Well, it’s that time again. New laptop time. In other words, extended warranty is about to run out hehe. And with Vista around, I’m debating whether to stay Windows or cross to Mac.

So I have a few questions for Mac-heads who may be able to help.

So, a bit of a background: I’m a multimedia developer, including web, CD, DVD, etc. So commonly use Dreamweaver, Flash, Photoshop and Director. I’m also an accessibility and usability advocate so need access to a wide variety of browsers.

The software I have is not a problem generally - Studio 8, Photoshop CS2, Traktor 3 - all Mac-friendly and working on Tiger I believe. So that’s cool - but what about web browsers - like IE. And I don’t need a lecture on Microsoft and yada yada yada, but because such a large number of users use IE6 or 7, I need to test sites in those products - so how can one easily switch to a Windows installation? The brochure has Parallels Desktop on it which shows a screenshot of XP (I own licenses of XP so that’s cool hehe). But just wondering how easy it is to do test in browsers like Safari, Mozilla, Opera and IE. IE is the problem as others have breeds for Mac OS-X, but IE doesn’t.

Next query - Mail. I currently use MS Outlook 2007. Is there a way to port my email over to a Mac system? I’ve read some horror stories of Enterague (sp?) so don’t really want to risk that, but still looking around for solutions. Any thoughts?

Next up - memory management. How much RAM should I be looking at, given that I commonly will have Photoshop, Flash and Dreamweaver open at 1 time? I’m looking at a MacBook Pro (17” breed) with either 2GB or 4GB RAM. The downside to 4GB is the $1000+ (AU dollars) upgrade cost. I’m from the Windows style of memory management (if you could call it that) so used to having memory sucked away.

I know there are Mac-heads out there and also Windows-heads, but just testing the water to see what way I should go. I’m leaning to Mac at the moment as, well, I don’t like Vista hehe. I read a really good Vista review which was unbiased towards either Mac or Microsoft, and its conclusion was that if you ever wanted to switch to a different OS, now is the time - learning Vista or learning OS-X are both different to XP.

At the moment, I’m saving a bit until October when Leopard comes out. Because Leopard has sexy gui bits hehe. So yeah… recommendations and thoughts are welcome.

Wow, a lot of interesting points to cover here.

My gear: Black MacBook Core Duo 2.0 ghz (Rev A.), 2GB RAM (upgraded and maxed out), 160GB 5400 RPM HDD (upgraded)

My software: Adobe Design Premium CS3, TextMate, Coda, Parallels, Logic Pro 7, Live 5

BT Network was built with those tools, on Mac OS X Tiger. Cross-platform accessibility was a huge issue with this site, and I’m actually not sure how Opera’s quirky engine renders it. But this has been checked through IE5.5, IE6, IE7, Safari and Firefox. I do this by testing Safari and Firefox natively on OS X, then firing up Parallels simultaneously and running three standalone versions of IE, plus PC-besed Firefox for good measure. Definitely beats having a second Windows box.

Mail is currently the third rail of OS X. Brent Simmons (designer of popular Mac RSS reader NetNewsWire) covered this a little while back, basically concluding that there’s no perfect email solution for Mac OS X since all the clients leave something to be desired. The good news is, Apple has been making strides on Mail in time for Leopard, and we should see some noticeable improvement. The biggest things that keep me from using Entourage or Thunderbird are support for IMAP and Spotlight indexing (both of which are *far* more useful than they initially seem). Developers have a general rule about Apple: Don’t compete with free, and don’t compete with Apple. There’s a pretty animated discussion going through the Mac blogsphere right now about email, so I expect the situation to get better by year’s end. There’s also a couple companies promising killer apps, but they remain vaporware for the time being. We also still haven’t gotten Office 2008 for Mac yet, it’s in private beta stage and should be out in time for Leopard. Entourage should be significantly improved.

