# To any Apple computer users



## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

Now that I've had the iPhone for a few months, I'm exploring the possibility of getting a Mac. Either the iMac or the Mac Mini (the Mac Pro is out of my price range).

Completely dumping Windows is not an option since I need it for work and home. 

What are my options? 
Is it possible to dual boot Windows Vista on a Mac? 
How does the Mac Mini compare in speed to the iMac?
Can I use current hardware on Mac computers like keyboards, monitors etc?
Is it a hassle to upgrade Macs (hard drives, video cards, etc)?

Whenever I look at Macs, for some reason I see proprietary written all over them. I have been down this road before with other computer makers and don't want to do it again. Right now I have a PC that I built from scratch with off the shelf parts. Over the years I upgrade it as needed. I really like it this way. Is this even remotely possible with a Mac?

Mainly I want the Mac right now just to open the door. Get a feel for them and possibly migrate over on some future date.

Thanks for the help.


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## machavez00 (Nov 2, 2006)

I would go with an iMac , I have the new 20" 2.4Ghz. It will come with Leopard and that includes Boot Camp. There is also Parallels and Virtual PC.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/bootcamp.html


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## jjsanders281 (Dec 18, 2006)

Is it possible to dual boot Windows Vista on a Mac? 
Yes, using apple's bootcamp program

How does the Mac Mini compare in speed to the iMac? 
I don't have either of these but I believe the i Mac is much faster then a mini. The mini uses a small laptop hard drive that usually make the computer slower. It also doesn't have as good of a graphics card. 

Can I use current hardware on Mac computers like keyboards, monitors etc? Mice and keyboards yes (as long as they are usb) and any monitor should work. VGA monitors need a DVI to VGA converter which I believe still comes with most macs.

Is it a hassle to upgrade Macs (hard drives, video cards, etc)? Depends on the which Mac you have. I believe it is hardest on the mini due to the way the case it made. The Mac Pro would be the easiest to upgrade of all the macs out there. Im not sure if the iMac can upgrade the video card or not (I would think not).

Personally I would stay away from the mini if you want a good first mac experience. Its not that its bad, but its just far behind the rest of their lineup in terms of hardware. I think Apple need a midrange tower computer for people who want to switch.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Chris.. I just got a iMac for Xmas for the family room. General purpose computer for the family. I went through the exact same process you seem to be going through. In terms of memory upgrade... Mac Mini is much tougher. The iMac I was able to go from 1GB to 3 GB in less than 10 minutes.

I originally was thinking going with the Mac Mini and the reason I changed was because I liked the single all in one solution. Cheeper to upgrade memory after purchase and the iMac allowed for quicky and easy upgrade. The Drive choices where larger for the iMac. 

Have not had a lot of time.. but I am happy with going with the iMac over the mac mini given what I learned about the mini in terms of limitations. Nice little box but like most things you always have a size vs. features limitation. Same of course goes with the iMac but for me it was the right fit. 

One thing to be aware of that I ran into immediately. One of the main reasons I got the iMac was for my son to do some school work and learning. The first software I got was JumpStart and found out that there is something called OS Classic.. Leopard does not support it and from what I can tell most of the learning software that is Win/Mac compatible requires it. 

Going to return it or if there is a way to put a link on my mac desktop run it as a window app on a mac desktop rather than having the whole windows desktop in a window I might just do that.


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## Phil T (Mar 25, 2002)

My daughter wanted a Macbook for college. I had never considered an Apple machine before. I went to the Apple Store and helped her get one. A few months later I bought a refurbished 15" MacBook Pro.

I upgraded my HP desktop to Vista and after all the problems have decided I will probably never buy another windows machine.

If you are looking for a laptop, I highly recommend the MacBook Pro.


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## Pinion413 (Oct 21, 2007)

Just to chime my $.02 in, if you don't mind; :grin: 

Mac's are good and all, I would even love to own one myself at some point (seriously, not trolling).

You can run both major OS's on them, and they're pretty rock solid and sexy machines.

But, to go with part of Chris' original post, unless you are getting a Mac Pro, you can more or less forget about any real upgrades to the machine down the road. iMac's and Mini's are quite literally what I like to refer to as "throw away" computers. Once it's usefulness is done, you pick it up, and throw it away (one of the reasons why I loved the original iMac's built in handle so much, made it that much easier....:lol Sure, you may be able to add memory to them, but as far as much else in there is concerned (software aside), you wouldn't be able to really upgrade the hardware down the road. Incrementally CPU-wise, perhaps, but not so much in, say video or audio (save USB sound devices). On those machines, I'm pretty sure everything is all onboard with the mainboard, and what it has is what you keep.


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## Sucellus (Feb 2, 2007)

Chris,

I highly recommend getting a Mac. If the Mac Pro is out of your price, I'd recommend the iMac. I switched to Mac a few years back and do not regret it for a moment. I think most of your questions have been answered fairly well but I wanted to add my 2 cents. The slighty limited upgrade path for the Mac is highly outweighed by the time you'll save with OS X. You can stop worrying about Viruses plus you get better performance from your machine since your not running a virus program all the time.

