Considering a Mac. A few questions if ye don't mind.

milltown

My desktop PC is long overdue an upgrade and although I've been a windows man since 3.x I'm seriously considering an iMac to replace it. Due to a mixture of getting older (not playing games on the PC anymore), less time on my hands for tweaking OSes and incremental upgrades to hardware, computer interests leaning more towards music, photo and video editing, and a desire to declutter the desk (liking the integrated display/tower and wireless mouse and keyboard).

Firstly, and most importantly, Mrs.Milltown works from home some of the time and connects to the office via Citrix to browse sharepoint folders. From what I can see, the Citrix client is available for Mac but the MS Office and Sharepoint thing looks like it could be a bigger hurdle. We have a home user agreement in work that allows me to get Office for €12 but I see no mention of Sharepoint on the info for Office 2008 (which is what's currently offered) or even for the upcoming Office 2011. Can anyone with experience offer any thoughts on this?
I realise I can dual boot windows (bootcamp, is that what it's called?) but this needs to be as simple as possible if I'm to get her sold on the idea.
Are there extra costs involved, bar the Windows licence? What's involved from a user perspective? Does windows run from inside OS10 like a VM? Or is a reboot involved to switch OS?

With the significant outlay involved, I'll probably go through Arnott's for the 20% down and 12 month interest free option I read about on a thread here. That being the case, there won't be a huge amount of extra monthly pain involved in speccing up from the vanilla 21.5"er. Question is, is it worth the premium?
Obviously the 27" display is a beauty, but what other options are worth having? Would there be a noticable difference between the processors in the range? Obviously I'd like it to be as future-proof as possible and still worth a few quid second hand if I decide to freshen up in a few years time (resale value is something that really caught my eye about Macs).

My own work is almost entirely windows based, there is practically none of it brought home but is there any issue with swapping files from PC to USB drive to Mac?

Last, minor ones:
On any PC I've used, iTunes and the Apple websites seems to be as slow as a wet week. Are they any better on a Mac?

Can some body else check the Arnott's website please? When I browse by brand > A > Apple, I can navigate into a product page but when I back out again it craps out and brings me to an empty page. Annoying!

So, sorry for rambling and asking so many questions at once. Thanks in advance for your patience and any advice you can offer!

avalon68

I recently made the switch from windows to mac (albeit reluctantly!) as I needed to be more compatible for work. Now I can say Im so glad that I have switched over! I cant answer most of your questions - but I have definitely found itunes to be working at almost warp speed compared to on my pc I have also been very impressed by how seamlessly macmail, contacts, i photo etc all work together......and also very impressed that even with my total lack of computer knowledge I have managed to set everything up to work seamlessly! I definitely dont see myself ever switching back to a pc again.

Sad Professor

milltown wrote: »

Firstly, and most importantly, Mrs.Milltown works from home some of the time and connects to the office via Citrix to browse sharepoint folders. From what I can see, the Citrix client is available for Mac but the MS Office and Sharepoint thing looks like it could be a bigger hurdle. We have a home user agreement in work that allows me to get Office for €12 but I see no mention of Sharepoint on the info for Office 2008 (which is what's currently offered) or even for the upcoming Office 2011. Can anyone with experience offer any thoughts on this?

Afaik Office 2011 for Mac does support SharePoint. How well I don't know.

I realise I can dual boot windows (bootcamp, is that what it's called?) but this needs to be as simple as possible if I'm to get her sold on the idea.
Are there extra costs involved, bar the Windows licence? What's involved from a user perspective? Does windows run from inside OS10 like a VM? Or is a reboot involved to switch OS?

The Bootcamp method involves installing Windows onto a separate partition of the hard drive and rebooting when you want to use it. While this is good for ensuring full compatibility, doing it a lot kinda defeats the purpose of getting a Mac, so most people use some sort of VM client, such as Parallels or VMWare, to run Windows from within Mac OS X. This method usually uses a disk image, but it can also use an existing Bootcamp partition, providing you with the best of both worlds.

With the significant outlay involved, I'll probably go through Arnott's for the 20% down and 12 month interest free option I read about on a thread here. That being the case, there won't be a huge amount of extra monthly pain involved in speccing up from the vanilla 21.5"er. Question is, is it worth the premium?