Memory management: The upshot to Parallels is that it’s quite effective in practice, the downside is that it’s a whiny RAM hog. At any given moment I’ll have Photoshop, Illustrator, Color Schemer Studio, TextMate, Transmit, Safari, Firefox, Mail and iChat running, totaling at least 20 open windows and even more browser tabs. On 2GB of RAM that works sufficiently well, when you open Parallels there’s noticeable lag. Vista’s memory management is absolutely atrocious, since running two games, two Office apps and Windows Media Player will crash a dual-core system with 1GB of RAM. Tiger outperforms this easily, and that’s not including the upcoming garbage collection feature programmers have been implementing in the upcoming (64-bit) Leopard. Memory management is about to take a huge leap in the coming months.

The new Santa Rosa-based chipsets come stock with 2GB of RAM, which will be a good starting point. But for the work you do, I highly recommend upgrading to 4. The kicker is, do NOT upgrade through Apple. 2GB DDR2 chips can be found for anywhere between 150 and $200 US, through Crucial or OtherWorldComputing. Buy a 2x2GB kit, install it, verify it’s working, and put your 2x1GB stock ram on eBay. You’ll recover at least half your expenses, and you won’t be buying overpriced RAM from Apple.

For any kind of web or multimedia development, Mac is really the way to go. The only tools I still keep on Parallels are the IE builds, and FlashFXP for remote-to-remote protocol transfers. And the third-party application support for Apple users—particularly in webdev—is astounding. We pride ourselves on workflow. You’d fit right in.

Oh dammit… I just wrote a lovely long reply and then timed out on me and I lost it *cries*

Well take 2… and I will try to remember what I said before.

I’m lucky with my setup here with the fact that I’ve been conciously getting Mac/PC software and hardware. So all of my NI stuff will be fine (Audio Kontrol 1, Traktor), as well Studio 8 and Director MX 2004 (thanks Macromedia for PC/Mac discs), but CS2 will need a new disc. Might look at upgrading from Studio 8 to CS3.

Parallels answers the question on testing in other browsers. It’s frustrating at work at the moment because IT support have been flat out and I have to go to a PC in a general use pool to use other browsers and even Dreamweaver. Notepad is productive for only a certain amount of time hehe. I have a spare Windows box that I’m not using at the moment which I will turn into a Windows (gulp) server for home use. I’m the only one who uses it, so load isn’t a problem - funds to get a proper server is hehe. But I also may need access to ASP for a project later in the year so need to stick with it - so at least short term could use IE7 natively on that. Just need a flicker boxy thing to switch my keyboard, monitor and mouse between the two as I don’t have room to have more keyboards or mice - very small desk hehe

The screens I’ve seen of Office 2008 look good - very similar to 2007 which may make transitions easier. But with Entourage, I may wait to see how well it works before jumping in with email hehe. I’ve considered switching to Thunderbird now on Windows, and migrating that across given there’s a Mac version of Thunderbird, but not sure how well a PC to Mac swap will go. I’m only using POP email so that’s cool, but just still a lot to take in - about 6 years of emails floating around.

RAM is a tough one - I have 2GB in my Dell at the moment and it’s fine but Photoshop is becoming very unresponsive, hence querying 4GB. So may need to look into alternatives and maybe find a local supplier for alternate RAM - $1000+ is a lot just for an extra 2GB. May even start with 2 to see how I go, and then can always upgrade later. But at the same time, things may have changed between now and then.

But thanks again for your help - it’s a big adjustment, but I’m really excited too!

I heard the iPhone is buggy.  When I heard that I hoped Apple didn’t rush it; it’s not really like them to release a buggy product.  I mean, they’re still sweet and Apple’s still gonna make a killing.  Actually, the only real complaint I’ve heard first person is that the screen gets greasy from all the fingerplay and human oils.  YICK, get a towel.

Oh, and to answer your question, MartyF, you should most certainly Mac.  For me the big issue was beginning to realize that, while I still had my screaming XP-running PC, everyone was on a mac and I kept running into these not insurmountable but definitely annoying cross-platform issues.  Not to mention being caught between a wav / aiff war in which human preference played little a role.

