Can an iBook replace my IBM

Okay, I am a newb in the Mac world so I decided to ask you guys. I am currently on an IBM Thinkpad, and I love laptops soo much, but I am getting disgusted with windows, I tried out the ibook 12 inch at an apple store, my questions are can this last me 3-4 years without "crapping out" on me, I'm trying to break away from PC gaming, because I'm soo addicted to it and its ruingin my life, so here some other questions:

-What is the Wifi distance on the ibook g4 12 inch, and is it compatible with a linksys wireless router?
-Can i use a bluetooth keyboard and mouse with it?
-Is it easy to switch from a WIndows laptop to an Apple laptop


THanks,

NavyPilot21

jump right in and pick up the ibook. it will last you for more than 3 or 4 years as long as you can avoid the itch to get another mac. "why you get another mac?" "i just felt like it"

i dont know, yes it is compatible with any wireless router
yes, as long as you have bluetooth installed or a dongle (lol, i love that word)
yes, very easy to switch. at first you might find some things stupid or pointless and think that windows does them better, but once you grasp the entire idea of it you will learn that it is better.

NavyPilot21 said:

Okay, I am a newb in the Mac world so I decided to ask you guys. I am currently on an IBM Thinkpad, and I love laptops soo much, but I am getting disgusted with windows, I tried out the ibook 12 inch at an apple store, my questions are can this last me 3-4 years without "crapping out" on me, I'm trying to break away from PC gaming, because I'm soo addicted to it and its ruingin my life, so here some other questions:

-What is the Wifi distance on the ibook g4 12 inch, and is it compatible with a linksys wireless router?
-Can i use a bluetooth keyboard and mouse with it?
-Is it easy to switch from a WIndows laptop to an Apple laptop


THanks,

NavyPilot21

Click to expand...

1. Depends surroundings but i find mine is quite gd
2.Yes make sure u have bluetooth turned on or have a usb DONGLE!
3. Very easy, i did. Runs now instead of crashes! All laptops intended for xp systems would be great if only they didnt screw it up at the end by putting xp on it!

enjoy!

Thanks You Both

I did pretty much what you are talking about awhile back and picked up a 12" iBook which I am now selling. It is a great little machine and does exactly what I need it to. It is great for carrying to school, I just wish it wasn't this bright white color. Your questions have been answered above, even if somewhat biased towards the end. Wireless will work fine with virtually any router and is trouble free. I used mine with a linksys at home but just replaced it with a netgear, both with no problems. I have bluetooth built into mine but have never used it for anything but my cellphone but could use a keyboard or mouse if I wanted. The final question of is it easy to switch can be a toughy. When I got my mac, I hadn't been on an Apple since my old IIe. Being a heavy PC user, like myself, you are going to be in a new environment and question why Apple does this or that? You may think a PC does some things better which it may or may not. The key for me when learning OS X was to appreciate it for what it is, and not try to make it a windows machine. I still divide my time up pretty evenly between both platforms as both are more than capable machines in the right hands. But is an Apple machine capable of locking up programs on you? Yes. Do you have to still do updates like windows? Yes. More than likely you will find programs that Apple doesn't support or have that you need, so keep a Windows box around. Like I have said on other threads, switching isn't the only option. Some people hate windows because they don't understand it. If you like both, just be a dual user, the best of both worlds. Oh, and as far as it lasting you 3-4 years? Sure it could, or it may not. More than likely you will not have any problems that can't be easily or cheaply serviced, but you are just as likely to have a problem out of an iBook as the Thinkpad you are using now. The only difference with Apple is that to me they don't seem to outdate themselves as fast as Windows machines thus giving you a longer lifecycle.

THank You that was most helpful, I also came across 2 other questions:

- Can you map a network drive in OS X?
- Is it true that 19 Gb is left after all apple software is preloaded on a 40GB ibook?

NavyPilot21 said:

THank You that was most helpful, I also came across 2 other questions:

- Can you map a network drive in OS X?
- Is it true that 19 Gb is left after all apple software is preloaded on a 40GB ibook?

Click to expand...

Someone with a little more experience in OS X may be able to answer those questions better than I can. I do know that OS X doesn't use drive letters like Windows. It has something to do with being based on Unix I believe in the fact that it mounts a drive. You still should be able to map a network drive, it just won't appear as your predisposed drive letter.

As far as harddrive space, you may be correct. I have a 60GB hard drive in my iBook and after formating I was left with about 33GB after loading ilife 06, Microsoft Office, and iwork 06.

I am also not sure about the mapping a network drive, I have not tried it on osx.

I do not know exactly how much space all the software takes up but it takes up alot, there are alot of printer drivers, languages and other files you don't need. In iLife if you do not plan on using garage band you can trash that and all the files (sound loops) that go with it.. that is a pretty large chunk of space..

There are programs that will remove the non needed files (like the languages and drivers) I do not remember the name of this program however, sorry. The garage band and other applications you will not use can be deleted manually. (just like un-installing applications on windows)

EDIT: This was suppose to go in another thread and while browsing the forums I saw it here. I am not going to delete my post and just write something like "wrong thread" because it will be viewed by somebody if they happen to have that question. Although I would like to apologize for the fact that my post was way off topic.

Wow, I am just chalk full of questions

-Can you open a compressed dmg file, like winzip does with a zip file on windows, becasue I know in linux you have to go to the Konsole and type in code.

sure just use stuffit expander.

NavyPilot21,

I'm in a simular situation, I've personally had it with the Windows viruses, spyware,adware, and stuff. I don't see the blue screen of death as much as I used to now that we have XP, but I'm so sick of a program shutting down and asking me if I want to send the error report mack to Microsoft who does nothing with them. I just bought a PowerBook G4 15 inch and I'm really enjoying it so far, I just wish there were some OS-X replacement software that I'm used to using. I really think in the long run I will be glad that I made the switch, but for right now I know that I'm getting a few more wrinkles in my brain by learning something new. Good Luck on your decision, but be careful who you buy from, I know from a personal experience right here on this site, buy from a reputable dealer.

