Old Power Book Owner Checking In

[Leon]

Well, I thought I'd open this new forum since I own an old Power Book. This one has the titanium case and Motorola G4 processor. I got it well used for a couple hundred $. I have always wanted to try OS X so I availed myself of the opportunity.

I installed the Mac version of Word Perfect, but then discovered that the Mac version of WP is incompatible with .wpd files created under any other OS. Of course, one of the great features of WP is its ability to load a .wpd created in DOS, Wind'ohs, or Linux.

Anyhow, I'm looking forward to learn more about Mac's and OS X here.

[danieldk]

I do not have any old Wordperfect files. So, I bought iWork 08, and later 09. It's fairly lightweight, and the word processor has some DTP features. From the suite I primarily use Keynote, which is really a nice presentation program, and has more fine-grained animation settings than PowerPoint. E.g., sometimes I like to build up a table row by row, which is trivial in Keynote, but nearly impossible in PowerPoint. If such transitions are used, Keynote exports them to PDF, while PowerPoint doesn't.

I also have Office for the Mac, but that's primarily for compatibility. Since I work for a Dutch university, the price is only around 15 Euro.

Of course, there's also NeoOffice, but it is kind of heavyweight and unpolished compared to iWork.

[jml]

Welcome to the forum, Leon. I own a 12 inch Mac PowerBook and it still is as solid as the day I bought it. They may be pricy when new, but they are durable. I have to agree with Daniel's comments. I prefer iWork for my general use. I also have a copy of MS Office for the Mac installed primarily for compatibility with work.

I have been using OSX for about 10 years now. I'm no expert, but if you have any questions, I will try to help answer them. I don't log into this site every day, but now that I know there is a potential "MacHead" :-) on board, I will have to check in more often.

In a different thread, the forum admin mentioned that he just got a new MacBook and there is discussion about adding an OSX subforum to this site. I hope that that does happen.

Joe

[Leon]

Welcome to the forum, Leon. I own a 12 inch Mac PowerBook and it still is as solid as the day I bought it. They may be pricy when new, but they are durable. I have to agree with Daniel's comments. I prefer iWork for my general use. I also have a copy of MS Office for the Mac installed primarily for compatibility with work.

I have been using OSX for about 10 years now. I'm no expert, but if you have any questions, I will try to help answer them. I don't log into this site every day, but now that I know there is a potential "MacHead" :-) on board, I will have to check in more often.

In a different thread, the forum admin mentioned that he just got a new MacBook and there is discussion about adding an OSX subforum to this site. I hope that that does happen.

Joe

Anyone using Parallels?

I'm thinking of getting a Mac laptop. PC laptops of course are cheaper, but along with that comes Windows and dubious reliability of both hardware and software.

I saw a software box for Parallels. The description mentions Linux in passing with no further information. If Linux and Windows run without bogging down on a contemporary Mac, this sounds like the ultimate laptop.

[danieldk]

I tried Parallels a couple of times, and I have to say I disliked it a lot. It always felt slow, and the interface was not so good.

Instead, I have been using VMWare Fusion almost as long as I used a Mac (three years), and it has always been great. It's fast, and it works great with snapshots, etc.

I use it to run various Windows versions (Windows 2003 server, Windows 2008 server) and Linux (mostly Debian and Ubuntu). Not that I really need these OSes, but I have to test and compile some software on those platforms. All of them work great in VMWare (make sure you get 4GB of RAM), and Unity allows me to use Windows and Linux applications on the Mac desktop.

[danieldk]

They seem to temporarily offer VMWare Fusion at $37.99:

http://store.vmware.com/store?Action=DisplayPage&Env=BASE&Locale=en_US&SiteID=vmware&id=ProductDetailsPage&productID=165310200&SRC=TWITTER_CHRISTMAS_OFFER_122210&resid=TPqfUwoHAtUAABY8PtoAAAAO&rests=1293039489027

And for Parallels users: get it for $9.99 ;):
http://www.vmware.com/vmwarestore/fusion_upgrade_promo.html

[fos]

Hi Leon,

I would to second Daniel's review of parallels. I got a free copy from my university and tried it out. It was slow and cranky. VMware is much better. I have it installed on my MacBook Pro with WinXP. It works very well. Fortunately, I have little use for XP now, since I no longer have to use a proprietary grading program at school.

