OT (kinda): Apple Computer question
mr3holesinone
Posts: 444
I'm thinking about getting an Apple Computer. I have not had one and only used one a little in college. Are there any pros/cons to using one, especially in regards to coin photos vs. coin photos on a Windows PC? I also am a little concerned about the spreadsheet I use to track ebay sales and my coin purchases, etc. I assume Excel does not work on an Apple but maybe they have their own version of a similar spreadsheet program. Is using the forums here the same on an Apple? Is it easy to use an Apple to ebay?
I'm just tired of getting viruses and have heard Apples aren't targeted as much or at all. Is the "Go Back" or the 'return your computer settings to an earlier time' function on new PCs something that takes care of viruses now? So many things to consider when getting a new computer. The one I use is about ten years old but works fine except for the mirar toolbar virus that it picked up a month or so ago.
I appreciate any help, ideas, things to consider that you can provide, Thanks!
I'm just tired of getting viruses and have heard Apples aren't targeted as much or at all. Is the "Go Back" or the 'return your computer settings to an earlier time' function on new PCs something that takes care of viruses now? So many things to consider when getting a new computer. The one I use is about ten years old but works fine except for the mirar toolbar virus that it picked up a month or so ago.
I appreciate any help, ideas, things to consider that you can provide, Thanks!
Holes-in-One
1. 7-17-81 Warrenton GC Driver 310 yards 7th Hole (Par 4)
2. 5-22-99 Warrenton GC 6 iron 189 yards 10th Hole
3. 7-23-99 Oak Meadow CC 5 iron 180 yards 17th Hole
4. 9-19-99 Country Lake GC 6 iron 164 yards 15th Hole
5. 8-30-09 Country Lake GC Driver 258 yards 17th Hole (Par 4)
Collector of Barber Halves, Commems, MS64FBL Frankies, Full Step Jeffersons & Mint state Washington Quarters
1. 7-17-81 Warrenton GC Driver 310 yards 7th Hole (Par 4)
2. 5-22-99 Warrenton GC 6 iron 189 yards 10th Hole
3. 7-23-99 Oak Meadow CC 5 iron 180 yards 17th Hole
4. 9-19-99 Country Lake GC 6 iron 164 yards 15th Hole
5. 8-30-09 Country Lake GC Driver 258 yards 17th Hole (Par 4)
Collector of Barber Halves, Commems, MS64FBL Frankies, Full Step Jeffersons & Mint state Washington Quarters
0
Comments
>>>My Collection
<< <i>You cannot load avatars onto the CU site from a mac - that is the only coin-related limitation I have experienced. >>
Same here.
I've been using Macs for nearly 20 years. They are super easy to use, rarely crash, and you can troubleshoot most any problem yourself -- no need to have a tech department on hand or learn what .dll files are.
As far as photo editing, Mac sets the standard and Windows has been trying to catch up for two decades. No problems accessing this forum (other than icon uploads, for some reason you can't do it on a Mac), eBay, etc. And yes, there is MS Office for Mac, works just fine.
60 years into this hobby and I'm still working on my Lincoln set!
Macs has viruses too. They may be even more insidious, as folks are not expecting anything on that platform. But they are there.
I hate the Safari browser on the Mac. In fact, I may hate all browsers. It's nice to have a few around when one doesn't work right.
But it works basically the same.
One difference: On the windows, you see a red-x for a missing image. On the Mac Safari browser, you see a blue question mark. Those are the sorts of differences you will encounter when surfing the web. The Flash Player...the all-mighty Flash Player, ruler of all software everywhere, works just fine on Macs as well as Windows. All bow to the power of Flash Player banner ads.
I sometimes use VMWare to run one operating system "from within another". If the inner operating system gets torn up by a virus, I can fairly easily start over, as my main operating system host is untouched. It is inconvinient to boot a computer TWICE however. Windows can be run on Macintosh hardware in this manner.
Microsoft makes 'office' for the Mac. The spreadsheet software is basically the same and can generally interchange files with the windows version.
Oh right. You cannot load custom Avatars from the Mac Safari browser. Did I say that I hate browsers and have to keep a few different ones going in order to survive?
[edit]
Modern macs do right clicks just fine. The mouses are subtle. They do not show a button. Just press on the right side and it'll work.
