Greater Satellites

So, I was in the midst of writing what I thought to be a meaningful article (which will get posted… eventually) when I came across several Mac vs. PC articles on none other than AOL News today.  I enjoy reading those types of articles because sometimes they make interesting points from an PC user perspective that I may have a difficult time conceptualizing.  Such was not the case with this articles, and here is why…

This article, which isn’t too bad, is by Michael Tolosa over at AOL Shopping.  He eventually concludes that Macs are superior products, but has a few shaky arguments in favor of PC along the way.

This laptop  acts as my remote machine for work. Unfortunately, the tools I use for work are not supported by the Mac operating system or the Safari web browser.

Sounds like your company’s system was one of those olde fashioned, designed-for-IE type applications.  You can’t blame Apple for poor software decisions made by your employer.  There are many viable browser alternatives to Safari on Mac including the venerable Firefox, Camino, Opera, and more.  If your company software isn’t supported on any of them, might be time to fire up Boot Camp or VMWare.  Oh wait…

The way I got around this was by installing a Windows partition on my Mac, where I could install all the Windows programs I needed and access them for work.  One downside to installing a Windows partition on your Mac, is it can take up to 32GB of hard drive space.

If I may borrow a popular internet meme:  You’re doing it wrong.  You can scale the size of a Boot Camp partition to any size you like, and some slipstreamed versions of XP I’ve encountered only require about 700MB total.  If you’re only using Windows for a few programs and Internet Explorer, you shouldn’t need to partition more than 4GB.

…many of the software utilities you use on a daily basis aren’t available in Mac versions. And even if they are available on the Mac, they’re usually limited in functionality compared to the more robust and fully-developed Windows versions. For instance, the AIM client for Mac is less functional than the Windows version. Other utilities (like FTP clients, bit torrent clients, etc.) rarely come in two versions. You’ll have to find completely different Mac products to complete these daily tasks.

Fancy that! When I switch operating systems I can’t bring my programs with me!  This part of the article here seemed like a bit of filler, truth be told.  AIM for Mac hasn’t been updated in years, that’s why Apple throws in it’s own great little chat client called iChat.  If you’re not happy with iChat, a quick Google search for “mac IM program” will direct you to Adium (which actually ranks higher than AIM in the results), a great open source instant messaging client.  Two FTP clients off the top of my head that come in both Mac and Windows flavors are the open source Filezilla and GlobalScape’s CuteFTP.  The official Bittorrent client is multiplatform, too, and another quick “Mac bittorrent” search will yield results for Transmission, which is comparable to uTorrent in features and functionality.

One thing you won’t ever get on a Mac is a version of Internet Explorer.

Oh really? No shit. Thank God.

The other big difference between buying a Mac laptop and a PC laptop is price. The Mac will cost roughly twice as much as a PC.

I went to Apple’s Online Store and Dell’s Online Store.  I then selected the higher-end white MacBook, which starts at $1299 and has a 13.3″ screen, 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM, and a 160GB hard drive.  Then I went to Dell’s site and selected the 13.3″ XPS M1330 and matched the specs.  The XPS ended up costing $1,174.  So while the Apple is a bit more expensive, it’s nowhere near twice as much.  You can buy a machine that’s half as good for half the price, though.

In conclusion, I believe Mr. Tolosa was a little lazy in regards to some research about the Macintosh platform, but I won’t hold that against him since he finishes with the line:

Once you switch to a Mac, you’ll never go back.

Well, it came and went just like it always does. I’m talking, of course, about Steve Jobs’ presentation at this year’s Macworld Expo. As it seems year after year, people have incredible expectations from the company that, to many, can do no wrong. I’ll admit that in recent years I’ve toned down my own excitement so I’m not let down by certain products not receiving updates or overhauls, but I’m always pleasantly surprised by at least one of the products released each year.

Although I’m sure it was never asked for in the first place, here’s my take on this year’s announcements:

1. Time Capsule
   First of all… How cool is that name? I’m highly considering scooping up one of these bad boys if for nothing other than streamlining my setup. I beat myself up being an early adopter of the Airport Extreme Base Station and paid the price when they released the Gigabit Ethernet version shortly thereafter (my main machine is wired to the station for maximum speeds).
2. iPhone Update
   I’ve since updated and I’m impressed with the wiggling icons. It makes me feel like I’m playing some sort of old-school, battery-operated game like Perfection. The GPS-like feature on maps is much appreciated and, while note exact when it comes to location, will be pretty damn helpful for navigating around certain Third World States. The addition of multiple pages to put my icons on also makes the fact that Apple will be releasing an SDK more of a reality. I can’t wait to have a slew of apps running natively on my iPhone that do all sorts of interesting and awesome things (here’s hoping for a mobile iChat or Adium).
3. AppleTV Take 2 / iTunes Movie Rentals
   The name, to me, seems like a subtle way of hinting that they may have dropped the ball with the first AppleTV. The new system, with the iTunes Store built-in and improved interface (not to mention lower price point and HD movie rentals) should do much better in all arenas. I’m still content streaming movies and music I, ahem, procure from the internet to my PS3 using MediaLink.
4. MacBook Air
   I will not deny this is probably one of the sexiest laptops I’ve ever seen in a long time, but I don’t think I’d purchase it for a few reasons. If I were to buy a laptop, I wouldn’t want to carry around an adapter for every single peripheral I might need. No FireWire ports means no video editing getting done on this little guy. The hard drive and processor speeds are slower than both other MacBooks in the family (unless you go SSD… for $999 more). There are two very cool things that I like about the machine, though: One is the LED backlit screen. I imagine it’s probably the brightest screen of all the MacBooks… currently. The second, of course, is the Multi-touch trackpad. I don’t know how useful it would be until more programs add support for it, but it seems very neat to me.
   
   In all honesty, I’m looking forward to a revision of the regular ol’ MacBook and MacBook Pro with the LED backlit screens and an option for the SSD drive. I think the MBP, with its plethora of ports and widespread use in the field of mobile video editing would benefit most from an SSD option. Here’s hoping…
   
   All in all, the MacBook Air seems to me to be a supplemental machine. Too much function seemed to be sacrificed for the sake of form. I envision it as a machine you just have around throughout the house: you pick it up to surf the web, check email, or maybe do some chatting, then go about your day. When I look at it that way, it’s a pretty pricey supplemental machine.

So, after all was said and done, this year’s Keynote was…. Fine. I don’t mean that in womenspeak, where I say it’s fine and something is really wrong, either. There was nothing really good or really bad about it for me, and chances are I’ll be picking up one of the products mentioned, so I’m pleased with it. If there’s one thing I’d like to ask Apple, it’s for them to please refresh their damn Cinema Displays already!

You’d be able to get a Mac Pro with the following specs:

• Two 3.2GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon (8-core)
• 32GB (8 x 4GB)
• Mac Pro RAID Card
• 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
• 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
• 300GB 15,000-rpm SAS
• 300GB 15,000-rpm SAS
• NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 1.5GB (Stereo 3D, two dual-link DVI)
• Apple Cinema HD Display (30″ flat panel)
• Apple Cinema HD Display (30″ flat panel)
• One 16x SuperDrive
• AirPort Extreme card (Wi-Fi)
• Apple Mighty Mouse
• Apple Wireless Keyboard (English) + Mac OS X

In all fairness, you could easily replace that 1 $2800 video card with 4 ATI Radeon HDs and shave $2400 off the price. I was just trying to future-proof the machine as much as possible. I’ll be adding this machine to my Amazon wish list just as soon as I can figure out how…