Another thread with questions from a possible convert!

Pyridine

Hey

I have always been curious about the whole apple mac thing and have decided that now might be the right time to take the plunge!

I have a few niggling doubts though!

1) If I were to go I would get a refurbished Macbook pro from the apple site but am a little uneasy at the prices relative to specs ie this relative to this one. It appears that the specs are identical except the cheaper of the 2 has a larger hard drive. In your experience is this indicative of the condition of the actual laptop, that there is some "extra" software on the more expensive or am I missing something?

2) I will soon be writing my thesis and as a Windows head with limited Ubuntu experience (I have a dual boot machine but generally use Windows!) I was wondering are the apple word processing programmes, eg Pages, much different to MS office in layout?

3) I don't know if their are any apple chemists out there but aside from chemdraw as it's too expensive and I can't really get my hands on a copy are there any freeware chemical drawing programmes like chemsketch and if so are they compatible with Pages or would I need to get MS office? (I know about openoffice but am again unsure about compatibility with chemical drawing programmes!)

Anyway that's all I can think of for the moment!!

I apologise for this being another "I'm thinking about getting a Mac but have lots of questions before I buy thread" which are so prevalent on this forum of late.

Thanks,
Pyridine

J-blk

Pyridine wrote: »

1) It appears that the specs are identical except the cheaper of the 2 has a larger hard drive. In your experience is this indicative of the condition of the actual laptop, that there is some "extra" software on the more expensive or am I missing something?

Apple's refurb store prices can be weird like that... I'd recommend a refurb though, that's what I did with my MBP. My guess is that model with the 200GB HDD is using a 7200RPM model while the 250GB one is a standard 5200RPM - the specs don't really seem to confirm that though...

Pyridine wrote: »

2) I will soon be writing my thesis and as a Windows head with limited Ubuntu experience (I have a dual boot machine but generally use Windows!) I was wondering are the apple word processing programmes, eg Pages, much different to MS office in layout?

You could always get Office 2008 for the Mac and there would be no need to learn something new. I like iWork '08 and it's what I use, for the most part it's pretty similar, at least for the basics but more advanced functions are more likely to differ.

Pyridine

Yeah I was reading the reviews of MS Office 2008 on the apple website and they all said it was crap though!!

Also I have been reading through some of the threads on here and am a little concerned about the Nvidia graphics card issue. Would I be right in thinking that it only becomes a problem when using very graphics intensive applications? Although not a big gamer I dabble sometimes (I know macs aren't really games machines) so do ye think this could be an issue?

J-blk

Pyridine wrote: »

Yeah I was reading the reviews of MS Office 2008 on the apple website and they all said it was crap though!!

Remember that most people who bother reviewing anything on the Apple site are the ones that have problems and want to moan about them... I've used Office 2008, it's not bad - I have no experience with 2004 or previous versions on the Mac... However, it is pretty overpriced IMO, so if you can get your work done with iWork '08, then it might be a better option for you. You can download a full 30 day trial to give it a spin anyway...

Pyridine wrote: »

Also I have been reading through some of the threads on here and am a little concerned about the Nvidia graphics card issue. Would I be right in thinking that it only becomes a problem when using very graphics intensive applications?

Apple has made no comment on the issue and nobody is really sure if it affects MBPs or not. Even if this issue didn't exist, if you want to get a few years out of the MBP, you might want to get an Applecare package anyway (though getting these off eBay is way cheaper than getting them from Apple - same for RAM...)

Pyridine wrote: »

Although not a big gamer I dabble sometimes (I know macs aren't really games machines) so do ye think this could be an issue?

Macs are much better for gaming than you may think... And you could always just install Windows for gaming too:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055350354

babypink

i use Word '08 every day. Typically I work on documents 200 pages + without hassles at all.

Buy the student version of Office '08 from www.software4students.ie for €71.95....bargain! oh and keep current with the updates.

refurbs are simply machines that have been returned DOA, fixed - tested and re-sold. Part of me would actually feel a little safer buying a refurb in that it has been extensively tested and sorted by an engineer rather than simply rolling off an assembly line and subject to the normal manufacturing test.

Passenger

J-blk wrote: »

Remember that most people who bother reviewing anything on the Apple site are the ones that have problems and want to moan about them...

Aye, take apple.com customer reviews with a dollop of salt.

J-blk

babypink wrote: »

Buy the student version of Office '08 from www.software4students.ie for €71.95....

Very nice! Didn't know about that site at all. That makes Office very affordable though I already got iWork '08 from the US. I'm in an evening course in DIT so my student card has me marked down as "part-time undergraduate" - anyone know if I'd qualify for the standard student discounts?

Pyridine

anyone know if I'd qualify for the standard student discounts?

I'd say it will but in any case if you buy something from the apple website from a university ip they won't come checking.

So I took the plunge and went for the cheaper of the 2. I think you were right J-blk about the difference being in hard drive speed as it's listed as 5400rpm on the receipt. Won't notice it anyway!

Thanks for all the advice and I will get Parellels to run windows with some of the chem drawing programmes and see how it goes!

J-blk

Enjoy your new Mac - I'm sure you'll love it and over time, you'll probably find yourself using Windows a lot less. Virtualization software is the way to go if you need to run some Windows applications - there's Parallels which you mentioned and there's VMWare Fusion. Both are priced similarly and have almost the same functionality - personally, I went for Fusion but Parallels is very popular too.

Pyridine

So it arrived 2 days ago and I have been playing with it since! I think I might need to read the manual though...I'm used to right clicking!! The extra RAM arrived from crucial also. Was a little nervous cracking it open so soon after buying it but all went well!! Thanks for all the replies!

Anyway just a few more questions if ye don't mind:
1) I got Parellels and am just wondering do I need to partition the hard drive when installing windows, ie. have OS on a different partition to windows or does the software do this anyway? I have read a bit of the manual and partitioning would need a re-installation of MAC OS.

2) Do you think will I need virus software for the windows installation? I don't intend using windows on the internet, it's more just to use some programmes I need.

3) Applecare on ebay is so much cheaper than on the apple website. How do they manage this as is it not an extended warrenty from apple themselves? Surely they only sell it at the one price? Also are there any recommended sellers as I don't want to fork out for something I can get much cheaper elsewhere?

Thanks again,
Pyridine.

J-blk

Pyridine wrote: »

I'm used to right clicking!!

You can right click on the MacBook... Open System Preferences, go to Keyboard & Mouse, click on the Trackpad tab and near the bottom you'll see the option "Tap trackpad using two fingers for secondary click". Check it and you'll be able to right click by simply putting two fingers on the trackpad and clicking (or if you check "Clicking" under gestures, you can tap the trackpad with one finger for a left click, tap with two for a right click - that's my preferred setup).

Pyridine wrote: »

1) I got Parellels and am just wondering do I need to partition the hard drive when installing windows, ie. have OS on a different partition to windows or does the software do this anyway? I have read a bit of the manual and partitioning would need a re-installation of MAC OS.

Don't partition anything! Parallels will do everything for you and it does not partition the drive - it simply creates the virtual image as a large file on your hard drive and this contains the Windows "partition". Just fire up Parallels and follow the various on-screen instructions - it's really simple.

Pyridine wrote: »

2) Do you think will I need virus software for the windows installation? I don't intend using windows on the internet, it's more just to use some programmes I need.

Though you won't need it much, you might as well install something, so that you don't end up infecting other Windows machines that you may transfer files to. I like AVG Free:

http://free.avg.com/ww.download-avg-anti-virus-free-edition

Pyridine

Cheers for all the advice lads. Hopefully with tinkering around I'll get to know things a little better and be able to contribute to the forum instead of the constant questions!!!

Pyridine.

Red Alert

I'd second the virtualization vs. dual boot argument too - I once dual-booted a Dell laptop, and thought about dual-booting my Macbook Pro. But for almost anything you'd need Windows for (including Visual Studio, which can be heavy on memory) I've never had any hassle with Parallels.