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Almost ready to buy a Mac, but....
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skal725
 
 
2007-02-18, 17:34

Hi I am this close to buying a Macbook for my wife who has been using windows pc for the past several years as a "classic user". I have the following questions, which may appear too simple / dumb to the experienced users but we are struggling getting to the bottom of this and want to make sure before splurging close to $2500 on a Macbook Pro (she really likes the look of the mac, thats why). Her needs are basic (email, chat, internet, word processing) and slightly advanced (audio/video playback & editing - from digital voice recorders, camcorders etc):
-> Does Firefox work equally well on Macs?
-> Do chat applications like Yahoo Messenger, Gmail chat, Skype etc work on a Mac?
-> Can iChat support a "windows" user on the other end using chat apps like yahoo, etc?
-> Does Openoffice work cleanly on a Mac? Essentially, she wants to use basic office functions but wants to be able to share docs with windows PCs as well. The apple retail store guy strongly recommended we buy MS-Office for Mac which felt quite strange
-> Any recommendations on native Mac applications that will allow us to "transcribe" digitally recorded audio files (planning to use ipod adapters to record and then transcribe using things like dragon naturally speaking but they work only with windows)?
-> In general, can we share files created in a Mac with a PC (or vice versa) if they have the same extension (seems silly to ask but is a .jpg created on a pc exactly the same as a .jpg created on a mac??) Anything to watch out for?
-> How much overhead does "parallels" impose when switching between Mac & Windows apps? or how much memory / processor capacity is recommended?

Thanks in advance for any insights!
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Ebby
Subdued and Medicated
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Over Yander
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2007-02-18, 17:49

1) Firefox works very well on a Mac. They are almost identical except for a few cosmetic tweaks.

2) Yea, probably. But what you really want is a program called Adium. It can do all your IM chats. Skype is also available for the Mac.

3) See 2, and yea.

4) I had a few problems with Open Office. I used NeoOffice for a while because it looked better. Then I had to buy Office for school and kinda stopped using it. Not that I have anything against the software... MS Office is a completely different program than Windows Office. They only share a common name and the Mac version is often more up-to-date.

5) I think I saw a few at Macworld, but can't think of the names.

6) Macs don't rely on extensions the same way a PC does. Some times (rarely) you have to tell the computer what application should open the file. (Both on PC and Macs) But usually the defaults are right. The biggest problem here is how you will transfer the files. Network is tricky to set up, but is easy once it is set up. Hard drives can transfer lots of information to remote computers, but need to be formatted such that both computers can read and write to it. Thumb (AKA: Flash) drives are most compatible and work on pretty much every system built in the past 5 years. (So yea, a JPG is a JPG and both work)

7) It does use memory and when something in windows crashes, it can bring your Mac to a crawl. That said, you usually get over 90% performance using parallels last I heard.

^^ One more quality post from the desk of Ebby. ^^
SSBA | SmockBogger | SporkNET
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Brad
Selfish Heathen
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
 
2007-02-18, 18:02

To expand a bit on Ebby's reply...

Quote:
Originally Posted by skal725 View Post
-> Does Firefox work equally well on Macs?
Firefox is virtually identical on all platforms. This is both a blessing and a curse. This platform-agnostic design is good because it makes it very easy to transition between platforms. This platform-agnostic design is (sometimes painfully) bad because Firefox is designed primarily as a Windows/Linux app and does not "fit in" well with other Mac apps. As you become accustomed to how other first-class Mac apps work, Firefox's behaviors will likely become increasingly jarring.

Personally, I can't stand using Firefox on Mac OS X. I only use it for tests when I'm developing code for the web.

Quote:
Originally Posted by skal725 View Post
-> Do chat applications like Yahoo Messenger, Gmail chat, Skype etc work on a Mac?
Yahoo Messenger and Skype both have their own native clients for Mac OS X. Google Talk does not.

Quote:
Originally Posted by skal725 View Post
-> Can iChat support a "windows" user on the other end using chat apps like yahoo, etc?
iChat is simply a client for AOL Instant Messenger and for Jabber. Through Jabber, you may be able to access other networks such as Yahoo, Google Talk, and MSN, but voice and video only supported over AIM.

Adium is a good third-party client that supports all of the above, but it lacks voice and video communications. If you don't need those, I'd heartily recommend Adium.

Quote:
Originally Posted by skal725 View Post
-> Does Openoffice work cleanly on a Mac? Essentially, she wants to use basic office functions but wants to be able to share docs with windows PCs as well. The apple retail store guy strongly recommended we buy MS-Office for Mac which felt quite strange
Like Firefox, OpenOffice's (and NeoOffice's) support for Mac OS X is a very late afterthought. Yes, it should work just about as well as it does on Windows or Linux, but it will look and behave terribly out of place next to your other Mac apps.

Microsoft Office for Mac is actually surprisingly well-designed. It's not perfection, per say, but it certainly blows OpenOffice out of the water. Unless you're absolutely scrapped for cash, I would not recommend OpenOffice or NeoOffice.

Quote:
Originally Posted by skal725 View Post
-> In general, can we share files created in a Mac with a PC (or vice versa) if they have the same extension (seems silly to ask but is a .jpg created on a pc exactly the same as a .jpg created on a mac??) Anything to watch out for?
A JPG is a JPG is a JPG. Common formats like that work universally across platforms.

The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting.
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spikeh
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Join Date: Jan 2006
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2007-02-18, 18:32

Quote:
Originally Posted by skal725 View Post
-> How much overhead does "parallels" impose when switching between Mac & Windows apps? or how much memory / processor capacity is recommended?
The more memory the merrier, and the higher the processor speed the better. I have a 2.16GHZ Core Duo MacBook Pro with 2GB of RAM and I can have a couple of Windows instances open in Parallels without any discernible slowdown.
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skal725
 
 
2007-02-18, 18:40

Ebby, Brad & Spikeh - Thanks very much for your responses! Quite helpful.

While digging around, I came across this wikipedia site on IM client comparisons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...saging_clients

I will await any other responses on the voice transcription, since the mrs believes it to be the deciding factor
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Wyatt
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Near Indianapolis
 
2007-02-18, 19:22

Quote:
Originally Posted by skal725 View Post
Ebby, Brad & Spikeh - Thanks very much for your responses! Quite helpful.

While digging around, I came across this wikipedia site on IM client comparisons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...saging_clients

I will await any other responses on the voice transcription, since the mrs believes it to be the deciding factor
I don't know of any transcription packages, but I'll certainly be watching this thread for them. That would be very useful for me.
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spikeh
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2007-02-18, 19:27

Quote:
Originally Posted by skal725 View Post
Ebby, Brad & Spikeh - Thanks very much for your responses! Quite helpful.
No problem! Welcome to AppleNova.
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danielsza
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
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2007-02-18, 19:58

Just looking quickly on google... comes up with two voice recognition apps...

the first IBM's ViaVoice

But I think that development of ViaVoice has stopped, so it's not a UB.

and iListen
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Yontsey
*AD SPACE FOR SALE*
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Cleveland-ish, OH
 
2007-02-18, 20:24

Quote:
Originally Posted by skal725 View Post
Any recommendations on native Mac applications that will allow us to "transcribe" digitally recorded audio files (planning to use ipod adapters to record and then transcribe using things like dragon naturally speaking but they work only with windows)?
Worst case scenario, you could just use the Windows program you use now in Bootcamp or Parallel.
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curiousuburb
Antimatter Man
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: that interweb thing
 
2007-02-18, 21:55

Quote:
Originally Posted by skal725 View Post
Hi I am this close to buying a Macbook for my wife who has been using windows pc for the past several years as a "classic user". I have the following questions, which may appear too simple / dumb to the experienced users but we are struggling getting to the bottom of this and want to make sure before splurging close to $2500 on a Macbook Pro (she really likes the look of the mac, thats why). Her needs are basic (email, chat, internet, word processing) and slightly advanced (audio/video playback & editing - from digital voice recorders, camcorders etc):
Hang on a second... are you also asking for advice on MacBook versus MacBook Pro implicit in the above, or am I misreading it?

None of the stuff you've described above will be 'significantly' better on a MacBook Pro other than screen real estate. Unless you need FW800 for some reason, they're quite similar. Your apps probably won't use the extra GPU power of the MBP, so unless screen size and MBP design aesthetics are key, the MB would be more than enough machine to do what she needs.

< insert obligatory disclaimer about waiting to purchase - new machines are always around the corner - buy now if you need now, if not wait. >

Quote:
Originally Posted by skal725 View Post
-> Can iChat support a "windows" user on the other end using chat apps like yahoo, etc?
IM is pretty seamless across platforms, but audio and video chats are quite hit and miss due to client incompatibility.
iChat Mac to Mac is in a different league from most cross platform chats, even on shared multi-platform clients.

Quote:
Originally Posted by skal725 View Post
-> Does Openoffice work cleanly on a Mac? Essentially, she wants to use basic office functions but wants to be able to share docs with windows PCs as well. The apple retail store guy strongly recommended we buy MS-Office for Mac which felt quite strange
-> Any recommendations on native Mac applications that will allow us to "transcribe" digitally recorded audio files (planning to use ipod adapters to record and then transcribe using things like dragon naturally speaking but they work only with windows)?
As above, each app has its advocates. If all she needs to do is word .doc files, many Apple programs can read and write .doc files, including TextEdit (bundled), Pages, etc...

As to transcription... long ago, Apple had some very clever patents and demos of speech recognition tools that worked independent of accent or dialect training of the system. The project disappeared, and since then the 'best of breed' speech transcription apps are almost exclusively for Windows. Rumour has long held that the lost killer transcription app will escape from the dungeons of cupertino to slay DragonDictate, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Quote:
Originally Posted by skal725 View Post
-> In general, can we share files created in a Mac with a PC (or vice versa) if they have the same extension (seems silly to ask but is a .jpg created on a pc exactly the same as a .jpg created on a mac??) Anything to watch out for?

Thanks in advance for any insights!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad View Post

< clever comments trimmed >

A JPG is a JPG is a JPG. Common formats like that work universally across platforms.
Yes, but it is always good practice to always add the extension to filenames intended for cross platform sharing.
By explicitly taking into consideration the lowest common denominator FS, just the same as a commonly addressable format for shared drives, you anticipate and avoid problems.

(worst case) All filesnames should conform to 8.3 dos rules... final three as extension, no spaces or punctuation allowed.
Yes, you could probably test Joliet support for 27 or 31 character filenames with escaped punctuation, and yes, you can sometimes skip the extension if you think it will be obvious for the other person to try as a fix, but if you plan for maximum compatibility now, you'll save troubleshooting grief later.
What's possible in filenames, such as multiple spaces or periods, are hell for other OS sometimes.

Just because you can use careless naming principles, doesn't mean you should.

All those who believe in telekinesis, raise my hand.
  quote
turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2007-02-19, 04:53

Quote:
Originally Posted by danielsza View Post
...

and iListen
This looks really good. The price is staggering for my needs right now, but man would it come in handy.
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julesstoop
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Leiden, the Netherlands
 
2007-02-19, 05:23

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad View Post

A JPG is a JPG is a JPG. Common formats like that work universally across platforms.
True.
But on a Mac it's (for example) very easy do coincidentally create and subsequently use a jpg file in cmyk-color space.
This file won't open though on most PC apps, you'll need something like photoshop.
More generally put: out of the box, many more file types are supported on a Mac than on Windows.

A black hole is where god divided by zero.
http://settuno.com/
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specter
Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
 
2007-02-19, 07:05

Quote:
Originally Posted by spikeh View Post
The more memory the merrier, and the higher the processor speed the better. I have a 2.16GHZ Core Duo MacBook Pro with 2GB of RAM and I can have a couple of Windows instances open in Parallels without any discernible slowdown.
I'll second that! Parallels will work fine with 2Gigs of memory! It is optimal. When I upgraded from 1.5 to 2 Gigs I felt a sensible increase in speed of Parallels.
  quote
Graphguy
can't type
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
 
2007-03-07, 07:05

If you need to read/edit .doc files, MS Office is really the best way to go. Open Office can be surprisingly sluggish, and even on a PC, compability isn't great.
  quote
colivigan
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2005
 
2007-03-07, 09:52

The Student Teacher edition of MS Office for Mac is a good deal ($129 on Amazon) and you can use it on up to three Macs. The eligibility criteria is not very restrictive.

Quote:
Originally Posted by amazon.com
To license Office 2004 for Mac Student and Teacher Edition, you must be a Qualified Educational User or the parent or guardian of a Qualified Educational User who is a minor. Qualified Educational Users include full- or part-time students, home schooled students, and full- or part-time faculty or staff of an accredited educational institution.
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Squadra T
Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Brussels
 
2007-03-07, 14:55

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad View Post

Personally, I can't stand using Firefox on Mac OS X. I only use it for tests when I'm developing code for the web.
And this is where Camino comes in.
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