Mac or PC

[Ginsu]

I am considering replacing my PC laptop with a Powerbook G4. What I want to know is who owns one of the above and has switched (from PC to Mac/vice versa) and what was your experience? If I do decide to get a Mac, I am concerned about transferring my current files from my PC to the Mac. I.e. Word, Excel, and other common windows files; from my research it seem most Windows type programs will convert over.

Thank you in advance!

 

[Taylor04]

I have always used Apple computers becuase it's just what my family uses. I use Windows all the time though at school and friends house and never have any serious problems with transferring data. I have one of the early titanium powerbook G4's–the new ones are aluminm I think– its only 400Mgz but I can't tell the difference in speeds with other windows based computers that are 1Ghz+. But other than that, it's a great laptop, I use it for everything. Microsoft Office for OS-X works fine and files transfer easily. I just seem to find OS-X and Apple computers in general easier than Windows PCs.

 

[Mr. Mach-ete]

The world revolves around PC...sorry to say. Mac has always been the red haired step child of the computer age.

 

[esqeddy]

The world revolves around PC...sorry to say. Mac has always been the red haired step child of the computer age.

Actually not. To begin with it was momma's baby. But then moma got married and the Daddy has his own favorite child.

Before windows, Mac was the stuff. Once MS muscled in with windows, Apple almost went belly up. Surprisingly, they've hung. Not surprisingly, their products have always been competitive.

However, they played their cards wrong and they are NOW the red headed step child with freckels.

 

[rdy2xlr8]

Mac is way better and I mean way beter :thumbsup: , With a PC you always get tons of viruses and crap you dont want on your computerm with a mac you barely need virus protection. the reason is that Mac computers dont read .EXE programs and most viruses are written with .EXE programs, I am not saying you cant get a virus it is just very unlikely.

- Mike

 

[esqeddy]

Mac is way better and I mean way beter :thumbsup: , With a PC you always get tons of viruses and crap you dont want on your computerm with a mac you barely need virus protection. the reason is that Mac computers dont read .EXE programs and most viruses are written with .EXE programs, I am not saying you cant get a virus it is just very unlikely.

- Mike

LOL.... .EXE is just a file name extension. It is universally used to desigenatean (exe)cutable file. This is nothing more than a program compiled in a file that the operating system can understand how to run.

Macs run programs just like every other computer. The reason there are not as many viruses on Mac is: 1) Because being less popular, not as many have been written for them, and 2) the Mac OS doesn't have many of the flaws Windows has that virus programers exploit.

 

[03gtcoupe]

never had a virus with my mac

 

[kneedragger]

LOL.... .EXE is just a file name extension. It is universally used to desigenatean (exe)cutable file. This is nothing more than a program compiled in a file that the operating system can understand how to run.

Macs run programs just like every other computer. The reason there are not as many viruses on Mac is: 1) Because being less popular, not as many have been written for them, and 2) the Mac OS doesn't have many of the flaws Windows has that virus programers exploit.

.EXE is only used on Windoze with the 8.3 naming convention. A Mac executable, now that it's a BSD based OS, is determined by the UFS executable string ---x--x--x permission set.

You are right about the Mac being less popular being a reason for Viruses not being written for it. There were 2 known viruses for the old Mac OS. I'm sure there were others, but not many.

The "New" Mac OS is considered one of the hardest to hack supposedly. Also, many commands in UNIX need to be run as ROOT. This makes it hard for someone to come in and assume ROOT privleges without knowing a password.


My vote is Mac. More intuitive, cleaner and great for the "bling" factor.

 

[90_red_lx]

PC, hands down. Loved coming home to a PC after a crappy day of using a Mac at elementary school. It made me feel retarded, and i hated the interface; instead I've preferred windows. It's not all that hard to use, just play with it for a little while. And as for virus protection I never ran any before until about a year ago to the day, when I got a "purchased" copy of Norton anti-virus. PC is the way to go.

 

[Mr. Mach-ete]

Tell that to Micro Soft.

 

[NyteByte]

Viruses can run on ANY computer. The Mac is just as vulnerable as the PC and probably more so.

The reason you don't see as much virus hype on Macs is because nobody uses them, especially not in the business world.

You rarely, if ever, see a Mac on anyone's desk. If you want to do any real work, you need a PC. We had a Mac in my company about a year ago. A graphic designer that worked for us absolutely demanded to have one. The thing was nothing but trouble and incompatible with everything.

It was running OS 9 at the time which was much less stable than even Windows 95. The thing would crash about six to eight times per day and they would accept it as "normal" claiming "Mac's do this all the time". It still didn't have pre-emptive multitasking or true memory protection like Windows NT has had since the beginning of 1994. The underlying architecture of Windows ran rings around anything Apple has to offer on the Mac. My PC absolutely NEVER crashes. Hasn't for years.

I hear that the new OS 10 is better in this respect, but even OS 10 can't touch Windows for reliability, security features, and network capabilities. I've toyed with OS 10 for a bit and it's security is a total joke. Microsoft is at least 6 years ahead of Apple with their underlying OS architecture.

The one thing the Mac OS has going for it is the pretty interface. I'll admit that Apple probably has the best looking user interface I've seen. Their case design is also very cool. However, don't be fooled by all the glitz and glamour. It's just lipstick on a bulldog.

If you want to do any real work, you need a PC running Windows. If you need a computer for very simple home use or you're a computer neophyte, then maybe the Mac would be good for you.

 

[ibanezkm]

lol, why don't you just get a good antivirus program and keep it up-to-date on your PC.. that way you don't get infected (PC). I think either MAC or PC comes down to user preferences. I prefer to use MAC for graphics, but everyday computing..I prefer PC.

 

[Ashdrgn]

I am considering replacing my PC laptop with a Powerbook G4. What I want to know is who owns one of the above and has switched (from PC to Mac/vice versa) and what was your experience? If I do decide to get a Mac, I am concerned about transferring my current files from my PC to the Mac. I.e. Word, Excel, and other common windows files; from my research it seem most Windows type programs will convert over.

Thank you in advance!

so back to the question about mac vs pc....i would say it depends on what you need it for. The mac is a great system, runs well and like stated by the other post it isn't as prone to virus attacks as a windows based system. If your using your system for graphic design, video editing, or any other multimedia development i'd say get a mac, otherwise stick with a pc. Your files will transfer over so don't worry about that. I'd say this too though, PC are far better at multi-tasking than a mac b/c of their processor architecture...either way though, you won't lose.

 

[KevinB120]

Macs are just like the old beta machines, they actually perform better but held on way to long to proprietary hardware and exonerated themselves from the masses. PC's dominate the mainstream, Mac is still the favorite of educators and CAD engineers. Unless you use Macs at work, I wouldn’t bother.

 

[J15BIG]

I run both. On one side of my desk is my PC and on the other side is the mac. Like some have said, most people use PC's. Mac's, in my opinion, are better for specialized stuff such as Video production, print, imaging type stuff like photoshop, etc. My experience with my mac (I have been using PCs for about 10 yrs and I just switched to my mac a few months ago) has been pretty good so far. I have found that some things are not compatible, such as my printer(which is stupid if you ask me). But, I also found (and expected) the mac to be much more stable and it doesn't degrade in performance like my PC does. I could go on for pages about the differences and what I like and don't like about each one, but basically, for me, it comes down to this:
If your buying the computer for the average stuff like e-mail, internet, word processing, and the occasional photoshop or video editing, stick with a PC - cheaper and much more compatible. If your planning on doing any major Video, Imaging, Designing, etc, try switching to the mac.

 

[mmars]

Viruses can run on ANY computer. The Mac is just as vulnerable as the PC and probably more so.

The reason you don't see as much virus hype on Macs is because nobody uses them, especially not in the business world.

You rarely, if ever, see a Mac on anyone's desk. If you want to do any real work, you need a PC. We had a Mac in my company about a year ago. A graphic designer that worked for us absolutely demanded to have one. The thing was nothing but trouble and incompatible with everything.

It was running OS 9 at the time which was much less stable than even Windows 95. The thing would crash about six to eight times per day and they would accept it as "normal" claiming "Mac's do this all the time". It still didn't have pre-emptive multitasking or true memory protection like Windows NT has had since the beginning of 1994. The underlying architecture of Windows ran rings around anything Apple has to offer on the Mac. My PC absolutely NEVER crashes. Hasn't for years.

I hear that the new OS 10 is better in this respect, but even OS 10 can't touch Windows for reliability, security features, and network capabilities. I've toyed with OS 10 for a bit and it's security is a total joke. Microsoft is at least 6 years ahead of Apple with their underlying OS architecture.