Just a matter of time now I think… but Windows still needs to be around for my web work (unless they make IE7 for Mac which is, well, just not going to happen hehe)

On an accessibility point of view, does Mac OS-X’s talking feature pick up alternate content in web pages? Weird question, but heavy focus for my current Honours study. I think I need to go and play with a Mac for a while and experiment…

Im going threw the same deal man. I need a new computer and I cant decide if I want to cross over to mac. I really like them… A lot! But is it really worth all the money you have to spend on one? Some one please help me out.

also you can check out vmware fusion, it supposedly knocks the socks off of parralells.

i am an IT Director for a decent sized advertising firm.  everyone except the artists is on pc.  i tell you that i have more effed up problems with windows than i do with the macs.  my home computer is an imac and my work laptop is a macbook pro, i wouldn’t have it any other way.  dont get me wrong, there are some annoying things about macs, however those things make sense, and for the most part, get a “thats annoying” vs. “you god damn piece of shit” (when i deal with windows stuff)

vista = the new windows me ... i don’t think it will last long..(i hope).  basically they have to release that piece of shit to keep their corporate customers happy who like me write ridiculous amount sized checks for enterprise agreements.  i will most likely not roll out stuff on vista because its REALLY that bad.  many friends of mine also feel the same way.  when it was done with betas i got a copy of it in october, a month later after getting pissed off it almost daily, i went back to XP.

i have an iphone.  i like it, its one of the best cell phones i have owned.  however there are some bugs and some things that annoy the shit out of me about it.  further apple made it seem like it was the second coming in its marketing approach in the US, and frankly its been three months and nothing exciting has been released in the ways of software, possibly a fucking IM client etc. etc.

notBoston

Dunno how you feel about your warranty, but there’s a budding and thriving iPhone app development community that’s already come out with games and many other miscellaneous programs that run natively, and the accelerometer has recently been figured out which should provide for some neat new UIs.

oh i know.  the beta IM client they have is pretty bad right now (which is my BIGGEST complaint)...and im not a real customizer...maybe a couple of rings tones..one for the lady friend..one for my homies etc etc...but other than that..im a plain jane type of guy.

notBoston

I switched from Parallels 2.5 (the stable build, 3.0 was a step backwards) to the new VMware Fusion. It’s cut from the same cloth, but noticeably better. Bottom line—if you absolutely must have Windows available for a select few programs, it serves as a convenient alternative and I’d definitely recommend VMware for it. Because I do web development, about the only things I need Windows for are IE6 and IE7 standalones, plus FlashFXP for remote server-to-server transfers. None of the mac FTP clients support true FXP transfers.

But that’s me. OneManRiot, what do you use your computer for, mostly?

I’ve heard about Fusion - a mate just got a MacBook Pro and is going on about it (I hate him so much now hehehe). The Unity feature sounds awesome though - being able to Dock Windows apps as if they were Mac. I’m pretty excited… and like you Rageous, IE6 and IE7 will be there, but for me also Quickbooks for accounting gear.

I’m just going to wait until Leopard comes out in October I think though - I love the talk of the new vector-based UI and downsizing resolutions (to avoid those nasty blurry effects when you decrease resolutions).

That’s actually a good question though - anyone have a MacBook Pro (17” obviously) with the 1920 x 1200 resolution? If so, how do you find it? I’ve currently got a 17” Dell with 1920 x 1200 and love the space (plus a second monitor too) but at times strain eyes (after long study sessions… bloody thesis hehe). How does the Mac OS look and feel on a high resolution?

I’ve made the decision to switch… it’s now just time…

One good thing that Dell offer that Mac don’t is extended warranty. And yes, there’s AppleCare, but Dell’s Complete Cover is kickass! I got this for my current system (and runs out in January after 3 years) and what the Complete Cover actually covers is really cool - spills, power surges, droppages, all of the nasty bits and pieces that other programs don’t cover. So far, that is Mac’s downfall - AppleCare doesn’t cover things like power surges and droppages. But still, for peace of mind, the 3 year AppleCare is on my shopping list : )

marty? what planet are you on? dell customer service?  i didn’t know they offered that.

hehe well they’ve treated me well… when I can understand them that is… but next day on-site service is just handy when working full time - just take my notebook to work and they come and fix it while I continue working on my work Desktop.

Only had one issue (and that was recently) - the power button didn’t want to work any more, but all good now. Well two really but that was a power point’s fault, not theirs : )