A New Lap Top

[peteroldracer]

Years ago back in Yorkshire I was in a Mac User Group - geeky Mac folk meeting for a chat - and one member was in charge of Graphic Design at Doncaster College. He complained that they were not allowed to use Macs for teaching, as the IT support staff wanted to protect their jobs, saying that if there were Macs they would have far less to do. They persuaded the non-techy bosses that PCs were what they should be buying and using, blinding them with computer jargon.

[Lavanda]

That was my experience initially, as well, Peter. I taught Graphic Design for many years at a huge college. I wanted Macs for the new Graphic Design Computer Suite. The IT boys wanted PCs as they knew how to 'fix' them. In the end, I won as Macs were/are the industry standard and I had come from a professional Graphic Design background and blinded THEM with science. The IT boys never ever set foot in the Mac Suite. They didn't need to!

[markwilding]

And years ago an older neighbor had been convinced by a younger relative to buy a Mac. He had no idea what he had bought and how to use it.
Back then a Mac was for graphic designers and professionals The problem was that there were no courses for him to get a grip on the basics of computing.
My advice to him was to take it back and buy a Windows
PC
At that time it was also important to get people up tp speed on PCs that companies would more likely be using so the government and schools would train people on Windows, common sense if you ask me

[peteroldracer]

Bit like Betamax - far superior to VHS but....
I did take a peek at Macbook prices....almost made my eyes bleed.

[Lavanda]

Windows are for seeing through. Some people can and some people can't.

[HarryJ]

Mark, companies and corporations are switching to Macs at an unprecedented rate. Google have now got 43,000 across its company, Facebook now is predominantly a Mac environment, even IBM are rapidly moving to Macs, they now have 100,000 Mac users (also far cheaper to manage than windows pc's across large user groups) BBC are replacing PC'S with Mac, Cisco systems who historically were very anti Mac/Steve Jobs now have fully integrated with Mac and have 35,000 in use and the list goes on and on. Not even going to mention the massive Mac integration and uptake in the education sector across the U.S and now quite rapidly in certain areas of the U.K.
I cannot possibly imaging that in 2017 anyone would tell someone who had bought a iMac to take it back and get a Windows PC in its place!!

[markwilding]

Obviously not, I was talking about over 15 years ago. I have no problems with Apple. We have MacBooks, All the family have IPhone and IPad and maybe the next desktop will be a Mac but I will still use Windows.

[chrissiehope]

Edited to say just realised that I've missed this page, so my comments relate to posts on page 2 !
I spoke to several different people at my ISP ( who are the company that at one time had the monopoly of the telephone system ) and every single one of them were adamant that their company did not support XP. Most of the other people who have been involved in this have said much the same as GerryH, and believe me, I tried, I had a huge rant down the phone, but they weren't shifting and I know a brick wall when I see one !
Mark - I wanted to take it in baby steps, from what I've read on here there are various differences between W10 & previous versions. The software was a consideration too - I figured if I got something that worked on W7, it would be relatively simple to upgrade in stages rather than a huge leap. Its mainly graphics programs that are important to me, and the DTP one for which I can't find a replacement program that uses the same file format as the one that wont work, so all I can do is copy the work as a pdf so at least I can refer to it. The other main software problem was the accounting program hubby & I used - it is now on a monthly subscription basis which is way beyond my needs, but I managed to find a free download of an earlier version that should work on W7 (not yet tried it !) so I should be able to access my finances should the taxman come calling in the next 6 years !

[Flexo]

Mark, companies and corporations are switching to Macs at an unprecedented rate. Google have now got 43,000 across its company, Facebook now is predominantly a Mac environment, even IBM are rapidly moving to Macs, they now have 100,000 Mac users (also far cheaper to manage than windows pc's across large user groups) BBC are replacing PC'S with Mac, Cisco systems who historically were very anti Mac/Steve Jobs now have fully integrated with Mac and have 35,000 in use and the list goes on and on. Not even going to mention the massive Mac integration and uptake in the education sector across the U.S and now quite rapidly in certain areas of the U.K.
I cannot possibly imaging that in 2017 anyone would tell someone who had bought a iMac to take it back and get a Windows PC in its place!!

I find this very hard to believe. Do you have a source for this, given that the best Mac latop is about 1-2 years behind the average PC? Stationary we can't even discuss, it is about 6 times slower than the PC you get for the same price.

[peteroldracer]

"Stationary" ? They are much faster than that....letters and other stationEry should be no problem with Office for Mac.

[markwilding]

I think you are correct Flexo but not because of stationary. I think price would be more important,
Any price conscious company would choose Windows over Mac if they are being used for documents Spreadsheets or databases. A work station can be bought for less than half the price of a Mac.
An efficient company would buy computers depending on the requirements of the user. Why would they give a Mac to a administrator who just inputs data?

