Performa 638CD (this one serves as my bedroom TV)[/url]

And you laughed at me for using my Performa as a TV

I have a Performa 6300 (mine), G3 450 Mhz iMac DV+ (sister's), G3 500 Mhz Flower Power (dad's), iMac G4 1.25 Ghz (mum's), iBook 1.2 G4 (mum's) and iBook 1Ghz (mine) at home.

I also have an extra external monitor for my iBook (60Gb, 738Mb, 1Ghz G4, Combo drive) an external 40 Gb pocket drive and 3G 10Gb iPod.

Everyone with a 4G iPod is a poser. iPod's used to be cool and special, now everyone and their mom's have one.

Oh, yeah, I forgot I also have a flakey 128k mac too. I'll have to fix that guy someday.

I resent that edit, my mom has had a Mac since the 80's.

My family's first was a Fat Mac 512k in late '84. My old man used it with the 300 baud modem to dial into his clients' systems and work. I just used it for school papers and games.

Moonbuggy, Carmen Sandiego, and Karatika? Or there was that game with the orbs....I cant remember its name. You started in a castle though, and had to walk with the keyboard and aim and throw with the mouse.

Those sound like Apple II games.





You mean the original Castle Wolfenstein? Or maybe Dark Castle?

wannabe

I have an old Apple CRT. I'm probably getting another LCD screen because the CRT is flaky.

Yeah, actually, those were Apple II games. Man, thats taking me back a long way.

Though it was Dark Castle, not Wolfenstein. I remembered watching other people play it, completely in awe of their skillz, because I sucked at it something horrid.

I played PowerPete Day in and day out on my old PowerMac.

And it runs faster than Panther does on all capable Mac's, even 5 year old G3 systems.

Let me jump in on this conversation. I tend to use the computers that are provided for me. In college, the computer labs at my school used lots of macs so naturally I used them as well. Then when I got a full time job, they provided me with a new Dell laptop. Based on my experiences with both OSes, I am making my next computer purchase a mac for sure. I almost bought a mac mini when they came out, but decided to wait and let them upgrade the standard features on the iMac before I jump ship to Apple for good. M$ is ok I guess, but damn I love using OS X.

Yeah, the single click apple mouse is just a relic of a bygone era.

Plus I like the Windows taskbar. I like simple movement between multiple windows and programmes. Unless I'm retarded with Macs and am missing the obvious, I just cant jump between windows so easily.

Yeah, there are a couple of ways:

a: the Dock. Clicking the doc's app icon will bring that app to the front

b: Expose (what I use). Use F09/F10/F11 keys or define "Hot Corners" to show all windows, show all apps, clear desktop, etc. Works on a separate "desktop layer"

c: alt+tab. Use alt+tab as an app switcher like Windows.

"b" & "c" are 10.3 and up features.

Of course, there's those of us who prefer a one-button mouse. It also helps when the OS is built around being able to do everything with one button, if you want to. The contexual menus are just "shortcuts" to normal menu items. For comfort and sexiness, I prefer my Apple Pro Mouse.

On my Powerbook, control-clicking and command-clicking with one hand is instictive.

That said, my wife is addicted to mouse buttons and uses a Logitech wireless getup.

12' iBook, upgrade the HD and Ram.

Compared to Windows: point, click.

They really should work on a way of simplifying this. People often simultaneously run multiple applications, and multiple windows for each application. Switching should be made as easy as possible.

I'd guestimate about 2 Ghz to 2.5 Ghz P4.

iWork looks really cool, but I haven't played with it yet. I have used AppleWorks 6 and Keynote 1, forerunners of Pages and Keynote, and they are both solid apps. I use Text Edit mostly, but if I need more power I'll use Word. I'm looking to switch to Pages because Office isn't Apple.

My first thought was to suggest the 12" iBook. For sure one of the "best buys". I'd differ from Fisto by suggesting more RAM, and Superdrive instead of larger HDD. 30gb is alright unless you want to carry around a 20gb music library, but a DVD writer comes in really handy for the pir8 DVD's.

iWork looks pretty cool, but I'd give it a while before thinking about moving away from Office. Like it or not, Office is the de facto. The Student & Teacher edition of Office 2004 is only $149 (possibly cheaper, depending on your school) and includes Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Entourage (mac equivalent of Outlook).

One last note on Exposé - It's hard to describe how easy it is to use or how fast you get to depend on it (I'm always trying to use the mouse gestures on the PC at work). It's more something you have to experience. Kind of like the whole mac - you'll either "get it" or you don't.

Anyways, that's my 2¢.

You can use MS Office for mac on the mac (Office 2004) and MS Office for Windows on a PC (Office 2003).

I use MacPar Deluxe. It'll do par, par2 checking and expand Rar archives.

Oh, yeah. Just had to make a quick post that Tiger fucking rocks. Big speed boost. Can't wait to load this on the older hardware too.

Widgets kick ass.

Looks like this is as close as I'll get to Tiger OSX for now.

I'm definitely excited by the imac update today(http://www.apple.com/imac/). Will be purchasing very very soon. I already bought office mac 2004 through my works home use program. 19.99 for the whole thing...

I'm pretty sure there is, but the one person I know that used it seemed to have a number of problems staying logged in and joining MSN chats etc.

Fire or Gaim possibly would work.

Here is as close as I can get (while i'm still broke) to OS X

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v87/aBagorn/mac.jpg

Ouch. Find yourself a couple hundred bucks and get the real deal.

Or buy an older Powermac for $200 or so. I've gotten 400mhz G3 iMacs for anywhere from free to $30. I bought a G3 400mhz B&W Powermac for $100 and a Dual 500mhz G4 Powermac for $100 + drives/RAM. These are all respectable machines and will run OS X well. I've upgraded the two Powermac's videocards with flashed PC cards and they support Quartz Extreme now. I've used a lot of my old PC spares in macs - HDD's, flashed PC vid cards, RAM.

The used market can be a boon if you don't need massive horsepower (lots of heavy HD work or hardcore gaming). If you really want a new machine, the Mac mini is a pretty good deal at $499. You should look at putting a cheap 512mb stick of RAM in it though. Also when looking for a good deal on new machines, make sure you check out Apple's own online store. They have a "Special Deals" red tag down on the bottom of the right-hand side. That's where they put previous generation and factory refurbished items.

I'm in the market for a high end notebook to make into a portable recording studio....any thoughts....

(plus i would have a dell that i could sell - Inspiron 8600 i'll give you more specs later)

Compusa takes trade ins.

On Apple's refurbs now there's a $1600 1.5ghz 15" Powerbook. Add a digital input device (like an iMic or upcoming "asteroid") and Logic Express and you'd be doin' alright, I think.

Dunno anything on the PC end. Someone else would have to chime in there. Maybe FBR has some advice.

Computer services at my work were testing Tiger and have found that there are a lot of bugs in it, and a lot of updates are required. To be expected for any new OS, I guess.

Anyone else having issues with it?

Yeah, its a bit twitchy sometimes. I can't watch a video and download something with out the video skipping. Panther was alot more solid, but 10.4.1 is already out, so I'll see if that helps.

Rock solid on my desktops, but a little twitchy on my Powerbook. Although, 10.4.1 was released yesterday and seems to have cleared up a lot of my Powerbook's issues.