Peter's Motorcycle BLOG » Apple Computers

Apple Mac and Open Office

Peel — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 12:05:45 +0000

I’ve had an Apple Mac for a few years now but I was still used Windows for the MS Office Word/Excel and website development and so forth. It’s taken awhile but I finally downloaded and installed the Open Office found here: www.openoffice.org and I must say I’m impressed. This is really a near perfect alternative to buying the MS Office for Mac. Although my documents are probably not very complex all the ones that that I use are perfectly compatible. No errors in formatting or calculations. It does work slightly differently but I could get used to it. Give it a go!

All I need now is a decent graphics program and website development tool that doesn’t cost too much money!

The best computer – changed my mind

Peel — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:56:29 +0000

Umm… believe it or not I’ve changed my mind! After searching through the ads and shops it is very clear that the only Apple that would meet my requirements will cost over $4500. Yes it was a Apple MacPro Desktop. I had sticker shock. Even the second hand market for the MacPro’s are quite silly – really. Nonetheless they fitted my requirements perfectly.

I considered some more… Maybe I could live with another MacBook or MacBook Pro and possibly the iMacs. Hmmm The iMac’s are reasonably priced but I don’t like the all in one design.

iMacs: There’s no space to put in more had drives and I do not like the idea of having to take the whole computer in to be fixed if something goes wrong! Sure you can get external hardrives but I prefer to be able to have the lot in one case. iMac prices currently start at $1999 and go to $3699. I know I’ll want the 24 Inch version and at least the top range for the faster processor. Afterall I need to run the TV at the same time as programming and all the associated software on a virtualised Windows XP.

The Macbook Pros are good too but the cheapest 13′ former MacBook does not have a proper graphics card so I’ll need the 15-inch version with the 2.66GHz CPU at the very least. This version is priced at about $3,199. Honestly I think I’ll need the faster processor so the next one up is $3,699.

The prices are serious money that I’m not willing to part with. (For an Apple or PC) I guess that price is the ultimate issue I have. Performance concerns come next. Since I already use a decent MacBook I know I can run all that I want but its not the fluid speed I demand.

Apple MacBooks are now priced competitive with their PC counter parts. Sure their processors are numerically not as fast but the OSX is more efficient and I know that although lower in supposed speed they are just as fast as the supposedly higher rated PC notebooks. Besides even the fastest processor on a PC notebook is not fast enough for what I need it to do. It has to be a desktop I think.

I do not need the new main computer to be portable and do not want particularly want another notebook as a main computer. So I was not happy with the current outcome.

Then I found out about the yet to be released Windows 7 which Microsoft have promised proper XP visualization so all my old software will work. They say they will also include a anti-virus for free – a bit ironic don’t you think?

Based on the current prices of PCs I could get a seriously fast machine that could do everything for under $2000.

So I’ve decided to hold of until the new OS is released – my perfect computer could well be a new Windows based PC – AGAIN!

The best computer – Introduction

Peel — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 04:36:46 +0000

It’s that time of the year in certain parts of the world that have a end of financial year of 30 June. From May onwards you’ll start to see retailers offering a variety of specials. Fortunately I have managed to synchronize all my hardware purchases and software licenses to expire at the start of the new financial and as a result can par take in annual ritual of updating or changing various pieces of software. Yes tend to buy any new computer hardware at this time of the year!

I current have two Apple Mac computers a Vista PC and a bits and pieces PC accumulated over the years which I regularly use. The bits and pieces PC is the main PC I use for trialling out new software like freebies and operating systems like Linux basically anything that comes on a magazine’s free DVD or something I found on the internet.

However if you’ve been keeping up with this section of the BLOG you’ll know that I now run VMWare Fusion on the Apple Mac’s to create virtual PCs running windows – or any other OS that I need. The setup has proven it’s self reliable and flexible. All the software I’ve installed on the virtual PCs work perfectly or specifically as well as they did on a standard box PC. So I’ve finally decided that the Vista PC, bits and pieces machine, the the very old Mac Mini will be decommissioned. That’s a job for Ebay…

The caveat is that games don’t run very well or not at all on the virtual PCs purely because my particular Macbook I have does not have a dedicated Graphics card. Of course this will be fixed when I get a new Mac with a dedicated graphics card.

So I’m in the market for a new Apple Mac of decent specification so I can run multiple virtual Windows PCs when required. I figure that a 5 year life span and using free and paid software including anti-virus software I can actually save money? Apple does not offer real discounts on their computers but retailers often have packages but often not compelling enough – nonetheless I shall see.

I’m a supporter of free software – afterall I make free stuff as well but I also support paying for legitimate software. Basically if you don’t pay for it the companies go broke and you won’t get new stuff. So I buy software if its better than free offerings. I always install the trail version first to make sure it will work so should you.