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nealric

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Re: Mac or PC?

Post by nealric » Fri Dec 10, 2010 2:44 pm

Only at the sub $1000 last-generation processor level. If you are looking at Intel i5/i7 with similar hardware it's much closer.
An i5/i7 is completely pointless for a law student. Engineers are the only ones who might actually benefit from the extra computing power. If you want your computer to "feel" faster, just get an SSD.

And besides: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6834115871
(core i5 for $650).

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Re: Mac or PC?

Post by 3|ink » Fri Dec 10, 2010 3:27 pm

nealric wrote:
Only at the sub $1000 last-generation processor level. If you are looking at Intel i5/i7 with similar hardware it's much closer.
An i5/i7 is completely pointless for a law student. Engineers are the only ones who might actually benefit from the extra computing power. If you want your computer to "feel" faster, just get an SSD.

And besides: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6834115871
(core i5 for $650).
Any laptop with a CPU of that power is bound to have a shitty battery life anyway. That one has only 3.5 hours. Are macs any better at power conservation?

I definitely agree that a law student doesn't need anything that powerful unless he/she wants to play black ops in the middle of class.

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Re: Mac or PC?

Post by thelaststraw05 » Fri Dec 10, 2010 3:33 pm

I think in school one of the foremost considerations should be weight. I really don't want to be lugging around 5 lbs of computer on back in addition to all the books. Given that, I think PC wins out.

The thin and light that steps up on the Mac side is the MacBook Air.
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/s ... TM3NDkzNzU

The bottom prices on these are $999 for the 11" version and $1,299 for the 13" version.

These weigh in under three pounds, but are a little light on memory (2 GBs) for running windows.

On the PC side you have a number of options. You could go cheap and get a netbook, but the performance on these is underwhelming. If you were looking to go just a few hundred dollars cheaper than the Mac, you have a few nice options.

Competing with the 13" MacBook Air:

TOSHIBA Portege R705 - Intel Core i5 (2.53GHz), 4GB DDR3 Memory, 500GB HDD, Windows 7 Home Premium, 3.20 lbs, Up to 8 hours - $849
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6834214024

Acer Aspire TimelineX - Intel Core i3 (2.40GHz), 4GB Memory, 320GB HDD, Windows 7 Home Premium, 3.97 lbs, Up to 8 hours - $649
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

Competing with the 11" MacBook Air:

Acer Aspire TimelineX - Intel Core i7 (1.46GHz), 4GB Memory, 500GB HDD, Windows 7 Home Premium, 3.10 lbs, Up to 8 hours - $849
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

Acer Aspire AS1430-4857 - Intel Core i5 (1.06GHz), 4GB DDR3 Memory, 320GB HDD, Windows 7 Home Premium, 3.09 lbs, Up to 6-hours - $599
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6834115954

It is a personal choice. But when you are estimating the cost of the system, take into account what additional software and peripherals you are going to buy. For instance, people have been mentioning running both OSX and Windows. To add Windows 7 Home Premium to a Mac can cost hundreds of dollars.

Windows 7 Home Premium - $179
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

If you want to run Parallels, it is another $79 dollars.
http://store.apple.com/us/product/H2481 ... TY3ODQ5OTY

Curry

Re: Mac or PC?

Post by Curry » Fri Dec 10, 2010 3:59 pm

thunderflesh wrote:If you want something for school work, internet, and not much else, get a cheap PC.

If you want to do music recording/production, media work, film editing, etc., get a mac.

If you want something very user-friendly, get a mac.

If you want to play games, get a PC.

If you want to tinker with your computer a bunch, get a PC.

99% of people will clearly fall into one of those categories.
If you want to program, get a PC. (thats the missing category)

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Re: Mac or PC?

Post by 3|ink » Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:03 pm

curryinaninstant wrote:
thunderflesh wrote:If you want something for school work, internet, and not much else, get a cheap PC.

If you want to do music recording/production, media work, film editing, etc., get a mac.

If you want something very user-friendly, get a mac.

