Tell me to get/not get a Mac

[Skashion]

Google "Virus"

<a class="postlink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pwn2Own" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pwn2Own</a>

 

[Gelsons Dad]

The real value, therefore, comes from exploiting idiotic Apple fanboys.

I know it's a routine stereotype to roll out, and whilst its probably more common with iphone/ipad users, who want one just to fit in or look cool, i'm not sure there's as many with Mac's that do the same.

If some has money to spend and enjoys using a Mac, are they an idiot for buying one? They'll enjoy using it more and it won't affect their bank balance.

It doesn't matter what you spend on something if you can afford it, you'll soon forget about the money and be more bothered about what ever you're left with.

Anyway, i thought i had a point when i started typing, now i'm not so sure!

If your love for Macs leads you to overpay for second-hand Macs, yes, you're a fanboy idiot, as can be illustrated by people who economically buy new Macs every year. In pure economic terms, take my £200 depreciation as a given, and that a Mac will last exactly five years as a given. You spend £1000 on a Mac. You sell it on after a year at a loss of £200 and buy a new £1000 Mac. At the end of five years, the person has spent £2000 in total but has a new Mac which will last another five years. They've had a better computer every year. On top of that, as they've only ever had new Macs they're covered by warranty. There's a 0% chance of loss on investment if it's a manufacturing defect. Ok, you're the person who spends £800 on a Mac that'll last four years and then for £800 which will last four years for £1600 total. Overall, pro-rata they've spent the same amount of money per year (£200) but the guy at the top has had a new Mac every year. So, if you're buying a one year old Mac and you're paying 80% plus the original value, you're getting ripped off. It's not that uncommon. As I say, I actually know someone who sells their Mac every year taking a 20% hit or less and fair play to him. If I had a Mac I'd do exactly the same.

As someone else said, a Mac owner no less, it doesn't happen with PCs, they take a bigger drop in value which does make it worthwhile buying second-hand. I think the annual rate is a little bit above 30%. Is it wrong that I tell people looking to sell Macs on and get the most value out of them by selling on the lucrative second-hand market? People who are buying second-hand have made their choice. If they overpay, I've no sympathy.

Lots of us upgrade yearly in the same way that some people upgrade cars every year. What amused me last week was I took my daughter to upgrade her Iphone 3 to an Iphone 4. The cost of the new phone on a 24 month contract was £70 we sold her 3 year old Iphone 3 on ebay for £88.

-- Fri Jun 03, 2011 10:25 am --

Google "Virus"

<a class="postlink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pwn2Own" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pwn2Own</a>

A hack is not a virus mate. You know this so why perpetuate an untruth?
Malware is not a virus.

The simple truth is there is no need to run additional software on top of osx to protect the os against viri. There is with windows. Other OS are not relevant to the Windows vs OSX (Mac vs PC) debate as they are not in widespread use and not used by average home computer users.<br /><br />-- Fri Jun 03, 2011 10:35 am --<br /><br />

I'm probably edging towards a laptop.

My knowledge of computers stretches as far as installing ant-virus and avoiding viruses. I'm unsure about re-installing the operating system bi-anually. I assume it's not a dreadfully complicated process?

No it's not difficult. If you're going to do that though, make sure you put your important files on a separate partition, or back them online, or put them on an external drive. You only have to do a reinstall though if you want to keep performance at an absolute maximum. Otherwise, a good registry cleanup and defragging once every six months will do the job almost as well. I do think the above are all good practices to get into though. I do all three plus a backup on a separate hard-drive in the machine and it's all automated. The same practices are also advisable on a Mac. Time Machine is the business though. Love Time Machine, one of those really nice OS X touches.

Really? Defrag? Clean registry? OSX has built in Time machine that require the user to just define a disk and the rest is done. Idisk gives seamless cloud storage for files that you don't want to loose but more importantly you can re-install OSX without loosing any documents or applications.

 

[Skashion]

A hack is not a virus mate. You know this so why perpetuate an untruth?
Malware is not a virus.

The simple truth is there is no need to run additional software on top of osx to protect the os against viri. There is with windows.

Other OS are not relevant to the Windows vs OSX (Mac vs PC) debate as they are not in widespread use and not used by average home computer users.

It could have been a virus had the payload been designed to do so, so it's not an untruth. A Mac can be exploited so that any code of the hacker's choice can be executed automatically simply by visiting a malicious site; fact. Macs are not immune, they inherently have greater security than a typical Windows system but one great protection they have right now is low market share. If OS X ever manages to gain significant market share to make it worthwhile to crackers, brace yourself for an onslaught.

Debatable whether you need to run one with a Mac. I agree that you absolutely do need one in Windows and relative to Macs, the need isn't anything like as great.

OS X isn't used... Get a Windows laptop. The irony of Mac users belittling low market share, delicious.

-- Fri Jun 03, 2011 10:45 am --

Really? Defrag? Clean registry? OSX has built in Time machine that require the user to just define a disk and the rest is done. Idisk gives seamless cloud storage for files that you don't want to loose but more importantly you can re-install OSX without loosing any documents or applications.

Stop reading only what you want to read is my advice.

 

[bluemoon05]

Think I'm gonna go for this one, looks absolutely immense for the price.

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/ASUS_UL30A-QX328V_1068303.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/ASUS_UL3 ... 68303.html</a>

 

[Skashion]

You claimed you were after a high quality processor!

 

[CTID Chris]

Oh, glad this has been bumped.

I installed Windows 7 on my 'Mac OS X' machine, so that I could play a couple of games.

If I didn't have terrabytes of data which are currently inaccessible due to being in OS X formatted hard drives, I wouldn't bother booting into OS X again.

It's just so much easier to use, nicer looking.. :)

 

[bluemoon05]

You claimed you were after a high quality processor!

How would you define a high quality processer? I just went for the same specs as a macbook and figured that'd be enough because that can handle the programs I'm thinking of.

I'm looking at running Logic, a high power music program, on the laptop. Would that processor not be enough to handle it, if it's a stretch then I'd rather get a higher processor.

 

[BTH]

I loved my first Mac...

That was in the days when, as Stephen Fry recalled, people would point you out in the street and laugh at you saying: you'll never get software for it. How the wheel turns!

I'd never use anything else out of choice and so I suppose that makes me a "fanboy" although - sadly - I use a PC and a PC laptop for work.

 

[balkanno]

For Music go pro nd install Steinbergs software x

 

[Skashion]

You claimed you were after a high quality processor!

How would you define a high quality processer? I just went for the same specs as a macbook and figured that'd be enough because that can handle the programs I'm thinking of.

I'm looking at running Logic, a high power music program, on the laptop. Would that processor not be enough to handle it, if it's a stretch then I'd rather get a higher processor.

I can't be specific because as I said earlier I know nothing about music production but I do know that in general anything that involves encoding is strictly CPU intensive. I've done enough encoding to know that. How good your processor is will actually correspond to how fast encoding will be done. So whilst any processor will 'handle' encoding, my Atom can do video encoding in full HD - just very very poorly, a low voltage Duo will be about two to three times slower than an i5 at a guess in real-terms. It's very rare that you see raw processor speed translate into real-world speed but encoding is one of those areas. So does music production involve a lot of encoding? I thought it did but I could be wrong.