Before I take the Mac leap (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

Daryl,

I am a bit disappointed that things didn't work out in favor of
a Macbook. Really, OSX is so much better than Windows.

On the other hand, I whole-heartedly understand your situation
and I hope that you find the perfect laptop that meets your needs.

Keep us updated on whatever you purchase.

 

[Daryl L]

Well Ronald, I still haven't ruled macs out yet.

 

[Mike Heenan]

The thing that is nice is that if Mac does announce the latest line of upgrades to Macbooks and Macbook pros at WWDC, then the current prices for new and refurbished should drop a bit, making them a little more affordable.

 

[Andrew Pratt]

The rumour has it that the new intel CPU's will get released at WWDC so you should see some good savings in the 'older' style shortly before or after June so your timing is great.

 

[Daryl L]

How difficult is it to put and run WinXP on a macbook to run software with no mac alternative? I know nothing about partitions. Is it difficult to wipe all traces of XP off when/if not needed later? I've seen mention of Bootcamp, Parallel and VMWare fusion. I've tried VMWare Player once to try KDE and Unbuntu.

Also, is this graphic chip any good (Intel GMA 950 graphics processor with 64MB of DDR2 SDRAM shared with main memory)? Thats the only graphic option on the macbooks and now it's the only option on the R60e Thinkpad (before yesterday the R60e had two ATI cards as an option). I'm not crazy about integrated graphic w/ shared memory. :frowning:

 

[Steve Tannehill]

BootCamp takes you through the partitioning step. BootCamp also has a de-installer which will re-allocate the partition back to Mac OS use. However, once I did this, I was unable to re-install Windows using BootCamp without reformatting the hard drive and transferring apps. Moral: once you decide to stop using Boot Camp, think twice about using it again. Works great the first time, though.

The Virtual Machine under Parallels is simply hard disk space. Removal has no issues.

Unless the app has some hardware-specific requirements (like heavy graphics/games, or specialty USB drivers) you can probably use Parallels in place of Boot Camp. The advantage here is that Parallels runs while in Mac OS. Boot Camp requires a reboot.

- Steve

 

[Oren]

It's not very difficult. I haven't actually done it (I don't have an Intel Mac...yet), but as I understand it the Boot Camp installer does everything for you: it partitions your drive and sets up the mac to boot one or the other partition, which you can also select when you boot. Windows is not included, I don't think, so you would need to install that.

Both Parallels and VMware make virtualization products. Parallels is out now, and VMware is in beta, though VMware is the virtualization leader and has very robust and mature products for x86 (PCs).

You would get about 90% of max performance when in a virtual environment. So, for a high performance game you would want to boot into the boot camp partition and get max peformance.

3D virtuatlization support is still in development, so for 3D games you would also want to boot into the boot camp partition. Though apparently there is a video on youtube that shows VMware being used to play a 3D game....

The integrated graphics are fine for anything 2D, including video, and basic 3D. You would not want to use integrated graphics for high performance 3D.

The integrated graphics that are part of Intel's new Santa Rosa chipset (released last week) are much better at 3D, but still not as good as dedicated graphics.

Daryl, I've read your recent comments about the Thinkpad with interest - I hope you 'll post the details on the Mac and Thinkpad you're considering before making the purchase. Generally speaking, PCs go lower end, so you can spend less and get less in the PC world. Macs don't go that low, but they include a lot of things you don't get with PCs (integrated camera, Firewire 800, backlit keyboards (Pro), motion sensor, ambient light sensor, magsafe power cord, scrolling trackpad (just use two fingers), etc.)

 

[Daryl L]

Thx guys. Actually my graphics card inquiry isn't in interest to video gaming. I never play games. I was born in 1961 (age 46 now) and grew up playing pool/foosball/pinball and I never really took to video arcade games (except space invaders) and broke my neck in 1987 at age 25 so you can guess I missed the home video gaming fad. LOL, think of trying to play any video game without using your hand, just with a long pencil your holding in your mouth. One key press at a time only. Just picture a chicken pecking feed off the ground and you'll have a picture of what I look like when typing hehe. I just usually prefer not sharing memory for graphics (video) with ram if possible. And since trackpads respond only to conductivity the rubber tip on my typing stick/mouthwand wont operate a trackpad.

I have the WinXP Home + SP1 cd-rom that came with my current Dell laptop. Just not sure wether VMware or Bootcamp would be the simplest/neates/cleanest option. Since Bootcamp is cheaper than Parallel that would make Parallel my last choice of the three, but you never know. I have URC and Harmony programable remotes. I know Harmony has software for OS X (already downloaded it incase) but not sure of URC (gotta check). And VobBlanker and DVDRemakePro I doubt I can do without (no OS X versions).