If you want to play games, get a PC.

If you want to tinker with your computer a bunch, get a PC.

99% of people will clearly fall into one of those categories.
If you want to program, get a PC. (thats the missing category)
Yep. And unless if programming Macros with VBA falls into that category, that too. You can't use VBA with crappy macs.

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Re: Mac or PC?

Post by r6_philly » Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:08 pm

3|ink wrote:
r6_philly wrote:I have both mac and windows xp (7 works the same) running at the same time on my mac book pro. You can drag/drop between windows and use the same "My Documents" folder.

http://www.parallels.com/

Recommended to my whole class this semester which requires PC only software, no one had issues. Only $40 for the software + windows + whatever else you want to put on there. Best of both words at your fingertips.
Very interesting. I assme this is the case, but you can run VBA from this Mac/Windows application? One of my biggest problems with Macs is that you can't run VBA in Mac's version of office.
You run windows XP as a virtual machine and you can run native windows program on windows. You can also run Linux as a virtual machines too.

One of the best part of Parallels is that it has a mode where windows apps are displayed as individual windows (one per program per window) like native mac windows.

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Re: Mac or PC?

Post by r6_philly » Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:10 pm

3|ink wrote:
curryinaninstant wrote:
thunderflesh wrote:If you want something for school work, internet, and not much else, get a cheap PC.

If you want to do music recording/production, media work, film editing, etc., get a mac.

If you want something very user-friendly, get a mac.

If you want to play games, get a PC.

If you want to tinker with your computer a bunch, get a PC.

99% of people will clearly fall into one of those categories.
If you want to program, get a PC. (thats the missing category)
Yep. And unless if programming Macros with VBA falls into that category, that too. You can't use VBA with crappy macs.
I am going to disagree with Internet because every few weeks family and friends bring their PCs to me to fix spyware/adware/viruses, because they are not hip on how not to get your computer full of junk. If you are not at a power user level, mac is going to be a lot more trouble free.

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Re: Mac or PC?

Post by phoenixwright83 » Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:12 pm

Op..if you're still reading this and you do decide on Mac wait till July/ august to buy one. First use your student discount. Second get your free iPod touch. Third you'll prob. get a discount on a printer and/or iWork/office. Finally youll have the newest operating system.

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Re: Mac or PC?

Post by nealric » Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:24 pm

I am going to disagree with Internet because every few weeks family and friends bring their PCs to me to fix spyware/adware/viruses, because they are not hip on how not to get your computer full of junk. If you are not at a power user level, mac is going to be a lot more trouble free.
Most of them are probably using non-updated Windows XP and IE6. If you are using windows 7 with a modern browser you probably won't have any of those problems unless you spend half your time on the internet looking for warez and porn.

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Re: Mac or PC?

Post by 3|ink » Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:28 pm

nealric wrote:
I am going to disagree with Internet because every few weeks family and friends bring their PCs to me to fix spyware/adware/viruses, because they are not hip on how not to get your computer full of junk. If you are not at a power user level, mac is going to be a lot more trouble free.
Most of them are probably using non-updated Windows XP and IE6. If you are using windows 7 with a modern browser you probably won't have any of those problems unless you spend half your time on the internet looking for warez and porn.
I spend more than half my time doing these things and everything runs smoothly.

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Re: Mac or PC?

Post by r6_philly » Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:33 pm

nealric wrote:
I am going to disagree with Internet because every few weeks family and friends bring their PCs to me to fix spyware/adware/viruses, because they are not hip on how not to get your computer full of junk. If you are not at a power user level, mac is going to be a lot more trouble free.
Most of them are probably using non-updated Windows XP and IE6. If you are using windows 7 with a modern browser you probably won't have any of those problems unless you spend half your time on the internet looking for warez and porn.
people likes to click on things. scripts are written mostly for windows machines.

