Thinkpad v. Mac for law school Forum

[dspit]

Debate over right?

[ResolutePear]

It is unbelievably offensive, and continues to be.

If we were at a bar, you would be the drunk frat boy that came to our 'nerd' table to jackass around us without even hearing the conversation.

Yep, that makes you an asshole.

The rest:

So.. we need to adopt YOUR values to get a Mac? Sorry, I want to be on my own terms with what I can do with my machine.

I don't want an iPhone. I like my Blackberry.
I don't want to tell employers, "Hey, I'll work but you'll need to pay me more for a PC Laptop." ITE
OneNote is more than a wordpad. Look into it?
As for Access, AutoCAD, and Visual Studio: Welp, you got me there. No need in law school... because law school is totally 24/7 for all 3 years and beyond.

why is it so offensive?

you are probably right.

I don't consider myself an asshole, but since the font is so big, I am reconsidering that.

and NO YOU DON'T NEED TO ADOPT MY VALUES. I was going with the values of a typical law student. A typical law student doesn't play video games all the time, use Access, AutoCAD, or visual studio, etc. Thats the name of the thread...for law school. Not for life or for professional gamers or people who own their own business.

So... you want us to buy a laptop that's not going to be for life? or business? or fun? Wow - you got me there.

Where did I say this was about professional gaming? WHERE? POINT ME TO IT.

Law students don't own businesses, have a life, or even decide to play something other than crap ass snood on a rainy day in the house.

Also, let it be known that all law students own iPhones!

Hey, btw.. I have a car that you can buy. It runs on rail tracks to and from the law school and your primary place of residence. It also costs more. Oh, and you need to shave your head, wear a suit, and carry two unloaded guns disassembled.

[ResolutePear]

Debate over right?

I'm sorry.

[Duralex]

I really dislike OS flamewars, but I do feel obligated to point out that Pear's presenting a pretty slanted view. Macs--and especially macbooks--are rather popular with certain subgroups within computer geekdom.

The examples given are kind of cherry picking--AutoCAD? Really? If you're going to go that route, you can't pretend AutoDesk doesn't exist. Visual Studio? That's for (Microsoft) VisualBasic. (Which 'real programmers' mock heartlessly.) Of course it doesn't exist on the Mac. That's tantamount to complaining that OS X isn't Windows, or that Windows lacks X-Code and that makes it bad. If you want to develop for .NET on OS X or Linux you use Mono. C'mon now. Access is one of the worst, most laughable database products out there. I can't believe you're trotting that out as a platform defining feature. Again, this is faulting OS X for not being Windows. Access is only relevant to people who have to support corporate Windows based networks that depend on craptastic in house or unmaintained consultant-built VB apps (typically. I deal with this way too much. ODBC error! Yay! ) Anything decent is running on MS-SQL (at least.)

And, really, what's so amazing about Outlook that can't be done in E*rage? Not that E*rage isn't a clunky POS, but OL really isn't much better. It barfs all over itself and corrupts PSTs (which shouldn't even exist) and profiles regularly. FWIW, Mail.app supports Exchange accounts and IIRC OS X will sync the Exchange calendar with the iCal database. Blackberry desktop sync blows chunks on Windows or OS X, just like Palm's sync conduits used to. Desktop sync is always fairly craptastic, IMO. Get an Exchange account with a BES-enabled provider. I think mine costs me about $15/mo (although I use it with my iPhone and Droid Inc. now.)

If you really want your standard Windows apps, you can always virtualize your Bootcamp partition (or build VM image for Parallels or Fusion, or run Crossover) and run MS Office, etc.

If you want to talk about geek cred, let's compare the command line environments, shall we? Bash on Darwin wins. It's basically BSD Unix! PowerShell is like a lobotomized Korn shell. The Unix command line, as you probably now, is hugely powerful for manipulation of text streams--even moreso when mated with the rest of OS X.

There's a huge indie developer community for OS X, and you can run many Linux/Unix packages. There are awesome programming tools for OS X. I could list a lot of apps that would probably be way more beneficial for LS students or practicing lawyers than the ones listed above that are only available for OS X. I could also start getting into the creative software that's available for OS X and more or less unmatched in Windows. (I'll note that OS X still lacks OneNote, which does indeed enjoy huge LS popularity. But the dominance of OneNote is in large part because of the installed Windows base. As I've mentioned elsewhere, there are Mac-only alternatives that are arguably more powerful.)

