guess I am a bit of a photography enthusiast (23,000 photos and 500 videos). About 105gig..

    PS I backup on both iCloud and time machine, but I like the idea of a bootable hard drive so I can quickly get back working if my SSD fails.
    At least you are backing up.  About 13 years ago, I lost 6 months worth of images of my newborn daughter.  Learnt my lesson the hard way.  I was lucky that I had a friend in IT who managed to remount the failed hard drive and I managed to get some photos off of it.

    I've now got 2 x 4bay NAS drives set up in RAID5.  1 on its own holds 12tb.  1 sits in my office, 1 sits offsite and the office one automatically backs up to the offsite one every night.  That includes all RAW files and all finished jpegs.  If you've got Amazon Prime, you can take advantage of their free unlimited cloud storage, jpegs back up there every night too.  Synology (what I've got), QNAP and Drobo offer excellent integration with cloud services, including backblaze.  Was eyewateringly expensive to start off with but given I'm shooting weddings these days, I just cant afford to lose clients photos.  Please people, dont just rely on one hard drive to store family photos, hard drive faliure happens more than you realise.
    Well I used to manage corporate IT so hopefully I learned something.. :)
  • edited February 2019
    I’d say at the moment macs aren’t nearly as powerful as if you spent the same amount on a pc, simply because Apple constantly refuse to use a decent graphics card provider.

    But macs work a lot better than the pcs I’ve had over the long term. Have a desktop and after 5 years of daily use it becomes essentially broken. We have some pcs in our studio at work, we use them as a render farm but every time we boot them up after 6 months we have to spend a few hours fixing them to work properly. That means the software’s borked itself whilst it’s been switched off for a few months, which I find bizarre. In comparison we also have some Mac mini’s that can be off for months but when we need them work perfectly. 

    I work with video and apple’s pro res codec is industry standard, and, until a few months ago you couldn’t encode with this unless you had a Mac.

    im thinking next time I can afford it I’m going to build a hackintosh laptop, will give me an extra kick where I need some gpu power. But still have the ease of use and software selection of a Mac. 
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  • edited February 2019
    I have a couple of MacBook airs from 2011-12 which still work perfectly, we at least within their limited 4gb RAM,  I just upgraded them both to the latest OS and no problem (this used to be a problem I know). With a PC laptop it'd be propping the door open by now, I had a similar aged MBA with the better retina screen in my old job and it was shit hot.
  • I am ignorant in this field.
    However when technicals are discussed the comparisons always seem to be about what is great to play 'games' on.
    Apart from online chess I am a person who sees no point in buying a computer for it's game playing prowess, indeed games that depend on some kind of console manipulation seem a waste of time to me. I see chess as a way of trying to keep your brain sharp.
    Apart from game playing, are there any other features of a computer that indicates a worthwhile difference between them?
  • Blimey, the Mac brigade hit back :D 

    To address...

    @razil - Yes, software is a huge thing and how it utilises that hardware but that's not down to it being a PC or a Mac, it's more about the people who have developed the OS. Take two developers and tell them to build a website on the same bit of kit and your likely to have one that runs better than the other. The one thing Apple do and do very well is make well built, efficient, user friendly UIs. As for the hardware, disagree if you want, but it's true. Open up two similar priced Surface Books & Macs and the internals will mostly be the same.

    @PragueAddick - What is bold about it? I have a PC about the same age as your MacBook and it still runs like a perfectly. I work in I.T, I know how to look after my kit. Someone else might not. There are probably 4 to 5 times more users of PCs compared to Macs, I'd wager that a large majority of those people buy a PC due to the price and aren't especially well versed in I.T security / internet safety or wouldn't know what happens if you decide to install 50 programs that all launch at start up. Consumer association members can say what they like, but logically, what's going to draw more negative feedback? A smaller group of people who on average spend a lot more on kit they specifically want or a much larger group of people with less know how and knowledge on what they're doing?

    @Greenie - More reliable, the hardware is the same. Longer lasting, the hardware is the same. Especially now with SSDs so common, it makes naff all difference. Less viruses, you don't have anywhere the number of script kiddies trying to infect Macs compared to PCs. Historically, they may have been better but not anymore. Found this link, seems fairly unbiased when it comes to design...

    https://austinknight.com/writing/designers-prefer-macs 

    Last paragraph...