 

[Steve Tannehill]

The Dell OEM Windows pack will most likely only install on a Dell.

Also, BootCamp requires SP2. However, it is not that difficult to create a SP2 installer disc... well, it took some work for me, since I started with Windows 98 from an eMachine, Windows XP Upgrade (official disc from Microsoft), and the SP2 upgrade.

Just not sure if that will work with the Dell installer...

- Steve

 

[Daryl L]

Well that sux. I figured since WinXP+SP1 was the only thing on the disc and me having an SP2 cd (free from MS mailorder) that it would work. :frowning:

Things have changed it appears on the computer configs. Now that the thinkpad R60e config options have thinned to minimums my choice changed to a T60 model bumping the price from te R60e's $1184 to the T60's $1341 and with the Macbook upgrades it bumped the middle priced model from $1449 to $1474 (I only changed ram on the macbook before and after todays upgrades).

I'm gonna be hurting if I can't run some apps on mac that I use now. Maybe I can port linux's Wine to OS X, LOL.

 

[Daryl L]

Since I don't have an original WinXP disc do you think Parallels Transporter Here and Here will work if I get Parallels? I'm all over the web researching mac operations, tips and apps incase I do go mac.

 

[Daryl L]

Ronald,

I'm a long time registered user of DVDProfiler. Did you ever make of final decision on which dvd cataloging app you were going to stick with? I've been doing alot of reading about using mac's the last few days and think I'm pretty much settled on getting a macbook, just waiting on WWDC. I'm going around reading all I can and downloading mac version of apps I want to use on it (vlc, firefox, thundebird, keepassX among a few) to make my transfer easier. I use the win version of those so profiles, databases and such should transition fairly easy.

 

[Michael_K_Sr]

Considering that the MacBooks were refreshed just this past week, I'd have to say there is about a zero percent chance of seeing them updated at WWDC.

 

[Andrew Pratt]

That would be Darwine

 

[Ted Todorov]

I'm not Ron, but he is using DVDPedia (as am I, though in my case I migrated from ReaderWare, not DVDProfiler).

As was pointed out, the MacBooks were just updated, so further enhancements at WWDC seem wildly unlikely. Of course everyone is expecting MacBookPro updates at or before WWDC.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Thanks, Ted. Yes, DVDPedia is what I am using.

It is a really good DVD catalog program and what's nice is that
it will import your entire library from DVD Profiler as long as it
is not the new version.

Be aware that DVDPedia is a step down from DVD Profiler.
It doesn't have as slick an interface, it doesn't cross-reference as
well as Profiler, and it doesn't handle boxed sets (though it imports
them quite well from Profiler).

On the PLUS side, the advantage of DVDPedia is that it is
not maintained by fellow users. Many times, if someone did not own
the same DVD I was entering, PROFILER would not find it. With
DVDPedia, it searches AMAZON and other sites based on
barcode input so I have yet to enter a title that wasn't found. Plus,
descriptions aren't altered by members who update the database.

Really, if there is anything left from Windows that I actually miss
it would be DVDProfiler. That was one great DVD catalog program.

Good luck with your Mac purchase. You'll never regret leaving Windows!

 

[Daryl L]

Thx, I looked at that and the instructions so far are over my head considering I've never used a mac. Plus the app compatability list seem not to include my fav apps (mentioned above).

 

[Andrew Pratt]

I looked at Darwine when I was switching over to the Mac a few months ago but soon realized it didn't offer a solution for the app's I thought I'd want so haven't looked at it since. I installed Windows XP Pro via Bootcamp and Parallels but honestly don't boot into it unless I need to edit my Pronto file.

I used DVDShrink a lot to back up my kids movies but have switched to Mactheripper and Toast and haven't found it to be any different at the end of the day. Toast is a fantastic tool and should replace imgburn with ease. What were you using Irfanview for specifically?

 

[Daryl L]

For viewing, cropping, resizing, batch resizing, renaming, batch renaming, saving screencaps among other little things. It's and awesome small, fast, light app. CocoViewX looks somewhat similar, just not as feature rich as Irfanview.

 

[Daryl L]

So far a mac is still top on my list of a computer. Still doing my research daily on how to use OS X. Learned a lot. There's a lot of clips on youtube how to do things on OS X (can't beat visual demonstrations). Thought I'd share this clip with you.



Particularly the last half about using Appdelete (very similar to Appzapper). I found the end pretty funny.
Found real good instructional vids at livingwithmac.com (click learn to mac on the left).