Switching Platforms
 

So it's time to replace my aging desktop and the sexy MacBook Pro with retina display has caught my eye, which may result on an overall Mac conversion for the household.

But first off, I need some tech savvy advice in how much attention I need to pay to processor speed and RAM. I'm not a gamer, but often will have several websites open, a document or two, and a financial or photo editing software running. Would an extra 0.3 GHz really matter? And if I have a Quadcore device shouldn't 8GB RAM be adequate?

Things run a bit sluggish in the current machine so I presume anything contemporary will delight me, but this will be my workhorse device for the next few years so I want to make sure it will keep me happy and out of the Apple store.

I assume you have already verified that all the applications you want to use are available on the mac?

Or alternatives thereof - I really don't use a lot of specialized software. I'll be picking up a copy of the Office suite, already using iTunes, Picasa has been my photo editing tool of choice. Looks like I may be swapping iBooks for Quicken, but that's an underutilized ap for me anyway. So far I haven't come across any deal breakers - or things that will make me go dual boot yet.

To answer one of your original questions; no, the 0.3 GHz will make no difference to what you're doing.

Shhh, don't tell my 8-year old, very amped-up PC, but when she finally fails - hopefully not any time soon - I think I'll be switching to a Mac as well (and hence following this thread with interest).

I made the switch this year and have had no regrets. I believe i mentioned this when we were at the Carthay last month, but I get a special tingly thrill every time my new computer (Macbook Air) boots up in 12 seconds.

Given the problems I am having connecting to the iCloud for whatever reason, I'm toying with switching, too. Toying...

Tell me more about your MacBook Air, while coveting the 13" MacBook Pro, a sales rep suggested the air might be more than adequate to meet my needs and save me some cash.

My home use would not qualify me as anybody's 'power user'. All simple stuff... music, movies, some note taking, a few spreadsheets, photos and light gaming - RCT3 just released for OSX!!!

For those uses, I am completely satisfied. It is quick as a rabbit and silent as the grave, thought RCT does kick the fan on. It's the first app to do so. The package is light, thin, a breeze to travel with.

What it has done is integrated my 'stuff' across all my devices in a way that wasn't possible from a Windows pc so that's been fun to discover.

Depends. Airs don't have the higher-end (Retina) displays.

Are you convinced you want a laptop? If I had it to do over, I might go with a Mini AND a Time Capsule. That would replace your current setup nicely, integrate everything and give you network backup you didn't have before... for less money.

Actually, I['m contemplating getting a mac mini to be our "media server" to keep all our music & photos on - which is what most of my stored files are, leaving a lot less that I'd want to carry around with me - will still want a laptop for portability.

Don't do it Chris: don't switch away from the Hedonisitic Party!

Understand about the laptop. Since I dumped the desktop several years ago, my laptop has been a constant companion. In fact, this last trip is the first time I've travelled without one... Pad only. One bag instead of two? Hook me up

Speaking of storage, my dream device was recently released; the drobo 5N.

affordable, hot swappable RAID network-attached storage for the home, with optional SSD acceleration

WANT

no, NEED

I just added a somewhat similar box to work as my media server. Love it!.

I realize I'm way late finding out about drobo. I've been hearing the word and thinking it was some weird shortening of "dropbox", as in "I have a Hazel script that sends that straight to my drobo". D'uh

Moonliner, good to hear of your positive opinion so far

I was all prepared to buy their previous RAID NAS but they discontinued it the day before I ordered, saying a new one was on the way. It appears they've added SSD acceleration AND dropped the price $200.

Note: I said "similar". While I have heard positive things about Drobo that's not what I have. I have a 5-Disk Raid tower configured in RAID-5 attached to my Windows Server via e-Sata.

Yes... post-post I thought that was a possibility. Thanks for the clarification

Mini and Air is my current set-up, and I'm happy with it.

I made the switch and am now learning Mac ownership is alot like going to In-n-out - There are all these trips and tricks that people in the know impart to you that are otherwise not published. "I'd like to have my video streaming well done - thanks..."

So what did you end up buying?!

I'm contemplating upgrading to a Retina MacBook Pro from my current MacBook Pro. (It's a little over 3 years old and is barely showing signs of slowdown, but the retina display and new hard drives would be great upgrades!)

I'm also considering getting a MacMini or 27" iMac. If I buy I new TV I might go with the Mini and use the TV for my monitor, but the 27" iMac's screen is much more suitable for a monitor.

So what's the drill on getting a new Mac when they are first introduced?

Word on the street is the the refreshed MacBook air and Pro will be announced Monday with availability (at least on the air) shortly there after.

If I want to jump on the bandwagon post-haste do I have to pitch a tent in front of an apple store? Jump online with Nija like timing?

My concern with switching to Mac is that I'm an old dog who doesn't like new tricks - and there are two or three items of software I rely on for my creative work that I'm more than happy with and don't want to switch away from. I guess I could find out if there are Mac versions - but I have a sneaking suspicion I would just end up running Windows on my Mac - and then, really, what's the point?

