iam totally scared about swtching...need help

hi i need some help with the switching part....


i witness ma firends power book and ....
my reaction was
WOW......
its awsome loved it and i sooo want it .. and u guys knw y !!!!!!


well the thing i have collected money and have the choice of buying a good laptop for college and iam wondering if i should buy the power book ... but scared that i wont be able to run some prgrams ...my major is computer science and technology.
so iam worried that i wont be able to run some programs .. that the college ofers me on ma MAC..

i dunno what to do .. i soo want the power book ..
please give me suggestion

thanx in advance

sorcerer said:

hi i need some help with the switching part....


i witness ma firends power book and ....
my reaction was
WOW......
its awsome loved it and i sooo want it .. and u guys knw y !!!!!!


well the thing i have collected money and have the choice of buying a good laptop for college and iam wondering if i should buy the power book ... but scared that i wont be able to run some prgrams ...my major is computer science and technology.
so iam worried that i wont be able to run some programs .. that the college ofers me on ma MAC..

i dunno what to do .. i soo want the power book ..
please give me suggestion

thanx in advance

Click to expand...

It depends on what software the department requires. I know a couple of people who have made their way through our CS program with a mac instead of a PC. I plan on completing my CS degree (2+ years) with a mac instead of a PC. The mac has a number of applications which if not better, are comparable to those available for the PC. Apple provides a development environment that uses industry standard GCC as the compilation engine. I would contact someone at the CS department where you will be attending and ask them what kind of software is required/in use. That information could help us, help you more.

hokiethang said:

It depends on what software the department requires. I know a couple of people who have made their way through our CS program with a mac instead of a PC. I plan on completing my CS degree (2+ years) with a mac instead of a PC. The mac has a number of applications which if not better, are comparable to those available for the PC. Apple provides a development environment that uses industry standard GCC as the compilation engine. I would contact someone at the CS department where you will be attending and ask them what kind of software is required/in use. That information could help us, help you more.

Click to expand...

If u have to you can use vpc.

Here is a thread with some info u could use.

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=60&t=94547&

Read this ( I found this in my Newbie search)

Read this below
Jack31081



Joined: May 2003

Can't really say I 'switched' because I'll never fully give up my PC.

But I ordered my first mac on friday. A Stock 17" Powerbook. I can't wait to get my hands on it. It'll be great to be able to use OSX, UNIX, and WinXP all on one machine...I'm a senior Comp Sci student and want to learn to develop for OSX (already know UNIX & Windows).

I'm so excited!

Ordered it w/ ground shipping...any idea on when it should arrive?

digirep said:

Read this below
Jack31081



Joined: May 2003

Can't really say I 'switched' because I'll never fully give up my PC.

But I ordered my first mac on friday. A Stock 17" Powerbook. I can't wait to get my hands on it. It'll be great to be able to use OSX, UNIX, and WinXP all on one machine...I'm a senior Comp Sci student and want to learn to develop for OSX (already know UNIX & Windows).

I'm so excited!

Ordered it w/ ground shipping...any idea on when it should arrive?

Click to expand...

To clear this up a bit, OS X = UNIX, and WinXP is only available with a $300 piece of software from a company owned by MS. I am a Junior CS student and have done a semester of CS programming with my powerbook. I had to test all of my code on lab machines to make sure it worked but, that was a minor inconvienence.

Fluid said:

If u have to you can use vpc.

Here is a thread with some info u could use.

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=60&t=94547&

Click to expand...

thanx guys the info really helped .. now that u metion vpc ...
it makes the mac a amazing concept .. running different platforms .. can you get anything better than that !!!!!!!!


but the question arises ... nothing is perfect !!!
well if u use vpc will it be exactly the same as running a normal windows platform .. meaning will i be able to install all windows software .. and will they work fine or .. will some software not work on the emulator ?????

please sorry for being a pain jus curious.. i am soo desperate for ma pbook.... cant wait ... please help me

thanx in advance!!!!!!!

sorcerer said:

thanx guys the info really helped .. now that u metion vpc ...
it makes the mac a amazing concept .. running different platforms .. can you get anything better than that !!!!!!!!


but the question arises ... nothing is perfect !!!
well if u use vpc will it be exactly the same as running a normal windows platform .. meaning will i be able to install all windows software .. and will they work fine or .. will some software not work on the emulator ?????

please sorry for being a pain jus curious.. i am soo desperate for ma pbook.... cant wait ... please help me

thanx in advance!!!!!!!

Click to expand...

As far as I know, it is a copy of windows with a virtual machine attached (hence the steep price), so anything that works in windows should work in Virtual PC. You have to realize that it is a Virtual machine, and that windows performance may not be as good as you get on a PC, as all of the resources will be shared. I don't have a copy of VPC to tell you more, maybe someone else can chime in on that, but as far as I know, any windows software will work, it just may not be as fast.

I would say go with the mac, you would be fine with out any new software.. mac comes with plenty preinstalled. Though its nice to have additional software added!

Graphite said:

I would say go with the mac, you would be fine with out any new software.. mac comes with plenty preinstalled. Though its nice to have additional software added!

Click to expand...

college is starting in 2 weeks .. abit excited ...
i have made up ma mind iam going for the 15 inch titanium g4 power book ... i loved it from the first time i saw it ...


iam getting it at a price of 2299 dolars .. with ma student discount ..
so what i thought was that ill buy 1 gig of ram and the price still comes to of 2599 dollars ..
iam doing this coz ill be needind all the pofermence for vpc to run smoothly . hope i made the correct choice and hope i dont get stuck with any windows programes.that i wont be able to run ...(fingers crossed)

abit dissapointed that the 15 inch dont come with ddr ram ?????

but as they say you cant have the cake and eat the cake....... or some **** like that !!!!!!!!!!


neways cant wait to get ma hands on it ...
ill post as soon as i get it...

sorcerer said:

hope i made the correct choice and hope i dont get stuck with any windows programes.that i wont be able to run ...(fingers crossed)

Click to expand...

contact the department at the school you are going to and find out. They will be willing to tell you ahead of time, so you can decide whether you really need to buy Virtual PC. Thats an extra $300 that if you don't need there is no point in spending.

You can't go wrong with any macintosh. Though the best deal I think is the eMac (before the g5 came out.. i think its changed now).. Though.. other models have coolness which make them a better buy .. and the G5 well, thats just insanely good buy..

VPC question (thinking bout switching)

hi, i'm really interested in getting the 12" powerbook (867 MHz, 60 gb HD, 640 mb ram). i already know that there is a foreign language word processing program that i need to use next semester and its not out for the Mac, will VPC be very slow with this configuration? any advice, comments from current users with a similar configuration? Thank you.

es89 said:

hi, i'm really interested in getting the 12" powerbook (867 MHz, 60 gb HD, 640 mb ram). i already know that there is a foreign language word processing program that i need to use next semester and its not out for the Mac, will VPC be very slow with this configuration? any advice, comments from current users with a similar configuration? Thank you.

Click to expand...

ugh... virtual pc...
its so... imperfect... and slow...
but your talking to a guy with only 256 MB of RAM, so...
Anyways, the more RAM you have, the better Virtual PC will run. SO don't worry. 640 MB of RAM is perfect.
And sorcerer dude, 1 Gig is also perfect... 512 is pretty darn good. but like i said, the more RAM, the better.
Im thinking about a PowerBook too... Still thinkin... hmm...

Mac dude said:

Im thinking about a PowerBook too... Still thinkin... hmm...

Click to expand...

Yeah...my dad just got a 12" powerbook a couple days ago. It makes me want one even more. :-D Still savin up though. Do you think they will put the fiberoptics into the 12" and 15" models in the future?

Well, it wont be really slow once the app is running. But opening new programs in VPC can be slow, but once its going its alright.

(there are alot of foreign language programs out for the mac, so there may be alternatives)

Graphite said:

Well, it wont be really slow once the app is running. But opening new programs in VPC can be slow, but once its going its alright.

(there are alot of foreign language programs out for the mac, so there may be alternatives)

Click to expand...

well iam buying a mac and hope its not abig mistake when its coming to ma education ..... well iam getting i gig but .. what about once i program and when i compile in vpc will it be slow or will it even be able to run it or even handle it?? what about when i save documents will i be able to aceess thse documents in the same format in other pcs or do i have to convert it??>?

thanx in advance

JazzTrpt said:

Yeah...my dad just got a 12" powerbook a couple days ago. It makes me want one even more. :-D Still savin up though. Do you think they will put the fiberoptics into the 12" and 15" models in the future?

Click to expand...

WHAT??? The fiberoptix backlight isn't in the 12"? I wanted a PowerBook with a backlight... I like the dark... i wont be able to see it in the pitch dark...
*sigh* looks like imma have to scoop up money for the 17"...

Mac dude said:

WHAT??? The fiberoptix backlight isn't in the 12"? I wanted a PowerBook with a backlight... I like the dark... i wont be able to see it in the pitch dark...
*sigh* looks like imma have to scoop up money for the 17"...

Click to expand...

Irritating, isn't it?

JazzTrpt said:

Irritating, isn't it?

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"Tiny, but with all the things you'd expect from a PowerBook G4."
Apple lied to me!

How so? It was told that the 17 is the only one with blue lit keys...

as for buying a mac and a mistake, it wont be. just save all your files as rtf and a pc will be able to read it. All text files should be readable by a mac.