Which isn't to suggest that the legal world in practice isn't over 95% Microsoft, 'cause it is. But a lot of that has to do with installed base, inertia, sunk costs, etc. When you look at the back ends, it's increasingly virtualized servers, networked storage using iSCSI etc and thin or virtual clients (i.e. Citrix.) Mark my words, the Windows market share will decline. I've seen a lot of shifts in this world in my life (starting with VMS mainframes, DOS WordPerfect, coax networks, 5.25" floppies and tractor-feed bill printers the size of a washing machine. Also, there was the Windows+Novell era--bleech.) Another one is under way. Right now, I'm looking at replacing Windows as a host OS for Citrix clients on older boxes with some kind of Xen, VMware or vBox boot environment. The user winds up with a Windows desktop, but the underlying infrastructure is already evolving. At work I use a monster OS X based workstation with a recent 3ghz quad core, 8GB of RAM and work in VMs and Citrix for Windows stuff. All the while, I have my favored OS X environment at hand.

Anyway, Macs have huge geek appeal these days. Really, the only drawback is gaming. And if you want to use OS X but not pay the Apple hardware tax, you can do that. We're just not going to talk about it on TLS. (I'd imagine.) My take is that it's become increasingly common in the geek world to have a macbook AND a PC desktop (that may also be dual-booting.)

Man, do I ever need to ditch this early morning insomnia before school starts....

Are you seriously implying that Mac OS is worth hundreds of dollars more than a Windows OS?

I know this wasn't the original context, but:

Snow Leo -- $30 @ BestBuy
Win 7 Pro -- $80 @ Amazon
XP Pro OEM -- $150 @ ZipZoomFly (LOL XP tax for crusty old hardware hoarders like me)

TL;DR -- the tax is for HW not the OS, Macs have tremendous geek appeal (serious geeks, open source software users and developers, system and network admins, etc.) Windows is in decline but still is dominant almost everywhere after school, either will do you just fine in LS most likely.

[hoopsguy6]

Well this thread has derailed enormously. To the OP, you should be asking this question to your law school's IT department. I would recommend Windows just for compatibility's sake. If your law school uses Softest for example, it is not compatible with Macs unless you install Windows via Bootcamp (another $100-$200 on top of the premium you're already paying for a Mac). If you want a Mac anyways, your school's IT department will always help you install it. I would avoid the 13" Macbook Pro however, since it uses an antiquated Core 2 Duo cpu and is horrendously overpriced. Opt for the 15" version, or the cheaper regular Macbook.

[Duralex]

Hoops is quite right here--I would suggest that anyone who chooses a Mac should simply assume they'll need Bootcamp sooner or later. It's best to get it ready and have it on hand. But I wouldn't let that $150 dictate my decision. And, hey, $150 for two computers in one (not really, but you know what I mean....)

And yeah, the big MBP needs an update. But calling a C2D 'ancient' is pushing it.

[romothesavior]

And, hey, $150 for two computers in one (not really, but you know what I mean....)

No, not really. lolwut.

[Duralex]

Considering that my first computer was an Apple ][gs, I was somewhat amazed and bemused the first time I dual booted into Windows on an Intel mac. (I don't think I'm getting that across well--I've given up on sleep and am caffeinating.) That's what I mean--once upon a time it would have been ridiculous to imagine paying an extra $150 to get both platforms. More like $550 - $1200 for a drop in x86 daughter card. And then you needed to buy DOS or Windows for whatever silly retail price it carried.

So 'two in one' in the sense of both platforms for a price that once upon a time would have been considered minimal. And that was when $1 was worth more than it is now.

(As I alluded to above, you don't have to start with Apple hardware these days to use both OSes, in which case it's an extra $30 for SnowLeo rather than $80-150 for W7 or XP. Google is your friend. But don't use OS X with non-Apple laptop hardware and rely on it for LS. )

[03121202698008]

mac no question

[romothesavior]

I understand what you're saying Duralex, but for some layman using a computer for LS purposes, there is no need to spend that money to get both. If all a person wants to do is write papers, check email, listen to music, and browse the web, there is no reason to pay premium price for a Mac AND pick up Bootcamp.

Also, stop editing your posts a million times (and I mean this in the nicest way possible). Seems like every post you've ever made on TLS had like 4 edits. I know once in a while you'll have to go back and edit a typo or something, but try to catch that before you post, for the sake of posterity.

[stinger35]

Well this thread has derailed enormously. To the OP, you should be asking this question to your law school's IT department. I would recommend Windows just for compatibility's sake. If your law school uses Softest for example, it is not compatible with Macs unless you install Windows via Bootcamp (another $100-$200 on top of the premium you're already paying for a Mac). If you want a Mac anyways, your school's IT department will always help you install it. I would avoid the 13" Macbook Pro however, since it uses an antiquated Core 2 Duo cpu and is horrendously overpriced. Opt for the 15" version, or the cheaper regular Macbook.