The one thing the Mac OS has going for it is the pretty interface. I'll admit that Apple probably has the best looking user interface I've seen. Their case design is also very cool. However, don't be fooled by all the glitz and glamour. It's just lipstick on a bulldog.

If you want to do any real work, you need a PC running Windows. If you need a computer for very simple home use or you're a computer neophyte, then maybe the Mac would be good for you.

Wow... That's just amazing. You have absolutly no idea what you are truely talking about. No system's security is bullet proof, however, to say that MS is 6 years ahead of Apple is :bs: MacOSX uses UNIX Security. Which is a heck of alot more mature than Windows Security. Up until the mid 90's Windows had nearly zero security.
Windows Networking? Up until XP and some versions of Win2k, if you changed IP address, you had to reboot. Not the case with MacOS-X/UNIX.

Windows isn't a terrible OS, I use it and it has some good purposes. My only problem with it is they makeup their own standards which make it partial or even fully incompatible with any other OS architectures.

If your going to make statements like that, give some examples/facts.

 

[mmars]

I'd say this too though, PC are far better at multi-tasking than a mac b/c of their processor architecture...either way though, you won't lose.

That's not exactly true. X86 processors are CISC(Complex Instruction Set Computers). PowerPC processors are RISC(Reduced Instruction Set Computers). They both have their advantages. With RISC, the entire program could execute in the same amount of time as one line of CISC code. After a CISC command is executed, the processor automatically erases the the register. If another code compulation needs the same command, it must read it back in. With RISC, the command will remain in the register until another value is loaded into it's place.

The multi-tasking of computers truely relies on the OS.

 

[racerat]

Mac. :thumbsup:

 

[mmars]

Back to the original question. I have both a 12" G4 Powerbook and a Compaq P3 laptop as well as a dual xeon workstation at home. I use my G4 almost exclusivly. The exceptions are the P3 laptop I pretty much only use for my obd-2 scanner. My dual xeon workstation, I'm turing into a home theater PC.

It's been said before, but it all depends on what you are going to use it for an what applications you are going to use.

My G4 powerbook has MS Office X on it. It reads Windows created MS Office files just fine.

Good Luck!

 

[kneedragger]

Viruses can run on ANY computer. The Mac is just as vulnerable as the PC and probably more so.

The reason you don't see as much virus hype on Macs is because nobody uses them, especially not in the business world.

You rarely, if ever, see a Mac on anyone's desk. If you want to do any real work, you need a PC. We had a Mac in my company about a year ago. A graphic designer that worked for us absolutely demanded to have one. The thing was nothing but trouble and incompatible with everything.

It was running OS 9 at the time which was much less stable than even Windows 95. The thing would crash about six to eight times per day and they would accept it as "normal" claiming "Mac's do this all the time". It still didn't have pre-emptive multitasking or true memory protection like Windows NT has had since the beginning of 1994. The underlying architecture of Windows ran rings around anything Apple has to offer on the Mac. My PC absolutely NEVER crashes. Hasn't for years.

I hear that the new OS 10 is better in this respect, but even OS 10 can't touch Windows for reliability, security features, and network capabilities. I've toyed with OS 10 for a bit and it's security is a total joke. Microsoft is at least 6 years ahead of Apple with their underlying OS architecture.

The one thing the Mac OS has going for it is the pretty interface. I'll admit that Apple probably has the best looking user interface I've seen. Their case design is also very cool. However, don't be fooled by all the glitz and glamour. It's just lipstick on a bulldog.

If you want to do any real work, you need a PC running Windows. If you need a computer for very simple home use or you're a computer neophyte, then maybe the Mac would be good for you.

You really have no clue about system architecture. OSX is based on BSD UNIX and is extremely stable.

As far as security, please explain how Windows is more secure? How many minutes has it been since the last Windows security patch? OSX has garnered much praise for it's system security. I use PCs, Macs and many other OSs daily and when our our Outlook gets infected with a virus and it spreads to all of the machines in the builiding, we never have to touch the Macs or UNIX servers why? They dont get infected. there have been 2 major viruses on the Mac, Hong Kong and Autostart. Both caused little damage.


Learn about something before you rip on it. Someone also mentioned RISC versus CISC and multitasks much better.