Mac vs. PC. For serious...

[stratology]

Where can I find more about this?

download Boot Camp from Apple:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/

FAQ, infos:
http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?sto ... 5154425188
http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?sto ... 5225344882

more infos, with user experiences:
http://www.macworld.com/2006/04/firstlo ... /index.php
http://ptech.wsj.com/ptech.html

[tony moore]

Thanks !!!

[chris harris]

how will BootCamp address drive formatting? are dual booters doomed to Fat32?

[stratology]

how will BootCamp address drive formatting? are dual booters doomed to Fat32?

Boot Camp reformats the drive without affecting your OS X partition - it remains intact. You can choose between Fat32 (read and write from OS X) and NTFS (read only from OS X) for the Windows partition.

Check out the links I posted above, they have all this information, and more..

Frank

[kayagum]

The evidence was just that my friends' pc was blisteringly fast on the internet compared to my mac with the same high-speed service in the same area.

I wouldn't blame your entire CPU for this problem.

Which browser are you using? If you're still using Safari, you should try one of the others, especially Mozilla Firefox (yes, you can use it in both PC and Mac environments).

There are many settings you can tweak to speed up page loads and caching and other fun stuff. Just google or look on the Mozilla site- there are enough geeks without social lives who can tell you how to do this.

Other things to upgrade before chucking your CPU:

* Memory (absolutely the most bang for the buck)
* Network (what wireless/wired setup are you using?)
* Distributing USB/Firewire loads (do you have a dozen USB devices hooked up?)
* Are you running ProTools, spreadsheets, email and chat software, and surfing at the same time? Cut that shit out- don't have any more applications open than what you're really using.
* Drives- if you're using it for hardcore recording, getting drives with decent RPMs would help.

I have a corporate cast-off Celeron machine from 2001 that can still surf with the big boys. I can even use Audition on it, as long as I'm not using too many plugins or effects, which is a good creative limitation.

The bottleneck is not your CPU. Mac vs. PC does not spare you from managing your box, or setting it up properly- there's a lot what you can do with what you have, without devolving into Linux programming

[stratology]

System Preferences -> Network -> Show: Built-in Ethernet -> Configure IPv6 -> switch it off

This can result in faster loading of pages...

[Winstontaneous]

Seriously, this is like asking what color shirt you should wear on a date...

Now this is a question that can be answered rationally and definitively: anything but white. White shirts are a magnet for stains, especially tomato sauce/ketchup and other bright-red colors, especially on first dates. Also painfully obvious (but I'm saying this from learning the hard way)--ALWAYS, ALWAYS--double check for stray boogers from several angles in a mirror before going on a first date.

[Dingo]

The question you should focus on is "What software am I going to use to record?" If it available for both, PCs are way cheaper. If it is mac only, then there you go.

[knobtwirler]

Now that Macs will be dual booting in MacOS and Windows, the obvious answer is to get a mac. Seriously, for EVERYONE who has to ask, "Mac or PC", the Mac will be the ONLY computer that will boot both OSes and all such potential computer buyers will see the smartest thing to do is to buy a Mac. If you buy a PC instead, you are stuck with one OS. For those who don't use a Mac and don't understand what the appeal is, sorry.

[bentonevolution]

Both are great tools for the same application. It's entirely preference.

[kayagum]

Nothing is a slam dunk....


... check out (TapeOp gear editor) Andy Hong's horror story with Mac support:

http://messageboard.tapeop.com/viewtopic.php?t=33424

[John Jeffers]

Now that Macs will be dual booting in MacOS and Windows, the obvious answer is to get a mac. Seriously, for EVERYONE who has to ask, "Mac or PC", the Mac will be the ONLY computer that will boot both OSes and all such potential computer buyers will see the smartest thing to do is to buy a Mac. If you buy a PC instead, you are stuck with one OS. For those who don't use a Mac and don't understand what the appeal is, sorry.

Dual-booting is a pain in the ass. Sure, it's gonna be fun for the gearheads to say they're running OSX and XP on the same machine. But the practical reality is that it takes so long between reboots that you'll probably find yourself staying in one OS most of the time anyway.

IMO, the main purpose of Boot Camp is to lure Windows people away from XP by giving them a less painful transition to OSX. It's a smart marketing move by Apple. Since Apple is primarily a hardware company, even if someone decides they like XP better than OSX after running both for a while, Apple has still made their money from the hardware sale.

[knobtwirler]

Dual booting is a pain in the ass? Between 11 and 30 seconds is too long to wait? I agree, it is an enormously clever decision by Apple, who happens to sell more highly customized (read well-designed)hardware than any PC manufacturer, with more power-user features built into their OS. The next MacOS due early '07 will have dual booting built-in, and the PC-Mac decision problem will be over. Apple believes that an OSX ignoramus will prefer their OS to Windows and will only use the 10-15 Windows-only apps(with anti-virus and anti-spy and adware software) when necessary. It's about options and flexibility, not which one is better. Obviously though, the more open-ended situation ends up being better unless you strictly want a PC, period.

[steved2112]

The evidence was just that my friends' pc was blisteringly fast on the internet compared to my mac with the same high-speed service in the same area. Also pictures from her digital camera load faster. That's about it. But whatever. They're cheaper and I'm a bachelor again living at a friend's house so I need money. Anyone want a G5 iMac?

Sounds like you should buy (better yet build) a cheap PC to connect to the internet and download digital camera pictures, and leave your Mac G5 alone if it is serving you as a dedicated audio machine. I am a huge proponent of keeping your recording apps on a separate machine than your everyday computer.

[John Jeffers]

Dual booting is a pain in the ass? Between 11 and 30 seconds is too long to wait?

Honestly, yes. I used to dual-boot Linux and Windows. I booted into Linux so rarely that I just don't bother anymore. I'd much rather have decent virtualization that doesn't cause a huge performance hit and run the OS's concurrently.

BTW...11 seconds? What OS can boot into a usable state in 11 seconds? I'm talking a cold boot, here. Not waking up from hibernation or whatever. Certainly not WinXP.