Apple Aware?

[ffutures]

As I mentioned a while ago, I want a new laptop, and am now more or less committed to buying a newish iBook G4, 1.2GHz, 14", 1.2Gb RAM, 60Gb HD, DVD/CD-RW, Bluetooth, Airport Extreme (aka 802.11a), 100BaseT, ethernet, modem. It's probably considerably more powerful than I actually need in a laptop, but I can live with that.

A few questions for the Apple-aware:

1: How easy is it going to be to get this to talk to my home network via (a) 100BaseT and (b) Wifi - the network is 802.11b? The network is the basic setup XP does, with the PCs connected to a Linksys broadband router / WiFi point.

2: How much compatibility can I expect with things like USB mice? I'm not a fan of touchpads and I usually carry an external mouse.

3: What should I do about anti-virus etc.? Apart from sneering at Windows XP, which I think comes as part of the package...

4: What's a good (and preferably free) text / HTML editor for the Mac? The one I use for my PCs is NoteTab pro, which does some nice things such as allowing multiple open documents - I've had 30-40 open simultaneously a few times.

5: Anyone used one of these with (a) a Belkin USB memory thingy and (b) a Fujitsu digital camera? Don't expect there to be problems, but you never know.

At the moment I expect to continue to use a Windows XP machine as my main PC; I simply have too much committed to it in software etc., so any tips on running a hybrid network like this would be useful.

Comments

[ludditerobot.livejournal.com]

I'm not a Mac user, so grains of salt, but the point of those thumb drive things (I use a Lexar) are treated like a bog-standard FAT32 file system. The first one I saw was first mounted on a Mac laptop. I forsee no problems with that.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Don't expect trouble, but it never hurts to ask. The first one I tried, forget the make, wasn't even compatible with most PCs... This one seems to be fine, but it never hurts to make sure.

[ckd]

Note: Airport Extreme is not 802.11a, it's 802.11g (and compatible with b).

1. (a) Plug it in. (b) Should be trivial. If your network is not a closed network, it should just detect it and connect you immediately (or ask for a WEP or WPA key if necessary). If it is a closed network, you have to pull the menu down and select "Other..." for the network to join.

2. Plug it in. Scroll wheel and right button are supported in the OS; additional buttons will not be (except for Exposé functions), but you can buy USB Overdrive to let you map them to any key sequence, etc.

3. If you buy .Mac service, you get Virex. If not, you can buy it separately I think, or just sneer.

4. SubEthaEdit.

5. Not those brands specifically, but plenty of USB keychain drives, digital cameras, etc. It pretty much Just Works.

(I would include links to all this stuff, but my RSI is bad today. Google 'em.)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Is .mac service the extended warranty thingy? Probably buying that.

[mind-of-richard.livejournal.com]

AppleCare is the extended warranty, and I swear by it.

When my wife got her iBook we bought AppleCare. Every repair that has been has cost us nothing. She had a logic board go, and it was replaced at no cost. She had her screen die; it was replaced at no cost.

It is worth every penny.

.Mac is Apple's digital tools. You get a email account, storage space and a lot of cool features.

[ckd]

No, that's AppleCare, as already noted. I always get that for laptops; too much to break in too little space. .Mac is a subscription service that gets you email, disk storage, backup and Virex, and other stuff.

[dsample.livejournal.com]

.Mac basically gives you 150MB of storage on Apple's servers, and an email account. It also includes a bunch of free software, such as Virex.

You can use the 150MB for backups, Web pages, file sharing, etc. More information is available at <http://www.mac.com/webobjects/welcome>

It costs $100 US a year, and you can get a free 60 day trial.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

This is the service you use for your web site, isn't it? Wonder if it'd be possible to subscribe then have my forgottenfutures.com domain name point to the file space - it'd be a little cheaper than my current host. Do they let you have password-protected areas?

[dsample.livejournal.com]

You are actually pretty limited in what you can do on a web page. There is some limited password protection available, and it might be possible to point another domain name toward a homepage account, but I've never tried it.

[ramtops.livejournal.com]

1. easy.

2, fine - I run USB mouse on my Powerbook

3, don't bother - Macs are pretty much immune

4, go check out Barebones - I use BBEdit, which is their grown up editor (and distinctly Uncheap), but they do a free/cheap cut down version which is pretty good, by all accounts.

5. memory stick should be fine. Every camera I've ever shown a Mac Just Works.

our LAN has Macs, Windows and Linux. I use a G4 for my every day work, and there are only two things that I have not yet replaced - Ameol and Quickbooks. I actually run my XP box in a window on my Mac G4, using Remote Desktop Connection.

don't forget to join cix:mac, and enjoy :)

[cdybedahl.livejournal.com]

One of the things that genuinely surprised me about my iBook was when I first plugged in my camera. The camera in question is an old (by digital camera standards, at least) Olympus Camedia C-2100UZ. It's a nice camera, but it uses a weird proprietary USB protocol that I never even got to work properly with the Windows program included when I bought it. Getting pictures from the camera to my FreeBSD machine involved much messing around with the slow and unreliable serial interface.

