macbook questions

[matty]

Hi. I'm thinking of buying a macbook.

1. I've heard these things can run windows (in case i dislike the mac os). true? if it can, is it well... useable?
2. Games. do they work? (im not really buying it to play games, i have a desktop for that. but i was just asking...)
3. Compatability with the future: basically, will this thing last me for a while without some supernew technology taking over and making it obsolete in the next few months/year?

Question number 3 is the most important right now...

I hear new generations are coming out, but really, i only have a few days to decide (well, exactly 2 days) so i need to know answers..ASAP!!!

<3 you all
:grouphug:

[Mr Bigglesworth]

1: yes. try to run macos first, it will not disappoint, however you will need a memory upgrade (I run 2GB's and it works a treat).
2: video card is reasonable, not great. will run some games, but not all.
3: macs hold their value and worth much better than PC's do, however being its an Intel chip, noone really knows. Ive had mine 4 months now, all is good.

[Glompbot]

I've just salary sacrificed a new black macbook, waiting for it to arrive now. (black intel core 2 duo standard specs... they upgraded me for free from the core duo cause my order hadn't shipped yet)

you'll love the mac os once you get used to it, its SO much nicer than windows, not many games play natively on the mac os, and the games in windows depends on drivers and the like, i've not seen any game other than wow played (and that plays in the mac os anyway)

laptops are never going to be real gaming machines, just stick to using your desktop for that.

[dozer]

theres plenty of hardware issues with the macbook under boot camp such as s-video out, this wont be fixed. if you are looking for full function in xp then get a dedicated pc, otherwise they are nice, expensive machines.

[matty]

noob mode
whats s-video out do
/noob

na im not looking to use xp on it, im buying a mac to use mac! but i guess the xp is just nice familiar environment to use if i let other ppl borrow...

[pinchy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-Video

[Directed]

I have a macbook pro (17 inch). Mac OSX took me some getting used to it, but with Office 2004 installed, and DivX player and Firefox, I am mostly good. On top of that I can do Unix command line goodness. That makes me happy. Bootcamp does good, and it gets better with an upgrade coming soon. There is no s-video out on macbook pros, so I don't know what dozer is talking about. You can by an s-video connector to plug into your laptop, but I know of no-one who needs this feature as of yet. I can play Counterstrike on my laptop with decent framerates as long as I stay off of Anti-aliasing.

[jambo]

theres plenty of hardware issues with the macbook under boot camp such as s-video out, this wont be fixed.

Any more info on this? Apple keep releasing updates to bootcamp.

[Glompbot]

Well, boot camp is in BETA... that means its not the finished product

if you want boot camp wait until 10.5 is released as it comes with it and will be the final product - this will be released in US-spring

[dozer]

its maily an issue for vj's who want to mix with a macbook.

http://createdigitalmotion.com/2006/10/26/boot-camp-wont-support-s-video-vga-video-output-on-windows/

if you dont want video out and have lots of money then go for it.

[matty]

well it's been bought, now i just have to wait till my dad gets back to australia... my dad says its awesome though :/

[Dr.P]

I run Windows on my Macbook using Parallels Desktop, Bootcamp and Crossover.

Parallels desktop runs windows in a shell within Mac OS X. Similar to Virtual PC but runs at full intel speeds. I use this for apps that don't run in Crossover.

Crossover allows you to run Windows Apps directly in Mac OS X using WINE. Works great with some apps, not so great with others.

Bootcamp just allows you to boot straight into windows. Works just like a windows laptop, except there is no right click on the trackpad and the S-Video adaptor doesn't work. I use this for playing games and it works a treat. It can get a little warm however.

I thoroughly recommend maxing out the RAM to 2GB. It's cheap and it will transform the power of yr lowly macbook.

All in all a fabulous machine for the price, the core duo processor is seriously fast, and it comes with heaps of great features, Firewire, Bluetooth, 802.11G, mic, camera, DVI/VGA/video out, Gigabit Ethernet, remote control and the screen is heaps better than the Macbook Pro "matte" screen.

[rayjayjohnson]

well it's been bought, now i just have to wait till my dad gets back to australia... my dad says its awesome though :/

my mum says i'm cool too.

should be a nice purchase, give mac os a rock hard go, i reckon it is the other good thing apple makes (ipod for those who care). my powerbook g4 has an s video out converter thingy, makes watching teev shows on the real screen a breeze

[Glompbot]

I <3 my macbook

that is all.

[matty]

does your macbook love you?!?!?!!?


ah, my dad needs to run a word processor... anyone know of any err free ones (dont wanna spend another hundred to buy one). otherwise i'll have to try and help him install windows on it while being 7000kms away from him :(

[Glompbot]

on the mac if you want basic editing more like wordpad then there is mac notepad
otherwise open office is the go
http://www.openoffice.org/

[Mr Bigglesworth]

does your macbook love you?!?!?!!?


ah, my dad needs to run a word processor... anyone know of any err free ones (dont wanna spend another hundred to buy one). otherwise i'll have to try and help him install windows on it while being 7000kms away from him :(

MacOffice from torrentspy.

Its a great piece of software. Because Microsoft assumes that anyone who owns a Mac would not dare pirate Office, there is no activation or checking of anything. You dont lose eligibility for updates etc. Though if you dont have 2gbs of RAM, forget it. Office needs Rosetta to run, so it feels alot like a Java program.

