Thinking of getting a Macbook Pro. . .

Luke284

Luke284

Luke284

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Hi everyone.

I'm thinking of getting a Macbook Pro to replace my Dell Inspiron 6400. I have never used a mac before, other than ipod and my new iphone, but thats not really the same. So I have a few questions:

1) Is networking with windows fully compatible both ways? with different user permissions? and hidden shares i.e //server/share$ (within windows)

2) This time capsule backup. . . does it work? do i have to buy their special device or can i use a USB hard drive plugged into my vista desktop which is shared?

3) Front View. Does this do TV tuner (freeview)? i haven't seen anything. If not are there decent 3rd party apps which will do the TV tuner part. Also can i have the frontview interface displayed on an external monitor via DVI and carry on using the laptops screen?

4) I've heard that there may be some new macbook pros out soon. Roughly how soon? Worth waiting? I'm technically a student until 28th June so could wait until then, i'm in no rush until then really. Although I could always get my sister to buy it for me.

5) I'm very competent on windows so will it be an easy switch to mac osx or is it very different?

6) Anything else i should know? I'll mostly be surfing, email, itunes, msn, and word/excel work.

thanks in advance

Luke
 
Hi Luke,

I'll try and answer a few of your questions :)
1, Networking is the same, within OS X to connect you have to use the format smb://server/share as apple's default is afp
2, You can use your USB shared HDD, may be an issue if it uses NTFS unless you let everyone full permissions
3, Frontrow is great, not sure about a TV tuner directly within but something i will investigate for myself at some point, and yes it works well on my 40inch Sony LCD TV, so a monitor should be fine.
4, Apple tends to release improved machiines generally on spec only, so the processor maybe better, but dont delay no longer, go buy a Mac :)
5, It is quite different and really depends on how you use windows i converted to OS X back in the Panther days and have not looked back. theres loads of Apps either bought or open source via darwinports e.t.c.
6, Surfing, via Safari, Firefox as some sites do not work with safari :( email, Mail, Thunderbird, Entourage (MS Outlook on Mac) theres loads... MSN yep that works too and Office for Mac 2008 has just been released and is compatible with 2007 on windows e.g. docx format. iTunes, in my opinion works better on Mac, and fits in nicely with Frontrow.
Anything else... updates are bigger than windows but generally the security aspect is better due to its BSD underpinnings, you can install OS X on an external firewire drive and boot from that, which i think is a great way to diagnose the OS and also so to run multiple versions of OS X, if you wanted, i could go on but if you have something specific i can probably let you know.

Dodders
http://maccletosh.net
 
OS X

Hi Luke,

I'll try and answer a few of your questions
1, Networking is the same, within OS X to connect you have to use the format smb://server/share as apple's default is afp
2, You can use your USB shared HDD, may be an issue if it uses NTFS unless you let everyone full permissions
3, Frontrow is great, not sure about a TV tuner directly within but something i will investigate for myself at some point, and yes it works well on my 40inch Sony LCD TV, so a monitor should be fine.
4, Apple tends to release improved machiines generally on spec only, so the processor maybe better, but dont delay no longer, go buy a Mac :)
5, It is quite different and really depends on how you use windows i converted to OS X back in the Panther days and have not looked back. theres loads of Apps either bought or open source via darwinports e.t.c.
6, Surfing, via Safari, Firefox as some sites do not work with safari :( email, Mail, Thunderbird, Entourage (MS Outlook on Mac) theres loads... MSN yep that works too and Office for Mac 2008 has just been released and is compatible with 2007 on windows e.g. docx format. iTunes, in my opinion works better on Mac, and fits in nicely with Frontrow.
Anything else... updates are bigger than windows but generally the security aspect is better due to its BSD underpinnings, you can install OS X on an external firewire drive and boot from that, which i think is a great way to diagnose the OS and also so to run multiple versions of OS X, if you wanted, i could go on but if you have something specific i can probably let you know.

Dodders
http://maccletosh.net
 
Thanks for your help. Think I might get one then! I am a little concerned about getting one now though if there is a new one round the corner. Even if it is just a small spec upgrade. Does anyone have any ideas when that might be? I know apple keep things secret until release day! Maybe at the wwdc?

Just to clarifiy does the networking allow for me to set specific user access for certain shares? All my drives are ntfs too, is that a problem?
 
It's only been upgraded fairly recently. If it suits your needs, get it now else you could be putting it off forever.