That was the first problem I noticed on a mac I was borrowing a couple years ago
To support LordM's European Trip, click here!
<< <i>
<< <i>You cannot load avatars onto the CU site from a mac - that is the only coin-related limitation I have experienced. >>
Same here. >>
You can fool the site.
In safari Develop-user agent- choose IE of firefox or just download firefox, you need it for a few select sites anyways (like my insurance carrier)
<< <i>No right-click option? >>
control-click does the same thing.
60 years into this hobby and I'm still working on my Lincoln set!
If you get a big Apple is it called a Big Mac?
1. 7-17-81 Warrenton GC Driver 310 yards 7th Hole (Par 4)
2. 5-22-99 Warrenton GC 6 iron 189 yards 10th Hole
3. 7-23-99 Oak Meadow CC 5 iron 180 yards 17th Hole
4. 9-19-99 Country Lake GC 6 iron 164 yards 15th Hole
5. 8-30-09 Country Lake GC Driver 258 yards 17th Hole (Par 4)
Collector of Barber Halves, Commems, MS64FBL Frankies, Full Step Jeffersons & Mint state Washington Quarters
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
<< <i>You cannot load avatars onto the CU site from a mac - that is the only coin-related limitation I have experienced. >>
I've had a mac for 20+ years and love them. Yes you can load avatars, just not with the basic Safari browser.
- Bob -
MPL's - Lincolns of Color
Central Valley Roosevelts
get more users. apple is releasing an anti-virus package soon or already
has. the safari browser has just as many security issues as other browser.
i do not care to pay the premiums to run apple. i expect a desktop
machine to cost less then 400 dollars now days with a 19 inch flat
panel monitor. this would be the usual type of computer a normal
person would run. not a gaming power house machine even though
they can run most games just fine.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
I got the 'mirar toolbar' virus when downloading a song from Lime Wire. I have about 500 songs and downloaded one more for the first time in about a year and 'got lucky' and picked up a virus as well. Oh well, it's getting time for a new computer anyway as sometimes you can hear the hard drive humming loader than normal.
1. 7-17-81 Warrenton GC Driver 310 yards 7th Hole (Par 4)
2. 5-22-99 Warrenton GC 6 iron 189 yards 10th Hole
3. 7-23-99 Oak Meadow CC 5 iron 180 yards 17th Hole
4. 9-19-99 Country Lake GC 6 iron 164 yards 15th Hole
5. 8-30-09 Country Lake GC Driver 258 yards 17th Hole (Par 4)
Collector of Barber Halves, Commems, MS64FBL Frankies, Full Step Jeffersons & Mint state Washington Quarters
<< <i><<review of your personal computer usage pattern>>
I got the 'mirar toolbar' virus when downloading a song from Lime Wire. I have about 500 songs and downloaded one more for the first time in about a year and 'got lucky' and picked up a virus as well. Oh well, it's getting time for a new computer anyway as sometimes you can hear the hard drive humming loader than normal. >>
the music you downloaded were protected by a company and you
went to a website and installed it. you probably do not even have
anti virus software like avast.
http://msmvps.com/blogs/hostsnews/archive/2007/07/08/limewire-and-media-usage-rights-acquisition.aspx
Excel runs just fine on OS X (So does Word, Powerpoint, etc.. Office 2008). Apple has a program called Numbers which is a decent enough spreadsheet for day to day use.
Using the forums is generally the same other than on avatar upload day. This is a fault with FuseTalk, not with Safari or the Mac. And it can be worked around.
To sell on eBay via a Mac is just as easy as on a PC. Some people will have different preferences for third party software, if they use it.
I worked in network security for 15 years (not as a sideline, but full time and paid well for it). The sheer volume of malware written specifically for Windows environments on a weekly basis dwarfs years worth of malware written for the Mac. Apart from drive-by browser attacks, a well updated and managed Windows box can be just as secure as well managed OS X or Linux box. The drive-by browser attacks are just windows of opportunity exploited between zero-day discovery and patching because of the large install base of Windows.
The average user is still safer on an OS X box than a Windows box from right out of the box.
