Tempted by an Apple Mac.
16 March 2009, 04:16 PM
#1
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Tempted by an Apple Mac.
Last used a Mac back in the late 80's, but even then they were impressive.
My home PC is gradually giving up the ghost, occasional lock ups, getting slower etc, and yesterday it sat at the Winfast screen and needed a power cycle to boot. PC does lots of surfing, occasionaly MS Office stuff and hold family photos and videos ( all backed up to DVD ).
So, questions. Probably simple one word answer replies required. Apart from the last question!
Will my Linksys wireless router work with a Mac?
Will my Virgin broadband work with a Mac.
Can I just copy files across from my PC to the Mac?
Do make have built-in wireless?
What Mac should I get? It will sit in the front room, so it needs to look stylish, but be powerful too. I'm thinking of an I-mac?
My home PC is gradually giving up the ghost, occasional lock ups, getting slower etc, and yesterday it sat at the Winfast screen and needed a power cycle to boot. PC does lots of surfing, occasionaly MS Office stuff and hold family photos and videos ( all backed up to DVD ).
So, questions. Probably simple one word answer replies required. Apart from the last question!
Will my Linksys wireless router work with a Mac?
Will my Virgin broadband work with a Mac.
Can I just copy files across from my PC to the Mac?
Do make have built-in wireless?
What Mac should I get? It will sit in the front room, so it needs to look stylish, but be powerful too. I'm thinking of an I-mac?
16 March 2009, 04:54 PM
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What model is it? My guess is that yes, it will work with it.
I can't think of any reason why it wouldn't work with it. I've used cable/dsl broadband with Macs and haven't had a problem.
Short and dirty answer: Yes you can.
More In-depth answer: Still Yes, but as to how you do it, well, depends on how you want to do it really. By that I mean you could enable filesharing on the PC and the Mac and then copy the files over. You could burn the data onto media and then stick that in the Mac and copy it. You could also pop the hard drive from the PC into an external enclosure and connect it to the mac and copy the files from there. One key thing if you do it this way is that OS X will mount FAT32 drives as read/write, but NTFS drives are mounted as read-only.
Basically, the bottom line is, yes you can copy the files over. Obviously you may need applications to view the files. Office 2008 is available for Mac as is OpenOffice.
When it comes to video files, you probably want to look at flip4mac and Perian, and if you throw VLC into the mix you should be able to play the vast majority of video out there.
The new iMacs come with the following:
Built-in AirPort Extreme Wi-Fi wireless networking (based on IEEE 802.11n draft specification);2 IEEE 802.11a/b/g compatible
I'd say you have two main choices, an iMac or a Mac Mini.
Have a look at the tech specs for Mac mini and the iMac
The mini is a little less powerful than the iMac, but still isn't exactly slow, and you'd need your own screen and keyboard, but it's a very small form factor.
The iMac is, obviously, larger and has it's own screen and keyboard.
I'd personally go for an iMac, spec it with the largest hard drive you can get, leave the memory as whatever Apple supplies and upgrade it to the maximum yourself as Apple's memory prices tend to be higher than if you buy direct from, for example, crucial.
One other thing, don't forget the new Macs are all Intel based and thus you can dual boot it with XP/Vista as well as OS X, and you can also use a Virtual Machine application to run XP/Vista whilst using OS X.
I can't think of any reason why it wouldn't work with it. I've used cable/dsl broadband with Macs and haven't had a problem.
Short and dirty answer: Yes you can.
More In-depth answer: Still Yes, but as to how you do it, well, depends on how you want to do it really. By that I mean you could enable filesharing on the PC and the Mac and then copy the files over. You could burn the data onto media and then stick that in the Mac and copy it. You could also pop the hard drive from the PC into an external enclosure and connect it to the mac and copy the files from there. One key thing if you do it this way is that OS X will mount FAT32 drives as read/write, but NTFS drives are mounted as read-only.
Basically, the bottom line is, yes you can copy the files over. Obviously you may need applications to view the files. Office 2008 is available for Mac as is OpenOffice.
When it comes to video files, you probably want to look at flip4mac and Perian, and if you throw VLC into the mix you should be able to play the vast majority of video out there.
The new iMacs come with the following:
Built-in AirPort Extreme Wi-Fi wireless networking (based on IEEE 802.11n draft specification);2 IEEE 802.11a/b/g compatible
Have a look at the tech specs for Mac mini and the iMac
The mini is a little less powerful than the iMac, but still isn't exactly slow, and you'd need your own screen and keyboard, but it's a very small form factor.
The iMac is, obviously, larger and has it's own screen and keyboard.
I'd personally go for an iMac, spec it with the largest hard drive you can get, leave the memory as whatever Apple supplies and upgrade it to the maximum yourself as Apple's memory prices tend to be higher than if you buy direct from, for example, crucial.
One other thing, don't forget the new Macs are all Intel based and thus you can dual boot it with XP/Vista as well as OS X, and you can also use a Virtual Machine application to run XP/Vista whilst using OS X.
16 March 2009, 09:58 PM
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Do consider the Mac Mini though.
I just bought the new version, the lowest spec. you can get (but doubled memory to 2GB) and I'm more than happy with it. Just over £500.
But of course, I have brought my own monitor/keyboard/mouse etc.
If you need all new, then spec'ing up a Mac Mini with monitor/keyboard/mouse etc. you are already well into iMac price range. But the 24" LED display with a Mac Mini would be nice
As for transferring data, two easy ways. One is an external hard disk and second is using Remote Desktop to share your Mac drive on your PC, then drag-and-drop across (assuming you get them both networked first).
Mac Mini might be small, but I'm blown away how quick it is. Already putting together movies and burning to DVD, smooth as anything.
Cheers
Ian
I just bought the new version, the lowest spec. you can get (but doubled memory to 2GB) and I'm more than happy with it. Just over £500.
But of course, I have brought my own monitor/keyboard/mouse etc.
If you need all new, then spec'ing up a Mac Mini with monitor/keyboard/mouse etc. you are already well into iMac price range. But the 24" LED display with a Mac Mini would be nice
As for transferring data, two easy ways. One is an external hard disk and second is using Remote Desktop to share your Mac drive on your PC, then drag-and-drop across (assuming you get them both networked first).
Mac Mini might be small, but I'm blown away how quick it is. Already putting together movies and burning to DVD, smooth as anything.
Cheers
Ian
Last edited by IWatkins; 16 March 2009 at 10:00 PM.
16 March 2009, 10:30 PM
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I found this, which basically just tells you how to get into the admin interface on the WRT54GS, which you probably already know about.
So I'd say it is compatible.
So I'd say it is compatible.
17 March 2009, 10:40 AM
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I use my Macs with Linksys and Virgin, these Macs things really aren't that different you know
If you are thinking iMac, Macwarehouse have an excellent deal on the last model 3.06ghz 24" for a smidge over 1k + vat. Saving a fair few hundred of the price of the newest model. The difference is the type of processor but for home use I doubt you'd notice much difference.
CTO Apple iMac 24" Core 2 Duo 3.06GHz/2GB/500GB/ SuperDrive/nvidia8800 W88269552 / W88661084 from MacWarehouse
If you are thinking iMac, Macwarehouse have an excellent deal on the last model 3.06ghz 24" for a smidge over 1k + vat. Saving a fair few hundred of the price of the newest model. The difference is the type of processor but for home use I doubt you'd notice much difference.
CTO Apple iMac 24" Core 2 Duo 3.06GHz/2GB/500GB/ SuperDrive/nvidia8800 W88269552 / W88661084 from MacWarehouse
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