Dodders, you have one too many lines in your sig :)
 
ok. I might pick one up on Monday from the apple store in London then! Is the 7200rpm drive worth it? Can I get that in store or would I have to order it? Also 4gb of ram worth it? Was going to get some from OcUK and put it in myself!
 
Cheaper to change the HD and RAM yourself definitely. The RAM is definitely user-serviceable, not sure about the HD on an MBP...
 
Don't buy the ram from Apple, I do recommend 4GB but it depends what you will exactly be doing. But in the long term it will be a good upgrade seeing as how cheap ram is these days. I got 4GB for my MacBook for only £50 a few months ago.

You may want to note that when ever I had tried to share a hard drive on Vista, I have never been able to access it in OSX. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but networking between XP and OSX is fine and I have been successful accessing hard drives which I have shred on XP. The only real way I found for networking between vista and OSX is setting up a FTP server on the vista machine and using some FTP software on the OSX machine to download the files you need.

Switching from OSX to Windows can be tricky at first, its the same with any new thing. But after a few days you will get used to it. I'm very happy with OSX, I've now ditched my main machine and I now use my MacBook full time the small screen is not very good for full time use so I connect it to my 22" monitor.

Some of the apps you might want to use....

Adium which you can use for things like MSN and many other IM protocols. The skinning and modifications which can be done to Adium are the best I've seen on any OS. Adium is always my choice on OSX.

For an office suite I really recommend iWork 08, I've used office 2008 many times and it is very slow. Where as iWork is a great alternative as I've found out in the pat few days. Keynote is way better than powerpoint when it comes to animations, Numbers also seems a lot better than Excel when it comes to creating professional spreadsheets and finally Pages is just like any other word processor but it comes with a lot of templates.

For email you can use Apple Mail, its a great client. I use it with my Gmail account I find it great plus you can use it for RSS feeds too :). And well iTunes is a lot better on OSX than it is on Windows, way faster.

If there are any other apps you use, you may want to search the forums or use google to find alternatives. For a browser I've switched to Safari, I did use Firefox but it looks like a ported app and not a OSX app. Plus the major addon in firefox called AdBlock Plus has actually been ported for Safari, if you have not used it before I really recommend you check it out. It block every unwanted add on nearly all websites, browsing with out it is horrible.

Hope my post helped...
 
1337z0r said:
You may want to note that when ever I had tried to share a hard drive on Vista, I have never been able to access it in OSX. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but networking between XP and OSX is fine and I have been successful accessing hard drives which I have shred on XP. The only real way I found for networking between vista and OSX is setting up a FTP server on the vista machine and using some FTP software on the OSX machine to download the files you need.
Click to expand...

You've pressed Apple+K and connected to a share in the format smb://computer/share? Works fine for me on Vista, browsing mine as we speak...
 
Thanks for the advice. Almost certain I will get one but still unsure of when. I'm not in any real rush to get one, other than the fact its a new toy. Will deff get the 4gb and add it myself. I don't think the hard drive is user replacable so I should prob get the 7200rpm one. I assume the faster drive makes a big difference? No need for the large capacity as I have Tbs of space on my desktop.

Edit: is iWork compatible with office files? Even docx?
 
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Thanks. One other thing. Sorry for all the questions.

I use RDP a lot to control vista computers. I've found that there is a mac version of RDP that microsoft have produced which I think is still beta. Does anyone have any experience with this?
 
Seraph said:
I bought an Imac, then a macbook, and then back to the Imac!

I found the macbook screen just to small.
Click to expand...

Thats my only gripe about the MacBook, its a great little laptop and lovely to use around the house. But the screen is too small to do all my work on, thats why I use it on a 22" external monitor. But for web browsing and things the screen is still pretty good.
 
Ive opened quite a few docx documents with Office 2008 and xlsx and works fine for me.
Ive used MS's RDC client for a while as its just had another release this last month or so. Overall its ok, the keyboard has frozen a few times on it, but other than that its ok. there is another app called CORD which is quite good and map's the windows keyboard, so if your used to it then its there, failing that you can install rdesktop (which is a Linux port) which uses X11 and works very well.
As for RAM get as much as you can, but dont buy from apple, too expensive as for HDD speed, if your using the disk extensively then go for 7200, otherwise my 5400 one works well.

P.s. thanks gumbald, sig sorted
 
well.... I'm now a proud owner of a MBP!!!! still trying to find my way around it... sure it wont take me too long.
 
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