_Is it possible to dual boot Windows Vista on a Mac? _
Yes, you can dual boot with bootcamp or run Vista on top of OS X with VM Ware or Parallels. Parallels works well as long as your not doing anything graphics intensive inside windows. ie. video editing or playing games

_How does the Mac Mini compare in speed to the iMac?_
Noticably slower since it uses a laptop hardrive and has rather weak integrated video.

_Can I use current hardware on Mac computers like keyboards, monitors etc?_
Pretty much a firm yes for most devices.

_Is it a hassle to upgrade Macs (hard drives, video cards, etc)? _
Depends, you can upgrade the hardrive and memory on all current Macs fairly easily with standard PC hardware. It is impossible to upgrade the video card on the Mac Mini and iMac although possible on the Mac Pro.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Pinion413 said:


> You can run both major OS's on them, and they're pretty rock solid and sexy machines.
> 
> But, to go with part of Chris' original post, unless you are getting a Mac Pro, you can more or less forget about any real upgrades to the machine down the road. iMac's and Mini's are quite literally what I like to refer to as "throw away" computers. Once it's usefulness is done, you pick it up, and throw it away (one of the reasons why I loved the original iMac's built in handle so much, made it that much easier....:lol Sure, you may be able to add memory to them, but as far as much else in there is concerned (software aside), you wouldn't be able to really upgrade the hardware down the road. Incrementally CPU-wise, perhaps, but not so much in, say video or audio (save USB sound devices). On those machines, I'm pretty sure everything is all onboard with the mainboard, and what it has is what you keep.


Well I would not consider an iMac a throw away computer  but you make a good point addressing Chris's upgrade concerns. Being one with a windows machine I built myself and upgraded myself a few times it is definitely worth consideration. However, I would also contend that a lot of the computers in the Windows world even with upgradability option should be considered as throw away having gone through my series of lumps as technologies keep moving. PCI to AGP to Enhanced PCI, Drive technology changes, memory technology changes etc makes for upgrading over time difficult and sometimes it makes sense just to throw it out and start over. Ofcourse the iMac and Mac Mini is a trade off between upgradability vs size and definitely lacks in the upgradability department.

The other point that kept running through my head... Computers are not making the leaps in performance they did years back. It use to be that when an upgrade occurred ever two years you would notice a huge jump in performance. I don't think this is the case today and computers have a much longer life span in terms of acceptable performance over time than they once did and that to me leasons the need for upgradability. Does not take it away for sure and depending on one's use cases might be a biggie but I know for me it is less and given my use case not a consideration.

The other factor here is that EHDs are cheap and therefore can provide some external storage is necessary. So even though internally the boxes cannot support more drives one can pop a 1TB drive next to it and have as much space as needed.

I know what Chris is saying about upgrading and I agree that is something to consider. However, I also think the above factors should be taken into consideration to determine how real that need is to the given individual.

The fact that one can run Mac and Windows through bootcamp allows one to play in both playgrounds. I think the memory upgradability is addressed in the iMac with up to 4GB and the harddrive needs if it became an issue could be handled external or internal if possible (Don't know if it is). As for Graphics card upgrades or CPU, well unless Chris is a big game guy or has high graphics card intensive use cases I would not expect the need for video or CPU upgrades. My video card on my PC is a Matrix card that is at least 5 years old (G200) and I have yet to feel that it is not doing its job.

Everyone is different ofcourse and upgradability is definitely a concern when moving to an iMac or Mac Mini, but I think in todays computer age and based on my experiences, upgradability may not be as big of a concern as it was 3 to 4 years back.

Ofcourse having it is a plus.. but to me should only be part of the equation. Seems to Chris it is a big deal so I wanted to layout my perspective because it did play out in my mind during my purchasing decision.


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## Pinion413 (Oct 21, 2007)

Ron Barry said:


> Well I would not consider an iMac a throw away computer  but you make a good point addressing Chris's upgrade concerns.


I didn't mean it harshly, only matter-of-fact-ly.  Believe me, I know that there are just as many PC's that fall into this category. I only meant that iMacs for instance (like certain PC's) are monitor, drives, and computing guts all in one housing. I meant no disrespect with the "throw away" nickname (as the newest top end iMacs out perform my beast here ).



Ron Barry said:


> The other point that kept running through my head... Computers are not making the leaps in performance they did years back. It use to be that when an upgrade occurred ever two years you would notice a huge jump in performance. I don't think this is the case today and computers have a much longer life span in terms of acceptable performance over time than they once did and that to me leasons the need for upgradability. Does not take it away for sure and depending on one's use cases might be a biggie but I know for me it is less and given my use case not a consideration.


That I'll agree with 100%. I know people who are still getting along just fine with hardware that is 2-3 generations behind current "cutting edge". Computer hardware does not need to be upgraded anywhere near as often unless you are a hardcore gamer (seriously) who needs every extra frame per second for the latest title.



Ron Barry said:


> The other factor here is that EHDs are cheap and therefore can provide some external storage is necessary. So even though internally the boxes cannot support more drives one can pop a 1TB drive next to it and have as much space as needed.
> 
> I know what Chris is saying about upgrading and I agree that is something to consider. However, I also think the above factors should be taken into consideration to determine how real that need is to the given individual.


Definitely. Memory in either regard (RAM and HDD) are not a concern. Both can be expanded if needed.