FWIW, the dean of students told me that softest for macs is finally done and will be available for use for fall exams.

[5ky]

I understand what you're saying Duralex, but for some layman using a computer for LS purposes, there is no need to spend that money to get both. If all a person wants to do is write papers, check email, listen to music, and browse the web, there is no reason to pay premium price for a Mac AND pick up Bootcamp.

Also, stop editing your posts a million times (and I mean this in the nicest way possible). Seems like every post you've ever made on TLS had like 4 edits. I know once in a while you'll have to go back and edit a typo or something, but try to catch that before you post, for the sake of posterity.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Bootcamp comes free with the Macs, does it not? It came free with my roommates, at any rate.

[Duralex]

Bootcamp itself (the utility to create the partition and dual boot) yes. Windows, no.

Also, stop editing your posts a million times (and I mean this in the nicest way possible). Seems like every post you've ever made on TLS had like 4 edits. I know once in a while you'll have to go back and edit a typo or something, but try to catch that before you post, for the sake of posterity.

I do appreciate the suggestion in the spirit in which it's offered, and I try to avoid superfluous editing--but when I make posts like the one above, I tend to feel the need to clean them up. Sometimes I go back and add links, prices, etc. Correct specs. Clarify what I've said.

Unless TLS has some kind of policy about this (and I've never seen one), I'd thank you not to take it upon yourself to police my posting style. That post took a while to write and editing it a few times should not be cause for comment nor an invitation to critique my habits generally. If you don't like my posts, ignore them.

[romothesavior]

I understand what you're saying Duralex, but for some layman using a computer for LS purposes, there is no need to spend that money to get both. If all a person wants to do is write papers, check email, listen to music, and browse the web, there is no reason to pay premium price for a Mac AND pick up Bootcamp.

Also, stop editing your posts a million times (and I mean this in the nicest way possible). Seems like every post you've ever made on TLS had like 4 edits. I know once in a while you'll have to go back and edit a typo or something, but try to catch that before you post, for the sake of posterity.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Bootcamp comes free with the Macs, does it not? It came free with my roommates, at any rate.

Really? A couple of posters have indicated that there is a cost. I suppose if it is free and you can get a Mac for cheap, then it comes down to preference (as one poster said above, I still prefer an interface that isn't designed for the mentally handicapped), but I really see little point in buying a Mac if it is going to be significantly more expensive.

[Duralex]

And that is a perfectly valid view. Apple's desktop line is pretty much a case-in-point.

[hoopsguy6]

I understand what you're saying Duralex, but for some layman using a computer for LS purposes, there is no need to spend that money to get both. If all a person wants to do is write papers, check email, listen to music, and browse the web, there is no reason to pay premium price for a Mac AND pick up Bootcamp.

Also, stop editing your posts a million times (and I mean this in the nicest way possible). Seems like every post you've ever made on TLS had like 4 edits. I know once in a while you'll have to go back and edit a typo or something, but try to catch that before you post, for the sake of posterity.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Bootcamp comes free with the Macs, does it not? It came free with my roommates, at any rate.

Really? A couple of posters have indicated that there is a cost. I suppose if it is free and you can get a Mac for cheap, then it comes down to preference (as one poster said above, I still prefer an interface that isn't designed for the mentally handicapped), but I really see little point in buying a Mac if it is going to be significantly more expensive.

Bootcamp is free. You still need a Windows license to use it though, and that costs anywhere from $80-$200 depending on what version you get.

[burvowski]

I feel like the Mac vs PC debate could be simplified a lot more than most people on here are making it out to be:

If you suck with using PCs, then you will probably suck with using a Mac. Sure, you'll get more life out of it because of its build and the way the software is setup but you're also paying more, so that seems logical.

If you don't suck when it comes to PCs, chances are you won't suck when it comes to a Mac. It's up to you on whether the extra premium is worth it for you as it probably is less critical if you know what you're doing when it comes to not clogging a PC down with useless software and whatnot.

[ResolutePear]

I really dislike OS flamewars, but I do feel obligated to point out that Pear's presenting a pretty slanted view. Macs--and especially macbooks--are rather popular with certain subgroups within computer geekdom.