[HarryJ]

Mark, companies and corporations are switching to Macs at an unprecedented rate. Google have now got 43,000 across its company, Facebook now is predominantly a Mac environment, even IBM are rapidly moving to Macs, they now have 100,000+ Mac users (also far cheaper to manage than windows pc's across large user groups) BBC are replacing PC'S with Mac, Cisco systems who historically were very anti Mac/Steve Jobs now have fully integrated with Mac and have 35,000 in use and the list goes on and on. Not even going to mention the massive Mac integration and uptake in the education sector across the U.S and now quite rapidly in certain areas of the U.K.
I cannot possibly imaging that in 2017 anyone would tell someone who had bought a iMac to take it back and get a Windows PC in its place!!

I find this very hard to believe. Do you have a source for this, given that the best Mac latop is about 1-2 years behind the average PC? Stationary we can't even discuss, it is about 6 times slower than the PC you get for the same price.

Your last sentence makes absolutely no sense to me. Stationary? Also your statement regarding "the best Mac being 1-2 years behind an average PC is utterly absurd.
" Do you have a source for this" Yes Google and general awareness via the media...see a few examples here
http://www.computerworld.com/article/31 ... ought.html
https://redmondmag.com/blogs/the-schwar ... -macs.aspx
http://www.computerworld.com/article/30 ... laims.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/28 ... ess_world/

[firsttango]

Stationary we can't even discuss, it is about 6 times slower than the PC you get for the same price.

Stationary as in "paperwork"? Odd statement!

[peteroldracer]

"e" as in "letter, "a" as in "halt".....spell checkers do not help, you just have to know English.

[Lavanda]

This is the most interesting thread for ages. However, all I know is that I sit at my Mac and work across writing letters, writing my (third) book, inputting and manipulating photographs and graphics, building and managing my web site, working with maps and GPS points across Google Earth and Garmin BaseCamp, sending e-mails, messages, using FaceTime and Skype and accessing the whole internet thingy. It all works really well and I get on with things quickly and quietly.

My OH sits at his computer and within the first few minutes he's yelling at something or other. When he upgraded from Windows 8 to Windows 10 it took three weeks for things to work and that was with a whole on-line help team working just for him. It's still, in the words of my OH, "utter pants". He is stressed with it all the time. When he settles down with the iPad, peace reigns in our house.

Of course, there will always be PC lovers and Mac fans and the two can co-exist happily. My Pages documents can be saved as Word documents without loss of any elements and I can open Word. There's no problem. However, the difference between using Pages to create a document and using Word is huge. One is designed for simple people to use and one is not designed at all. In my experience.

[firsttango]

Great post Lavanda, love your OH's description of his Win 10 experience "utter pants" not heard that before made me smile

[Paulinmalaga]

I read a while back that IBM were switching to Mac and replacing up to 75% of its staff from Lenovo PC's to Macs and that by 2017 they'd have around 200,000 Macs across their workforce. I think its a bit of a trend at the moment

[Flexo]

Your last sentence makes absolutely no sense to me. Stationary? Also your statement regarding "the best Mac being 1-2 years behind an average PC is utterly absurd.

Here is the latest Macbook specs: http://www.apple.com/es/macbook-pro/specs/
Here is the old ones: http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/m ... html#specs
Then here you have CPU benchmarks: https://browser.primatelabs.com/processor-benchmarks

" Do you have a source for this" Yes Google and general awareness via the media...see a few examples here
http://www.computerworld.com/article/31 ... ought.html
https://redmondmag.com/blogs/the-schwar ... -macs.aspx
http://www.computerworld.com/article/30 ... laims.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/28 ... ess_world/

Wow, IBM makes another "intelligent business decision".

[Flexo]

Of course, there will always be PC lovers and Mac fans and the two can co-exist happily. My Pages documents can be saved as Word documents without loss of any elements and I can open Word. There's no problem. However, the difference between using Pages to create a document and using Word is huge. One is designed for simple people to use and one is not designed at all. In my experience.

Microsoft Windows has nothing to do with Apple vs PC, which is why I was dumbfounded about "computer professionals trading PC for Apple". When I worked in the software business nobody had Apple computers except for testing code they had written for Apple. The preferred OS in the computer industry was (and probably still is):

1. Linux/ Ubuntu/ Unix whatever
2. Microsoft Windows (for commercial apps not available on -nix or games)
3. Apple

[markwilding]

Obviously not, I was talking about over 15 years ago. I have no problems with Apple. We have MacBooks, All the family have IPhone and IPad and maybe the next desktop will be a Mac but I will still use Windows.