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## Rugged (Sep 16, 2006)

Now that it's been established that the memory and hard drive are relatively easy to upgrade after the fact what are your thoughts on the 2.0GHz vs 2.4 GHz. Is that extra processing power worth it?


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

Man, you guys are awesome. Thanks for the help. I'm leaning toward the iMac and also purchasing Parallels. Seems like a great solution.

I will miss some of the upgrade capabilities but since I'm not a hard core gamer, it might not be an issue. With that said though, I do hi-def video editing so I hope the iMac can handle it. 

Will let you all know what happens.


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## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

Chris, 

I use Macs all day at work and PCs at home. 

First you will be pleased to know that obviously there is no problem accessing this site using Safari for Mac, however I do use Firefox on both platforms. 

HD editing should be no problem for you on a Mac, of course depending on the model there will be varying degrees of speed involved. iMovie HD is included and of course there is Final Cut Pro should you wish more power. That there is a very high-quality solution. 

There is, AFAIK, no solution for burning HD-DVD on a Mac but BD burners abound. 

Parallels works well enough in my experience, better than a dual boot solution. 

I would plan on buying a different mouse right out of the gate, as the one-button Mac mouse will not serve you well in a Windows environment and personally I have nothing but disdain for the little scroll ball on the top. 

If you plan on syncing up your digital camera with a Mac, please note that the driver support is not necessarily as robust for the Mac; I would buy a memory card reader and use that instead. Of course the other thing is music player support. If you have anything other than an iPod forget it. 

There is one thing I cannot abide on Macs, and it is worth noticing. Basically the form factors available are either too big or too small. It's possible to upgrade a Mac mini using coffee stirrers and putty knives, but it's a huge pain. iMacs and MacBooks require sincere courage before even attempting to crack the case. If you're looking for an upgradeable solution, something with any possibility of adding internal accessories, you will need a Mac Pro, which is just daing huge. It is bigger than most of the servers which I administer and unnecessarily so. 

If it were I, I'd probably buy the Mac mini tricked out as much as possible, or buy two Mac Pros and make a coffee table out of them.


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## machavez00 (Nov 2, 2006)

It will run Final Cut Express HD.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Stuart Sweet said:


> Chris,
> Parallels works well enough in my experience, better than a dual boot solution.
> 
> I would plan on buying a different mouse right out of the gate, as the one-button Mac mouse will not serve you well in a Windows environment and personally I have nothing but disdain for the little scroll ball on the top.


I actually like the little scroll thing..  but once I get windows working on it I might change my mind. If I do Stuart, I will be coming to you for a mouse recommendation.

I also just purchased VMWare Fusion. I coworker recommended to me and based on the reviews I read it does what I need it to do and appears to work pretty well. What I wanted was to have an icon on my Mac desktop. Click and have a windows application appear in a mac window. Fusion appears to meet this need and the reviews were mostly very positive.

There is a 20 buck rebate for the product if ordered by the 30th so Chris if you pull the trigger this is something you might want to consider getting. Ofcourse evaluate it against parallels and bootcamp but for me.. I want more than a dual boot solution.


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## Sharkie_Fan (Sep 26, 2006)

Chris,

I think the point that was made about technology not advancing as quickly as it has in the past is a good one. I use PC at home, and primarily PC at the office, though being a service provider, we do get stuck using the Mac at times, if that's what the designer used to create a particular project.

Because we use the PC first, and Mac only as a last resort, we don't keep the latest and greatest Macs, though we upgrade our PCs every 6 months or so. I'm still running a G4 1.2Ghz Mac, with 2GB of Ram. It's not the speediest beast, but I can run multiple CS3 applications at one time and the computer remains completely usable. At times, we may deal with Photoshop files that run 500-600 megabytes each. I've never run into a file I couldn't manipulate on my mac - even if it was a little slow.

With a shiny new iMac, you should be able to do anything you need to do for years to come.

And, as Stuart said, lose the mac mouse. Should you choose to lose the mac keyboard as well, keep it handy - from time to time one of our macs will "hiccup", and the only way to get it to come back to it's senses is to start in safe mode. Unfortunately, the logitech keyboard I use isn't happy with the mac until the OS is loaded. In these cases, I have to plug in the original keyboard, boot to safe mode, and then I can switch them again... This is a pretty rare occurance, but one to be aware of should you start adding non mac accessories.


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## DCSholtis (Aug 7, 2002)

Ron Barry said:


> I actually like the little scroll thing..  but once I get windows working on it I might change my mind. If I do Stuart, I will be coming to you for a mouse recommendation.
> 
> I also just purchased VMWare Fusion. I coworker recommended to me and based on the reviews I read it does what I need it to do and appears to work pretty well. What I wanted was to have an icon on my Mac desktop. Click and have a windows application appear in a mac window. Fusion appears to meet this need and the reviews were mostly very positive.
> 
> There is a 20 buck rebate for the product if ordered by the 30th so Chris if you pull the trigger this is something you might want to consider getting. Ofcourse evaluate it against parallels and bootcamp but for me.. I want more than a dual boot solution.


IMO and YMMV but I prefer VMWare Fusion to Parallels. But do some checking around and comparing those products too, Chris. I have 3 Macs in my house. Personally I have 1 iMac and a MacBookPro, my dad has an older iMac (The one with the half moon shaped base.) 2 of the 3 are running Leopard, dad wanted to wait awhile as hes not too tech savy but I am working on him in that department...:lol: As was suggested above lose the mouse and keyboard. Get yourself some extra flexibility go wireless as your new Mac has built in Bluetooth.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Ok... Any suggestions on mouse keyboard combination one should look at. Though I don't seem to be hating the mouse/keyboard sounds like that time might come and I should be ready for it.


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## machavez00 (Nov 2, 2006)

I have gotten used to the new "mighty mouse"

The Wireless Mighty Mouse


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

That is what mine is but has the cord I believe. I thought that is the one the other people hated.


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## Sharkie_Fan (Sep 26, 2006)

Ron Barry said:


> That is what mine is but has the cord I believe. I thought that is the one the other people hated.


That mouse actually looks kind of cool. I've had the "hockey puck" mouse in the past, as well as the mouse which looks like that one, but it's just the single button. Obviously, for running a PC, we use the right button quite frequently, so the single button MAC mouse doesn't work well on the PC. I'd be curious to know if the left/right buttons on that mouse functioned properly on the PC? And how would the scroll thingy behave?

I'm not using anything fancy on ours. A logitech keyboard which was mac compatible. It's an older model, but it has both the APPLE key and the WINDOWS key, which is nice since I use it on both platforms - though in reality I rarely use the windows button. I just found the apple keyboard to be too small for my liking. I like a little bigger keyboard for my fat fingers. I like the "feel" of the logitech keyboards as well.

As for the mouse, I'm just using a pretty basic Microsoft USB mouse. I've got the one that has 5 buttons (one on the left and right SIDES of the mouse). I find this really handy on the PC when I'm surfing the net as the left SIDE button provides the "BACK" function in my browser. It's handy when I'm searching for stock photography or fonts and I'm flipping around between pages trying to compare different selections.


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## billaln (Apr 25, 2006)

The wife has a MAC G5 and I have a SONY VAIO. We have both upgraded storage to the max. Wife had to add windows for MAC because there are so few things that will work with MAC vs Windows. She hates MAC keyboard but also hates Logitech keyboard as it will not do all things for her. Anyway, last month her MAC crashed when we had a power blip and would not restart. MY PC came right back up. Had to take her MAC into shop to get fixed and then found it was just software problem, they think because of Lepoard upgrade. Meanwhile my PC cruses on undaunted. The only thing I like on her MAC is the Plasma Monitor.


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## machavez00 (Nov 2, 2006)

Here is something I did with iMovie HD


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## Koz (Sep 16, 2006)

Just found this thread...

Chris, did you get your Mac yet? I'm seriously considering getting one, but I'm waiting til MacWorld in a couple weeks to see if anything new, better, and/or cheaper comes out.


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

Koz said:


> Just found this thread...
> 
> Chris, did you get your Mac yet? I'm seriously considering getting one, but I'm waiting til MacWorld in a couple weeks to see if anything new, better, and/or cheaper comes out.


Yes!!!

Earlier this week I received my shiny new iMac! It's the 20" version with the 2 GHZ processor and 250 MB hard drive.

First, what a beauty. The new design looks very sleek and sexy. There is only one wire coming from the back to the mouse and keyboard (there is a USB port on the keyboard where you can connect the mouse). I really like the fact that there is no "tower" or other separate box. Very compact and powerful.

I'm still getting my feet wet with the operating system. I will say that it's different and takes time to get out of the "Windoze" mentality. Some things are different, some are the same but overall everything is much faster! Last night I got back on my Vista box to grab some files after spending a few days on the iMac. Windows felt like a little kids toy. Leopard is so much more advanced it's not even funny.

Over the past few days I have been transferring all of my important stuff like documents, e-mails and financial information. All went well but I had to jump through a few hoops to get my e-mails from Outlook to the mail system on the iMac. I had to export them in mbox format then import them to the mac. Not a big deal but just took some time because I had to find a third party tool.

The whole transfer thing was made much easier because of the fact the Leopard can read (not write) Windows NTFS partitions. Before the transfer, I placed all of my files from the Vista box to an external hard drive. Then I simply plugged the drive into the iMac and downloaded them.

This weekend I plan on attacking the dual operating system issue. Thanks to some posts above, I think I will try VMWare Fusion. So far I can see that most of my time will be spent on the Mac side of the house. I still have a few issues to iron out but most of what I do can be done in Leopard. Vista will simply be there in case I need it.

I was like you. I almost waited until MacWord but to tell you the truth it seems like there is always something better coming down the road so why not jump now. Besides, my situation allowed me to pick up the iMac (it's an early birthday present  ).

So far, I'm very pleased. The iMac is fast and the screen quality is fantastic. I would recommend it highly. My only advice would be to get yourself ready. Look at what you do with your current computer and research what can be done on the Mac. Also, google search any migrating issues that might come up so you don't get caught with your pants down.

Again, thanks to everyone in this thread for the help. I can already see this is going to be a fun ride.


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## Koz (Sep 16, 2006)

Congrats on your Mac. My birthday is later this month as well, and I'm looking at it as a possible birthday present, too.

I think I'm still going to wait. I'm leaning towards a laptop and that's more likely to have an upgrade at Macworld. I think you're pretty safe with the iMac.


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## kc1ih (May 22, 2004)

I'm a big Mac fan but I don't like the Safari browser that comes with the OS. I downloaded Firefox and am happy with that.


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## DCSholtis (Aug 7, 2002)

Koz said:


> Congrats on your Mac. My birthday is later this month as well, and I'm looking at it as a possible birthday present, too.
> 
> I think I'm still going to wait. I'm leaning towards a laptop and that's more likely to have an upgrade at Macworld. I think you're pretty safe with the iMac.


Expect some type of an annoucement on a new laptop at Macworld next week you can almost count on it.


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

After a week with the iMac I'm pretty much settled in. Most of the applications I used on the my Vista box are now on the iMac in their Mac OS version.

I loaded VMWare Fusion and a fresh copy of Windows XP. What an amazing piece of software. XP took about 20 minutes to load and it runs like it's on it's own dedicated machine. Just for kicks I plugged a second monitor into the iMac. Now I have XP on one screen and Mac OS on the other. Really freaky as it feels like I have two computers. 

Other than that, still getting the hang of a few odds and ends. The time machine feature is really cool.


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## Rugged (Sep 16, 2006)

Chris Blount said:


> Yes!!!
> 
> Over the past few days I have been transferring all of my important stuff like documents, e-mails and financial information. All went well but I had to jump through a few hoops to get my e-mails from Outlook to the mail system on the iMac. I had to export them in mbox format then import them to the mac. Not a big deal but just took some time because I had to find a third party tool.
> 
> The whole transfer thing was made much easier because of the fact the Leopard can read (not write) Windows NTFS partitions. Before the transfer, I placed all of my files from the Vista box to an external hard drive. Then I simply plugged the drive into the iMac and downloaded them.


I have an external WD HDD so does this mean that I can read from it but not write to it once finish my transfer?


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

Rugged said:


> I have an external WD HDD so does this mean that I can read from it but not write to it once finish my transfer?


If its partitioned as NTFS, that is correct. You can only read. You can, however, re-format the drive to the Mac OS Standard (HFS) so you can read or write. You will wipe out the data though.

What I did was moved the data from the external drive to the internal, reformatted the drive to Mac OS Standard, and then moved it back.


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## Sharkie_Fan (Sep 26, 2006)

Chris Blount said:


> After a week with the iMac I'm pretty much settled in. Most of the applications I used on the my Vista box are now on the iMac in their Mac OS version.
> 
> I loaded VMWare Fusion and a fresh copy of Windows XP. What an amazing piece of software. XP took about 20 minutes to load and it runs like it's on it's own dedicated machine. Just for kicks I plugged a second monitor into the iMac. Now I have XP on one screen and Mac OS on the other. Really freaky as it feels like I have two computers.
> 
> Other than that, still getting the hang of a few odds and ends. The time machine feature is really cool.


Chris - have you done any "heavy lifting" at all on the PC side?

We use Mac and PC here at the office, but mainly the PC side. We've been afraid to try running XP (or Vista???) on the Mac because we use ALL the power we can get out of our PCs, while we can live with a little underperformance on the MAC side.

Curious to hear if the PC session continues to run as if it was it's own machine when you get into heavier use. It's at least food for thought here at the office, but if the PC runs decent, it's really interesting for home!


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## DawgLink (Nov 5, 2006)

I bought a MacBookPro a year and a half ago AND LOVE IT

Love it so much I bought an iMac for my house as a desktop

I could NOT imagine switching back to windows but I did install BootCamp just in case with a small amount of emergency space


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

Sharkie_Fan said:


> Chris - have you done any "heavy lifting" at all on the PC side?
> 
> We use Mac and PC here at the office, but mainly the PC side. We've been afraid to try running XP (or Vista???) on the Mac because we use ALL the power we can get out of our PCs, while we can live with a little underperformance on the MAC side.
> 
> Curious to hear if the PC session continues to run as if it was it's own machine when you get into heavier use. It's at least food for thought here at the office, but if the PC runs decent, it's really interesting for home!


Funny you should ask. This weekend I plan on loading some video editing software on the XP side. I will let you know how it goes and if it's any faster or slower than when I had it on a standalone XP machine.


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## Rugged (Sep 16, 2006)

Chris Blount said:


> If its partitioned as NTFS, that is correct. You can only read. You can, however, re-format the drive to the Mac OS Standard (HFS) so you can read or write. You will wipe out the data though.
> 
> What I did was moved the data from the external drive to the internal, reformatted the drive to Mac OS Standard, and then moved it back.


so, my external drive is FAT32 does that mean I can read/write on both a MAC and PC?


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

Rugged said:


> so, my external drive is FAT32 does that mean I can read/write on both a MAC and PC?


Yes but files sizes are limited (2GB I think).


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## machavez00 (Nov 2, 2006)

Chris Blount said:


> Funny you should ask. This weekend I plan on loading some video editing software on the XP side. I will let you know how it goes and if it's any faster or slower than when I had it on a standalone XP machine.


Download iMovie HD (I'm not used to the new iMovie yet) and that a try as well.


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

Unfortunately I'll never be able to use a Mac. It can't run any of my games. 

Plus the fact I can build a top end PC for under $400 doesn't hurt either.

Enjoy the Mac Chris!


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

bonscott87 said:


> Unfortunately I'll never be able to use a Mac. It can't run any of my games.
> 
> Plus the fact I can build a top end PC for under $400 doesn't hurt either.
> 
> Enjoy the Mac Chris!


I'm not quite sure how you can do that for $400. Just a good "top end" video card alone (GeForce 8800) are around $300. A good processor can cost close to $200 as well.

I don't deny the fact that you can build a nice PC for $400 but I guess it also depends on what games you play. There are some games like Microsoft Flight Sim that require a lot of processor power and speed. The last PC I built with a dual core AMD64 3800 processor and a GeForce 8600 did well with most games but the cost to upgrade just those parts was over $400.

If you play games though, the PC is definitely the way to go. I stopped playing games on the computer since I have game consoles in the house. I do internet, e-mail, DVD Burning and Video production mostly which opened the door to buying a Mac. I must admit, the Mac does video (and audio) very well and much faster than Windows especially in the hi-def environment.

As always, it comes down to what you use your computer for. PC's do OK with just about everything including games while the Mac is geared more toward productivity. The great thing about the Mac is that you don't need extremely fast hardware since the operating system is more efficient. I got tired of throwing hardware at my PC just to run the latest and greatest versions of software.

In any case, yes, I will enjoy my Mac.


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

Sharkie_Fan said:


> Chris - have you done any "heavy lifting" at all on the PC side?
> 
> We use Mac and PC here at the office, but mainly the PC side. We've been afraid to try running XP (or Vista???) on the Mac because we use ALL the power we can get out of our PCs, while we can live with a little underperformance on the MAC side.
> 
> Curious to hear if the PC session continues to run as if it was it's own machine when you get into heavier use. It's at least food for thought here at the office, but if the PC runs decent, it's really interesting for home!


This weekend I loaded some video editing software on the XP Virtual partition (Pinnacle Ultimate). It ran OK but rendering video was pretty slow. It also didn't like the virtual video card that VMWare Fusion uses. So as far as heavy lifting? Could be better but I'm not surprised. I would imagine if I loaded Pinnacle on a WinXP bootcamp partition, it would work better.

Instead of messing anymore with WinXP and video production, I started learning the latest version of iMovie that came with the Mac. I must admit that I'm impressed. It does a lot and it's fast. I loades some hi-def videos from my camcorder and the iMac handled them very well. Much better than Pinnacle under Windows Vista on a dedicated PC. I was able to make a nice little video with music, titles and transitions. Very nice program, easy and free!


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## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

Chris Blount said:


> As always, it comes down to what you use your computer for. PC's do OK with just about everything including games while the Mac is geared more toward productivity. The great thing about the Mac is that you don't need extremely fast hardware since the operating system is more efficient.


Chris, I apologize if this post causes this thread to veer off track but having (attempted to) use Macs for productive purposes for over 20 years I must disagree. There are just as many ways to be unproductive on a Mac as a PC. Also I can say having done the test myself that given a late model Mac and PC, both running the same processor and with other comparable hardware, the PC was actually a mite faster in both Photoshop and distilling PDF files using Acrobat.

Both are equally fun, equally recalcitrant at times, and as I said, it is nothing more than a personal preference at this point.


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

Chris Blount said:


> I don't deny the fact that you can build a nice PC for $400 but I guess it also depends on what games you play. There are some games like Microsoft Flight Sim that require a lot of processor power and speed. The last PC I built with a dual core AMD64 3800 processor and a GeForce 8600 did well with most games but the cost to upgrade just those parts was over $400.


That is the nice thing though. You can upgrade just your video card or processor and drastically upgrade your performance. I build my PC probably 3-4 years ago now and the only thing I've done to it since was upgrade the video card and added another Gig of memory. It's *just* a 2.8 ghz P4 which today is probably considered slow but it still runs XP just fine as well as all my apps and games. Just now am I starting to run into games that could use faster hardward (but then I'm also not into the latest first person shooters either that are always at the cutting edge).

So when it's time to do a serious upgrade all I'll need to do is get a new motherboard and CPU, maybe memory and I'll be good to go.

Anyway, this is a Mac thread, sorry to have interjected some PC stuff into it.


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

bonscott87 said:


> That is the nice thing though. You can upgrade just your video card or processor and drastically upgrade your performance. I build my PC probably 3-4 years ago now and the only thing I've done to it since was upgrade the video card and added another Gig of memory. It's *just* a 2.8 ghz P4 which today is probably considered slow but it still runs XP just fine as well as all my apps and games. Just now am I starting to run into games that could use faster hardward (but then I'm also not into the latest first person shooters either that are always at the cutting edge).
> 
> So when it's time to do a serious upgrade all I'll need to do is get a new motherboard and CPU, maybe memory and I'll be good to go.
> 
> Anyway, this is a Mac thread, sorry to have interjected some PC stuff into it.


Actually I completely agree with you. I have been doing the exact same thing for the last 10 years. I upgrade the Mobo and chip about once every 2 or 3 years but everything else is upgraded when needed (Video card, RAM, etc). I think after doing it that way after all these years it was time for a change. Plus I figured out I was spending more money than just buying a complete computer system and sticking with it for several years.

I honestly don't know how this is going to work out with the Mac. I like to tinker. I would bet that within 2 years I will be purchasing a MacPro and giving this iMac to one of my kids. The MacPro has more upgrade flexibility.


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

Stuart Sweet said:


> Chris, I apologize if this post causes this thread to veer off track but having (attempted to) use Macs for productive purposes for over 20 years I must disagree. There are just as many ways to be unproductive on a Mac as a PC. Also I can say having done the test myself that given a late model Mac and PC, both running the same processor and with other comparable hardware, the PC was actually a mite faster in both Photoshop and distilling PDF files using Acrobat.
> 
> Both are equally fun, equally recalcitrant at times, and as I said, it is nothing more than a personal preference at this point.


Really? That's actually quite interesting. From what I have seen so far, most of the applications on the Mac run faster than comparible software on the PC. I realize however there are variables involved. One thing I will say is that not having a virus checker running in the background helps. 

I will take your word for it though. It just seems like the Mac runs applications faster.


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## DCSholtis (Aug 7, 2002)

Chris Blount said:


> Actually I completely agree with you. I have been doing the exact same thing for the last 10 years. I upgrade the Mobo and chip about once every 2 or 3 years but everything else is upgraded when needed (Video card, RAM, etc). I think after doing it that way after all these years it was time for a change. Plus I figured out I was spending more money than just buying complete computer system and sticking with it for several years.
> 
> I honestly don't know how this is going to work out with the Mac. I like to tinker. I would bet that within 2 years I will be purchasing a MacPro and giving this Mac to one of my kids. The MacPro has more upgrade flexibility.


The MacPro just got a helluva lot more powerful to, Chris in case you haven't heard the lastest on it.

http://www.macworld.com/article/131461/2008/01/macproupdate.html


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Looks like we are going the same route Chris. I got the iMac. Got Fusion. I first installed Fusion with windows as a VM. Found that was not a good way to go with Kids games (They really do funky things with video from my exprerience) so I uninstalled Fusion and went with bootcamp and I am happy. I am going to go back and install Fusion to work with bootcamp and see how that goes but I was able to get my Son's learning software to be full screen and that was my goal. 

Still doing a lot of tweaking but I like the experience. It was definitely the right purchase for the family.


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

DCSholtis said:


> The MacPro just got a helluva lot more powerful to, Chris in case you haven't heard the lastest on it.
> 
> http://www.macworld.com/article/131461/2008/01/macproupdate.html


Oh gosh, I wish I hadn't seen that.


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## jheda (Sep 19, 2006)

any news on 1.1.3 upgrade for the iphone?


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## dmurphy (Sep 28, 2006)

Chris -

Welcome to the party!

Just be careful - these Macs tend to spontaneously reproduce .... it all starts with the iMac, and the next thing you know, you have a Macbook Pro for yourself & your wife, Macbooks for the kids, iPods abound, and once you see the awesomeness of the Airport Express, your home theater will never be the same. 

Welcome, and enjoy! Any ??'s or !!'s, feel free to PM away!


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## DCSholtis (Aug 7, 2002)

There is RUMORED to be an iPhone update mentioned tomorrow during Steve Jobs Keynote address at MacWorld. Speech is at 9am PT.

MacWorld will be blogging about it as it happens:

http://www.macworld.com/article/131486/2008/01/liveupdate.html


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## DCSholtis (Aug 7, 2002)

dmurphy said:


> Chris -
> 
> Welcome to the party!
> 
> ...


Don't I know it!! My dad and I have iMacs, I have an iPod and a MacBookPro. Over the years when we have replaced our Macs for newer/better ones we have both given our old ones to members of our family. Everyone still works great, even the old purple iBook I gave to my nephew a few years ago. Though he is permanently stuck at OS 9 due to having an older processor in it.


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

dmurphy said:


> Chris -
> 
> Welcome to the party!
> 
> ...


:lol: Yeah no kidding. I can see it coming already. I'm already eyeing the Macbook.

My poor wife. Wait until she finds out. :eek2:


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Chris Blount said:


> Now that I've had the iPhone for a few months, I'm exploring the possibility of getting a Mac. Either the iMac or the Mac Mini (the Mac Pro is out of my price range).


Been my experience in life that the object you settle for is never as pleasing as the more expensive object. And if you buy the Pro, you'll probably use it for many years.



> Is it possible to dual boot Windows Vista on a Mac?


You CAN, but I wouldn't do it. You already have the Windows unit, put them together and use a common monitor. Perhaps the CPUs will mate and produce little Mac/Windows hybrids.



> Whenever I look at Macs, for some reason I see proprietary written all over them. I have been down this road before with other computer makers and don't want to do it again. Right now I have a PC that I built from scratch with off the shelf parts. Over the years I upgrade it as needed. I really like it this way. Is this even remotely possible with a Mac?


If the Macs are still like the Macs I used at work on a fiber optic intranet, you are in for quite an experience. The plant I used to work at was huge and one year our corporation decided to go completely Mac and get rid of all the Windows machines. And the DOS machines. The accountants and building managers with Windows based puters went ballistic. Didn't want to switch from a REAL COMPUTER to a "toy". Had to practically rip the Windows puters out of their hands.