I don't mean to come off as an ass at all about this, but I have been working with all 3 OS systems + legacy systems for more than 10 years in large scale, enterprise settings. I have no preference over one of the other, but PC is not the optimal choice for the casual user. No amount of arguing/discussion is going to change that. Working a windows-based helpdesk is night and day compared to a mac helpdesk. My current job is all mac, it is very pleasant to be a sys admin/support person (I am not, but we are in the same office) as opposed to my past windows based jobs.

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Re: Mac or PC?

Post by r6_philly » Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:35 pm

3|ink wrote:
I spend more than half my time doing these things and everything runs smoothly.
Some people are better with computers than others. How many PC users knows how to boot to safe mode just to load only native modules so they can run true virus/adware scan?

Have you ever worked in a helpdesk setting? There are people who don't understand the concept of shutdown and suspend. Most people can't tell a pop up that is made to look like a prompt from a real prompt.

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Re: Mac or PC?

Post by nealric » Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:40 pm

people likes to click on things. scripts are written mostly for windows machines.
I mean, yeah, in an enterprise setting there will be a certain percentage of users who just have to click on the flashing "buy vi1gra NAO" link. But I think most law students have at least a modicum of common sense in that regard.

Again, I think one's computer choice is pretty much personal preference. However, I don't quite understand why so many people starting law school who already own a perfectly good laptop feel the need to drop two grand on a decked out macbook pro.
Have you ever worked in a helpdesk setting? There are people who don't understand the concept of shutdown and suspend. Most people can't tell a pop up that is made to look like a prompt from a real prompt.
I spent most of my high school and college years being the neighborhood IT helpdesk. 9/10 times the problem was either a clueless older person who was computer illiterate or their kids downloading crap from limewire. More tech savy people only called me when they had a legitimate hardware problem. And I don't mean IT people- just people with the average computer knowledge of most 20-somethings.

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Re: Mac or PC?

Post by r6_philly » Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:52 pm

nealric wrote:
people likes to click on things. scripts are written mostly for windows machines.
I mean, yeah, in an enterprise setting there will be a certain percentage of users who just have to click on the flashing "buy vi1gra NAO" link. But I think most law students have at least a modicum of common sense in that regard.

Again, I think one's computer choice is pretty much personal preference. However, I don't quite understand why so many people starting law school who already own a perfectly good laptop feel the need to drop two grand on a decked out macbook pro.
Have you ever worked in a helpdesk setting? There are people who don't understand the concept of shutdown and suspend. Most people can't tell a pop up that is made to look like a prompt from a real prompt.
I spent most of my high school and college years being the neighborhood IT helpdesk. 9/10 times the problem was either a clueless older person who was computer illiterate or their kids downloading crap from limewire. More tech savy people only called me when they had a legitimate hardware problem. And I don't mean IT people- just people with the average computer knowledge of most 20-somethings.
I think you over estimate law school students. I just finished a graduate class that requires the use of computers. 60% mac, 40% PC. I say 80% of people with laptops needed help doing the intermediate level tasks. I end up walking around class helping everyone with their computers. People with PCs are more likely to have technical problem whereas macs usually just need instructions. These students are probably similar to the people who will be attending law school (same UG majors/background)

Mac is more stable than PC due to the fact that software are more tightly controled by the OS, windows' open based philosophy makes it hard to control quality. PC's constantly need restarting because a lack of control by the OS in memory management, and over time free memory gets used up and not released when programs terminate, eventually overwhelming the system. Mac is made much better in this regard. So it translate to a performance advantage too.

Most computer science people will tell you Mac is a superior OS for technical reasons. Most web servers are not managed, and most web servers are run on unix based platform (as does Mac) for security, realiability and performance reasons.

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Re: Mac or PC?

Post by whymeohgodno » Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:59 pm

r6_philly wrote:
3|ink wrote:
I spend more than half my time doing these things and everything runs smoothly.
Some people are better with computers than others. How many PC users knows how to boot to safe mode just to load only native modules so they can run true virus/adware scan?

Have you ever worked in a helpdesk setting? There are people who don't understand the concept of shutdown and suspend. Most people can't tell a pop up that is made to look like a prompt from a real prompt.
I've never done this and I've never had to fix my PC for viruses. People exaggerate viruses. Don't go to stupid websites, don't open stupid files, and 90% of your virus attacks are gone.

