PC vs Mac

Hugh_C

challengemaster wrote: »

It's entirely possible

I see, ISTR reading though that it gets broken with each software update ...

Doesn't apply to me, I've been using Macs for a very long time.

HC

gutta

5uspect wrote: »

Macs are just expensive toys.

yer taste in operating systems is nearly as bad as ur photography

:P

davmigil

Running Windows on an intel Mac, no problem using Bootcamp.

Running OSX on a PC - really only for geeks to play around with. I'm not mocking, by all means do it for the craic, but I wouldn't be depending on it as your main viable system.

5uspect

gutta wrote: »

yer taste in operating systems is nearly as bad as ur photography

:P

sob sob /runs away and cries in the corner.

I don't need an expensive PC
I don't need an expensive PC
I don't need an expensive PC
I don't need an expensive PC
I don't need an expensive PC

mloc

Again, it's up to personal preference I think.

I use both, recently ordered a new Macbook Pro, but I'm not "swapping over" as such as much as it suited my needs better. I still use a PC desktop, a very nice one too.

I will say however, that as far as I can see, there seems to be a much greater proportion of professional photographers using Macs than the general computer using population. E.g. while x% of computer users use Macs, y% of Pro photographers use them, where y is much bigger than x.

rasmasyean

Kbeg3 wrote: »

I'm looking to upgrade my PC

I'm looking at the iMac

I'm not sure whether to stay with Pc or change to Mac
I know all the pro's use Macs

I will be mainly using it for photo editing in Photoshop

Any opinions?

Thanks

Adobe Photoshop® Extended and Acrobat® Pro natively support 64-bit editions of Windows Vista. Adobe Premiere® Pro, After Effects®, Soundbooth®, Encore®, and Adobe OnLocation™ are certified on 64-bit Windows Vista.
http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/mastercollection/systemreqs/

Adobe CS4 is 64-bit only on Vista. OSX have to wait for CS5 or something like that when they catch up.
http://www.betanews.com/article/Adobe_CS4_will_be_64bit_but_only_on_Windows/1207258861

To put things in perspective, this is what 64-bit does...

What are the advantages of 64-bit computing?
In early testing of 64-bit support in Photoshop for Windows®, overall performance gains ranged from 8% to 12%. Those who work with extremely large files may realize noticeably greater gains in performance, in some cases as dramatic as ten times the previous speed. This is because 64-bit applications can address larger amounts of memory and thus result in less file swapping — one of the biggest factors that can affect data processing speed.
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/photoshop/faq/?promoid=DRHXB

Of course to take advantage of this, you have to go 64-bit. But there are also other advantages in this avenue that OSX can't match...unless you are interacting with a lot of Mac users in your job.

If this is any indication that 64-bit is the wave of the future and 32-bit will be “obsolete”…

There appears to be a shift taking place in the PC industry: the move from 32-bit to 64-bit PCs.
We've been tracking the change by looking at the percentage of 64-bit PCs connecting to Windows Update, and have seen a dramatic increase in recent months. The installed base of 64-bit Windows Vista PCs, as a percentage of all Windows Vista systems, has more than tripled in the U.S. in the last three months, while worldwide adoption has more than doubled during the same period. Another view shows that 20% of new Windows Vista PCs in the U.S. connecting to Windows Update in June were 64-bit PCs, up from just 3% in March. Put more simply, usage of 64-bit Windows Vista is growing much more rapidly than 32-bit. Based on current trends, this growth will accelerate as the retail channel shifts to supplying a rapidly increasing assortment of 64-bit desktops and laptops… PC Accelerators built into Windows Vista, such as Windows SuperFetch, improve performance by keeping commonly used programs in memory, even when the program is closed. More memory capacity on 64-bit PCs allows SuperFetch to do its job more efficiently.
http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2008/07/30/windows-vista-64-bit-today.aspx

Understanding how SuperFetch uses RAM to enhance system performance…
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/window-on-windows/?p=735