My in-laws moved from WebTV to a Mac. I'm thankful whenever they call that I'm not having to walk them through something in Vista or XP (Its what works for them, and me). My father on the other hand despises the Mac I bought him and won't use anything but Vista (he misses XP) preferably on a Sony VIO (Its what works for him). And I, who grew up with all of the OSes, have 3 MacBook Pros in the house, 1 Mac Pro, 1 Dell XPS, 1 Homebrew Linux Video Server and File Server, and more shell accounts on remote Solaris, Fedora, Debian, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD boxes than I really need (but they are what work for me).
And you will get more work done and to a higher degree of excellence by working in the environment you are the most comfortable working in.
Edited to add: Emacs sUx!@# vi for teh win.
<< <i>Edited to add: Emacs sUx!@# vi for teh win. >>
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
<< <i>
<< <i>Edited to add: Emacs sUx!@# vi for teh win. >>
this place almost felt like IRC for just a few seconds. lulz
Maine_Jim
To be honest, I do not understand why so many of my friends and family stick it out in the Windows world. I've been Mac since 93. I know Windows based platforms from work. There is no real comparison. Mac is superior. OSX has been very stable. It would take a heck of a huge amount of money to get me to switch out of Mac to PC. If you want to move onward and upward into the revolution ... go with the Mac.
<< <i>Macs are superior? Go to the computer store and compare the amount of software written for the PC and those for the MAC. There are more stuff for the PC. Did you ever wonder why the US Navy said that there will be no Macs on Navy bases?? >>
There's a lot more AG Barber Halves than VF ones.
There's a LOT more aftermarket stuff available for Miatas than for Ferraris.
There's a LOT more Timexes than Pateks
There's a LOT more aftermarket stuff for Yamaha R1s than there are for MV Agusta F4s
Just some other observations
<< <i>
<< <i>Macs are superior? Go to the computer store and compare the amount of software written for the PC and those for the MAC. There are more stuff for the PC. Did you ever wonder why the US Navy said that there will be no Macs on Navy bases?? >>
There's a lot more AG Barber Halves than VF ones.
There's a LOT more aftermarket stuff available for Miatas than for Ferraris.
There's a LOT more Timexes than Pateks
There's a LOT more aftermarket stuff for Yamaha R1s than there are for MV Agusta F4s
Just some other observations
And McDonald's sells more hamburgers than everyone else in the world combined.
60 years into this hobby and I'm still working on my Lincoln set!
When I bought a new computer 2 years ago, I was confronted with the choice. I could get a Windows-based laptop for $700 or spend $2500 on a comparable Mac. I have owned a Mac before and found it had issues. I couldn't connect to the wireless network in my house because the signal wasn't strong enough to go the 20 feet across the room. I put up with it for about a year and now regret wasting all that money. I could have bought 3 Windows laptops for the same money.
Unless you are working with graphic arts, I wouldn't invest the money. The Photoshop capabilities are all there for Windows. Nothing magical about the Mac version.
And I find it humorous that all the Mac people I know actually use the PC side of their Mac just as much as the Apple software.
<<OK, now that we have your computer taken care of I'd like to hear about #4 in your list of hole in ones>>
Since it was requested.
The 17th hole is one that requires a pretty straight tee shot if you are going for the green. There is out-of-bounds all the way down the left side with trees fronting the railroad track. Near the green there are a couple of smaller trees, maybe 30 feet tall or so, that are only in play for the far left side of the green or if you have hit a low ball. A high shot works just fine. To the right of the green the ground kind of slopes toward a small pond that catches some balls; you would have to be about twenty to thirty feet right of the green to really worry plus the cart path can give you that extra bounce you don't want too. The green has some smallish mounding along the right side and the back of the green too. The ground slopes severely behind the green to another much larger pond.
The hole-in-one was a perfect shot. Great trajectory, great line. The tee box is slightly elevated and the shot is just slightly downhill. We couldn't see where the shot ended up but we knew it had a great chance to be on the green or over it. Well, when we walked up to the green we saw right away that there was a huge crater where the ball had landed. The ball mark was about eight to ten feet right in front of the hole and the ball was at the bottom of the cup. Just a magical feeling.