I recently gave a presentation with a large MS Office PowerPoint. Using PowerPoint it gave me the spinning pinwheel frequently during the presentation. After the fact, I loaded it into iWorks Keynote. It worked fine. I should have done that during the presentation. :mad:

I also prefer iWorks pages to MS Word. It is not so bloated and has a better user interface. I have not yet tried MS Office 2010 for Mac. It may be better but I doubt it.

I have had my MacBook Pro for about a year. It has been very reliable. I travel a fair amount and just carry it in my briefcase. I don't have separate case. The case still looks new. It is very well built.

Jeff

[danieldk]

Indeed. I can only agree on all the points. I prefer iWork as well. The nicest thing being that you can also build up tables stepwise in Keynote (not possible with PowerPoint 2008, didn't try in 2011 yet). Very handy for presenting results involving tables.

I have my MacBook (non-Pro, but it is an aluminum unibody MacBook) for 1.5 years now. I carry it with me in my backpack every day. Not a single scratch or other degradation to be seen. The fact that it is unibody, and has a glass-plated screen makes it also easy to clean it with a dust cloth + glasses cleanes cloth. It looks as new as June 2009 :).

Also, I never ever want to go back to old-style keyboards or non-multitouch mice. Normal keyboards feel clunky now, and require tedious keypresses. The multitouch trackpad is absolutely phenomenal, I love being able to enter Exposé with just one four finger swipe.

If you need any advise wrt to buying a Mac: go for it. I am a user now for three years, after almost one and a half decade of Linux. After some initial nostalgia, I do not want to go back on the desktop. OS X combines the best of UNIX (having a shell with the usual utilities) with a modern OS (good looking, excellent applications, perfect font/color management, etc).

[Leon]

Thanks for the responses.

In the last few years prices of common Windows laptops have plummeted. I have shied away from laptops because they are not user maintainable, or barely so, with regard to hardware. However, even with a $300 laptop, I don't want to build up my desktop just in time to have the thing die and have to be replaced (not repaired) under warranty, and have to start all over again.

Having played with my old G4 Powerbook, I feel sufficiently at home with OS X, so even though a Mac laptop is typically 3X or 4X the cost of a Win laptop, the expectation of solid durability makes the price difference more justifiable.

[fos]

I purchased the entry level MacBook Pro and then upgraded the hard drive and memory. I saved about three hundred dollars that way.

You just have to remove about 20 tiny phillips head screws. The laptop is built like a Swiss watch.

[lurch]

After 3 months as an iMac and OS X user I too am very satisfied with quality of the hardware and software and no regrets moving from Linux.

If I am curious to experience a recent Linux distribution VMWare Fusion has the edge in terms of polish compared to Parallels and Virtual Box. I may buy a copy of VMware Fusion though need to remind myself that one of the reasons I moved to the Mac platform was to spend less time tinkering.

[Leon]

After 3 months as an iMac and OS X user I too am very satisfied with quality of the hardware and software and no regrets moving from Linux.

If I am curious to experience a recent Linux distribution VMWare Fusion has the edge in terms of polish compared to Parallels and Virtual Box. I may buy a copy of VMware Fusion though need to remind myself that one of the reasons I moved to the Mac platform was to spend less time tinkering.

Good to hear from you again, "Lurch." I hope you have not been adversely affected by the flooding in Queensland.

Re: "...one of the reasons I moved to the Mac platform was to spend less time tinkering."
This sums it up perfectly. I don't mind fiddling with Linux; after all I did not become the "leading expert" on running WordPerfect8/Linux on current distro's by being indolent.

But there is a time to play, and a time to get work done, so the mounting evidence in favor of Mac and OS X is getting to me.

[lurch]

I am well clear of the floods Leon. Thanks for asking.