Mac users?

[funkcicle]

Thanks for the tips, Leland. I'd started to play around with Exposé a bit when I read your post.. what an innovative concept, really lets you maximise use of your screen real estate. I got the 12.1" iBook, partly because of price, but also the longer batter life. I've got iPod on my xmas list... just bought an iSight camera today.. with close family in a dozen+ cities in 4 countries on 3 continents, this thing will pay for itself!

Apple gives a very nice discount to anybody affiliated with military or higher education institutions.. bring in a student loan receipt and they'll even give you the discount. I got $100 off the iBook and $20 off the iSight..I think they give about $25 off the iPod. Very classy outfit, Macintosh is.. I think my Dell Inspiron might end up on eBay next week!

cheers!

[dopey]

out of curiousity which one did you get? The i books are considerably cheaper, tho im not sure why. Im sure its cause of included ability

I'm not very up on mac's, i've always been a PC guy mainly because I built my own and thats not done int he mac world. However im looking at getting a mac laptop over a pc laptop for college.

[TMurphy]

Eh? Well i foudn mac to be like AOL, they block a lot of your opinions, and dont let you get certain things.

That statement holds no water. In fact, I'm not totally certain what that means. Owning a Mac blocks your opinions???

As for the reason iBooks are cheaper than Powerbooks...Powerbooks are available with much higher end hardware. Video cards, processors, memory, etc....much more variability and quality in the Powerbook than the iBook...and hopefully, Apple will unveil a G5 powerbook soon, making the difference even larger.

[dopey]

not to turn this into a tech thread, but is the g5 release soon? I assume if the G5 is released, G4 prices should drop?

I think it be interesting to see what students now a days use @ college, is there any reason not to use a mac.

[Leland]

not to turn this into a tech thread, but is the g5 release soon?

The absolute soonest would be at MacWorld San Francisco in January, but I seriously doubt that we'll see a portable G5 for a while. It's a significant step up in power consumption and heat (although still not as draining as comparable Intel and AMD 64-bit chips), and IBM is still getting the power needs down to a level that's reasonable enough for portables.

Another usage tip: Get to know the sidebar in your Finder windows. You can configure it like the folder (right-hand) side of the Dock. Say, for example, that I have some documents on my desktop that I want to store on my iPod. I plug in my iPod, navigate to the folder on it that I want to use (for me, it's "New Stuff"), and drag that folder into its own spot on the sidebar. Then I click on the Desktop (also in the sidebar), select the files I want to move, and drag them onto the New Stuff folder that I just added in the sidebar. Once I'm done, I drag New Stuff off of the Sidebar, let go, and it disappears in a puff of smoke.

You can also add folders & things to the blank space in the top of the Finder's windows.

iBook vs. PowerBook? There are just two main things from a user standpoint, really: monitor spanning and available Superdrive. The iBook's external video only mirrors the iBook's own display, while the PowerBooks can span from one monitor to another (like, keep your tools on the PowerBook's display while showing the document on a large external monitor). However, there's a firmware hack that allows monitor spanning on an iBook.

You can send your iBook to a third party to have a Superdrive installed, but that's just more work.

I've got a 12" iBook, too, and like I said, Expose is probably the most useful thing they've come up with yet. I'd also really like to see how Dashboard works itself into daily use in OS 10.4.

[DonShirer]

Despite being one of the original Mac owners, I'm still learning things about the operating system. You might consider subscribing to a user-oriented publication like MacWorld (or just look at their website). They are especially good about giving tips on using OS X.

[TMurphy]

I am a 4th year college student, and have been using a Mac exclusively throughout college. Truthfully, one way or the other, it doesn't matter...use what you are comfortable with, and prefer to use.

Leland: Why do you think Apple is dragging on a G5 powerbook? AMD64 processors have been available in laptops for a while now, and it's very unlike Apple to be behind, ESPECIALLY in the portable department. Power consumption can't be that much of an issue, can it??? I would imagine there wouldn't be a problem designing a more powerful battery they could stick into the powerbooks, that wouldn't be much different in size, if at all (if they can improve battery life on the iPod, I'm sure the technology is there for the powerbook). Heat I could understand, but Apple's always been good at thinking up unique ways to deal with that (like my "air cooled" G4 cube...which has had a fan in it since it was upgraded). It makes no real difference to me, I'm not in the market for a laptop (at least not right now...maybe in another year or so), it's just surprising that the G5 processor has been out for about a year now, and still no G5 powerbook...I would've thought that would be a priority.

[Leland]

Leland: Why do you think Apple is dragging on a G5 powerbook?

The G4 desktops were out for a while before the G4 Powerbooks showed up, too.

The two big things that Apple wants to minimize for a laptop are 1) Power consumption, and 2) Heat. Power requirements need to be low enough to be equal to a G4, otherwise it'll burn through a battery as fast as do those AMD laptops. Screaming fast processor speed doesn't matter much if the thing won't last through a shuttle flight from New York to Chicago.

Heat, obviously, is something that needs to be avoided if possible. Like cc_tuba_guy says, the G4s already get kinda toasty.

Both of those also tie into the size requirements for the laptops themselves. The iMac G5 isn't fundamentally much bigger than some "desktop replacement" laptops of the recent past, but it's still way bigger than any Apple notebook. It uses that space for power management and cooling.

Again, keep an eye open for January. It's still mainly rumors & speculation, but there are clues scattered around the PowerPC CPU realm that indicate that something's up. Apple's priority isn't to just merely shove a glowing hot, battery-eating first-generation G5 into a Powerbook -- they want to put something together that continues their streak of having the best laptops on the market.