I need to buy a laptop to replace the aging Dell that will have to go back to GDU in the next couple of weeks. I hardly use the Dell anymore, not because I wouldn’t prefer to sit in a comfortable chair or out on the patio, but because it’s a nuisance to operate, and because it doesn’t readily connect with my router.
The one good thing I can say about Qworst is that their online connection was wireless and so I could use the laptop anywhere on the property. My Cox DSL connection comes into the house by cable. M’hijito attached a router so we could set up AirPort and also, putatively, so I could get online with the Dell. But the Dell won’t talk with the router unless it’s in the same room with the thing, and so it’s quite a hassle to get that machine online. And since I live online, that’s why I quit using the Dell.
I’ve been thinking about replacing it with a MacBook.
Before you faint dead away: even though it’s expensive, I can get a pretty good deal with my educator’s discount, bringing the price down significantly. And I can get a new Office for Mac at the GDU bookstore for just $85, which I can use not only to upgrade the iMac but also to load into the proposed MacBook.
There’s way more cash in savings than I need to survive on, and some of that is in the S-corporation. Indeed, even after the S-corp pays my wages, it still has more than enough to buy a MacBook. That allows me to pay for the thing with tax-free money. Because FaM alone will earn more than the cost of the computer next year (not counting whatever freelance schemes come my way), it’s quite reasonable to run the purchase through the corporation.
The iMac is getting old, as computers go (yeah! more than 18 months!). If it craps out, I’ll need another Mac to run my Quicken, since you apparently can’t convert Quicken for Mac QDFM files to something readable on a PC. When the iMac dies, the MacBook can take its place.
These, I think, are reasonable excuses for buying a Mac over an cheap PC, which is likely to crap out long before even the aging iMac goes.
Then there’s the sheer pleasure of using a Mac. Except for the lack of keyboard commands in Word (actually, they are there: they’re just different and I haven’t gotten around to memorizing them), I’ve come to much prefer using the Macintosh over either of GDU’s PCs.
• In the first place, MS Windows is such bloatware. God, it’s full of trash. And I don’t like the new version of Office, which has eliminated the clues to keyboard commands and tries to funnel you toward endless pointing and clicking and forces you to try to figure out how to work it by interpreting pictures. And the damn antivirus stuff is a constant, unending pain in the tuchus. So are the similarly constant, unending updates and patches. Every time I turn around, the laptop is sending me a message than in XX seconds it’s going to shut down everything I’m working on and reboot, so as to install yet another update. The campus laptop nags constantly for updates, too, but at least it doesn’t shut you down in mid-project.
• The Mac is elegant, clean, and relatively virus-proof. Yes, I do know hackers have Apple in their crosshairs. But though that’s been true for several years, they still haven’t made much headway. The constant virus and malware attacks on Microsoft programs make using a PC a real hassle.
• I’ve never had one single compatibility problem with reading Microsoft programs on the Mac. That is not true with the PC. “Old” (heh!) MS Office versions will not read the infuriating new .docx files generated by the current version of Word. This clearly is a device to force Microsoft users to spend wads of cash for unnecessary upgrades to their software. Well, the Mac will open a .docx file in TextEdit and save it as an .rtf file or as a .doc file, with all the formatting intact. If I hadn’t had a Mac, I would have had to upgrade to expensive new software when the new Office came out.
• True, I didn’t like being forced to upgrade to Leopard or whatever cat the current operating system is called. But that flap forced me to move FaM off iLife onto WordPress, a far superior program, and since FaM has migrated to BlueHost, it’s more than paid for the software upgrade. At least when Apple drags you into the 21st century, you get something worth being dragged for.
• What’s more, Apple has actual, real live customer support, with “Geniuses” who know what they’re doing.
So it goes. This morning I’m going to make an unplanned trip out to GDU, where the bookstore is selling Office for the Mac for an incredible $85, a nice markdown on the $150 the Apple store sells it for. Wednesday I have an appointment to buy a MacBook, which provides a couple days to think about it.
Our house runs like that Mac v.s. PC commercial. I’m a PC and my wife’s a Mac.
I built my PC from scratch and I have a slightly older model Dell laptop, both of which have been running fine ever since they went online.
The advantage of building my PC is that I got to choose what goes in it, hardware and software, hence, no bloatware. As far the Dell laptop, it was an off-lease purchase so I got it dirt cheap andt without any DELL bloatware as well.
I only do maintenance on both every 3 months. I use the free avast anti-virus which is not as intrusive as the mainstream symantec crap. So needless to say, I’m happy with my PCs because of the overall control and it’s cheaper to maintain because I can get parts and install them myself and free software is abundant. My tech support is usually the different PC forums online.
Granted, it may take some time to fix something (if needed) but the gains are in the added DIY knowledge and money saved paying somebody else. If I do need someone else to fix it, I already have an idea of what the problem is and I could ask the right questions. The tech will think twice before suggesting that my PC will need new breaks and a carburetor.
Every once in a while my wife and I will have a discussion on which is better. Of course, both of us will stand our ground. Mac and PCs have their pros and cons. At least in our house, she uses her mac for excel work and what not but could not get online because her Mac is not updated to work with the wireless G router, and she could not use the latest Acrobat PDF writer because she has an old OS.
So she ends up using either my PC or laptop. I told her she needed the latest Mac OS which she later found out does not support her older Mac. So her options are to purchase the latest OS that would support her laptop (then she’ll be stuck with that) or buy a new Mac… she wants a Macbook Pro and that’s the $1500 question.
@ mario: The best PC I ever had was custom-built for me by a couple of guys who know how to do the job and started a small business. It was just wonderful, and when I needed help, they would fix anything. But they went out of business in the last recession.
If you or your wife have any reason to take a college course (even underwater basketweaving will do the trick), check the Apple store for student/faculty discounts. The Apple store here is actually underpricing GDU on the hardware! They can’t match GDU’s price on the Office for Mac, but I’m getting a substantial discount on the computer itself. Sign up for the course, enjoy it, and during the term trot your student ID to the nearest Apple dealer. You can get the student discount online, too, but dealing face-to-face with a store manager got me a better deal.
GET THE MAC.
@ frugalscholar: i like your thinking…
You might want to check and see whether either GDU or your new community college has a multi-use license and a software repository. The University I’m at now gives us Office and antivirus software for “free” (I assume its one of those things that bumps my tuition up to somewhere north of the $40,000 range).
@ schuchong: GDU doesn’t have that much class. Even if it did, sharing software licenses with students & faculty would cost the university something, a situation up with which its adminstrators would not put.
My son gets all software through LSU, so do check out your current and future schools.
Speaking as a fulltime tech, get the Mac. I’m what you might call a “Mac guy,” and 99% of all problems that I fix are Windows related.
Now, I’m not saying that everyone should immediately run out and buy a Mac; that’s ridiculous. Find the operating system and hardware that works for you, and then go with it. In this case, I’d recommend the Mac. With the new switch to Snow Leopard, 64-bit is the future, and you’re pretty much future proof for the next few years (and Macs age the best of any computers, usually).
There are equivalent programs on Mac for -almost- anything you’d need to do on a PC, with the exception of things like specialized financial software or in-house visual basic apps.
@mario: if you had a mac, you wouldn’t have to have A/V software at all!
Disclosure: I built one of my Macs myself.
@ Mario: You might want to see if plain Leopard will drive your wife’s old clunk. I’m running Acrobat 6 Professional under Leopard with no problem. They say Snow Leopard is way leaner & meaner, though: I’m looking forward to seeing how it runs on the new toy, and also will ask the young people down at the Apple Store if it will drive the aging iMac without screwing up any of the installed software.
@ frugalscholar: Done! Got the Office suite — the pro suite, NOT the watered-down version for students & teachers — for SIXTY-FIVE BUCKOLAS (not $85 — I misread the webpage!) through the campus computer store. However, over at the Apple store, the manager perused the campus store’s online offerings and then quietly underbid them on the price of the MacBook. So tomorrow, it’s off to the Apple store to rack up the new laptop to The Copyeditor’s Desk’s corporate Visa card.
@ Anonymous 167: The only software annoyance I’ve had with the Mac (except for the discrepancies between the way Word works on the two platforms) has been with Quicken. But that’s a function of Intuit, not Apple. I’ve decided to dump Quicken on January 1 and start keeping my books in Excel, now that I’ve learned the program well enough to do the basic functions needed to keep a household bankbook in it. Interesting that you can build a DIY Mac…I didn’t know you could get enough of the proprietary parts to actually construct an entire unit. Hmmmm…..
Yeah, I’m not a huge fan of Quicken. Like almost all Mac afterthoughts of PC programs, it’s terrible. I see your following posts about switching away from financial software; more power to you. Myself, I use iBank, a thoroughly Mac financial software, and it keeps me in check and also from going crazy (they even offer a $20 discount if you send them your old Mac Quicken discs).
There are no proprietary parts in a Mac except for a small chip on the motherboard that the software checks for the presence of. Remove the check and it can run on any reasonably similar computer. (Not recommended for anyone except the geeks, but fun nonetheless).