Buying a Mac

[Durbs]

I recently got a Mac too as a plaything really. Its great and mine DOES just work. Am i using it wrong?

For any Windaz users thinking of taking the plunge - its very intuitive and not at all hard to pick up, i thought it'd be a nightmare at first.

[bogeyman]

I recently got a Mac too as a plaything really. Its great and mine DOES just work. Am i using it wrong?

For any Windaz users thinking of taking the plunge - its very intuitive and not at all hard to pick up, i thought it'd be a nightmare at first.

No you are not 'using it wrong' it's just that you haven't done serious day-in day-out work on it.

Enjoy your shiny toy

[d000hg]

No you are not 'using it wrong' it's just that you haven't done serious day-in day-out work on it.

I'm not looking forward to having to code on the Mac... well Java will be fine since it has Eclipse but I am too set on Visual Studio for C++.

[bogeyman]

I'm not looking forward to having to code on the Mac... well Java will be fine since it has Eclipse but I am too set on Visual Studio for C++.

VMWare Fusion (http://www.vmware.com/download/fusion/)

I use VS lots - no problem.

[Durbs]

I'm not looking forward to having to code on the Mac... well Java will be fine since it has Eclipse but I am too set on Visual Studio for C++.

Yeah, i bought mine to use XCode and knock up a few iPhone apps and am a long time VS user. Totally different way of doing things!

[d000hg]

VMWare Fusion (http://www.vmware.com/download/fusion/)

I use VS lots - no problem.

Is running a virtual machine really usable? Is it really efficient or is it just that a modern processor is 10X more powerful than XP actually needs to run OK?
Personally, dual-booting on a new Mac sounds preferable but I haven't tried any of these systems... a colleague runs SQL server on a MacBook Air using Parallels, but I'd be worried it would all bog down a lot.

[Moscow Mule]

Is running a virtual machine really usable? Is it really efficient or is it just that a modern processor is 10X more powerful than XP actually needs to run OK?
Personally, dual-booting on a new Mac sounds preferable but I haven't tried any of these systems... a colleague runs SQL server on a MacBook Air using Parallels, but I'd be worried it would all bog down a lot.

You can run OSX 10.5 on something pretty old and decrepid.

Runnning on a dual core machine, there's plenty of spare capacity to run XP.

Like all VM solutions, parallels is configurable. I let it have about 0.5GB of memory and optimise for OSX performance - still good enough to do what I need to do (coding stuff & testing).

[expat]

No you are not 'using it wrong' it's just that you haven't done serious day-in day-out work on it.

Enjoy your shiny toy

Yeah. My biggest Missing App: Textpad. Simple, but it and I have learned to get along so well.....

Next one along, when I get to it: a 16-bit/channel photo editor. Gimp is great for Photoshop-like manipulations, but it's only 8-bit/channel. That's not good enough for serious retouching of scans of old emulsion. Lightzone is superb for getting your photos done and dusted and out the door in no time (and looking better than you thought possible) and it is 16-bit/channel; but it doesn't quite have PS's retouching capabilities. I had been hoping to avoid buying PS for the Mac. Oh well.

[DimPrawn]

I'm buying a Mac at lunchtime.

A Big Mac.

[Moscow Mule]

Yeah. My biggest Missing App: Textpad. Simple, but it and I have learned to get along so well.....

Next one along, when I get to it: a 16-bit/channel photo editor. Gimp is great for Photoshop-like manipulations, but it's only 8-bit/channel. That's not good enough for serious retouching of scans of old emulsion. Lightzone is superb for getting your photos done and dusted and out the door in no time (and looking better than you thought possible) and it is 16-bit/channel; but it doesn't quite have PS's retouching capabilities. I had been hoping to avoid buying PS for the Mac. Oh well.

Try Textmate.

I haven't ever had the need to use anything other than iPhoto for retouching, but I read good things about Aperture.