Mac replacement.
 

I expect that from my past postings many of you will be well aware of my limitations with PCs and Windows by now but I'm faced with a problem which has to do with neither. My daughter is a nearly finished Vet. student who was given a Mac Powerbook G4 five or six years ago in another life when she was doing a doctorate in things to do with DNA mutations and cancer. She loves it, without understanding it, and hates Windows - probably also without understanding why. She wants a new Mac but cannot afford one. In my continuing state of, mmmm, let's call it innocence I wondered "OSX > Unix < Linux, is there something to look into here?"

Conscious that she could get a pretty fancy PC laptop for much much less than a Mac, especially if she bought it without paying for a Windows licence, would the Linux experience and the open source equivalent software to what she has been using on the Mac suit her? She does a lot of word-processing, quite a lot of spreadsheeting, not so much databasing but quite a lot of the usual social networking.

I was going to put this on Mac corner, but then I thought about it first!

Thank you in advance for your help.

IMHO, no. NO, no, No.

Apple and the Mac are geared towards those who don't want to know how or why the thing works, but just want to use it.

PCs are geared towards those who just wish it would work, but have to get under the bonnet a bit to make it work properly.

Open source is geared towards those who enjoy being under the bonnet and are delighted when it actually works - and that is an end in itself!

OK, very tongue in cheek, but you get the drift.

So I can't see her being too thrilled trying to get to grips with Linux.

SD

Cameronian,

Basically what Saab said.

That is your main problem. The Mac world has moved on a lot since then.... for a start, the big Motorola -> Intel transition means that you can now happily run Windows in a window where it belongs thanks to VMWare Fusion (or Parallels if that's your preference). If you want to experiment with Linux, same thing, try it in a Window.

I would say stick with Apple, but perhaps look at the MacBook rather than MacBook Pro range and spend the money saved on maxing out the RAM. Or if she doesn't need a laptop form factor, get a desktop model, with any manufacturer you'll always pay a laptop premium.

Well, thank you very much gentlemen! I feel fully informed on the subject and I think that you have made a very efficient character assessment of my daughter. As you can imagine from what little of her CV you have seen, she is a clever sort but not with computers.

Now we've got to find an affordable Mac, it seems.

Refurb store:

Special Deals - Apple Store (UK)

Cameronian,

I'd second Mike-Bracknell's suggestion of the Apple refurb store. If you've got a local friendly Apple reseller there may be some ex-demo options or some excess stock they're trying to clear.

I would be a bit weary of eBay, you might end up with something like my "spare" MacBook Pro that's sitting next to me at the moment.... works perfectly, but suffering a little bit in the cosmetic section after it fell it onto a concrete floor one day. :{

Thank you Mike and mixture. I shall pass on your advice over breakfast. In one sense she will be pleased, of course, because she maintains that "once you've been Mac, you never come back!" (Sorry!).

Hackintosh ? Mac OS on a non-Apple laptop ?

Apple often have student discounts. Your daughter may be eligible.

Always worth a look on their website. :ok:

I bought Mac Book Pro off ebay brand new sealed and am totally delighted with it. It was bought from a company who relies off positive feedback and makes a big issue about it. I would have no hesitation in recommending this company.

FYI I paid £1200 for it instead of the £1600 Apple were asking at the time. Another option is to check out Dixons duty free outlets. Now VAT is 20% there are certainly savings to be made there.

Do you travl, or have the opportunity to travel: or buy off t'internet in the USA?

Bought a 13" MacBook Pro at Boston Airport in January, $US1350. Much the same price available online at the Apple Store :ok:

Don't waste your time on such nonsense.

The whole point of MacOS is the integrated nature of hardware and software which forms a foundation for its stability and ease of use. Running software updates gives you both OS updates and any required firmware updates in one easy step .... try that on your Hackintosh or Windows PC !

Other than that, Hackintoshes are also against the OS EULA.... :=

Yes ans Eula's are widely regarded as beacons of fair and reasonable conditions for consumers. In fact I doubt anyone who asserts they've actually ever read one from start to finish in lieu of just clicking through to the software who wasn't actually a lawyer involved in drafting the things.

Eula's, don't make me laugh.

Lots of good ideas, thank you, and some "heads up" to the odd bad one. I understand that the "student" approach has to go through the university involved, in this case the RVC in London. Nicola says that she'll look into that when she goes back home. Duty-free isn't likely to be a goer because she doesn't get the time to travel outside the EU (final year is pretty hectic) and I imagine that one would be expected to pay duty on the import. In spite of a lonely warning from mixture, I expect that much time will be spent trawling eBay. I don't think that she'll suspend her prejudice against a PC.

Not sure that's the case in the UK, you an access the Apple Store for Higher Education when on a JANET internet connection (i.e. on-campus at a UK HE establishment) or can call 0800 039 1010 when off-campus. She could also try pitching up at the Regent Street store with appropriate ID.

See here.

It's blatantly obvious you've never been involved in software development.

Put yourself in the developers shoes. You've put a lot of time, effort and money into developing code which you now need to sell in order to recoup your costs, pay for the cost of maintaining said code, and hopefully make a little bit of money.

It is only fair and reasonable to expect that you will want to protect your interests when it comes to IP rights and other matters. The use of third-party libraries in your code may also lead to contractual requirements for downflow of specific EULA clauses. If you are exclusively a software-house, then there is an even greater incentive to protect your interests as you've got no other source of revenue. If you're a software-house that's had a round or two of external funding then your business plan and exit-strategy probably involves further monetisation of your hard work.

Putting Apple to one side for a minute, let's take a market leader.... Adobe and their Photoshop product. Name me a viable competitor that comes anywhere near them (I'm talking about the full version here, not the cut-down version(s)). The fact is their client base is computer-literate and readily prepared to switch platforms (e.g. as happened in DTP with QuarkXPress vs InDesign). Adobe continue to innvoate to introduce new features (which in a program like Photoshop involves lots of fancy algorithms written by well paid maths gurus) and work hard to maintain a stable and efficient code base. For them to go to market without a EULA in place to protect their unique and incredibly valuable IP would be unthinkable.

Even open-source code still has EULAs (BSD, GPL etc. etc.), so even those who are fighting hard against what they perceive to be the big evil money making corporate behemoths still want to ensure that some rules are still put in place.

I think you're right, mixture in your post 15 (my old number at prep school - takes me back....), about the need for a campus based application or the alternative of the special 'phone number. I don't know what sort of discounts are typical for students these days - and I don't expect that Apple want us to bandy numbers about on here! They go to some lengths to keep that sort of thing confidential. maybe it will or, perhaps, will not help that she has been a Mac user for the last six years or so....

I can't believe I've just read a post which said Adobe had a stable and efficient codebase.

I'm a big fan of Macs with quite a collection of them now. However, recently I've been playing with a netbook running Ubuntu and been very impressed with it. It seems very user friendly and reliable with the only caveat being that the very recent update to 11.04 has broken a few things, so with hindsight I'd go with 10.10 or wait for the v11 updates to filter through.

I'd suggest before writing off the Linux route why not try a live CD version of Ubunti?

Cameronian,

Indeed. I'd speculate a kitchen-sink sized range of >10 <=30 depending on the configuration, other than that, my lips are sealed.

If going down the student route, don't forget to keep an eye out for any software bargains such as MS Office Student edition.

Mike,

I know, I know, could be debated. But that wasn't the focus of my post anyway, so wasn't meant to be 100% accurate about the perfection of Photoshop codebase. But it's a lot better than it used to be !