The high-end 21-inch has a faster processor, larger hard drive and superior graphics card. If it were me, I'd try to go for this if possible.

Obviously the 27" display is a beauty, but what other options are worth having? Would there be a noticable difference between the processors in the range? Obviously I'd like it to be as future-proof as possible and still worth a few quid second hand if I decide to freshen up in a few years time (resale value is something that really caught my eye about Macs).

Personally, if I were considering a 27-inch, I'd want to get the i5 model at least, but that costs a lot extra.

My own work is almost entirely windows based, there is practically none of it brought home but is there any issue with swapping files from PC to USB drive to Mac?

As long as the drive is not formatted as NTFS (which OS X can't write to), no.

On any PC I've used, iTunes and the Apple websites seems to be as slow as a wet week. Are they any better on a Mac?

I don't really have much experience of iTunes on Windows, but most people report that they find it much faster on a Mac. I've never had any problems anyway.

muggyog

Try Crossover for Mac from Codeweavers for your Sharepoint problem. There is a trial version for test purposes.

milltown

Thanks for the replies lads.
It looks like a seperate windows install would be needed to be certain of all her work stuff being as she needs it. Do I need any particular version of Windows? Or with the intel architecture, can I use the spare copy of Windows 7 I have here?

Ham'nd'egger

milltown wrote: »

Thanks for the replies lads.
It looks like a seperate windows install would be needed to be certain of all her work stuff being as she needs it. Do I need any particular version of Windows? Or with the intel architecture, can I use the spare copy of Windows 7 I have here?

You can use XP, Vista or 7 to run Windows on any Intel Mac provided it's not a install copy that came with a PC. The spare copy you have will do it nicely, Apples instructions do the rest for you

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=mac/10.5/en/11889.html

conor.hogan.2

wine is also a possibility to run windows apps - but if you have the money shell out for a windows licence as it can be a pain to run some apps through it.

muggyog

Crossover is a commercial version of wine.
If you have a license for Windows 7 use it with Bootcamp. Downside is rebooting when you want to swap OS's, upside is the lack of cost!

Freddie59

muggyog wrote: »

Crossover is a commercial version of wine.
If you have a license for Windows 7 use it with Bootcamp. Downside is rebooting when you want to swap OS's, upside is the lack of cost!

You could get Parallels 6.0. I'm using it on a 2010 imac with only one issue - no firewire compatibility on the Windows side, as it's a VM. There is also an issue playing back MP3s on the VM, with lots of clicking going on - apparently it's common.

milltown

Freddie59 wrote: »

You could get Parallels 6.0. I'm using it on a 2010 imac with only one issue - no firewire compatibility on the Windows side, as it's a VM. There is also an issue playing back MP3s on the VM, with lots of clicking going on - apparently it's common.

Would it be possible to do both with the one Windows licence?
Might be even handier (completely ignorant of how/whether this works here) to have a Win7 VM to dip in and out of, and a Windows partition to work from when she needs Sharepoint et al for a few hours work.

Thanks for all the advice so far. Keep it coming!

(Has anyone tried the Arnotts site? I've tried it with several browsers and on my PC and iPhone. Always the same.)

Talisman

milltown wrote: »

Firstly, and most importantly, Mrs.Milltown works from home some of the time and connects to the office via Citrix to browse sharepoint folders. From what I can see, the Citrix client is available for Mac but the MS Office and Sharepoint thing looks like it could be a bigger hurdle. We have a home user agreement in work that allows me to get Office for €12 but I see no mention of Sharepoint on the info for Office 2008 (which is what's currently offered) or even for the upcoming Office 2011. Can anyone with experience offer any thoughts on this?

The Citrix client on the Mac is an absolute dog with fleas. It works when it feels like it which is very rare - I needed it to access a client's network and ended up installing Windows in a VM.

I realise I can dual boot windows (bootcamp, is that what it's called?) but this needs to be as simple as possible if I'm to get her sold on the idea.
Are there extra costs involved, bar the Windows licence? What's involved from a user perspective? Does windows run from inside OS10 like a VM? Or is a reboot involved to switch OS?

My advice would be to use a VM then Windows can be launched from an icon on the dock. VirtualBox is free, so give it a try before trying Bootcamp. The best thing about using a VM is that you can easily clone it and you go back to a clone if the Windows installations ever dies - minimises your downtime.