How long after Mac Pro launch before someone starts selling an R2D2 case mod?

Hey Moonie... Got a new MacBook headed to your house?

Not quite yet. It's for headliner and she is waffling on exactly what she wants.

There's already been several memes on it

Since Moonie and Scrooge were asking:

It's not often Mac's go on sale, but Worst-Buy was offering $200 off the price of MacBooks so we bit the bullet and Headliner will start her Senior year with a shiny new Macbook. It's white and has a glowing Apple on the lid.

I hate it.

Frickin fracking gosh darn it. My home PC/server was smitten by the gods despite being attached to a UPS. Apparently in it's last dying gasp it blasted garbage data across to the RAID-5 Array. Now windows thinks it's 10TB of raw volume.

*sigh*

It makes a good Windows machine!

Yiiii sorry to hear that :(

I need to do some more research on backup-to-web plans.

There are ways to rebuild RAID tables. I managed to pull it off when something similar happened to me.

A similar wiping-of-the-RAID-tables finally pushed me to a Carbonite subscription. Feel soooo much better knowing that's there.

Have a look at https://tresorit.com/

The RAID volume shows as "Normal". I've tried several data recovery tools they all show the missing files but when I restore it 90% of them are full of crap. At this point I'm just going to have to re-format and get on with life.

Humm, how much would Carbonite cost to backup a 10TB volume. :D

You guys are just tantalizing the fates.

By my never having EVER done any form of intentional data backup, and deep in my soul not really caring (thought it would be a short term pain) if every bit on my computer and various cloud services evaportated today the Computer Fates have said "oh, where's the fun in this?" and left me alone.

Having revealed their indifference they will now punish me. Having pre-emptively predicted their punishment they will now leave me alone.

same as a 5kb volume. they charge by client system not capacity.

Well, it's happened. My reliable 6-year-old beautiful PC has died. Just died.

And so ... I was all ready to make my vaunted switch to Apple. But what a big snag I've seem to hit. I want to stay in the desktop realm (I really dislike laptops for serious work), and - as I understand it - their rather lovely iMacs can't play DVDs or BluRays. I suppose the Mac Pros can do that, but since they start at 3,000 - I think I'm staying put in PC land. Sheesh.

Yeah, blu-ray and Mac's are a thing. And not in a good sense. You can get a Mac to play a Blu-Ray but there are a few hoops to go through first.

Yes... there are hoops ;)

iSm, if you're not opposed to keeping the monitor/keyboard you already have, you can get in for a lot less the $3K by going with a mac mini

I'm not at all opposed to keeping my keyboard and monitor. (in fact, I'm not a fan of Mac keyboards). BUT - I definitely need an optical drive. I must be able to play CDs, DVDs and BluRays and burn CDs and DVDs at a minimum (I'd very much like the ability to burn BluRays).

Optimally, I would like MORE THAN ONE optical drive, but that seems to be a thing of the past. I've had drives go bad before, and it's been nice to have back-ups.

I don't understand the entire concept of iMacs. No optical drives. I guess they are presuming all content will be streamed back and forth across the net and via the cloud, but that's not quite how the real world works nowadays. I like discs. I need discs. Apple's pretty much out for me. Oh well.

So now I can look with roll-eyes at all the people who rant about Mac superiority, just like I've done with people who like MS Word. Know Nothings, the lot of 'em. :rolleyes:

Interesting article, btw, Moonie. As as I've already experienced, Apple's entire philosophy is that everyone is merely a consumer, and no one produces anything they'd like to output to a physical device.

But I like physical devices. And I enjoy uncompressed audio and video. Yes, I'm very old-school. So I want a new-fangled, high-technology machine that takes into account my old-school needs.

USB sticks don't quite do it for you?

It's an interesting question, whether we could do without a disc drive. The only thing I've used ours for in recent years is ripping CDs I've borrowed from the library, or burning discs for friends (where a laying-around-freebie-USB stick could do just fine if they were actually present in my house). Hard to fit cover art on the outside, as € knows, but outside of a mix CD swap party, I don't see it being a problem for me. Everything via email or dropbox or whatever.

Yeah, the only issue I'd have is with "stealing" music from the library, and I could afford to actually buy things, if I had to.

I plan on getting a disc drive for our household Macs eventually, but honestly it hasn't been a problem as I've long ago ripped my CDs, and have dedicated DVD/Bluray devices attached to my TV when I want to use those - but if somethings already available streaming, I'll pick that version out of convenience.

I still have a lot of vinyl that never made it to MP3 format so a USB turntable is also on the list.

I thought I'd need a drive a LOT more than I do. The first couple of months or so was a rush of ripping and archiving but since then I've rarely used it. It felt like it took forever to rip all the DVDs.

I chuckle with CP... I'm a BIG fan of the USB stick in the car. 5.2 days of tunes available without swapping disks? I'm in! It was a little fiddly getting rid of the spotlight search files on the stick, but it works great now.

I just had to look at my computer to confirm it has optical drives it has been so long since I used them.