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Re: Mac or PC?

Post by nealric » Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:02 pm

PC's constantly need restarting because a lack of control by the OS in memory management, and over time free memory gets used up and not released when programs terminate, eventually overwhelming the system. Mac is made much better in this regard. So it translate to a performance advantage too.

Most computer science people will tell you Mac is a superior OS for technical reasons. Most web servers are not managed, and most web servers are run on unix based platform (as does Mac) for security, realiability and performance reasons.
While I agree that Macs have advantages for the computer illiterate, you over state your case here. PC's do not constantly need restarting. You are talking about problems that really only existed back in the windows 98/ME days. I've had windows PCs that ran 24/7 for months without problems. In fact, the machine I built for my parents has been running for the last year and a half without a reboot.

Sure, most web servers run on a unix platform, but that doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of microsoft based servers out there. There are reasons for that besides the software itself. Most of the good open source web software is unix/linix based. And unix/linix can be customized a lot more to the users need. If you already have a sysadmin, you can take more easily advantage of that customization than a home user.

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Re: Mac or PC?

Post by r6_philly » Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:04 pm

whymeohgodno wrote: I've never done this and I've never had to fix my PC for viruses. People exaggerate viruses. Don't go to stupid websites, don't open stupid files, and 90% of your virus attacks are gone.
I don't have any personal opinions anymore on this subject, it's quite silly. The above is my professional opinion. Just because you haven't had to fix it anything makes virus problem exaggerated? Are you a true and accurate reflection of the world as a whole.

Don't listen to the computer guy. :D I came in here to point out that you can run both concurrently on a mac so you don't have to choose one and that's what I will leave you guys with.

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Re: Mac or PC?

Post by whymeohgodno » Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:07 pm

r6_philly wrote:
whymeohgodno wrote: I've never done this and I've never had to fix my PC for viruses. People exaggerate viruses. Don't go to stupid websites, don't open stupid files, and 90% of your virus attacks are gone.
I don't have any personal opinions anymore on this subject, it's quite silly. The above is my professional opinion. Just because you haven't had to fix it anything makes virus problem exaggerated? Are you a true and accurate reflection of the world as a whole.

Don't listen to the computer guy. :D I came in here to point out that you can run both concurrently on a mac so you don't have to choose one and that's what I will leave you guys with.
Why run both and have to pay so much more (Macs are overpriced) when you can just run one?

Again this is for the average computer user. Use common sense and you won't get viruses. Anything to do with programming or running servers is something that's well out of my realm of knowledge so I'm not commenting on that at all.

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Re: Mac or PC?

Post by homestyle28 » Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:11 pm

"Virtual Box" and get whichever you want.

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Re: Mac or PC?

Post by r6_philly » Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:13 pm

nealric wrote:
PC's constantly need restarting because a lack of control by the OS in memory management, and over time free memory gets used up and not released when programs terminate, eventually overwhelming the system. Mac is made much better in this regard. So it translate to a performance advantage too.

Most computer science people will tell you Mac is a superior OS for technical reasons. Most web servers are not managed, and most web servers are run on unix based platform (as does Mac) for security, realiability and performance reasons.
While I agree that Macs have advantages for the computer illiterate, you over state your case here. PC's do not constantly need restarting. You are talking about problems that really only existed back in the windows 98/ME days. I've had windows PCs that ran 24/7 for months without problems. In fact, the machine I built for my parents has been running for the last year and a half without a reboot.

Sure, most web servers run on a unix platform, but that doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of microsoft based servers out there. There are reasons for that besides the software itself. Most of the good open source web software is unix/linix based. And unix/linix can be customized a lot more to the users need. If you already have a sysadmin, you can take more easily advantage of that customization than a home user.
Most web apps are proprietary, not open-sourced.

Obviously you know more than I do :roll: , so I will leave the soap box to you.

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Re: Mac or PC?

