Ok - don't laugh but... I am thinking of

[hifiwigwam]

getting a MAC for home.



No I mean it. As much as I find them all style over function, the last few days at home with my PC have been HELL.

It has decided to go seriously Pete Tong. i have spent £200.00 so far trying, new memory, external HDD (to create a back up of my photo library), software for re-building registries, spy ware scanning apps. You name it.

If I bought an Mac Mini thing, how would it cope with connectivity etc? What is the £399.00 short of? Can I connect my current keyboard and screen to it?

Pissed off of Sussex.

[hifiwigwam]

and what about this

linky

[dudywoxer]

the I macs are nice machines, jut be prepared for a learning curve. Whats the problem with your windows machine, Is it giving any error messages, or just behaving 'strangely'. overheating can cause all sorts of sillies, as can fans or the inside of the case being ready for a clean out with a blast of compressed air.

[meninblack]

Yeah, I think the main difference with the mac will be that you won't even have a clue where to start when it breaks down....

[hifiwigwam]

meninblack wrote:

Yeah, I think the main difference with the mac will be that you won't even have a clue where to start when it breaks down....

Yes, I must keep reminding myself, that the fact its a PC means I have been able to get it running to enough of a level to back up all of my photo's and music. Had it been a Mac I would have been fucked.


Now posting from work PC. One at home has totally died now. But it will live again, it is a PC, and they can be re-built.

HiFiWigWam wrote:

getting a MAC for home.



No I mean it. As much as I find them all style over function, the last few days at home with my PC have been HELL.

It has decided to go seriously Pete Tong. i have spent £200.00 so far trying, new memory, external HDD (to create a back up of my photo library), software for re-building registries, spy ware scanning apps. You name it.

If I bought an Mac Mini thing, how would it cope with connectivity etc? What is the £399.00 short of? Can I connect my current keyboard and screen to it?

Pissed off of Sussex.

Macs are nice, I have a Mac laptop for managing my photos and I tinker around with a music composition tool called Garageband which is really cool. For day to day work, browsing etc I still prefer the XP PC to be honest. You should be able to use your current monitor & keyboard with the mac mini but actually with £400 you could go out and buy a new desktop base unit with a pretty reasonable spec if you just cannot take any more from your current pc. If you have family remember that most schools still use Windows based systems so be prepared for some issues.

I don't know whatissues you've had with your pc but I find that you can reach a point in tinkering with a problem where a clean reinstall of the operating system is the best and probably only option.

[stebbo]

meninblack wrote:

Yeah, I think the main difference with the mac will be that you won't even have a clue where to start when it breaks down....

If you get a Mac with Leopard OS and an External Drive you can do a complete BOOT DISK Clone that is bootable on any Mac.

So in the event of a total system disaster you just either replace the disk/system depending on the issue and you just re-install.

Irrespective of you PC / OS if you dont do backup's you will eventually get burnt!

[rockmeister]

I love macs as everyone knows, but they simply are not worth it if you want to run a lot of your old PC software on it. Microsoft (seemingly in a fit of the sulks?) make sure that hardly anything of theirs works properly on a mac, and although mac have gone to extreme lengths to make sure they are compatible, that doesn't always mean smooth running. However, Office not only has a Mac version that runs perfectly (indeed smoother and more logical than the PC version), but also Macs come with iDVD / iPhoto / iTunes / multi media viewer /DVD,CD,read write drives all in built and really and truly that lot IS bloody faultless. IF it dies (which they very rarely do), they are simple to sort. Buy from a good Mac dealer who specialises and will give you support. I reccomend CANCOM who supply all the School stuff. They have a base in Guildford too so not a million miles from you. Look at their refurb items...in many ways better than new, since these were sent out, found faulty, returned, totally sorted to as new, re guaranteed and now are discounted. A refurb of a just discontinued model for example is SERIOUS VFM. Look here: http://www.cancomuk.com/products/sea...01&show=Refurb
remember too that the iMac screen is as good as any seperate screen at around 2-300 squid for colour corectness and sharpness, so a 20" iMac for 700 squids suddenly seems to be quite sensible!

The learning curve in the transition from MS to Mac is surprisingly shallow, Macs are based on logic rather than computing so most things are intuitive and intelligent. For example, keyboard shortcuts are alarmingly obvious.

However, unless you are going to run an application like Parallels all the time (runs XP in a window) then it's not worth moving over if you have lots of MS applications to run.

Saying that, the iMac has tonnes of applications as part of the package and virtually all computing areas are catered for. At work we're moving solely to Mac in the new year (due in no small part to me) and we can't wait, the problems we've had! Last year we were hacked into and illegal files (and I mean illegal!) were stored on our system without us being aware.

Since Mac don't use .exe files, then nobody can make / create administrative changes with the password. Also the Mac firewall and stealth mode prohibits unwanted access by anything. They're clever machines and are gaining popularity fast.

On the other hand, MS make some damn cracking applications that a lot of businesses couldn't do without; Excel, Access, Word for example. I have respect for both MS and Apple, but I choose Apple machines as they have very few flaws and compromises.

Good luck whatever you choose to do!

[hifiwigwam]

Thanks for the links and info fellas. Rocky, I will check them out. Tel gave me a pointer to a Brighton dealer too.

I onely use my home PC for photo and video editing, and surfign teh web, using firefox, plus basic email and address functions. I use open office for the occassional spreadsheet and typewriter duties. Should be an easy move if I do go that route.

[Hawk]

You should give it a go. I might have something you can borrow that will give you a starter for ten...

[hifiwigwam]

Hawk wrote:

You should give it a go. I might have something you can borrow that will give you a starter for ten...

Thanks for the kind offer dude. Got my PC up and running tonight. Seemed to be the new memory I had installed a while back may have had a slightly loose connection, also checkdisk found a load of issues with the hard drive. All the bad sectors are now fenced off, the memory is in snug and the Registry has had a good old tidy up.

Fingers crossed.

[Zylog]

Do not think about it, do it, you will not regret it.

What a lot of IT.

Seriously, very reliable, much higer resale value than an comparable PC, plenty of very low priced and free software available.

Good luck.

[Mr Cat]

yeah, as long as you've gt all your photos on an external hdd, burnt on dvd and in your parents wardrobe then you'll be ok..!

[rockmeister]

no...lost me there catmeister??