After I got the iBook, I had a look at Olympus' website to see if there were drivers for MacOS X. Which there weren't. But, I connected the camera to the laptop anyway, just to see what would happen.

What happened was that iPhoto started up and automatically downloaded image thumbnails from the camera! One mouseclick later and the full-size pictures were on their way to the Pictures folder.

At the risk of sounding like an Apple commercial, I have to say that now four months after I bought it, I have never been as satisfied with a computer purchase as I am with my iBook. And I bought my first computer as a solder-it-together-yourself ZX81 kit back in 1982, so I'm not exactly new to the game.

Of course, by saying that I will now have jinxed your purchase so everything that possibly can go wrong will.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Of course, by saying that I will now have jinxed your purchase so everything that possibly can go wrong will.

Good thing you're umpty hundred miles away ;-)

Don't worry, I've had more than my share of bad hardware / software, I've learned to expect problems and regard their absence as a pleasant surprise.For example, I just bought Omnipage 14 for OCR, replacing the v 10 which I've used for the last couple of years. So far it works perfectly, without crashing after a couple of pages, which was the main problem with v 10 on XP with service pack 2. But the user interface has gone from fairly intuitive to absolutely horrible, for no readily apparent reason. I'm trying to regard it as a learning opportunity rather than a cause for complaint, but it isn't easy...

[norwegianne.livejournal.com]

2. when I was writing my home exam, I was over at a friend's house, and used her "PC" mouse without problems connected to my iBook.

There is a LJ community for iBook owners, and there's MacOSX community as well, (probably dozens of others as well.) It might be useful, it might not.

[mind-of-richard.livejournal.com]

On point 1: it is very easy. I have a Window's laptop able to communicate in my Apple Networked home.

On point 2: Plug the mouse in, and it works.

On point 3: If you get a .Mac account ($99 US per year) you get a very nice free virus scanner. The .Mac account is a nice feature and has a lot of nice things you can do.

On point 4: Text Wrangelr (http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/productivity_tools/textwrangler.html) is a good tool that I have used from time to time. So is Copy Write (http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/productivity_tools/copywrite.html) which I have been using for awhile. you can also check out TopXNotes (http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/productivity_tools/topxnotes.html) and TAO (http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/productivity_tools/tao.html). Also keep in mind you should be getting iWorks with your new laptop. I have used it, and I liked it so much that I removed MS Word from my Macs.

On point 5: I have had no problems with any hardware.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

As an aside, if it does 90% of what you want but the remainder bugs you, and the Windows apps you need aren't very demanding ones, Microsoft sell Virtual PC for OS/X -- runs Windows XP Pro or Win2K full-screen or in a window on OS/X. It'll be slow (on a 1.2Ghz iBook I'd be surprised if it felt faster than a 600MHz Pentium III) but it should do the job for undemanding stuff (not first-person shooters, of course).

Also note: while Microsoft Office for OS/X is a bit pricey (about £400 retail) the student & teacher edition costs £120 and comes with license codes for three machines. Find a couple of friends to split the cost (you work in a school, don't you?) or use a different package (AppleWorks, iWork '05 -- I don't have this, it's very new -- or whatever). One comment: OpenOffice for OS/X is (a) a pain to install (it requires X11) and (b) is gouge-your-eyes-out ugly. A true native version won't be around before next year, unless you're willing to experiment with the NeoOffice/J fork (which is a wee bit unstable but looks a lot nicer). That's about the one drawback I've found of OS/X versus Linux -- the lack of a decent free office suite.

There's also a freeware PC emulator called Bochs that exists with an OS/X port. You'll need to tinker a little and bring your own copy of Windows along, and it probably won't be as fast, but it'll save you about £120-200 quid.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

If Virtual PC will run Office that's probably fast enough - I've got Office 2000 running on the current laptop which is only 200 Mhz, and that copes with my presentation without problems. Any idea how much it costs?

[secondsilk.livejournal.com]

Viruses are rare on a Mac, both contracting them, and then the programs actually being able to do any damage.
But we run an ethernet network of seven computers (five OSX, one OS 9, and one PC). The Macs all have Norton AntiVirus. Norton Disk Doctor also runs a disk aid program if the computer crashes, and lets you de-fragment the hard disk.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I've been looking at alternatives to .mac (which sounds a bit pricy if I only want antivirus) and Norton does seem the best bet - it's what I use on my main PC. Any down side to it, compared to the .mac offering?

[secondsilk.livejournal.com]

I've never used anything else, and have very weak computer literacy, so I can't comment on that.