Considering switching, have a few questions...

[katori]

Hello all!
I'm a high school junior and utter mac newbie, thinking about buying a laptop. I'm getting sick of Windows, and when I tried Linux - chaos. It took me three distributions just to get it semi-running, and with my course load, I couldn't see getting enough time to learn it until maybe my senior summer. I have several questions, however.

1. The budget issue. I have $1000 of my own to work with, plus however much I can wheedle out of my parents. =) I've also looked around this forum, and one of the threads here convinced me of the wisdom of getting a 12" rather than 15". (not that I'll be able to afford more ^^;;) A PowerBook is nicer, but out of my range as of yet. Would it be worth it? I want this laptop to last as long as possible, and the ~$500 difference wouldn't be too hard to convince, especially if I have some better reasons than "it looks cool!" ^^;; Here are the stuff I'll probably be doing on the laptop:

Basic things - word processing, net surfing, network file sharing, et cetera. Nothing a lower-end machine couldn't do, I think.
Some programming - Java is all I know right now, but I will have to learn PHP for an internship this summer, plus more later on, because I expect this laptop to carry me well into college.
Entertainment - music, watching movies (mostly .avi, but some .ogg and .mkv) and DVDs, viewing many graphics (manga scanslations) usually in .jpg, .gif, .bit, .png. This isn't terribly important, as I have my clunky but beloved emachine to fall back on, but it would be nice to have. I'm not much of a gamer, either.

2. More money stuff - my dad told me that a big part of the cost of a mac is buying the software. How much of this is true? Are there free/lower cost alternatives for major applications? I'm thinking about OpenOffice, but I didn't really like the Linux version and I'm not too sure how compatible it would be with MS Office.

3. I've heard that comp sci majors should buy a PC. I don't intend to major in it, but I do have an interest in programming and I'd like to go further in it. How useful is the mac in this?

4. How well can mac handle languages? Specifically, I need Korean and Japanese. This might also factor into the OpenOffice question - unfortunately, I didn't get much time to experiment with the Linux version.

Sorry for the long-windedness, but I really don't know much about the mac, and at $1000+, it's a big decision for me. Thank you for reading through it all =)

[Brad]

1. It sounds like the iBook would be sufficient for your needs. There's really not a huge difference between the 12" iBook and 12" PowerBook.

What's an MKV file? I've never heard of that. The free (and open source) VLC player (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/) will take care of most exotic video formats that QuickTime Player won't open.

2. Open Office is indeed very compatible with Microsoft Office, but the interface on Mac OS X is far worse than on Linux. If you didn't like it there, you'll hate it here. However, students can get the full MS office suite for much less than retail. The student/teacher edition (http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/office2004/howtobuy/howtobuy.aspx?pid=howtobuy) is essentially identical to the full retail version; the only difference is in the price and license.

There are, of course, alternatives to Office, the biggest hit today being Apple's own iWork. Note, however, that iWork consists of Pages and Keynote, the counterparts to Word and PowerPoint. If you'll be needing Excel, you probably should look back towards MS Office.

As for other software in general, there is a huge array of freeware and shareware software for Mac OS X. Just take a peek over at MacUpdate (http://www.macupdate.com).

3. Bullocks. :p I'm a computer science major and I haven't owned a PC since, well, ever! Kickaha is the resident "lifelong" PhD student here and most of the computer science department staff at his university has actually switched to Apple computers and has been using Mac OS X for some cool projects (http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,64129,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_4).

Mac OS X is a wonderful platform for Java (what most universities are teaching now), C, C++, the various web languages like PHP and JSP, and more. There are also lots of science and math applications available for Mac OS X like Mathematica, Maple, Matlab, and Octave (the open source version of Matlab) just to name a few.

4. International support goes right through the core! With a simple few clicks in the System Preferences, applications can be switched to use your language of choice. Non-english keyboard support is great too. Here's a page from Apple (http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/international/) that only very briefly glosses over the subject.

I hope this helps. :) Feel free to shoot off any other questions about switching. Don't forget, though, to search the forums also because a lot of switcher-type questions have been asked and answered in recent months.

[katori]

Thank you for the answer - that shiny new mac sounds better by the minute. ^^

[staph]

Hello all!
I'm a high school junior and utter mac newbie, thinking about buying a laptop. I'm getting sick of Windows, and when I tried Linux - chaos. It took me three distributions just to get it semi-running, and with my course load, I couldn't see getting enough time to learn it until maybe my senior summer. I have several questions, however.

1. The budget issue. I have $1000 of my own to work with, plus however much I can wheedle out of my parents. =) I've also looked around this forum, and one of the threads here convinced me of the wisdom of getting a 12" rather than 15". (not that I'll be able to afford more ^^;;) A PowerBook is nicer, but out of my range as of yet. Would it be worth it? I want this laptop to last as long as possible, and the ~$500 difference wouldn't be too hard to convince, especially if I have some better reasons than "it looks cool!" ^^;; Here are the stuff I'll probably be doing on the laptop:

If you're really strapped for cash, I'd go for an iBook. The Powerbook will get you for the extra dosh:

(1) a somewhat faster processor (around 20%);
(2) a better graphics chipset (supporting fully GPU accelerated Core Image/Video/Quartz 2D Extreme);
(3) support for multiple monitors (available on the iBook via a firmware hack);
(4) support for hot-swappable batteries (cool if you fly a lot);
(5) a larger and faster hard drive;
(6) built-in Bluetooth;
(7) gigabit Ethernet;
(8) digital audio I/O (on the 17" model);
(9) Firewire 800 (on the 15 and 17" models);
(10) backlit keyboard with ambient light sensor (on the 15 and 17" models);
(11) the groovy two-finger scrolling thing;
(12) drop detection (i.e. it locks the harddrive heads when you drop your 'book to help prevent falls from killing your harddrive);
(13) a generally slightly sturdier construction.

Altogether, a nice set of improvements. Whether they're worth the cash to you is really your decision. I'd invest in the extended AppleCare warranty if I were you, whichever model I bought.

2. More money stuff - my dad told me that a big part of the cost of a mac is buying the software. How much of this is true? Are there free/lower cost alternatives for major applications? I'm thinking about OpenOffice, but I didn't really like the Linux version and I'm not too sure how compatible it would be with MS Office.

There are effectively two versions of OpenOffice for OS X:
(1) the X11 version (the official version) — looks horrible, slow like death, not well integrated into the general Mac way of doing things;
(2) NeoOffice/J (the non-official version) — looks very marginally better; a bit faster; somewhat better integrated.

Both are free; both offer truly first-rate compatability with MS Word; both are broadly speaking on the 1.1 code branch for the time being (there's a beta of 2 for the X11 branch, but it's not stable yet).

Moreover, the OS has a certain level of Word compatability built in; TextEdit can open and save Word (and WordML files in 10.4, apparently), and preserve basic formatting, including lists and tables.

As for other wordprocessors, here's a nice little page (http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/utilities_editors_macosx.html) on unicode editors for Mac. The leading options would be Office 2004, Mellel, and Nisus Writer Express.

4. How well can mac handle languages? Specifically, I need Korean and Japanese. This might also factor into the OpenOffice question - unfortunately, I didn't get much time to experiment with the Linux version.

What Brad said. In fact, OS X has somewhat better support for more recent versions of Unicode than Windows, largely because MS never seem to release major updates to their OSs (hmm…)

[ghoti]

While NeoOffice/J (http://www.neooffice.org/) doesn't yet quite look like a Mac app, it's a very stable and decent office package. I use it quite a lot and am very happy with it. I don't know about support for Asian languages, but it seems to handle Arabic (http://neowiki.sixthcrusade.com/index.php/NeoJScreenshots) fine - so I guess it also works with most other Unicode subsets ;) Also, compatibility with MS Office hasn't been a problem for me so far (but I don't do ultra-fancy stuff in Word, and my PowerPoint and Excel files never had a problem).

One thing you should do is get enough RAM. Get at least 512MB in addition to the 256MB that are built in. This is much more useful than the rather small difference in processor speed between the iBook and the Powerbook. Applications will run a lot faster with enough RAM, and it will be much more fun working with it.

Enjoy! ;)