Freddie59

milltown wrote: »

Would it be possible to do both with the one Windows licence?
Might be even handier (completely ignorant of how/whether this works here) to have a Win7 VM to dip in and out of, and a Windows partition to work from when she needs Sharepoint et al for a few hours work.

Thanks for all the advice so far. Keep it coming!

(Has anyone tried the Arnotts site? I've tried it with several browsers and on my PC and iPhone. Always the same.)

Tried Arnotts.ie on both Safari and IE 8 on the VM. No issues with it. Mac slightly faster though. I'm on 25 meg UPC which might explain it.

I don't know about the licence issue. I just bought W7 64x on Amazon. Worked perfectly. Installed very quickly.

One word of warning. Other programs (like Sage) will not run on W7. Check the compatibility on the MS site first.

milltown

Freddie59 wrote: »

I'm on 25 meg UPC which might explain it.

As am I. Weird.

Freddie59

milltown wrote: »

As am I. Weird.

That's nuts. That site is steaming along. Did you try a second laptop?

Type 17

milltown wrote: »

Would it be possible to do both with the one Windows licence?

Yes, I have a MacBook Pro with a copy of XP on bootcamp, and the same copy of XP also works in a VirtualBox VM on the same machine.


BTW, I had another copy of XP (different licence key) on a VirtualBox VM on a 20" iMac and, when I upgraded to a new 27" iMac, and used the Migration Assistant to move everything over, that copy of XP worked (and still works) fine on the new iMac too, although I have never tried it in a bootcamp scenario on the 27" machine (no need).

conor.hogan.2

I would dualboot if I were you - I am using virtual machine and it sometimes wants me to reinstall windows and I have to shut it down and restart it a few times until it brings me to the log in screen and wine is dodgy on most apps.

Only problem is having to partition the drive - so you have to backup and reinstall osx aswel which is a pain.

Liameter

milltown wrote: »

My desktop PC is long overdue an upgrade and although I've been a windows man since 3.x I'm seriously considering an iMac to replace it.
<snip>
Firstly, and most importantly, Mrs.Milltown works from home some of the time and connects to the office via Citrix to browse sharepoint folders.

Take my advice. Keep the Windows PC for your wife to use. Strip it down to the bare essentials for her work use so it will be less cluttered and more reliable.

Use the Mac for everything else.

muggyog

+1 on Virtualbox.

fifth

V handy - getting an iMac tomorrow. Sorry to hijack, can I use my Windows 7 install disc? I got both 32-bit and 64-bit discs when I bought it earlier in the year for my dell.

Sad Professor

funkyflea wrote: »

V handy - getting an iMac tomorrow. Sorry to hijack, can I use my Windows 7 install disc? I got both 32-bit and 64-bit discs when I bought it earlier in the year for my dell.

Is it an upgrade disc or the full version? In the case of an upgrade disc I think a previous version of Windows needs to already be installed (I'm open to correction on this), which might pose a bit of a problem.

fifth

I'll have to dig it out but I think it may be an upgrade disc, was €90 - pretty sure now that I think about it, was an upgrade.

ShaneOC

funkyflea wrote: »

I'll have to dig it out but I think it may be an upgrade disc, was €90 - pretty sure now that I think about it, was an upgrade.

Upgrade disk will install fine. No need for previous version. I've got Windows 7 running on my MacBook Pro using VMware Fusion.

Sad Professor

ShaneOC wrote: »

Upgrade disk will install fine. No need for previous version. I've got Windows 7 running on my MacBook Pro using VMware Fusion.

Are you sure about this? Everything I read suggested it checks for a previous install of Windows or needs a cd key belonging to one. Did you use a workaround?

Cook my sock

Sad Professor wrote: »

Is it an upgrade disc or the full version? In the case of an upgrade disc I think a previous version of Windows needs to already be installed (I'm open to correction on this), which might pose a bit of a problem.

doesnt need a previous version, just needs a previous version to keep all your media etc. im only recently converted to mac myself and used my upgrade disk with some coding from a non discussable source, to install windows 7 premium using virtualbox, off an upgrade cd, onto my mac.
Just go to custom install and it is a full install.
however since converting i cant see 7 being used, might even remove it tbh! :pac: