Calling Mac users

[TechZ]

I've been a PC user always, I've hardly ever used Macs, or the like.

We know its not hard to build a cheap, as in quality & cost wise, pc. Grab those generic brands and your set for a crappy system

What about Mac's? not everybody makes hardware for them, and I'm guessing there are actually very few that make hardware for Mac's, what do you do for extras/addons? Another thing is quality and support, since only 1 company makes Mac's, how are they at handling customers, with such a limited variety of machines, they have it alot easier than the average pc corporation (IBM-Lenovo, Dell, HP-Compaq) as they have less hardware to deal with. Also having so many similar systems, common issues must be easier to identify.

Just want to know how Mac users fair

[Radical Dreamer]

I wouldnt call myself a mac user, but I did work as a sysadmin for a college that had around 100 macintosh computers. From my experience with them, most hardware such as memory, hard disks and optical drives are the same for pc as they are for macs. They do use a proprietary monitor connector called the ADC (Apple display connector) which gets the monitor power from the video card, so you do need to make sure you get the mac version of any video card you get unless you are using a standard PC monitor.

I do own a mac, its nothing to write home about, but it serves the wifes simple web games just fine. Its an 867mhz G4 with 2mb cache and 1.5GB ram with an 80GB hard disk and 32mb video card with a 17" flat panel. Im actually using that system right now to write this.

OSX is great and can even be integrated into active directory so you can use a DC to have people login and have their roaming profiles on.

Web browsing feels a little sluggish when compared to a similarly power pc or even a shiny new G5, not sure what causes it, but its not too much of an issue.

If you are a unix/linux fan you will appreciate the fact that you can access a terminal just like in any other *nix system. OSX is actually just darwin

I've been using macs for about 5 years now, so if you have any questions about them just let me know or PM me since I dont get around here much any more since its so dead

[TechZ]

It was just out of curiosity I asked, nothing important really, thanks for the info.

[Duke of Rezin]

Sounds like you've got the urge to play around with something different. Me too. As an end-user and hobbyist I have, like a lot of people, sort of a love/hate relationship with Microsoft and have the background sneaking suspicion that there's something better out there. I've got the same distant interest in Linux and have played around with the live version of Ubuntu but the install on my laptop just didn't quite go right, and I know absolutely no Linux command-line instructions or how to implement them. Heck, I barely have a grasp of MS command lines. I did read several years ago and saw a demo on TechTV about DIY Macs, and it is very much doable, but the actual cost of piecing the hardware together comes out to at least the cost of a brand new top-of-the-line Apple Mac.

[TechZ]

Well its not really an urge to try out Mac's, I wanted to know how the "other side" of computing have it, do they have reliable machines?, they should as its just one company that makes them...is Apple's customer service good? again it should be good, as they are the only ones who make the Mac's. Just curiosity is all. But I'd like to own a mac, just for a change from the regular thing, sort of using Firefox for a while instead of ie

[NooNoo]

I have never met a dissatisfied mac user. They grumble a bit, but on the whole they love them... the price means stability, lack of options means stability, lack of right click means less confusion

[Brian G]

I've kicked around the idea of a Mac for awhile. I took a more serious look when the Mac Mini came out. I don't see any sense in buying one until the Macs with Intel processors come out, then I'll look into getting one and dual booting with XP. The one and only reason I used PC's was for video games, and the PC game market is dead and rotting as far as I'm concerned.