Post by r6_philly » Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:14 pm

whymeohgodno wrote:
r6_philly wrote:
whymeohgodno wrote: I've never done this and I've never had to fix my PC for viruses. People exaggerate viruses. Don't go to stupid websites, don't open stupid files, and 90% of your virus attacks are gone.
I don't have any personal opinions anymore on this subject, it's quite silly. The above is my professional opinion. Just because you haven't had to fix it anything makes virus problem exaggerated? Are you a true and accurate reflection of the world as a whole.

Don't listen to the computer guy. :D I came in here to point out that you can run both concurrently on a mac so you don't have to choose one and that's what I will leave you guys with.
Why run both and have to pay so much more (Macs are overpriced) when you can just run one?

Again this is for the average computer user. Use common sense and you won't get viruses. Anything to do with programming or running servers is something that's well out of my realm of knowledge so I'm not commenting on that at all.
I just spent the semester helping 50 graduate students in a MPA program. But whatever, personal opinions trumps professional experiences everyday right.

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Re: Mac or PC?

Post by 3|ink » Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:16 pm

whymeohgodno wrote: Why run both and have to pay so much more (Macs are overpriced) when you can just run one?
TITCR Even if you think Macs are superior, you hardly need to pay an extra 1k for word processing.

Seriously. All apple products are overpriced and underpowered. Just one more reason to go PC.
Last edited by 3|ink on Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Mac or PC?

Post by whymeohgodno » Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:18 pm

r6_philly wrote:
whymeohgodno wrote:
r6_philly wrote:
whymeohgodno wrote: I've never done this and I've never had to fix my PC for viruses. People exaggerate viruses. Don't go to stupid websites, don't open stupid files, and 90% of your virus attacks are gone.
I don't have any personal opinions anymore on this subject, it's quite silly. The above is my professional opinion. Just because you haven't had to fix it anything makes virus problem exaggerated? Are you a true and accurate reflection of the world as a whole.

Don't listen to the computer guy. :D I came in here to point out that you can run both concurrently on a mac so you don't have to choose one and that's what I will leave you guys with.
Why run both and have to pay so much more (Macs are overpriced) when you can just run one?

Again this is for the average computer user. Use common sense and you won't get viruses. Anything to do with programming or running servers is something that's well out of my realm of knowledge so I'm not commenting on that at all.
I just spent the semester helping 50 graduate students in a MPA program. But whatever, personal opinions trumps professional experiences everyday right.
What part about "average computer user" did you not understand? If you're in a graduate program learning how to use computers you are obviously learning skills that an average user wouldn't need to utilize. But I guess you have some kind of obsessive need to keep bringing the conversation back to your immense professional experiences instead of actually reading the post and referencing the point made. :roll:

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Re: Mac or PC?

Post by r6_philly » Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:20 pm

whymeohgodno wrote:
What part about "average computer user" did you not understand? If you're in a graduate program learning how to use computers you are obviously learning skills that an average user wouldn't need to utilize. But I guess you have some kind of obsessive need to keep bringing the conversation back to your immense professional experiences instead of actually reading the post and referencing the point made. :roll:
MPA = Master of Public Administration. They are average users.

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Re: Mac or PC?

Post by whymeohgodno » Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:23 pm

r6_philly wrote:
whymeohgodno wrote:
What part about "average computer user" did you not understand? If you're in a graduate program learning how to use computers you are obviously learning skills that an average user wouldn't need to utilize. But I guess you have some kind of obsessive need to keep bringing the conversation back to your immense professional experiences instead of actually reading the post and referencing the point made. :roll:
MPA = Master of Public Administration. They are average users.
They obviously aren't average computer users if you need to help them use Microsoft Word. What exactly were you helping them with? If they needed help with operating programs such as word/excel or needed help setting up their yahoo email account, they obviously aren't average.

If they needed "help" with something from you I can only assume that they needed help with some feature of the computer which an average user wouldn't need to utilize, OR they were horrible at average computer skills and thus are below average and shouldn't even be referenced in this conversation...

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