It has been a couple years since I watched an actual DVD (via TV or computer) so that is out. A dropbox account and my needs for file transfer are met.

I remember how I mocked Apple when they decided they didn't need floppy drives in their computers. But I was wrong. And while there are many people who do have need for optical drives, I think it is probably so low a number at this point that it doesn't make sense to make everybody buy one just so they have them.

I've now maxed out my nice-things-to-say-about-Apple quota for the year.

I'm addicted to my optical drive. Those who know me, know I'm a mad music mixer - and no reasonable format comes close to the precision of CD.

Besides, my car is still old school and I don't plan on getting rid of it for years and years. It plays CDs - so I like a format I can take from my computer to my car, one that on occasion I can use on my old-school very kick-ass home sound system, and one that I can give to friends with - yes - cool cover art as a bonus, and know with a fair certainty they can play it in various places.

Being an old-fogey, I don't know how a memory stick would work for music ... but so far my experience with digital distribution and playback (such as on my iPhone for example) is that the playback time between tracks is not instantaneous, but rather varies greatly with each device and depending on many other operating system factors at the moment. This is completely unacceptable to me. Timing is everything, and my projects absolutely require there be ZERO time between tracks.

So you'll have to pry CD out of my cold, dead hands. And since I'm going to have an optical drive come hell or high water, I might as well have blu-ray capability.


On the Windows side, it looks like I'm going to be stuck with Windows 8 on pretty much any new computer - but I have such a big issue with Windows 7* that I'm actually not too apprehensive about this.




* customizing the appearance of folders is VITAL to me. It was a very cool feature of XP that they dropped for Windows 7, to my everlasting disgust. I work with lots of photo and music projects - and it was very handy for me to assign an image (such as an album cover) to a finished project and leave the unfinished ones without that embellishment. That way I could see at a glance which projects were done and which I was still working on. (Plus, it was pretty .... d'uh.)

I have no idea if Windows 8 allows once again for that type of folder customization, but I think I'll stop by the Windows Store at lunch and see if I can find out.

I've done a fair bit of research on Windows desktops in the last 48 hours, and I think I'm leaning toward the Dell XPS One 27 Touch. The screen is just too sexy, and only the Apple iMac 27 has that kind of high resolution. And that Dell seems to come out second only to the iMac in all kinds of 2013 ratings I've looked out over the past couple of days. I don't want to rush into anything, but being without my home computer is very distressing to me!

:iSm:

I use Windows 7 and I have many custom folder icons.
1: Right-click on a folder you want to customize and select "Properties."
2: In the "Customize" tab, go to the "Folder icons" section and click the "Change Icon" button.
3: Select an icon

Granted, that requires you to have a .ico file, so here's how you can convert .jpg to .ico.

You can select an Icon from their choices, but - as far as I've been able to tell - you cannot select a photo.


Anyway, the Dell XPS One is ultra super SEXAY!!! I get the kind of future feel I finally felt when I got my first iPhone, and that "Where's My Jet-pack/Flying car?" feeling is again stroked to satisfaction.

I don't see what the problem is with Windows 8. I played with it for a long time, and it's completely rad and intuitive. You can always switch back to Desktop mode if you want, but the regular version works as well with a keyboard and mouse as with touch. (But touch use is tres futuristic.)

The high-res, 27-inch screen is gorgeous. It's got a stand that swivels down to 60-degrees flat - - so what with the JJ StarTrek-looking interface, the MinorityReport touch control, and the near flat tilt function ... I seriously feel like I'm piloting a freaking star ship. It's rad.


BUT - the screen is super-duper glossy and reflective. As I'd been warned, this is NOT good for photo-editing - which is a lot of what I do, and sometimes (as in the current time) about 80% of what I do.



So I walked on over to the Apple Store, and their 27" high-res iMac beauty is non-reflective and polarizes to the ambient light in its setting. Drool. There's practically no tilt to the screen - but in truth, I'd likely only operate the computer by touch, and still do all my actual work within software apps with the mouse of old.

So - I'm back to considering an iMac with an external optical drive. Oddly enough, the Dell beats the Apple in terms of SEXAY (except of course, the Apple icon at the screen bottom is way sexier as a detail than the Dell name).


I will ponder more ... but I think these are the two finalists. PRICEY.

I don't mix music so I've only seen the timing issue on the USB stick in the car. Do you still get those gaps on professionally mixed collections? For example, I've got some deadmau5 (Random Album Title) that mixes all the tunes together with no gaps. It plays fine on all my devices, but not from the stick in the car. Very annoying! So I get your aggravation.

you can eliminate the gap by mixing them into one large music file, of course that means it's harder to play single songs, but if the goal is a continuous mix then that shouldn't be an issue.

And you can run a virtual PC inside a Mac but not the other way round.

:rolleyes: Yes, there is no hope.

I have a thingy that let's me store up to 200 Blu-ray movies and watch them on demand whenever I want.

So do I, I called it 'The Drawer in the TV Stand."

But it turned out that I never had any on demand for watching them so when we moved I sold what I could and got rid of the rest.

Now THAT I understand. :snap: