Mac me

[Ace]

I am looking for a new computer, hes my situation, I am going back to school in January, my wife said next computer is going to be a Mac.
I don't need to spend a ton on a computer. Also I have looked into getting a USB Tablet around 100$

[Scurvy]

so you're getting a mac. congrats. you can run both windows and mac os, so look forward to seeing you in time for twlb

[Ace]

I don't think I am even going install the client on that system

[kthx]

yo wuts up baby girl, lets go to private arena and shit.

Consider yourself Mac'd

[geekbot]

Are you looking for advice or just saying? The lineup is pretty straight-forward. Laptop, desktop, high performance tower. Choose you size, choose your upgrades.

http://www.apple.com/hardware/

Apple sells the Wacom tablets. I'm sure you can find others elsewhere.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/inkwell/

You might want to wait until OS X 10.5 (Leopard) comes out but that might still be 3-5 months off. It's $129 for an OS upgrade (there's pretty significant improvements/features in 10.5).

[Ace]

Advice geekbot.

[Spider]

All Macs are very similar so there isn't much to worry about. When you go to a store or the website you will see that you don't have get concerned with an AMD processor or an Intel one, or whatever. With a PC you have many different brands and stuff. With a Mac its simple case of good -> better -> best. They all have the same components. One Mac will be more expensive than the other because it has 2 gigs of ram instead of 1, but there is only one type of ram, you know what I mean? Same with processors, more or less.

Just make sure you get the "super drive", thats the DVD burner, the "combo drive" is just a CD burner, comes on lower end models.

[Scurvy]

right. spider said it all. basically you let them know how much money you're willing to spend and they'll hook you up.

[Ace]

I know about ram on pc's does it make a difference on Macs as well.
I am looking to load I life and some sort of office program with a presenter.

[Scurvy]

even all the mac haters have to agree that macs are phenomenal for multi-media purposes. iLife is great, and you can always spend the extra cash on software, but you can set up a very proffesional slideshow using what every mac comes with. the new front row feature is amazing for music photos slideshows dvds etc. remote is included--very effective

[Ace]

I have read about some really cool little things the mac does..... like the power light phasing..... when its sleeping the mac to mac chat program.... very cool stuff.

[Ace]

Well I went to the mac store on Saturday, very cool place. Looks like I am going to pick up just a mac book. It should handle every thing I need it for. Also will be getting the apple care and I might get the .mac thing.

[geekbot]

Yes, RAM matters but I think all MacBooks come with 512M or 1G standard and that should be enough- unless you are doing a lot of video/audio editing. You might think you wouldn't but if you ever get a digital camcorder or even a digital camera, you can shoot video. I have 1G and I can edit movies just fine, but it could be faster. It's a upgrade to consider.

If you're going with the lowest model, I would suggest upgrading to a SuperDrive so you can burn DVDs. (I see Spider already said the same). Again, you might not think you will need to but even making backups of music/videos can be a lot of data. (DVDs are 2-4G, CDs are only 700MB).

The other upgrade to consider is a bigger HD. I think the low end comes with at least 80G. That's what I have and I definitely am running out with the movies and music I have. An easy and more flexible alternative is to buy external HDs which are easy to pick up at any electronics store. That way you can put off this upgrade until you need it. (The downside, of course, is you have an external device that you might not always want to carry around with you).

All of these are totally optional upgrades- your MacBook will work great without them. But if it makes sense for how you think you will use it, and the price is ok, you might want to consider it.

----

I visited a friend who just bought a new MacBook Pro. All Apples come with built-in cameras and PhotoBooth. Silly, but it had us in stitches for a while.

[geekbot]

Wouldn't let me post with "4 images in the post". vBulletin doesn't know how to count.

[Ace]

Thanks geekbot, super drive for sure. 80 gigs should be good for now if I need more space externals are cheap now.

Just wondering if any one has the .mac thing. The sales chick was really pushing that option.