About 3 or 4 years later, after spending a fortune on Macs, the corporation decided to go back to the IBM based puters. Those same people who screamed at us when we took the IBMs from them...well, some of the women wept. And nobody, but nobody was happy. We tried everything we could think of to save our Macs, but, sadly, nothing worked.

The point of all this is: The Mac is just plain the best computer experience you could ask for. In 1994 I was tying several Macs together without any external wiring but our intranet. If I remember correctly, you can network a group of Macs in you home easily and use some as servers for others.

But, they are so expensive. And worth every penny. And to answer your questions about upgrading: Yes, they are easily upgradeable. My wife worked in the accounting department of the same plant and she had to have hers quickly upgraded constantly. In fact, they kept buying her bigger and faster models and dumping all the data from the old Mac into the new Mac and only took a few hours. Constant memory upgrades. I guess those arer the kind of upgrades you are talking about.

I could leave a document I was working on in Word on the screen and shut the power switch on the back of the unit off and in the morning, hit the power switch and the key on the keyboard and there, every single time, was the document (usually procedures) that I had been working on the previous day. Try that with a Windows puter today.

You know, I might just go out and buy one and give this new HP Slimline to my son.

You'll like any one of them.

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Chris Blount said:


> Oh gosh, I wish I hadn't seen that.


See what I mean? You want it already. You won't be happy with the slower ones. By the way, are you aware that the Macs are really faster than the Windows units?

I want one. Tomorrow I will buy one. I just read the user manual for the 24" monitor that I just got and it does not support Macs. Nutz. Gotta call them.

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Chris Blount said:


> Really? That's actually quite interesting. From what I have seen so far, most of the applications on the Mac run faster than comparible software on the PC. I realize however there are variables involved. One thing I will say is that not having a virus checker running in the background helps.
> 
> I will take your word for it though. It just seems like the Mac runs applications faster.


Everything runs faster. And they rarely crash. Just the best. I'll never forget the first time I drove a Cadillac. Couldn't believe a car like it existed. That's what using a Mac is like.


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## dmurphy (Sep 28, 2006)

Chris Blount said:


> :lol: Yeah no kidding. I can see it coming already. I'm already eyeing the Macbook.
> 
> My poor wife. Wait until she finds out. :eek2:


Just wait. It gets worse.

Come tomorrow, you're going to find yourself addicted to MacRumors.com, checking, watching for updates from the Keynote to see what kind of new toys His Jobsianness has for us.

And it's all fun. I mean, I'm a UNIX guy by trade - I've made a career out of running other people's computers. But at home, it's all Mac for me. No time for that Windows stuff!


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## machavez00 (Nov 2, 2006)

I have never owned a PeeCee. My first Mac was an LC II.







OS 7.0 16 Mhz 16 bit Motorola 68030, 80Mb hard drive 4 Mb of RAM. Two 4Mb sticks cost me $300 and it would recognize 10Mb. I had to use Ram Doubler to run on Compuserve with my blazing fast 2400 baud modem.
It died and I bought one of the First iMacs.








The next was a 400Mhz PowerMac







, 
then a Mirror Door








and now an Al iMac.








It's funny, I paid less for the Al iMac than I did for the Mirror Door, and is blows it away.


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## DawgLink (Nov 5, 2006)

rich584 said:


> Everything runs faster. And they rarely crash. Just the best. I'll never forget the first time I drove a Cadillac. Couldn't believe a car like it existed. That's what using a Mac is like.


Now, Safari does crash often for me since upgrading to Leopard BUT things do run faster AND no system crashes EVER OCCUR

Getting a Mac was the best thing I ever did stability wise and speed wise.

But, nothing is perfect just yet


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

dmurphy said:


> Chris -
> 
> Welcome to the party!
> 
> ...


Well, you are right. This Apple stuff just keeps multiplying. Today I hooked up the Apple TV. Neat little gadget and very easy to setup. Only took a few minutes and I was quickly accessing my video, pictures and music stored on the iMac through my home theater system. Now I have my eye on one of the Macbooks.


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## Greg Alsobrook (Apr 2, 2007)

Chris Blount said:


> Well, you are right. This Apple stuff just keeps multiplying. Today I hooked up the Apple TV. Neat little gadget and very easy to setup. Only took a few minutes and I was quickly accessing my video, pictures and music stored on the iMac through my home theater system. Now I have my eye on one of the Macbooks.


my first was the iphone... then the macbook... then the apple tv... my next is an iMac...

:lol:

no pc's ever again for me!!


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## dmurphy (Sep 28, 2006)

Chris Blount said:


> Well, you are right. This Apple stuff just keeps multiplying. Today I hooked up the Apple TV. Neat little gadget and very easy to setup. Only took a few minutes and I was quickly accessing my video, pictures and music stored on the iMac through my home theater system. Now I have my eye on one of the Macbooks.


You're officially done. You'll be selling any PCs left very soon now, and once you have the Macbook, you're going to absolutely need a Time Capsule.

Just wait. It gets worse. And it's a ton of fun along the way!

Next thing you know, DBSTalk's going to have an "Apple Rumors" forum.


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