Thinking about the switch...


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fisrt off, has anyone made the jump, and are they still happy now?

this is my big question, will the apple wirless technology (air port i think) work with the 802.11b/g that most companies use?

THis is what i am really needing to know, as im going off to college in the fall and my school has a wireless campus and they currently use 802.11b and will be upgrading to 802.11g over the summer, will an Ibook work on this network?

Thanks

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I made the switch in July. A week later I sold my PC. I would never go back. Trust me you won't regret the switch.

Airport is the same as 802.11b and AirPort Extreme is the same as 802.11g. They both work with other peoples equipment. At home I use a d-Link router. If you have any other questions PM me.

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Yes, it will all work ;)

I made the switch last may, and get more excited about it all the time.

OS X looks like it has a nice future ahead, things just keep getting better :p

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well i went to my local apple store, got to play around with the new ibook that im interested in and all i can say :rofl: :rofl: :woot: :woot: wow, so pretty, and yet so nice. Im pretty sure i will make the switch at the end of this month (parents wont buy it till then boooo) any advice for a to be macer?

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advice: enjoy it.

make sure you run software update when you get it, to catch up with anything that you need, enjoy garageband and panther in overall. Good choice man :)

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most likely an ibook, either the 800 or 900 g4

while that is a good machine, i suggest that unless you really need the g4's power, to just get a discontinued (but still new-in-box) from apple...

iBook 800MHzG3/128MB/30GB/CD-ROM/E/56K/12.1TFT - $799.00

iBook 900MHzG3/128MB/40GB/COMBO/E/56K/12.1TFT - $899.00

then just go to crucial.com, buy some extra ram, and you have a very nice, very cheap, beginner's computer.

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while that is a good machine, i suggest that unless you really need the g4's power, to just get a discontinued (but still new-in-box) from apple...

iBook 800MHzG3/128MB/30GB/CD-ROM/E/56K/12.1TFT - $799.00

iBook 900MHzG3/128MB/40GB/COMBO/E/56K/12.1TFT - $899.00

then just go to crucial.com, buy some extra ram, and you have a very nice, very cheap, beginner's computer.

It sounds like his parents are paying for it so he might as well go for all the updated options in the g4.

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while that is a good machine, i suggest that unless you really need the g4's power, to just get a discontinued (but still new-in-box) from apple...

iBook 800MHzG3/128MB/30GB/CD-ROM/E/56K/12.1TFT - $799.00

iBook 900MHzG3/128MB/40GB/COMBO/E/56K/12.1TFT - $899.00

then just go to crucial.com, buy some extra ram, and you have a very nice, very cheap, beginner's computer.

^ is correct... and i dont want to buy somthing new thats already out dated

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one thing i noticed is, why do all macs have such a low clock speed? also what is the difference between a g3 and g4 cpu?

IBM's PowerPC chips don't rely on clock speed quite as much as Intel and AMD chips do. RISC processors are i bit different in that regard. Asking what the difference between the G3 and G4 is basically the same thing as asking what the difference is between Pentium 3 and a Pentium 4...

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ok cool thx, but so im guessing its just the archtecture of the cpu is all thats different? also does anyone have an benchamark or no of where i can find benchmark comparriosons?

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"It's just that the architecture is different" is the understatement of the year. It's like comparing freight train to steam ship and saying "It's just that the vehicle is different". There are a lot of differences between a Gx processor and Px processor. Even the materials and how they are stamped aren't the same.

ArsTechnica has an excellent run down of the differences between the G4e used in the iBook/PowerBook/iMac/eMac and non-hyper-threading P4s over here. If you're not familiar with CPUs in general the article might be a little over your head, you can ask questions here and I'll answer best I can, but I'm a horrible teacher and can't always explain things clearly.

As for benchmarks: just hit google. I find there are so many with such varying results that it's almost impossible to get any meaningful information out of them. Many are filled with unrealistic situations, or ones that unfairly favor one platform or another, or that aren't useful to you and I as consumers (like spec marks). What good is a Premiere benchmark comparing a Mac to a PC - Premiere isn't in development for OS X anymore so you'd probably be using Final Cut. But then Final cut and Premiere use different algorithms or produce different results so the comparison becomes worthless. I find (on average) a G4 runs about as quickly as a P4 with 50% higher clock to perform a given task. So a 500mhz G4 will be close to a P4 750 on average (faster in some, slower in others). Even that isn't an entirely useful bit of info, but it's a starting point.

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I think Mac OS X is a step in the right direction. I just wish they'd have left more linux utilities built in :( For gamers like me though.....Linux and Windows all the way. Red vs. Blue put it best in their apple switch parody here

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I think Mac OS X is a step in the right direction.  I just wish they'd have left more linux utilities built in :(

What did you have in mind exactly? I'm not trying to bait you, I'm genuinely curious.

I've rarely needed to add anything to the default installation, but when I do feel the need I've got a several good choices (portage isn't finished).

This could be the part where I point out that Linux is just a kernel and doesn't really have it's own collection of utilities, that OS X is not Linux, and that even Linux distributions don't include everything everyone could want. But I won't. Oops!

EDIT: For some reason your post looks different from what I quoted...oh well.

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First I'd like to point out that I've only messed around with osx for a very short time. I haven't gotten the time to really play with it.

I was just talking about things like ssh, gcc?, etc. stuff that's stock on most linux distros. I have seen people mod their installation though to get what they want. Also, I think it'd be cool to be able to change the gui. :) Just imagine if OSX used Gnome or KDE :p. *wishful thinking* I wonder if you could get WineX running on OS X....

and I know about the kernel -Darwin- (interesting name for an OS kernel). I was thinking a step past that though. should have been MORE specific/detailed.

Edited by FirstSlacker
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this was by far one of the biggest draws for myself, the unix base is beyond comparision..... for some one like myself who wont really play games i think this is a good solution. All im really going for is a stable platform that will allow me to take notes in class, surf the web, and chat on AIM, and possibly watch a dvd on planes but nothing much more strenous than that

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(sry for 2x post)

one thing i like about dells and other xp based laptops is somthing called double-tap atleast thats what i think its called... its when your over and icon you want you can tap the touch sensative scroller and it will select it for you. does the i book have any feature like this?

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fink.sourceforge.net ...I'll have to remember that. Very cool. thx

too bad that leaked source didn't have DirectX in it. Just imagine what the linux/mac. community could have done with that. Macrosoft really would have had to work for their user base then. oh well.....more wishfull thinking.

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