I saw a top 10 show on the golf channel and heard that there have only been 2 holes-in-ones on the PGA and Nationwide tours combined. That may be an old piece of information with the new trend of courses having driveable par 4s for the pros. The course I got my hole-in-one on plays to about 6100 yards so it is very short. I have driven seven of the nine par 4s. My ringer score (combined best scores on each hole) come out to 32 under par! That's two holes-in-one and eleven eagles.
1. 7-17-81 Warrenton GC Driver 310 yards 7th Hole (Par 4)
2. 5-22-99 Warrenton GC 6 iron 189 yards 10th Hole
3. 7-23-99 Oak Meadow CC 5 iron 180 yards 17th Hole
4. 9-19-99 Country Lake GC 6 iron 164 yards 15th Hole
5. 8-30-09 Country Lake GC Driver 258 yards 17th Hole (Par 4)
Collector of Barber Halves, Commems, MS64FBL Frankies, Full Step Jeffersons & Mint state Washington Quarters
Oh, and as to the myth that Photoshop runs better on Mac, yeah, it did...in 1997. Nowadays, it actually is better on a PC, since it supports 64-bit operations and graphics card acceleration on the PC side, but not on Mac. Mac is actually playing catch-up in the graphics department nowadays.
<< <i>I don't understand why so many people claim issues with Windows. I keep an antivirus software program running and watch what I download and what emails I open and have not dealt with a virus yet. I do not have Windows crashing on me everyday like some people complain about.
When I bought a new computer 2 years ago, I was confronted with the choice. I could get a Windows-based laptop for $700 or spend $2500 on a comparable Mac. I have owned a Mac before and found it had issues. I couldn't connect to the wireless network in my house because the signal wasn't strong enough to go the 20 feet across the room. I put up with it for about a year and now regret wasting all that money. I could have bought 3 Windows laptops for the same money.
Unless you are working with graphic arts, I wouldn't invest the money. The Photoshop capabilities are all there for Windows. Nothing magical about the Mac version.
And I find it humorous that all the Mac people I know actually use the PC side of their Mac just as much as the Apple software. >>
So many people "claim issues with Windows" because there are so many Windows users. Both operating systems have their share of problems. However, looking at security specifically is a more simple proposition than most people want to admit...
Imagine the following scenario:
Lets say you have a Granny Smith Apple tree (Apple/OS X) and a Valencia Orange tree(Microsoft/Windows). And, for the sake of argument, lets say they both give you the same adequate amount of Vitamin C (they both do the job you need them to). Now lets imagine that Valencia Oranges are hearty, delicious, they thrive just about anywhere.
But, natures way of dealing with overgrowth was to curb the oranges growth with a susceptibility to a very common form of mutating plant disease, one to which most other plants are naturally immune. Now all the Valencia Orange growers are readily aware of this and know that precautions can prevent their crops from getting this disease. Anti-virals and isolation are widely used throughout the industry. Still, the fact remains that some hobbies growers, personal growers and even industrial growers fail to do everything that can be done for prevention and outbreaks through Valencia Oranges do occur with some regularity. Worse yet, occasionally something mutates within the disease giving it a heretofore unknown vector into the Valencia Orange, and these events catch everyone off guard.
Meanwhile, the less hearty and less well spread (though equally loved by its consumers) Granny Smith Apple has no such problem with "natures cure" to overgrowth and as such, even when a specialized disease does effectively attack it - the event goes largely unreported.
This is why using an Apple (OS X) today is safer than using a Windows (XP/Vista) box. Vista did change the playing field, but there are still just as many players, and nature has and will continue to find a ways to effectively take advantage of as many "fruits" as it can with the least amount of effort.
I rediscovered Macs a few years ago after frustration with PC's, their instability and vulnerability to viruses. Today I have both, but spend all my time on an iMac and a MacBook Air. There's no way I'd go back to a PC. Everything works better and more reliably on a Mac.
It's great to have choices. And passions. Pick what you like but I promise...if you move to a Mac you will not go back.
Lance.
I was reading a study a few weeks ago where after adding up all the extras you need to buy for a Windows platform, already built into the Mac as plug and play, and the additional security tools Windows needs, the price disparity between these two ends up being essentially a non issue. This is probably one case where you get what you pay for. Really, would you rather have an iPod or a Zune? I rest my case.