Windows Vista - SuperFetch & ReadyBoost
http://blogs.technet.com/askperf/archive/2007/03/29/windows-vista-superfetch-readyboost.aspx

Considering this, SuperFetch is probably the most significant feature that distinguishes Vista from all other OS's for users of all walks. Many other features won't be noticeable or even used by the common person (that is until commercial developers start using WPF/WFC etc., and even more DX10). So why not take advantage of it since RAM is so cheap?

rasmasyean

wasper wrote: »

Macs are more expensive, but nearly zero trouble shooting time wasted.
The OS X is far superior than Vista or XP.
Make the jump.
Some people will come here & say but not all s/w is available. Well name a major s/w that you will be needing that is not available on the Mac.

It's true that if you are a "computer idiot", you might be better off with a Mac in many cases.

OSX is superior in "human factor design". However, OSX is horrible for power users and most business users.

Adobe 64-bit is not available on the Mac.

Microsoft Office is available but nerfed on the Mac. Just google Mac Office 2008 for criticisms. Or just go to Wikipedia and look at the features. Mac's don't have the technology for an "equivalent" WinOffice to be developed...at least not on an economic time scale, so they have to release a half-baked one.

There is no Microsoft Outlook, and other Office items. Though the Outlook can be substituded by another organization software, albeit inferior by industry standards.

rasmasyean

challengemaster wrote: »

You're not really taking into account that Vista is the biggest pile of ****e to come out since Windows ME. Also have you got a source for these claims? Benchmark results?

Don't listen to the media hype. I've read about all that Vista bashing. Then I tried it myself, and looked up the REAL situation. I found it all to be just bogus venting by Microsoft haters. It's really stupid what you can find on the internet sometimes. People just don't think and just follow the crowd.

Just look a the statistics.

Windows Vista Market Statistics
OK here’s some rough calculations:
18.33% of internet users are Vista
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=11
1.46 billion internet users
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
Assuming the usage rate is consistent around the world…
1.46 billion * 18.33% = 268 million Vista internet users
The actually user base would be significantly less than the above number only if for some reason, Vista users surf the internet WAY MORE than all other OS's to skew the percentage up to 18.33%. It’s probably more likely that that some Vista users don’t use the internet much because it’s for work mostly. Hence there is likely more than 268 million Vista users.
Hitslink logs statistics in the “rich” (and more regulated) demographics. Here Vista adoption is probably held back a little by expense. So that could mean that Vista adoption in other “poorer” (Gov’t don’t give a crap) nations is much greater than 18.33% since you can like buy it at the local fruit shop for like $1, etc.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_sof_pir_rat-crime-software-piracy-rate
So, if you include ALL of Asia? 500 million Vista users???
Also, check this out...
Vista - a $6 Billion Dollars Operating System
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Vista-a-6-Billion-Dollars-Operating-System-44096.shtml
I don't really know what the markup of it is but for simplicity let's assume that they make $100 off each license on average (which is a conservative estimate wouldn't you say?).
If my math is correct, that's $18 billion dollars as of the last public claim of 180 million copies sold.
Microsoft: 180 million Vista licenses now sold
http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2008/07/18/three-months-later-180-million-vista-licenses-sold-in-total
If my math is correct again...that's TRIPLE the initial costs!
Of course they likely spent a little more after-market like for Jerry Seinfeld and stuff like that but I don't think it’s anywhere near $12 billion dollars.

A Gartner research report predicted that Vista business adoption in 2008 will actually will beat that of XP during the same time frame (21.3% vs. 16.9%) while IDC had indicated that the launch of Windows Server 2008 served as a catalyst for the stronger adoption rates.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista

heresjonny30

look carefully at mac osx and then at vista, anything familiar. MS are actually trying to emulate alot of the osx stuff. This is likely to provide a familiar feel to both user groups.

I am in the media industry and our picture desk are using pcs now. It took them a while to deal with the change but they are coming around to the it and the only complaint now seems to be the shortcuts. but this can be overcome with a shortcut emulator.

I champion the PC. Value for money leans toward the PC. If you want to look good in starbucks go for the mac.

It is a personal choice though.

Hugh_C

heresjonny30 wrote: »

personal choice

quite.


Rasmy above seems pretty keen on PC/whatever/poweruser. OSX has pretty much never let me down yet and I've been pushing Macs hard since the year dot. Whatever.

I get my job done, Rasmy gets hers done, it's a question of choice, not a question of who's got a bigger bus.

Life is good and too short to argue the toss over OSs, pc architecture and the like.

Personal choice is paramount

mloc

Again, I gotta say, every professional (and I mean that in the "thing that is main source of income" way) graphic designer and photographer I know (and there's a few) use, predominantly, Macs.

PCs are probably more versatile, and have a much wider user base, but for photography, Mac's are an industry standard.

melekalikimaka

mloc wrote: »

Again, I gotta say, every professional (and I mean that in the "thing that is main source of income" way) graphic designer and photographer I know (and there's a few) use, predominantly, Macs.

PCs are probably more versatile, and have a much wider user base, but for photography, Mac's are an industry standard.

just because they are standard by no means...means that thay are better...

rasmasyean

mloc wrote: »

Again, I gotta say, every professional (and I mean that in the "thing that is main source of income" way) graphic designer and photographer I know (and there's a few) use, predominantly, Macs.

PCs are probably more versatile, and have a much wider user base, but for photography, Mac's are an industry standard.

Adobe started out as Mac only back in the hay-days since the original Mac’s graphics and UI was much better than like DOS/Windows 3.x or something. And it abstracted things like computer geek stuff hence making it a lot easier for lay users like emotion workers who aren’t as good with “logic” if you can think of it that way. So since you didn’t have to type things like “C:>\DIR \FILES –R +OL @a”;…whatever. And even like: delete a icon and all the files in the hidden directory to remove something.

Of course over time it’s been grounded into the Arts industry as part of the niche market of Macs. And even throughout Adobe worked a little better on Macs because they put more effort into debugging it etc, because that’s where all the money is…not to mention that most “PC Users” pirated Adobe stuff as one of the top stolen softwares of all time! Rofl!

But recently, Adobe CS4 is 64-bit for Vista only. So that gives a lot of performance advantage for hardcore shops. Will some of them buy Vista machines to run this? I suppose it depends on the budget and how much money they save for their jobs.

One other thing that might come into consideration is that Vista is touch screen capable. Windows 7 is multi-touch screen capable. Now will this have any effect? I suppose only time will tell.

MooseJam

Mac mice have only one button so as not to confuse the less technologically aware users of said platform, PC mice have two buttons, if you think that would confuse you you should go with the mac

Paddy@CIRL

MooseJam wrote: »

Mac mice have only one button so as not to confuse the less technologically aware users of said platform, PC mice have two buttons, if you think that would confuse you you should go with the mac

Er, What ?

The current Mighty Mouse has three buttons, well I suppose four ...

And as far as, to paraphrase an above poster, that industry standard doesn't necessarily mean that they're better. Well IMO it does mean that, it shows that they have been tried and tested and are still chosen above their Windows equivalents.

Before anyone else calls me a fanboy, I use both OS X and Windows on a daily basis.

rasmasyean

MooseJam wrote: »

Mac mice have only one button so as not to confuse the less technologically aware users of said platform, PC mice have two buttons, if you think that would confuse you you should go with the mac

So you would think...but...
Mac mice DO have a "right mouse button"!
This is what you do. Ready? Grab a pen and have a seat.

1) Hold your mouse with index finger to the left of little rolley ball (most ppl already hold it like this).
2) Lift up the index finger off the mouse.
3) Press the mouse downward with your palm until it clicks.
4) You will notice a context menu pop up and now you can put your index finger back on the mouse.
5) If you were left handed...substitute index finger with ring finger and expect more carpel tunnel.

You see, in order to preserve the Mac aesthetic appeal of a smooth shiny mouse that resembles one of the finest soap bars from Bath & Body Works, Apple has included a sub-surface touch sensor strategically placed beneath the mouse surface. This state of the art technology is so advanced that barely anyone knows that it exists! ...including the overwhelming majority of Mac users! And this can be yours for only $50 more than its ugly competitors!*

* Price of $50 extra only applies to standard "noob" mouse and may be subject to change.

MooseJam

lol crazy mac men, though the mac is quite beautiful so maybe we shouldn't complai

Valentia

What I love about the Mac crowd is their balls. They give you 2 Gig of memory with an 8 core processor (Mac Pro desktop). 2 Gig!! Then they factor in an extra €450 if you want to add and extra 2 Gig.

I've said this before but I will not allow them to screw me much and all as I would live to use osx (or whatever it is called now).

I think the Mac has moved even further into status symbol land unfortunately. Why can't they charge a fair price for their hardware or sell an OS that can be used on ant Intel based system?

thedarkroom

This is like the Canon versus Nikon debate. It's getting ridiculous and is turning into a slanging match because people cannot provide justifiable arguments. The fact of the matter is that both PC's and Macs all do the job they are supposed to do and that eventually people will buy and use the machine that they will be happiest with provided it can do the job required.
I've watched this debate for years now and always find it fascinating how people will resort to personal jibes when the argument runs dry. What's the big deal if someone has a preference to one or the other, there's no threat world peace or stability, no one's going to die here because of it. Get over it and make a rational recommendation based on merit and experience with the machine itself, not on some half baked ill-conceived perceptions of the individuals at the keyboard.

On another issue, get voting at http://www.goldenspiders.ie/publicvoting.php
I think boards.ie deserves it.

Heinrich

One of the reasons why I got rid of my iMac was that I use a PC with two screens. That is the ideal when using Photoshop, Illustrator and XPress/InDesign.

It is also good for video editing to be able to have a preview screen in full size. Now you can use four screens as does my music mixing friend. Great to have a really big and wide timeline.

As said befor, macs are big boys toys. I had macs since the classic and finally dropped the idea. PC can be custom built and if you are putting in the same cash as you would pay for a big G5 with a good sized screen and all the bells and whistles you will get a mighty PC.

Apples and pears...

Valentia

thedarkroom wrote: »

there's no threat world peace or stability, no one's going to die here because of it. Get over it and make a rational recommendation based on merit and experience with the machine itself, not on some half baked ill-conceived perceptions of the individuals at the keyboard..

Huh??! Talk about losing the run of yourself. World peace or stability.

People putting image over substance couldn't be more relevant in the present economic climate in my very humble opinion. I'd love to know how many Lehman employees had to leave their glossy MacBooks behind them as they crawled down Manhattan with their tail between their legs.

Is it really a personal attack to say that many MacBook owners see their machines as fashion accessories?

mehfesto2

I just want to say, I've only started to use Macs in college this year and I love them. I've worked with PCs for years, but Macs are fantastic pieces of equipment.

I much prefer photo editing on the Macs in college rather than the PCs. Maybe it's just the stunning quality of the color and lack of glare on the monitors, or the way everything is laid out in a way I prefer, -maybe I just like the mouse , but regardless, if I had the money I'd buy the Mac.

It's a personal thing as people are saying, but weigh up the pros and the cons of both and you should know what you really want!

Fionn

Kbeg3 wrote: »

I will be mainly using it for photo editing in Photoshop

screen looks grand ok on the iMac i like the 24" one!!
I've seen some comment that the 20" model was downgraded to a TN panel which aint great - not sure what the 24" one is, I'm not keen on the glossy screen either
the resolution might be slightly limiting for exact editing work for some people
* 20-inch models: 1680 by 1050 pixels
* 24-inch model: 1920 by 1200 pixels
not a bad upgrade tho!!
Course you could get an Intel box with a good bit of RAM and Graphics card and a nice big 2560 by 1600 pixels panel and you'd be away wiht it.

Really, one can be a crap editor on both a Mac or a PC!!!

Diarmuid

challengemaster wrote: »

There's no viruses because virus coders couldn't be arsed writing viruses for mac. There's simply no point. Widnows is the majority in the world, so why waste time coding viruses to target minorities. You code a virus for mac, it effects a few personal owners, maybe 1 or 2 editing companies. You code for windows, it effects probably 70% of people with a pc, most companies, etc etc. You're right, there are no viruses, but its not because Mac OSX is a magical thing.

Sorry but this doesn't stand up to analysis :

1. If there are no viruses in the wild for OSX can't you see the infamy of writing the first successful one?
2. If you write a PC virus you are effectively competing against 100's of other viruses for 80% of the market, if you write a successful OSX virus you have 100% of the 20% PC market segment, which is more "lucrative"?
3. There have been loads of challenges (with $25k awards to the successful writer) to hackers to write a successful virus or malware for OSX, none have been successful

The reason there are no viruses for OSX is that it was engineered with security in mind unlike windows which has been build upon the same dodgy foundations since Win95 (and prior)

Diarmuid

Valentia wrote: »

I think the Mac has moved even further into status symbol land unfortunately. Why can't they charge a fair price for their hardware or sell an OS that can be used on ant Intel based system?

Woudn't want to burst your bubble.

5uspect

There have been loads of challenges (with $25k awards to the successful writer) to hackers to write a successful virus or malware for OSX, none have been successful

Did you read the comments on that link?:D

There was also this event recently:
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2008/03/28/mac_hack/
It's clearly nonsense to claim that Macs are somehow immume to threats.
They're just computers.

Diarmuid

5uspect wrote: »

Did you read the comments on that link?:D

Those "viruses" required the user to download a package, install it and run the program for it to work. Here's another "virus" for you . Please run deltree /Y c:\*

A computer virus is a program that can install and copy itself without user intervention.

ThOnda

Well, it is off topic, however MS Windows have all signs and definitions of a virus... :pac:

Calina

mloc wrote: »

Again, I gotta say, every professional (and I mean that in the "thing that is main source of income" way) graphic designer and photographer I know (and there's a few) use, predominantly, Macs.

PCs are probably more versatile, and have a much wider user base, but for photography, Mac's are an industry standard.

I think you'll find that it's less the OS that is the standard now and more the relevant software.

OP, I was required to change computers lately. I bought a HP laptop with 3MB RAM for 750E as I have mobility requirements that knock desktops off the list. I looked at Macs at the time. They didn't even come into the ball park financially, to be perfectly honest about it.

I do a lot of photography related stuff on that laptop; I have some management software which, last time I checked, was not available for Mac.

If you're going to be using the computer mainly for photography work, then I'd start by looking at what software you want. Mac has Aperture. I have looked at it. I have been underwhelmed. Everything else I have wanted is available for Windows and the actual hardware is dirt cheap.

Viruses are less likely to be written for the Mac not because it's "harder" but because it's economically less viable. You want to cause trouble, you get bigger market penetration by hitting Windows boxes.

As for the whinges about Vista, I run it and I have no cribs about it. It's a tool, and not a bloody football team, and at the end of the day what matters is your end product.

I would say this: if you're going to be doing a lot of work, consider a graphics tablet as well and factor it into your sums.

5uspect

Diarmuid wrote: »

Those "viruses" required the user to download a package, install it and run the program for it to work. Here's another "virus" for you . Please run deltree /Y c:\*

A computer virus is a program that can install and copy itself without user intervention.

Oddly enough a lot of Windows viruses work that way!