<p>S1 is in architecture and has been a Mac boy his whole life (our first Mac was a 128). He was upset when he checked his school’s website for computer requirements for the architecture school and it said a PC was required. He went to talk to the Dean of the Architecture School about the possibility of using a Mac instead. The Dean said “we require a PC??? That’s funny 'cause we all use Macs. Buy a Mac.” He bought a Macbook Pro and is in heaven.</p>
<p>
that’s a good point - some universities have very good prices (sometimes including no cost) of software for students so if one can get a good deal then it saves some of the incremental cost to dual boot a Mac to Windows for those apps needing it.</p>
<p>I’m thinking the OS was free, u<em>u</em>dad, but didn’t want to say as much because I’m not certain.</p>
<p>Another source of inexpensive software is the software manufacturers themselves. I think our son paid all of $75 for his copy of SolidWorks; the rest of the world pays something like $5000 plus an annual $1200contract. It is in the software companies’ interests to have these students up and running on their software; these are the folks who will be specifying software in 5-10 years (or less).</p>
<p>DD has a macintosh laptop that is now almost 6 years old, and still going strong with only a battery replacement or two over those 6 years. I hate my new Dell work laptop, and love my ibook.</p>
<p>Would and did. We’re mac loyalists, not blindly, but out of experience. I’m communicating on an inherited IBM ThinkPad, but that’s only because our current family desktop is a klunker of an old iMac with a semi-broken keyboard, CRT screen, and more. Never had a single virus with several generations of used Macs we have owned from the late '90’s on. Recently had a major virus on this laptop that I had to hire someone to fix. That was even though I supposedly already had “virus protection” (haha) on this machine. The virus made my laptop almost unusable because of popup warnings literally every few seconds, which obliterated the screen.</p>
<p>When one’s kids are significantly non-local in college, the last thing a parent needs to worry about is a crash when their papers are due. I’ve never had a worry, and don’t expect to. That’s not to knock others who feel confident with PC’s and purchased protection, but I would never do it for my own.
:)</p>
<p>Kids both have MacBooks and within a couple of years they’ve had to replace harddrives…Apple paid because I had an Applecare policy. I think Apple’s alot of hype and overpriced.</p>
<p>Our computer geek son has a PC (can’t remember which one) and mostly runs Linux on it. I have his old one - it’s a Lenovo IBM ThinkPad, I like it, though the right arrow key is broken and the mouse occassionally freezes. (Luckily the latter has an easy fix.)</p>
<p>I think if you are sensible you will not have problems with viruses. I’ve never had problems with viruses and I’ve had PCs since the early 90s. The people I know who get viruses get them because of the way they use their PCs, not because they have PCs. Virus makers target PCs because there are more of them out there. Mac has less than 10% market share, whereas windows is almost 90%. If you are going to spend time making a virus are you going to target 9.63% of computers or 88.68%?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well then, obviously I’m not one of “the people [you] know.” I didn’t do anything to my Lenovo IBM ThinkPad to “earn” the virus (because of) “the way I used it.” :rolleyes:</p>
<p>And you contradict yourself in your post, by admitting that statistically it is more logical that virus-creators target PC’s rather than Macs because of numbers alone. That has nothing to do with “how” one “uses” one’s PC.</p>
<p>
Well, what I saw when I just googled this was something from a year ago, and also something from three years ago… doesn’t seem to be a real problem.</p>
<p>The last major Mac virus infection was one that you got by going to a website and downloading an illegal copy of iWorks. I hate to say it serves you right but…</p>
<p>As for PC viruses, I have gotten infected doing things like accessing my work internal server (it was attacked before Mcafee got a patch out) or open word documents from coworkers - (again, infected before the patches got out). Neither is what I would call a “high risk” behavior…</p>
<p>I have a 4 and a half year old HP computer (w/ XP). It came with a faulty hard drive, which was replaced. Since then the only real problems have been a small issue with AdobeUpdater (I think this problem existed on Macs too, could be wrong) and the occasional non-responding program (a bit of a pain, but task manager solves the problem fairly quickly). I’ve never had any viruses. The main usage is Firefox, IE, MS Word, Paint, Minesweeper Clone, and a large collection of video games.</p>
<p>I also use a Mac at school during class. It seems to do everything about the same. Problems include the mouse (which would be fixed if I owned the computer) and the occasional spinning beach ball of death (which I don’t know how to solve. I’m also not a huge fan of OSX. Main usage is Firefox, Word, and I guess I also have used Photoshop CS2 a few times.</p>
<p>We did for one kid but did not for the other. He is a graphic design major and it made more sense to get him a Mac. He loves his computer. He did have to have something done on it last summer but it was still under warranty.
We have PC’s at home and work. While a Mac would be nice we can’t justify the added cost. We have had no major problems with any of our computers. My oldest who mainly uses her laptop for music, word and email and internet surfing had to replace her 5 yr old laptop due to an accident. She was pretty broke and was able to get a Compaq for 400 dollars. It does everything she needs and it fit her budget. There was no way she would have been able to come up with over 1000 dollars.</p>
<p>The kids have MacBook Pros and they love them. I have a 17 inch model and I love it as well. I also use Windows desktops as I don’t like Apple’s approach to desktops. I do run multiple anti-malware programs and run weekly MBAM scans on the machines to find and eliminate malware.</p>
<p>There’s a current virus out there that goes after websites and it infects legitimate websites which then drops a virus on web surfers visiting those sites.</p>
<p>The installing, running, updating and running scans with anti-malware programs is a nuisance.</p>
<p>One other area where Apple does a far better job that Microsoft is 64-bit integration. Apple has one operating system and it runs both 32-bit and 64-bit modes seamlessly. You don’t need extra drivers. Windows has two separate operating systems and hardware vendors have to provide two sets of drivers for different modes. If they only provide drivers or support for 32-bit mode, then you may be out of luck for 64-bit mode. This can be a problem with older hardware or software that won’t run in 64-bit mode. More and more Windows 64-bit operating systems are being sold because memory is so cheap.</p>
<p>The biggest impact for me is Cisco VPN which I used to log into my workplace. Cisco VPN is not supported on any Windows 64-bit platform. Cisco’s official workaround is to run a virtual machine with 32-bit Windows in the 64-bit environment. The extra Windows license runs $100 and you’re subject to all of the issues with VM environments and you may have to pay for the VM program. On Mac OSX, I just run Cisco VPN for Mac OSX and everything works just fine.</p>
<p>BCEagle- I don’t know what you are talking about half the time, above! Which is why, when left without IT support, I will opt for a mac.</p>
<p>S1 in entering junior year in the fall and is still crazy about the macbook he bought two summers ago. Insists that we switch to a mac the next time we get (can afford) a new computer here at home.</p>
<p>I have always used macs… </p>
<p>I will say that a lot of kids that I went to school with, who didn’t have macs, were on their 2nd computer before they graduated. Or, they wish they were on their second computer, because their first one is in big trouble.</p>
<p>I have been using this laptop (Powerbook G4) since July 2004… my parents got me a new one for graduation last year (or, said they would get me one) but I haven’t cashed that in yet, as mine still works fine. I will have to upgrade if I want to play any new games though, so I will probably be upgrading soon.</p>
<p>Our D had a Think pad that had a 3 year warranty. We were offered a chance to buy a year warranty when at the beginning of her senior year. We didn’t take it and you guessed it–computer died during her senior year. She bought a mac.</p>
<p>On D2–we’re going to send her off with a mac.</p>
<p>Both sons have had MAC’s since 7th grade (is mandatory at the American school in London) they love their mac’s even tho they hated the school! lol!</p>
<p>Having said that both their MAC’s broke exactly after 1 year and again at the 2nd anniversary! I have had to buy 3 in 4 years. They will not use anything else now even if our current school is pushing Lenovo. Laptops are required here too starting next year in school. Must be my luck!</p>
<p>We live in Asia now - dunno if the quality is different here. We even missed out on "buy a laptop get ipod free’ scheme. Oh well!</p>
<p>If you need to run Windows applications (not games) on your Mac hardware from time to time, do you prefer to use some virtualization software like Parallels or VMware Fusion on top of Mac OS, or just purchase/install a copy of Windows Vista or XP and boot the genuine Microsoft Windows using Apple’s Boot Camp?</p>
<p>If my Mac has been in use for a while and it has already had a lot of software on it, and I need to create a new partition for installing Windows XP or Vista, do I need to reinstall all the Mac software including Mac OS after the re-partitioning of the hard disk?</p>
<p>If this is the case, I will probably avoid the Boot Camp approach as it is too much hassle to reinstall/upgrade all the existing software. (I do not use the Time Machine, or any other full system backup program. Also, my Macbook does not have the Firewire interface so it can not run in the target disk (?) mode – if this matters.)</p>
<p>Intuitively speaking, I think the Boot Camp approach is “cleaner” but its price tag is very high (A copy of Windows XP Home/Student Edition is about $160.)</p>
<p>Also, do you happen to know any good book about how to do this? I am moderately computer literate in the sense that I think I can read and understand most computer-related terms.</p>
<p>Thanks in advance for any input.</p>