    Perhaps the most universal point of feedback that I got, however, was that in today’s day and age, there are no longer any major differentiating factors between the Mac and the Windows PC. Apple and Microsoft patrons alike were able to agree that it all really comes down to a matter of personal preference. Granted, there are some observable trends, like the fact that designers feel more at home on Macs while developers feel more at home on PCs. Many love one or the other, but can’t really articulate why. They just do. Plenty of critics have cited status, fashionability, and price point as driving factors behind the different platforms. But from a standpoint of core capabilities, they really aren’t that different. You can design a great site on a PC just as well as you can develop a great site on a Mac. What matters now is which platform you prefer to work with.
  • Really impressed by my latest all in one home PC. a massive step up on its 8 year old predecessor (both Lenovos). Really fast to boot up and quiet

    Never used a Mac, but then I'm an accountant and we leave them to the "creative types" :smile:
  • razil said:
    in support of this I submit the following link

    sorry wrong link, 2nd time lucky

    http://www.engadget.com/2006/05/25/smackbook-and-macsaber-best-two-reasons-to-buy-a-macbook/


    ;)
    Link still doesn’t work.
  • @cafcpolo

    Yes you work in IT. I work in marketing. So indeed I don't know much about how to look after my kit, other than trying not to get biscuit crumbs on the keyboard (failed again today). Fortunately the Macs that I have owned, continuously since 1992, for home and office, never seemed to mind. Only one black laptop in the late 90s "failed". (I'm less convinced of the relative reliability of IOS and iPods, based on experience).

    However because you don't work in marketing you've forgotten that neither your experience nor mine as individuals proves anything. Maybe you are not a fan of Which magazine but it's been doing its stuff for 50 plus years and is seeking to measure functional performance not just of computers but everything from mattresses to Mercedes, so dismiss it at your peril...
  • cafcpolo said:
    Blimey, the Mac brigade hit back :D 

    To address...

    @razil - Yes, software is a huge thing and how it utilises that hardware but that's not down to it being a PC or a Mac, it's more about the people who have developed the OS. Take two developers and tell them to build a website on the same bit of kit and your likely to have one that runs better than the other. The one thing Apple do and do very well is make well built, efficient, user friendly UIs. As for the hardware, disagree if you want, but it's true. Open up two similar priced Surface Books & Macs and the internals will mostly be the same.

    @PragueAddick - What is bold about it? I have a PC about the same age as your MacBook and it still runs like a perfectly. I work in I.T, I know how to look after my kit. Someone else might not. There are probably 4 to 5 times more users of PCs compared to Macs, I'd wager that a large majority of those people buy a PC due to the price and aren't especially well versed in I.T security / internet safety or wouldn't know what happens if you decide to install 50 programs that all launch at start up. Consumer association members can say what they like, but logically, what's going to draw more negative feedback? A smaller group of people who on average spend a lot more on kit they specifically want or a much larger group of people with less know how and knowledge on what they're doing?

    @Greenie - More reliable, the hardware is the same. Longer lasting, the hardware is the same. Especially now with SSDs so common, it makes naff all difference. Less viruses, you don't have anywhere the number of script kiddies trying to infect Macs compared to PCs. Historically, they may have been better but not anymore. Found this link, seems fairly unbiased when it comes to design...

    https://austinknight.com/writing/designers-prefer-macs 

    Last paragraph...

    Perhaps the most universal point of feedback that I got, however, was that in today’s day and age, there are no longer any major differentiating factors between the Mac and the Windows PC. Apple and Microsoft patrons alike were able to agree that it all really comes down to a matter of personal preference. Granted, there are some observable trends, like the fact that designers feel more at home on Macs while developers feel more at home on PCs. Many love one or the other, but can’t really articulate why. They just do. Plenty of critics have cited status, fashionability, and price point as driving factors behind the different platforms. But from a standpoint of core capabilities, they really aren’t that different. You can design a great site on a PC just as well as you can develop a great site on a Mac. What matters now is which platform you prefer to work with.
    lol, surely the end result is what matters - if they are the same hardware and one works better, and is more useable i.e. Mac, thats the one.. the fact that Macs work better developer wise is that Macs are developed by the same company who designs and builds them, again end result is Macs are better. 

    :)
  • I recently bought a new Lenovo laptop for my old man. The thing had issues from the start, and was whacking the processor, why? It turns out Windows was expecting finger print security etc and the process was hogging the CPU. This is only just out of the box, and would never happen on a Mac, bearing in mind MS Windows is the OS designed for PCs. Of course the problem is the number of variants/manufacturers, but that is why they are cheaper than Macs and why they are so shit..
  • Mac's haven't been cool in about ten years..

    The amount of creative people who have ditched them is phenomenal.
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