<< <i>If you want a computer that's expensive and incompatible with most software and hardware peripherals on the market, yet is easy to use and pretty, get a mac.
Oh, and as to the myth that Photoshop runs better on Mac, yeah, it did...in 1997. Nowadays, it actually is better on a PC, since it supports 64-bit operations and graphics card acceleration on the PC side, but not on Mac. Mac is actually playing catch-up in the graphics department nowadays. >>
As for 64-bit operations... I'll let you know how I feel about it when I have to edit my first 4 Gigabyte image.
<< <i>Once you go Mac, you never go back!!!!
/
That's what I was going to say. I've gone Mac since 1986.
<< <i>
<< <i>If you want a computer that's expensive and incompatible with most software and hardware peripherals on the market, yet is easy to use and pretty, get a mac.
Oh, and as to the myth that Photoshop runs better on Mac, yeah, it did...in 1997. Nowadays, it actually is better on a PC, since it supports 64-bit operations and graphics card acceleration on the PC side, but not on Mac. Mac is actually playing catch-up in the graphics department nowadays. >>
As for 64-bit operations... I'll let you know how I feel about it when I have to edit my first 4 Gigabyte image. >>
Nice try, but your post has nothing to do with GPU accelleration. OpenGL is completely unrelated. And 64-bit operations offer speed improvements even when working with smaller files. Stick with your Mac, it seems to suit you quite well.
I think a side observation might be Mac people tend to be friendlier and more fun. Dour sour lifestyles and challenging complicated environments are the antithesis of what Mac is all about. To each his own. Have fun. Enjoy!
<< <i>Nice try, but your post has nothing to do with GPU accelleration. OpenGL is completely unrelated. And 64-bit operations offer speed improvements even when working with smaller files. Stick with your Mac, it seems to suit you quite well. >>
Actually OpenGL has everything to do with GPU acceleration as it is using the OpenGL *language* on the GPU to accelerate the following:
(Taken directly from Adobe's Tech Note)
<< <i><<OpenGL/GPU features in Adobe Photoshop CS4 are:
* Smooth Display at ALL Zoom Levels
* Animated Zoom Tool
* Animated Transitions when doing a One Stop Zoom
* Hand Toss Image
* Birdseye View
* Rotate Canvas
* Smooth Display of Non Square Pixel Images
* Pixel Grid
* Move Color Matching to the GPU
* Draw Brush Tip Editing Feedback via GPU
* 3D GPU features include:
o 3D Acceleration
o 3D Axis
o 3D Lights Widget
o Accelerated 3D Interaction via Direct To Screen
GPU features in Bridge CS4 are:
* Preview Panel
* Full-screen preview
* Slideshow
* Review Mode
Supported GPUs and Operating Systems
Mac OS Intel Supported
Windows XP 32 Supported, but Enable OpenGL Drawing is deselected by default
Windows Vista 32 Supported
Windows Vista 64 Supported
Windows XP 64 While Photoshop CS4 may work well on Windows XP 64-bit Edition, we don't officially support it because we didn't thoroughly test it. Because it wasn't fully tested, OpenGL settings are disabled by default on Windows XP 64-bit Edition. If you'd like to enable the OpenGL features, you can run the AllowOldGPUs_ON registry script to force OpenGL features to be turned on, if your display card supports them. However, when you use this registry script, you do so at your own risk. For more information on this plug-in, please see "Crashes occur, Photoshop CS4 won't open, or some features are slow and OpenGL is unavailable" (TechNote kb405064). Note that although we make this registry script available to you, we do not recommend its use, and it is not supported.>> >>
I will grant you however that I'd only need to move to a 900MB file to really see improvements by having CS4 in 64bit...
Via ArsTechnica:
<< <i><<My extreme persona said "Oh, snap!" and then my normal self just slapped him. With a 50 MB image, neither version hits a RAM barrier, and they're basically the same, with the 32-bit Mac version winning by a slim margin. I made sure to leave enough room on the Windows machine for the OS, so it's pretty clear that anyone working on a basic digital camera image isn't going to see any improvement from 64-bit Photoshop. The huge image results are predictably different. >> >>
You can read the benchmark comparison in its entirety here:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2008/10/adobe-cs4-review.ars/5
But you stick with your one little window to the world, it seems to be working for you.