[Glompbot]

i'll stick to openoffice if it only runs in rosetta

[Mr Bigglesworth]

i'll stick to openoffice if it only runs in rosetta

MacOffice is not perfect (its Microsoft, what do you expect) but its actually quite stable, even running Rosetta. But like I said, if youre only running the 512mb on it, it is painfully slow to the point of causing testicular haemorraging, even if you dont have them.

[Glompbot]

i've only got 1 gig

[rusky85]

i've only got 1 gig
1 gig should do nicely then.

[lowededwookie]

I have a Mac Mini with only 512Mb RAM. Windows runs fine but then I'm not a gamer.

Don't forget that if you really want Windows without rebooting then there's Parallels, the upcoming VMWare Fusion, and coolest of all in CrossOver which lets you run Windows apps without Windows although this is somewhat hit and miss.

I will be getting a RAM upgrade though. 512Mb is a little down when running non-UB apps.

[lowededwookie]

i'll stick to openoffice if it only runs in rosetta

http://neooffice.org

Beta version of an Aqua version of OpenOffice. This runs so sweetly and doesn't require X11 either. NATIVE. :Stripteas

[Glompbot]

oooh i didn't know about that
how is it with ms office 2003 files?

[matty]

Well i got dad to use openoffice, but sent him the link for neooffice just incase he wants to try it.
Its so frustrating trying to help people with computer stuff (especially when thats my own shiny new computer that he's using) when they're so far away...

[lowededwookie]

oooh i didn't know about that
how is it with ms office 2003 files?

I've had no issues with opening them.

There are some layout issues on the odd doc they print well enough. Best of all NeoOffice uses Apple's font's (hence I believe the cause of layout issues) so you have all the fonts used by the system available to you.

The only thing I use MSOffice for is Entourage because it works with our mail server at work via VPN. Hopefully this issue can be resolved in Leopard's version of Mail.

[vladi]

I've had no issues with opening them.

I almost ALWAYS get weird spacing issues when reading MSOffice2003 files in OO.org (extra spaces, extra tabbing - makes the document look 'uneven' or rushed). I have also gotten extremely bizarre image placement problems:

* When placing 6 images on 1 page in OO.org, opening it in MSOffice2003 would show 2 images per page (3 pages total).
* When placing 6 images on 1 page in MSOffice2003, OO.org would display all 6 in the 1 page, but have horrible formatting such that some images overlap the others etc.

[Directed]

I almost ALWAYS get weird spacing issues when reading MSOffice2003 files in OO.org (extra spaces, extra tabbing - makes the document look 'uneven' or rushed). I have also gotten extremely bizarre image placement problems:

* When placing 6 images on 1 page in OO.org, opening it in MSOffice2003 would show 2 images per page (3 pages total).
* When placing 6 images on 1 page in MSOffice2003, OO.org would display all 6 in the 1 page, but have horrible formatting such that some images overlap the others etc.

This is more of a bug with open office than with microsoft office. Microsoft office 2003 is pretty nice. I've grown to like it alot.

[matty]

yay i have my macbook and it's sexy

[Directed]

yay i have my macbook and it's sexy

That's pretty much why people get them I hear. I am starting to love iphoto now that I've figured the damn thing out.

[Glompbot]

iphoto is good

for chat apps i recommend using adium

[Glompbot]

Oh, and make sure to get iserials/z

[matty]

That's pretty much why people get them I hear. I am starting to love iphoto now that I've figured the damn thing out.

would you like to enlighten me on what use it has??
hmm is there a way to get those trial versions of office and iwork into proper working versions? obviously i'm looking for a free way....


this macbook is suprising fun, pleasurable and functional and wowww
i have witch for alt-tabbing, set up a few widgets on dashboard and oh i have wc3/ft working :)
the remote rocks!

[lowededwookie]

would you like to enlighten me on what use it has??
hmm is there a way to get those trial versions of office and iwork into proper working versions? obviously i'm looking for a free way....


this macbook is suprising fun, pleasurable and functional and wowww
i have witch for alt-tabbing, set up a few widgets on dashboard and oh i have wc3/ft working :)
the remote rocks!
PM me. I have codes for both.

Can't wait for iWorks '07 though. Sounds like it's going to be a competitor to Office and considering Office 2007 sounds like it's going to suck on the Mac with lack of OpenDoc convertors and complete lack of VB scripting thus bringing in compatibility issues then I think iWorks is going to be the way to go.

iPhoto is for cataloging photos and it hooks in very well with the rest of the iLife apps for Web, Movie, DVD, and podcast creations. Has basic editing features.

[Glompbot]

would you like to enlighten me on what use it has??
hmm is there a way to get those trial versions of office and iwork into proper working versions? obviously i'm looking for a free way....


this macbook is suprising fun, pleasurable and functional and wowww
i have witch for alt-tabbing, set up a few widgets on dashboard and oh i have wc3/ft working :)
the remote rocks!

iserialz for all your mac serial needs
it even has serials for obscure trial games :D

its a database updated monthly :D

[Glompbot]

for the iserial reader go here: http://www.serialz.to/
download iserial reader plus the update database

[matty]

sapia, the serialz program worked for iwork but not for microsoft office :( but thanks!

[rascuache]

iphoto is good

for chat apps i recommend using adium

Adium is seconded by me...i have it and it is awesome...

besides that the little duck is cute

[Glompbot]

My duck is purple, whats yours?

did you know you can change the skin so even the duck gets changed to a different icon.

CUTE