I pretty much did exactly what you are thinking about. I do still have my desktop PC, but I haven't upgraded it or bought new software for it in quite a long time. That's basically my goal - use it till its worthless and stick to Macs and mac software / hardware.

I've had my iBook 1.2 for a bit over a year now. It is still a good laptop, but I would not want to use it for my primary home PC without some upgrades. I bought an eMac 1.42 just about a year ago to supplant the ibook at home.

I would just say a few things insofar as using an iBook for 'everythng'.

You will need more hard disk space. Count on it. You can get an external firewire / usb hard disk to fix this.

To get an external monitor to work in high - rez, you'll need to use a hack on the firmware. It works well, but it's not as good as having built in DVI dual monitor support like the powerbooks, and it voids the warranty.

The screen on the iBooks is dim compared to the powerbooks. It's not bad as average laptops go, but it's not the best either.

I would very much suggest waiting for the intel iBooks if you want to keep it for 3 or 4 years. Or, perhaps the rumored small form factor MacBook Pro. If you want to keep one of these for a long time, I really really suggest you get it with the fastest / largest hard disk you can from Apple. Then max out the memory (either from apple, or add your own). Get an external monitor and a fast, big external firewire / usb hard disk.

My ibook has been great. The G4s are much more reliable than the old G3s. I use it a lot when I want to lounge around, and I have an external 120GB HDD attached to my eMac, accessible via the netwok. I can take that ext drive and my iBook on motorcycle trips, no problems even with many hours of vibration from the motorcycle(s). Even so, my 30GB iBook stays pretty much full between about 24 and 27 GB used. There's a performance hit when the drive is that full, and it's noticable. I don't have that much stuff on it either, things like Office and a couple of different browsers, some utilities, and many software updates - it eats up hard drive space slowly but surely. Movies and pics I try to put on the external.

If you're an officer going on a ship, I'd think that an iBook and an external hard disk would be perfect.

I'm fine with a 40gb the iBook HD, my lenovo (IBM) laptop is only 40 and I have 14 gb left, most my music and videos and other docs are stored on my network drive

I'l probably get an iBook in July, but I want it even more because I went to google news and a trojan popped up, I don't even go to sites that have viruses and questionable content, I don't use P2P so there is almost no way I can get a virus, ans then Norton wanrs me, but sticks its head up its butt and says it cant delete, so I had to manully delete it, WINDOWS!!!!!


Which leads me to my next question
-Exactly how many viruses can threaten a Mac, casue I hate trojans and adware

NavyPilot21 said:

Which leads me to my next question
-Exactly how many viruses can threaten a Mac, casue I hate trojans and adware

Click to expand...

Depends on how you define a virus.

So far, there is no virus that auto installs on a mac running Tiger and Safari 2.0 You have to download something and enter your admin password to allow it to install. That is a really weak form of virus, as anything that requires your input to install isn't really capable of doing anything you don't allow it to. In over 2 years of using a Mac now, I have not once had an encounter with a virus, and I have taken absolutly no special measures other than turning off ftp access when I don't need it.

Mac is pretty immune to adware too. However, 'spyware' of the cookie sort - that is, it isnt a program but a cookie used to identify you as you surf around - is pretty much unbeatable except by disabling cookies. This is not damaging or malicious software, and frankly if you clean out your cookies once a week or so then the information they gather on your surfing habits is farily useless.

This is completely different from the 'spyware' or 'adware' that gets installed on windows. Those are usually programs that actually run on your PC and make annoying things pop up from time to time, often sending information back about what is on your hard disk and what's in your browser cache.

I have seen nothing like that on Macs, and only mention tracker cookies as 'spyware' because someone is bound to jump in and point them out. Those cookies are used by ad servers so they can look at where you've been and advertise accordingly - logic along the lines of 'ok, this guy was just looking at biketrader.com, then he was at kawasaki.com, then at bikebandit.com, so I'll show him a motorcycle advertisement'.

Okay, just like pretty much everyone else here,I did the same thing. Been using Windows for a long time, and I don't hate it, I'm competent and use virus software and spyware scanners, and don't download crap off P2P networks, so I wasn't overly concerned about that kind of thing, however, I was getting bored of Windows and it's quirks, had some spare cash, so went and bought a 14" G4 iBook.

I was a little confused at first, mainly by 2 things.

1. The close, minimise and maximise buttons are on the left corner of a window
2. when you close a window, it doesn't close the application, so closing firefox leaves firefox running.

Those things confused me to ****, but now I don't even think about them. Everything else was so stupidly straight forward that I only had to ask a couple of questions about how to do things.

What I will say though is, software does still crash. I've hit a few bad websites and had Firefox crash, iTunes crashes sometimes, and Garageband has crashed as well. Maybe I have a duff install or a duff iBook I don't know, but software does still crash, just not as often

As for disk space, yes, all the preinstalled apps do take up a lot of space, but I read somewhere that you could actually do a reinstall from the supplied disk, but have the option of selecting what gets installed. COuld be worth a look.

2. when you close a window, it doesn't close the application, so closing firefox leaves firefox running.

Click to expand...

So how do you close it then?

NavyPilot21 said:

So how do you close it then?

Click to expand...

You hold the mouse over the app in the dock and select quit, you can quit from Finder as well, and probably a keyboard shortcut.

It's not a big deal, all it means is that once the app is open new windows etc open much faster. Of course, the more apps you have open, as with any system, the more RAM that is used.