Edited to add: Emacs still sucks.
The virus issue was also always there with a PC, ALL THE TIME no matter how careful I would be. And running anti-virus software in the background definitely slowed things down online every time.
I am a happy user of Mac and baring any radical change I will never go back.
Website-Americana Rare Coin Inc
pick the right tool for the job people. if macs work for you.. so be it.
but do not dis other tools because you do not personally like them.
at this point in time i might as well say run linux as a desktop and save
a bundle on software. there is free software out there that can do 90% of
everything you can pay for to do.
then if you think linux users are weenies and mac users are prima donnas...
run freebsd as a desktop and you can sneer at everyone else as being lame.
:-P
<< <i>this thread is getting ugly.
pick the right tool for the job people. if macs work for you.. so be it.
but do not dis other tools because you do not personally like them.
at this point in time i might as well say run linux as a desktop and save
a bundle on software. there is free software out there that can do 90% of
everything you can pay for to do.
then if you think linux users are weenies and mac users are prima donnas...
run freebsd as a desktop and you can sneer at everyone else as being lame.
:-P >>
Bwhaha
Since I moved out of IS I no longer keep a Fedora desktop installation as a primary machine because I don't need everything that environment offered me. But when I did... I was virtually always running a modified TCP stack and honeypot that made any curious onlookers see my machine as a Windows 2000 server with open vulnerabilities. Always a good time was to go to an airport with a weak configuration in their free wireless network. If the configuration allowed broadcasting inside the subnet I would *without fail* be attacked by someones Windows machine which was infected with bot code or some kind or another. Crappily configured hotel networks were equally as amusing.
Then again you'd find my machine running custom GDM login screens, a bjillion desktop "enhancemnts" and anything else I could find to customize the desktop... All for my little terminal windows into other shell environments and local cli used for postgress and any data crunching I needed to do.
Of course "OS X" is just a heavily modified BSD environment in the end - with most of the Unix user-land tools being directly taken from FreeBSD.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system)
<< <i><<2003 Mac OS X v10.3 BSD layer synchronized with FreeBSD 5, automatic file defragmentation, hot-file clustering, and optional case sensitivity in HFS+, bash instead of tcsh as default shell, read-only NTFS support (Darwin 7.9)>> >>
So even "OS X" users "in-the-know" can sneer
<< <i>
<< <i>this thread is getting ugly.
pick the right tool for the job people. if macs work for you.. so be it.
but do not dis other tools because you do not personally like them.
at this point in time i might as well say run linux as a desktop and save
a bundle on software. there is free software out there that can do 90% of
everything you can pay for to do.
then if you think linux users are weenies and mac users are prima donnas...
run freebsd as a desktop and you can sneer at everyone else as being lame.
:-P >>
Bwhaha
Since I moved out of IS I no longer keep a Fedora desktop installation as a primary machine because I don't need everything that environment offered me. But when I did... I was virtually always running a modified TCP stack and honeypot that made any curious onlookers see my machine as a Windows 2000 server with open vulnerabilities. Always a good time was to go to an airport with a weak configuration in their free wireless network. If the configuration allowed broadcasting inside the subnet I would *without fail* be attacked by someones Windows machine which was infected with bot code or some kind or another. Crappily configured hotel networks were equally as amusing.
Then again you'd find my machine running custom GDM login screens, a bjillion desktop "enhancemnts" and anything else I could find to customize the desktop... All for my little terminal windows into other shell environments and local cli used for postgress and any data crunching I needed to do.
Of course "OS X" is just a heavily modified BSD environment in the end - with most of the Unix user-land tools being directly taken from FreeBSD.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system)
<< <i><<2003 Mac OS X v10.3 BSD layer synchronized with FreeBSD 5, automatic file defragmentation, hot-file clustering, and optional case sensitivity in HFS+, bash instead of tcsh as default shell, read-only NTFS support (Darwin 7.9)>> >>
So even "OS X" users "in-the-know" can sneer
different kernel but i agree many parts came from BSD.
the part i thought apple users could sneer at others at is that apple really did license the unix
name and if you run it on intel processors.. you are using a "real" unix. freebsd cannot make that claim