Mac labtops! please reply

hellother

hello ther!!

Just wondering if anyone could tell whether or not DIT support mac systems, or is it just PC?
would love to get a mac, especially with the deal at the mo-labtop and ipod touch-but don't wanna get one to find out that any essays, powerpoints etc that i hand up are not supported by the systems in DIT and i have to change the format on all.....hope this is making sense!

any feedback would be great, cheers!

projectmayhem

As a mac user I can say if it's just documents and slides you're worried about then go ahead and buy one. iWork 09 supports all of the Microsoft formats, and sure you can just buy MS Office for Mac anyway!

docentore

its not about os (operating system) - mac osx or Windows but file formats those machines can save. And this depends on applications you can get for each operating system.

Most lecturers are requesting papers in .PDF or .DOC formats. Adobe Acrobat (application for making pdf's) is present for both platforms as long as many virtual printer drivers which can print to .PDF .

Similar with Microsoft Office (for .DOC files). Believe me or not but Mac was first to get Office from Microsoft!

So to answer your question - if you fancy Mac and can afford it - go ahead!!!

hellother

thanks a a million for the reply!!

one last question, any of you have an idea about auto cad, for work on architect projects and the likes? like which system would be better, mac or PC?

CHEERS

Alanstrainor

From a quick google, it appears AutoCad requires Windows of some shape or form to run.

docentore

there is a plenty of CAD software for mac.

If that not suits you, you can always run Windows on Mac through parallels or boot camp and use AutoCAD on your mac

disssco

McLaptops... succulent pieces of laptop deep fried in thick crispy batter... mmmmmmmmm

itsnotbutter

DIT does not support Macintosh computers or OSX. If you plug one into an ethernet port you just won't get any network connectivity.

projectmayhem

itsnotbutter wrote: »

DIT does not support Macintosh computers or OSX. If you plug one into an ethernet port you just won't get any network connectivity.

Ignore this particular tosser, he'll go away soon. A network is a network, OSX/Windows don't care what network they're on. You'll be fine

itsnotbutter

projectmayhem wrote: »

Ignore this particular tosser, he'll go away soon. A network is a network, OSX/Windows don't care what network they're on. You'll be fine

Tosser?
Aren't you a moderator? Civility/Maturity at all times etc etc?

edit: please ban the entire DIT subnet it would make my day

hellother

yikes now im confused! was leaning towards mac and was gonna buy one over the next few days to avail of the current offer but now im thinking perhaps leaving it till i get to college would be the better option, and just scope things out.
I def wont be getting a dell anyway, it will be a sony veoh if i do get a pc, its just the darn vista system that i hate, and the fact that mac seems soooooooo much better...and pweetier...lol

disssco

Macs are for people who are too "cool" for normal computers. You can download and install Linux if you really don't want to use Windows, but in my experience the OS for Macs is rubbish.

itsnotbutter

disssco wrote: »

Macs are for people who are too "cool" for normal computers. You can download and install Linux if you really don't want to use Windows, but in my experience the OS for Macs is rubbish.

thanks for your opinion poor dude!

projectmayhem

hellother wrote: »

yikes now im confused! was leaning towards mac and was gonna buy one over the next few days to avail of the current offer but now im thinking perhaps leaving it till i get to college would be the better option, and just scope things out.
I def wont be getting a dell anyway, it will be a sony veoh if i do get a pc, its just the darn vista system that i hate, and the fact that mac seems soooooooo much better...and pweetier...lol

Sony Vaio are very nice machines, but as was said before, Mac's can be used for anything. Don't let that eejit put you off. You can install Windows on a partition on your Mac if you absolutely have to.

You'll find walking around the campus that a lot of people have macs these days, including myself.

disssco wrote: »

Macs are for people who are too "cool" for normal computers. You can download and install Linux if you really don't want to use Windows, but in my experience the OS for Macs is rubbish.

The reason I use Mac's is because the OS is so unbelievably solid it's unreal. Yes, Linux (ubuntu particularly) is just as good, but the support simply isn't there on a corporate level. Good luck doing anything CAD-related on Linux with proper support, for example.

How can anyone say the OS is rubbish? It's tailor made for the hardware and works a dream. Even the upgrade to Snow Leopard was so smooth it was scary. The entire system is built on cocoa and includes new architectural structures to take advantage of the newer dual-core systems with GPU's being included in processing for a change.

etc. etc. etc.

Irishtrekkie

projectmayhem your a bit of a fanboy ,

nah macs are nice , just cant get over the feeling they are way over priced.
OSX and Win7 are both rock soild in my opinion. The main reason i am in the pc camp is the hardware options , oh and games

Creamy Goodness

macs and pc's have their places.

main reason i use mac is purely anything photography based is hugely more free flowing than on a windows pc.

photoshop/lightroom work flow is much smoother on mac's, i have a pc with 4gigs of ram and a mac with just 1gig and photoshop/lightroom much smoother on mac.

for college course though, the only thing that should factor your choice is budget and CAD.

i had a mac for 3 years of college, it never faulted me, it still works and it preforms better than my brothers new dell laptop.

one thing i don't like about macs is that if you want to use them in a dual screen setup - which i do - you have to buy either a mac pro or build a pc to mac standards. tbh i'm looking at the latter as i need two screens and don't have a gazillion euro to buy a mac pro.

projectmayhem

Irishtrekkie wrote: »

projectmayhem your a bit of a fanboy ,

nah macs are nice , just cant get over the feeling they are way over priced.
OSX and Win7 are both rock soild in my opinion. The main reason i am in the pc camp is the hardware options , oh and games

I have a high spec PC just for gaming, everything else is done on a mac though.

