Just some Advice please :)

Hi,

i am looking at buying a macbook in white 2.2GHz etc etc.

I will be looking to buy with it, parralels and some other mac software.

What i aim to do is make a copy of my PC onto the macbook, so that i can run my college files etc off of this, then have the mac for Adobe products logic express, garage band, ilife and so on.

So hopefully what i will be left with is a PC within my mac the same as my old PC, But a mac as my main computor, with the fun stuff on.

I have one external hard drive, which i would like to use with the mac, will i need two one for the virtual PC and one for the mac?

and with parralels, will my windows software leak into the mac, I.e outlook appear on the mac??

How much will mac performance be effected and so on?

Just some general advice would be great.

So ANY info that you can give me for what i aim to do as well as some newbie advice for macs, essiantial software..the usual

would be greatly appriciated..

Thanks very much.

Also, msn messenger. I use often, can i use this on the mac bit?

tpl_twizzle said:

Hi,

i am looking at buying a macbook in white 2.2GHz etc etc.

I will be looking to buy with it, parralels and some other mac software. I would look into VMware Fusion instead.




and with parralels, will my windows software leak into the mac, I.e outlook appear on the mac?? No but you will need a AntiVirus program for Windows.

How much will mac performance be effected and so on? I would recommend going up to at least 2 gigs of RAM. Dont get it from Apple though, go here --NEWEGG.

Just some general advice would be great.

So ANY info that you can give me for what i aim to do as well as some newbie advice for macs, essiantial software..the usual

would be greatly appriciated..

Thanks very much.

Click to expand...

Im not sure abut the external hard drive question, but it sounds like you have a good plan.

thanks very much! theres just a few compatibility things i would like to know about before spending the money! and once i have spent the money i would like to have it just how i want it

do you know about isight compatabilty with things?

I prefer parallels - you can have a single document folder and use parallels.

You can access the same documents from the mac and the windows machine

VMware is literally a virtual machine.

I suspect if you use parallels you'll eventually find a way to do 99.9% of what you want on the Mac as its too much of a pain to boot up the windows machine (i'm a recent switcher and have learnt this) if you use VM then you'll end up sticking to windows software.

If you get parallels or fusion get this driver. It will allow you to use your iSight with your virtual machine I used it and it works fine.

so if i use VM, its a totally different machine? and if i use parralels its like intergration?


thanks for the isight info...i guess i install on the windows section?

Seriously, I would first try to list out how many apps you need to run that are Windows only - and how many you're willing to replace.

If you don't plan on leaving Outlook or IE for good, getting a Mac makes no sense.

Yes, Macs run Windows these days, but they're still primarily OS X machines. That's what makes them truly great.

Because if you choose to live the OS X life, compatibility is a word that you'll tend to forget the meaning of.

thanks for the advice, i dislike outlook and some windows things. However i would like to keep windows as a backup if anything goes wrong compatability wise, the main programs i would like to hang onto windows for are:


total video converter
msn messenger
notepad
office
mozilla
bit torrent
Divx

then i would like to use a mac for:

Adobe master suite
Reason
Logic Express
ilife
Front row
and all the other mac stuff, and to learn more about mac software get more out of my computer.

I would like to keep windows anyweay and will prably get the VMware and a windows XP or vista, just to keep up with the windows users etc. But could you tell me if the windows items i wish to use have a mac equivilent or whatever

thanks..

tpl_twizzle said:

thanks for the advice, i dislike outlook and some windows things. However i would like to keep windows as a backup if anything goes wrong compatability wise, the main programs i would like to hang onto windows for are:


total video converter
msn messenger
notepad
office
mozilla
bit torrent
Divx

thanks..

Click to expand...

Are you kidding? There are excellent Mac equivalents of ALL of those. There are plenty of video conversion programs, you can use Adium in place of MSN MEssenger (or use MS' Mac version of MSN Messenger!), OS X already has TextEdit to replace Notepad (and there are several alternatives to that also), there's a Mac native version of Mozilla, plenty of BitTorrent apps (Transmission and Azureus to name a couple), there's a Divx codec for OS X, and a Mac version of MS Office. If you have a real need for the Windows version of Office, then instead of installing Windows and Parallels, look into Crossover instead. Runs MS Office nearly perfect with no need to have Windows installed.

Thanks!!

i might just stick to the mac for now then

i will get as much software as i can, find the ones i like and if needs be ill get a cross over/ parralels product...

i dont want to change to iwork, i would rather stay with office. so ill get the mac version. Sorted then i guess....

Anyone else got any advice?

tpl_twizzle said:

Thanks!!

i might just stick to the mac for now then

i will get as much software as i can, find the ones i like and if needs be ill get a cross over/ parralels product...

i dont want to change to iwork, i would rather stay with office. so ill get the mac version. Sorted then i guess....

Anyone else got any advice?

Click to expand...

Have you tried neo office?

99% of the functionality of office

I almost forgot.... the Mac version of MS Office is not yet compatible with Intel-based OS X. It does run under Rosetta (the emulation environment), but I heard it is dog sloooooow. I'm also certain I read that the Windows version of Office is considerably faster under Crossover. So that's something to consider until the new version of Office for OS X is released (2008 sometime).

tpl_twizzle said:

so if i use VM, its a totally different machine? and if i use parralels its like intergration?

Click to expand...

That is what I have found

I have to use windows for come applications my clients run ....... and also for my company software (quickbooks for mac only runs in US version - there is not a UK equivalent= and I cant use MYOB as I used the latest quickbooks incarnation and it will not convert it yet).

Therefore I HAVE to run some form of windows machine

I tried VM ware but got so frustrated writing a document on client site and then it not being available to the machine without the VM ware being up/

ALSO - if you use office mac and then attach it to an outlook email it loses the extension - still opens in excel but looks like a type not found document.

Mookie makes a good point. You don't necessarily have to have MS Office to have the extent of compatibility with Office itself that you may need. It all depends on what exactly you need out of it.

nirvana said:

If you get parallels or fusion get this driver. It will allow you to use your iSight with your virtual machine I used it and it works fine.

Click to expand...

OMG!
Ive been looking for this driver for ages, THANKS!
+rep

Your welcome Simple driver but really helps out.