The examples given are kind of cherry picking--AutoCAD? Really? If you're going to go that route, you can't pretend AutoDesk doesn't exist. Visual Studio? That's for (Microsoft) VisualBasic. (Which 'real programmers' mock heartlessly.) Of course it doesn't exist on the Mac. That's tantamount to complaining that OS X isn't Windows, or that Windows lacks X-Code and that makes it bad. If you want to develop for .NET on OS X or Linux you use Mono. C'mon now. Access is one of the worst, most laughable database products out there. I can't believe you're trotting that out as a platform defining feature. Again, this is faulting OS X for not being Windows. Access is only relevant to people who have to support corporate Windows based networks that depend on craptastic in house or unmaintained consultant-built VB apps (typically. I deal with this way too much. ODBC error! Yay! ) Anything decent is running on MS-SQL (at least.)

And, really, what's so amazing about Outlook that can't be done in E*rage? Not that E*rage isn't a clunky POS, but OL really isn't much better. It barfs all over itself and corrupts PSTs (which shouldn't even exist) and profiles regularly. FWIW, Mail.app supports Exchange accounts and IIRC OS X will sync the Exchange calendar with the iCal database. Blackberry desktop sync blows chunks on Windows or OS X, just like Palm's sync conduits used to. Desktop sync is always fairly craptastic, IMO. Get an Exchange account with a BES-enabled provider. I think mine costs me about $15/mo (although I use it with my iPhone and Droid Inc. now.)

If you really want your standard Windows apps, you can always virtualize your Bootcamp partition (or build VM image for Parallels or Fusion, or run Crossover) and run MS Office, etc.

If you want to talk about geek cred, let's compare the command line environments, shall we? Bash on Darwin wins. It's basically BSD Unix! PowerShell is like a lobotomized Korn shell. The Unix command line, as you probably now, is hugely powerful for manipulation of text streams--even moreso when mated with the rest of OS X.

There's a huge indie developer community for OS X, and you can run many Linux/Unix packages. There are awesome programming tools for OS X. I could list a lot of apps that would probably be way more beneficial for LS students or practicing lawyers than the ones listed above that are only available for OS X. I could also start getting into the creative software that's available for OS X and more or less unmatched in Windows. (I'll note that OS X still lacks OneNote, which does indeed enjoy huge LS popularity. But the dominance of OneNote is in large part because of the installed Windows base. As I've mentioned elsewhere, there are Mac-only alternatives that are arguably more powerful.)

Which isn't to suggest that the legal world in practice isn't over 95% Microsoft, 'cause it is. But a lot of that has to do with installed base, inertia, sunk costs, etc. When you look at the back ends, it's increasingly virtualized servers, networked storage using iSCSI etc and thin or virtual clients (i.e. Citrix.) Mark my words, the Windows market share will decline. I've seen a lot of shifts in this world in my life (starting with VMS mainframes, DOS WordPerfect, coax networks, 5.25" floppies and tractor-feed bill printers the size of a washing machine. Also, there was the Windows+Novell era--bleech.) Another one is under way. Right now, I'm looking at replacing Windows as a host OS for Citrix clients on older boxes with some kind of Xen, VMware or vBox boot environment. The user winds up with a Windows desktop, but the underlying infrastructure is already evolving. At work I use a monster OS X based workstation with a recent 3ghz quad core, 8GB of RAM and work in VMs and Citrix for Windows stuff. All the while, I have my favored OS X environment at hand.

Anyway, Macs have huge geek appeal these days. Really, the only drawback is gaming. And if you want to use OS X but not pay the Apple hardware tax, you can do that. We're just not going to talk about it on TLS. (I'd imagine.) My take is that it's become increasingly common in the geek world to have a macbook AND a PC desktop (that may also be dual-booting.)

Man, do I ever need to ditch this early morning insomnia before school starts....

Are you seriously implying that Mac OS is worth hundreds of dollars more than a Windows OS?

I know this wasn't the original context, but:

Snow Leo -- $30 @ BestBuy
Win 7 Pro -- $80 @ Amazon
XP Pro OEM -- $150 @ ZipZoomFly (LOL XP tax for crusty old hardware hoarders like me)

TL;DR -- the tax is for HW not the OS, Macs have tremendous geek appeal (serious geeks, open source software users and developers, system and network admins, etc.) Windows is in decline but still is dominant almost everywhere after school, either will do you just fine in LS most likely.

Well, the point wasn't to get into a flame war over the OS. I've said time and time again, I have to make iPhone apps so I happily use OSX day in and day out. Of course they're popular to people like US who love having something "UNIXie".. but if you belong to that subgroup, you'll know what you're getting into more often than not. I figured the guy was going to bring back a list of programs or something to rebuttal. He didn't. I didn't enjoy a jackass bringing a retarded 'universal fact' comment into this discussion. Although, let me knit pick your post a bit

Visual Studios is the collection of all the .NET languages, including ASP.NET. Sure I can use mono - and I have.. but the time spent working out compatibility issues aren't worth it unless you're trying to port over to PHP or RoR. On the other side, it includes C# which is a very robust windows development language. On that note, I'd recommend you take another look at Visual Basic .NET, it's not your grandmother's VB. All the .NET libraries are shared between all languages and compiled the same exact way. You can't tell a difference beween a VC++.NET, VB.NET, or C#.NET app. Not saying I love it - because it fucking sucks to work on other people's work through it.. but as for doing quick prototypes in front of a customer, it works very well.

As for XCode.. have you seen Cocoa and the Objective-C OSX uses? It makes me want to punch newborn kittens and feed them to polar bears every time I have to use it. I usually skip XCode and notepad all my code for a simple copy and paste deal at the end.

And for those curious.. what do I like to use? Java, duh. Nothing like some Dalvik love, too. Ruby on Rails is my second language of choice - but it's for web apps.

Could be my older OSX Leopard, but Mail.app isn't as robust from what I've seen.. but the other solution works well, too.

And, yes, I totally agree Darwin has the best bash; though I'll never leave my Slackware for it! We go way back to floppies

but.. for shits and giggles: http://lifehacker.com/278898/reset-your ... x-password <--- Don't ever leave me alone with your Macbook lol.. and before people say that it's been shut, there are versions where they add and remove steps to "hide it". This is what a genius charges 50 bucks for when you don't have a disk and need your password restored.

For what it's worth: Go with whichever you want, but if you're asking me what I'd get for lawschool? A thinkpad.

[03121202698008]

I really dislike OS flamewars, but I do feel obligated to point out that Pear's presenting a pretty slanted view. Macs--and especially macbooks--are rather popular with certain subgroups within computer geekdom.

The examples given are kind of cherry picking--AutoCAD? Really? If you're going to go that route, you can't pretend AutoDesk doesn't exist. Visual Studio? That's for (Microsoft) VisualBasic. (Which 'real programmers' mock heartlessly.) Of course it doesn't exist on the Mac. That's tantamount to complaining that OS X isn't Windows, or that Windows lacks X-Code and that makes it bad. If you want to develop for .NET on OS X or Linux you use Mono. C'mon now. Access is one of the worst, most laughable database products out there. I can't believe you're trotting that out as a platform defining feature. Again, this is faulting OS X for not being Windows. Access is only relevant to people who have to support corporate Windows based networks that depend on craptastic in house or unmaintained consultant-built VB apps (typically. I deal with this way too much. ODBC error! Yay! ) Anything decent is running on MS-SQL (at least.)

And, really, what's so amazing about Outlook that can't be done in E*rage? Not that E*rage isn't a clunky POS, but OL really isn't much better. It barfs all over itself and corrupts PSTs (which shouldn't even exist) and profiles regularly. FWIW, Mail.app supports Exchange accounts and IIRC OS X will sync the Exchange calendar with the iCal database. Blackberry desktop sync blows chunks on Windows or OS X, just like Palm's sync conduits used to. Desktop sync is always fairly craptastic, IMO. Get an Exchange account with a BES-enabled provider. I think mine costs me about $15/mo (although I use it with my iPhone and Droid Inc. now.)

If you really want your standard Windows apps, you can always virtualize your Bootcamp partition (or build VM image for Parallels or Fusion, or run Crossover) and run MS Office, etc.

If you want to talk about geek cred, let's compare the command line environments, shall we? Bash on Darwin wins. It's basically BSD Unix! PowerShell is like a lobotomized Korn shell. The Unix command line, as you probably now, is hugely powerful for manipulation of text streams--even moreso when mated with the rest of OS X.

There's a huge indie developer community for OS X, and you can run many Linux/Unix packages. There are awesome programming tools for OS X. I could list a lot of apps that would probably be way more beneficial for LS students or practicing lawyers than the ones listed above that are only available for OS X. I could also start getting into the creative software that's available for OS X and more or less unmatched in Windows. (I'll note that OS X still lacks OneNote, which does indeed enjoy huge LS popularity. But the dominance of OneNote is in large part because of the installed Windows base. As I've mentioned elsewhere, there are Mac-only alternatives that are arguably more powerful.)

Which isn't to suggest that the legal world in practice isn't over 95% Microsoft, 'cause it is. But a lot of that has to do with installed base, inertia, sunk costs, etc. When you look at the back ends, it's increasingly virtualized servers, networked storage using iSCSI etc and thin or virtual clients (i.e. Citrix.) Mark my words, the Windows market share will decline. I've seen a lot of shifts in this world in my life (starting with VMS mainframes, DOS WordPerfect, coax networks, 5.25" floppies and tractor-feed bill printers the size of a washing machine. Also, there was the Windows+Novell era--bleech.) Another one is under way. Right now, I'm looking at replacing Windows as a host OS for Citrix clients on older boxes with some kind of Xen, VMware or vBox boot environment. The user winds up with a Windows desktop, but the underlying infrastructure is already evolving. At work I use a monster OS X based workstation with a recent 3ghz quad core, 8GB of RAM and work in VMs and Citrix for Windows stuff. All the while, I have my favored OS X environment at hand.

Anyway, Macs have huge geek appeal these days. Really, the only drawback is gaming. And if you want to use OS X but not pay the Apple hardware tax, you can do that. We're just not going to talk about it on TLS. (I'd imagine.) My take is that it's become increasingly common in the geek world to have a macbook AND a PC desktop (that may also be dual-booting.)

Man, do I ever need to ditch this early morning insomnia before school starts....

Are you seriously implying that Mac OS is worth hundreds of dollars more than a Windows OS?

I know this wasn't the original context, but:

Snow Leo -- $30 @ BestBuy
Win 7 Pro -- $80 @ Amazon
XP Pro OEM -- $150 @ ZipZoomFly (LOL XP tax for crusty old hardware hoarders like me)

TL;DR -- the tax is for HW not the OS, Macs have tremendous geek appeal (serious geeks, open source software users and developers, system and network admins, etc.) Windows is in decline but still is dominant almost everywhere after school, either will do you just fine in LS most likely.

Well, the point wasn't to get into a flame war over the OS. I've said time and time again, I have to make iPhone apps so I happily use OSX day in and day out. Of course they're popular to people like US who love having something "UNIXie".. but if you belong to that subgroup, you'll know what you're getting into more often than not. I figured the guy was going to bring back a list of programs or something to rebuttal. He didn't. I didn't enjoy a jackass bringing a retarded 'universal fact' comment into this discussion. Although, let me knit pick your post a bit

Visual Studios is the collection of all the .NET languages, including ASP.NET. Sure I can use mono - and I have.. but the time spent working out compatibility issues aren't worth it unless you're trying to port over to PHP or RoR. On the other side, it includes C# which is a very robust windows development language. On that note, I'd recommend you take another look at Visual Basic .NET, it's not your grandmother's VB. All the .NET libraries are shared between all languages and compiled the same exact way. You can't tell a difference beween a VC++.NET, VB.NET, or C#.NET app. Not saying I love it - because it fucking sucks to work on other people's work through it.. but as for doing quick prototypes in front of a customer, it works very well.

As for XCode.. have you seen Cocoa and the Objective-C OSX uses? It makes me want to punch newborn kittens and feed them to polar bears every time I have to use it. I usually skip XCode and notepad all my code for a simple copy and paste deal at the end.

And for those curious.. what do I like to use? Java, duh. Nothing like some Dalvik love, too. Ruby on Rails is my second language of choice - but it's for web apps.

Could be my older OSX Leopard, but Mail.app isn't as robust from what I've seen.. but the other solution works well, too.

And, yes, I totally agree Darwin has the best bash; though I'll never leave my Slackware for it! We go way back to floppies

but.. for shits and giggles: http://lifehacker.com/278898/reset-your ... x-password <--- Don't ever leave me alone with your Macbook lol.. and before people say that it's been shut, there are versions where they add and remove steps to "hide it". This is what a genius charges 50 bucks for when you don't have a disk and need your password restored.

For what it's worth: Go with whichever you want, but if you're asking me what I'd get for lawschool? A thinkpad.

If you have physical access you can get into any system. You can do the same thing with a Windows admin disk or free linux disk.

[ResolutePear]

I understand what you're saying Duralex, but for some layman using a computer for LS purposes, there is no need to spend that money to get both. If all a person wants to do is write papers, check email, listen to music, and browse the web, there is no reason to pay premium price for a Mac AND pick up Bootcamp.

Also, stop editing your posts a million times (and I mean this in the nicest way possible). Seems like every post you've ever made on TLS had like 4 edits. I know once in a while you'll have to go back and edit a typo or something, but try to catch that before you post, for the sake of posterity.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Bootcamp comes free with the Macs, does it not? It came free with my roommates, at any rate.

Really? A couple of posters have indicated that there is a cost. I suppose if it is free and you can get a Mac for cheap, then it comes down to preference (as one poster said above, I still prefer an interface that isn't designed for the mentally handicapped), but I really see little point in buying a Mac if it is going to be significantly more expensive.

Bootcamp is free. You still need a Windows license to use it though, and that costs anywhere from $80-$200 depending on what version you get.

You guys are students, right? Well - what the hell are you guys doing paying for software?

Schools usually give out software licenses for free. If you've already used yours.. offer one of your buds 10 bucks for another key.

As with Office - you can technically install it on 2 different computers with one license(Read the EULA)

If you have a "business" - Bizspark gives you basically all the free software you'd need with a 100$ exit fee after 2-3 years.

If you can live with Windows Server 2008 - https://www.dreamspark.com gives you that for free.

[ResolutePear]

I really dislike OS flamewars, but I do feel obligated to point out that Pear's presenting a pretty slanted view. Macs--and especially macbooks--are rather popular with certain subgroups within computer geekdom.

The examples given are kind of cherry picking--AutoCAD? Really? If you're going to go that route, you can't pretend AutoDesk doesn't exist. Visual Studio? That's for (Microsoft) VisualBasic. (Which 'real programmers' mock heartlessly.) Of course it doesn't exist on the Mac. That's tantamount to complaining that OS X isn't Windows, or that Windows lacks X-Code and that makes it bad. If you want to develop for .NET on OS X or Linux you use Mono. C'mon now. Access is one of the worst, most laughable database products out there. I can't believe you're trotting that out as a platform defining feature. Again, this is faulting OS X for not being Windows. Access is only relevant to people who have to support corporate Windows based networks that depend on craptastic in house or unmaintained consultant-built VB apps (typically. I deal with this way too much. ODBC error! Yay! ) Anything decent is running on MS-SQL (at least.)

And, really, what's so amazing about Outlook that can't be done in E*rage? Not that E*rage isn't a clunky POS, but OL really isn't much better. It barfs all over itself and corrupts PSTs (which shouldn't even exist) and profiles regularly. FWIW, Mail.app supports Exchange accounts and IIRC OS X will sync the Exchange calendar with the iCal database. Blackberry desktop sync blows chunks on Windows or OS X, just like Palm's sync conduits used to. Desktop sync is always fairly craptastic, IMO. Get an Exchange account with a BES-enabled provider. I think mine costs me about $15/mo (although I use it with my iPhone and Droid Inc. now.)

If you really want your standard Windows apps, you can always virtualize your Bootcamp partition (or build VM image for Parallels or Fusion, or run Crossover) and run MS Office, etc.

If you want to talk about geek cred, let's compare the command line environments, shall we? Bash on Darwin wins. It's basically BSD Unix! PowerShell is like a lobotomized Korn shell. The Unix command line, as you probably now, is hugely powerful for manipulation of text streams--even moreso when mated with the rest of OS X.

There's a huge indie developer community for OS X, and you can run many Linux/Unix packages. There are awesome programming tools for OS X. I could list a lot of apps that would probably be way more beneficial for LS students or practicing lawyers than the ones listed above that are only available for OS X. I could also start getting into the creative software that's available for OS X and more or less unmatched in Windows. (I'll note that OS X still lacks OneNote, which does indeed enjoy huge LS popularity. But the dominance of OneNote is in large part because of the installed Windows base. As I've mentioned elsewhere, there are Mac-only alternatives that are arguably more powerful.)

Which isn't to suggest that the legal world in practice isn't over 95% Microsoft, 'cause it is. But a lot of that has to do with installed base, inertia, sunk costs, etc. When you look at the back ends, it's increasingly virtualized servers, networked storage using iSCSI etc and thin or virtual clients (i.e. Citrix.) Mark my words, the Windows market share will decline. I've seen a lot of shifts in this world in my life (starting with VMS mainframes, DOS WordPerfect, coax networks, 5.25" floppies and tractor-feed bill printers the size of a washing machine. Also, there was the Windows+Novell era--bleech.) Another one is under way. Right now, I'm looking at replacing Windows as a host OS for Citrix clients on older boxes with some kind of Xen, VMware or vBox boot environment. The user winds up with a Windows desktop, but the underlying infrastructure is already evolving. At work I use a monster OS X based workstation with a recent 3ghz quad core, 8GB of RAM and work in VMs and Citrix for Windows stuff. All the while, I have my favored OS X environment at hand.

Anyway, Macs have huge geek appeal these days. Really, the only drawback is gaming. And if you want to use OS X but not pay the Apple hardware tax, you can do that. We're just not going to talk about it on TLS. (I'd imagine.) My take is that it's become increasingly common in the geek world to have a macbook AND a PC desktop (that may also be dual-booting.)

Man, do I ever need to ditch this early morning insomnia before school starts....

Are you seriously implying that Mac OS is worth hundreds of dollars more than a Windows OS?

I know this wasn't the original context, but:

Snow Leo -- $30 @ BestBuy
Win 7 Pro -- $80 @ Amazon
XP Pro OEM -- $150 @ ZipZoomFly (LOL XP tax for crusty old hardware hoarders like me)

TL;DR -- the tax is for HW not the OS, Macs have tremendous geek appeal (serious geeks, open source software users and developers, system and network admins, etc.) Windows is in decline but still is dominant almost everywhere after school, either will do you just fine in LS most likely.

Well, the point wasn't to get into a flame war over the OS. I've said time and time again, I have to make iPhone apps so I happily use OSX day in and day out. Of course they're popular to people like US who love having something "UNIXie".. but if you belong to that subgroup, you'll know what you're getting into more often than not. I figured the guy was going to bring back a list of programs or something to rebuttal. He didn't. I didn't enjoy a jackass bringing a retarded 'universal fact' comment into this discussion. Although, let me knit pick your post a bit

Visual Studios is the collection of all the .NET languages, including ASP.NET. Sure I can use mono - and I have.. but the time spent working out compatibility issues aren't worth it unless you're trying to port over to PHP or RoR. On the other side, it includes C# which is a very robust windows development language. On that note, I'd recommend you take another look at Visual Basic .NET, it's not your grandmother's VB. All the .NET libraries are shared between all languages and compiled the same exact way. You can't tell a difference beween a VC++.NET, VB.NET, or C#.NET app. Not saying I love it - because it fucking sucks to work on other people's work through it.. but as for doing quick prototypes in front of a customer, it works very well.

As for XCode.. have you seen Cocoa and the Objective-C OSX uses? It makes me want to punch newborn kittens and feed them to polar bears every time I have to use it. I usually skip XCode and notepad all my code for a simple copy and paste deal at the end.

And for those curious.. what do I like to use? Java, duh. Nothing like some Dalvik love, too. Ruby on Rails is my second language of choice - but it's for web apps.

Could be my older OSX Leopard, but Mail.app isn't as robust from what I've seen.. but the other solution works well, too.

And, yes, I totally agree Darwin has the best bash; though I'll never leave my Slackware for it! We go way back to floppies

but.. for shits and giggles: http://lifehacker.com/278898/reset-your ... x-password <--- Don't ever leave me alone with your Macbook lol.. and before people say that it's been shut, there are versions where they add and remove steps to "hide it". This is what a genius charges 50 bucks for when you don't have a disk and need your password restored.

For what it's worth: Go with whichever you want, but if you're asking me what I'd get for lawschool? A thinkpad.

If you have physical access you can get into any system. You can do the same thing with a Windows admin disk or free linux disk.

Give Windows a bit more credit than that - you have to actually access the corresponding files and replace them.

DEFINITELY give Linux more credit than that: If you've lost your root password, you're not getting it. Just shoot yourself. But besides, I wasn't even talking about gimmicks using disks... why would I be carry those disks around with me 24/7? This is a simple reboot into single user, do some dirty work, and back out.

[ResolutePear]

And that is a perfectly valid view. Apple's desktop line is pretty much a case-in-point.

Apple's desktop line is just horrible. Not talking about iMacs, but the desktop line. Sure I was suckered into buying one way back when - but nowadays.. you can usually check some stuff before buying a premade or when building your own computer and have it be 100% compatible with OSX.

And this will really knock your socks off: If you're going to build your own computer, reliability WILL be better than the mac's if you do your due diligence... and even then, tech support is usually just filling out a RMA slip and sending it to the manufacturer. You'd probably end up saving more than half for a system of the same specs.

[romothesavior]

I'm at work so I can't do it. Someone please post the gif of the guy with the exploding head. That's how I feel right now.

[Duralex]

as requested....
--ImageRemoved--

or did you mean this one?

--ImageRemoved--

[Duralex]

Anyway, Pear makes good points. I've heard good things about C# especially. And, yes, macs are not as secure as Apple would like you to think. But I wouldn't rely on login security or file permissions on any system to safeguard data I was truly concerned about: I'd encrypt it.

There's no doubt that a Thinkpad is a fine laptop for law school and beyond (although I'd imagine some of their models are finer than others.) So is a Macbook. The MBP is going to be overkill for most people, but I'm sure it's nice to have the extras if you can afford it. For most people, I do think it would come down to the OS preference--and for me that's why Apple wins out when I buy laptop hardware. I like to run them all.