Win7 is nice but rock solid is over-selling it. OSX is actually rock solid though. One of the purposes of Apple is that you shouldn't need to know how/why something works... it just works. They also don't think normal everyday users of computers want to be worrying about CPU's, GPU's and RAM... it should all just work. And they do.

They're pricey because of branding, for sure, but also, everything inside is high end kit. If you buy a dell you're getting sub-par motherboards with good chips slapped onto them most of the time.

Subpopulus

You may have a bit of trouble with the bluetooth internet in DIT. It's not very well supported on Safari and some days just won't work at all. Using firefox helps though.

Not having AutoCad for macs is a big drawback. I've attempted to install Wine on my mac and use AutoCad that way but it hasn't gone so well. I might try again soon. A few friends have paralells but it's really a lot of hassle. Curse AutoCad. To be honest I can see a Mac version of Autocad coming out in the future since so many architects architectural firms use Macs.

Well I can dream anyway.

Cost wise Macs are good value since they are simply superior to anything to anything else on the market and will give very little trouble. Aside from not having Autocad.

hellother

"Not having AutoCad for macs is a big drawback. I've attempted to install Wine on my mac and use AutoCad that way but it hasn't gone so well. I might try again soon. A few friends have paralells but it's really a lot of hassle. Curse AutoCad. To be honest I can see a Mac version of Autocad coming out in the future since so many architects architectural firms use Macs."

do you need autocad for your course? if so how do you get around that?
ill be doing architecture so ill need it eventually, or will the college except perhaps work on vectorworks or the likes?

thanks for the feedback guys!

Creamy Goodness

it depends on the lecturer whether or not they'll accept work on anything other than what's installed in the labs, but i think they don't have to accept anything other than what is taught in the labs/classes.

some lecturers were very anal - in my course anyways - over what you could and couldn't use, and some actually didn't care as long as you learned the process of what you were doing and others then actually encouraged the use of non windows based laptops.

so in short it's completely down to the lecturer.

Naikon

projectmayhem wrote: »

One of the purposes of Apple is that you shouldn't need to know how/why something works... it just works. They also don't think normal everyday users of computers want to be worrying about CPU's, GPU's and RAM... it should all just work. And they do.

This is a problem for me because despite their marketing
propaganda hailing the 'Unix' core, expecting MacOSX to
be usable as a general purpose *nix box is a mixed bag.

I don't know what apple are playing at, but I might consider
buying MacOSX if they can cater for average and power users alike.

The standard config files do not follow traditional convention.
I really wanted to like OSX, but it seems 'broken' to me at least.

People complain about the 'cost' of the Mac, but considering a
Hackintosh can be put together with little effort these days, you
can have a Hackintosh for very little.

And no, it's not 'illegal' to to this, you are simply breaking
apples end user license agreement. Not much of a problem.

Unless you are building them in your garage and selling
machines to others, I would not loose any sleep.

Naikon

Irishtrekkie wrote: »

projectmayhem your a bit of a fanboy ,

nah macs are nice , just cant get over the feeling they are way over priced.
OSX and Win7 are both rock soild in my opinion. The main reason i am in the pc camp is the hardware options , oh and games

Excuse me for my anal retentiveness, but a MAC == PC !

Yillan

Labtops....

He said labtops...

68 lost souls

I use a PC for CAD based programmes, its what the lecturers in Bolton St recommended. I hate using macs. I bought my PC towards the end of 1st year and havent looked back. Got a Dell specced up to the 9s. I have only had bad experiences with Sony laptops. If you are really anti dell you should look at toshiba for cad and photo based programes they are great.

adamtj09

Macs are the way to go!!!dont listen to the guy above me ! at the end of the day if theres a program you cant run on a mac just use bootcamp and you will have the best windows machine out there!

Naikon

adamtj09 wrote: »

Macs are the way to go!!!dont listen to the guy above me ! at the end of the day if theres a program you cant run on a mac just use bootcamp and you will have the best windows machine out there!

Yeah, I think everybody should only use FreeBSD and Linux:rolleyes:
This is not how things work though. Use the platform with
suits your needs best imo.

FreeBSD/Linux/Windows/Solaris/<insert>/ they all have different uses.
Some users are bound to a platform simply because of the applications.

I bet more people would drop windows like a hot snot if
application support was better.

Tony EH

i have to use a Mac laptop for work...I HATE IT.

Don't buy what the fanboys say. Mac's have NOTHING over a PC these days. In days gone by (YEARS AGO), Macs were superior for graphic work, but there is simply nothing that can be done on a Mac these days that cannot be done on a PC.

One thing I will say that PC's trump Macs on completely, and that's the general files operation. Windows "Explorer" is far superior...FAR superior to "Finder" (the Mac version of Explorer) any day of the week.

Any if your feckin about with files all day, like I do, go for a PC.

I will say this against PC's though, you absolutely need a good virus protection running, if you do a lot of surfing. Most viruses are written to attack Windows systems and you go on the net without a virus protection package at your own risk.

In saying that, I use a free one called "Avast". It's never let me down...not once.