h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

..and I'm just canvassing opinions.

Any major issues I should be made aware of?

Clive.

Sorry I can't speak directly about the iMac per se, but I've been using an iBook, G4, for several years as my only computer and love it. So far, I've had no problems with it at all.

I'm not greatly "computer literate," but fortunately have a good friend who is and who also is a Mac whiz, so he provides tech support as needed as part of a barter arrangement. Tech support for beer. First the tech support, *then* the beer ... in that order only.

I love my iMacG5!

If your question concerns buying from Apple as opposed to a local supplier, I did have a delivery problem. There is a tracking facility & I was informed of the delivery date, but when no-one arrived it was almost impossible to contact anyone who could help. Turned out the delivery vehicle had broken down (so they claimed) & they planned to come the next day. As we were all going to be out, I ended up leaving a signed acceptance of delivery in anticipation - risky business. Anyway, it did turn up OK & I've had no problems since.

That wasn't what I had in mind but since you ask, there is an Apple shop nearby (One town over in Sheffield) that I can get to quite easily but more likely I'd be ordering it off the internet from the apple site.

The reason I've considered (and half-made up my mind) to switch to Apple is I am heartily sick of Windows crashing and taking all my work with it. The last ...mmm.. 5 or so years have been quite enough and I'm fed up. Apple claims to be steadfast and sturdy and though not uncrashable I'm told it is less prone to catastrophic failures the sort that seem to occur on my current computer almost weekly.

I'm, I suppose, a reluctant convert (It's like bank accounts) but I'm wiling to be convinced and I'm eager to hear from people who've used apple in the past and want to evangelise or otherwise while I'm deciding whether to jump ship finally or not.

Most of the people who I know who use a Mac are crazy about them. Apparently once you use them you can't stop. I tried using one once but found it too weird.
Given Windows is annoying, and Linux is perhaps too tricky for non techies I guess Mac is your only way forward....

I used an ibook for 6 years on OS9. I did have a few problems in terms of crashing, but I never lost any information unless I was in a browser box like this one (IE crashed alot) i.e. I never lost information from any of Apples software. Appleworks (the word processing, art, database, spreadsheet package) saves as you go (you may have to set it to do that?).

I've been using OSX (on a new lapotop) for the last year and it is far superior to OS9 in terms of crashes. It is very stable, and I think in a year I have lost information from a web browser text box only a couple of times.

If you buy an iMac, check out extended tech support options. Apple give 30 days free support for getting up and running. This may be enough time to make the transition from Windows if you are able to have a good play with all the applications and get the mac set up in that month. If not you may be able to buy extended support.

There's also an excellent mac users group on h2, who help with tech and set up issues:

A690653


I love my mac. I've used Windows machines at times but never owned one. I'd never buy a computer running Windows.


If you tell us what you use your computer for, we can wax lyrical about how wonderful macs are I could also tell you the things that annoy me (yes there are some ).

Oh, one other thing, if cost is an issue, you might want to consider getting a factory reconditioned Mac. That's what I did. Saved a considerable sum of money as compared to buying the same thing new, and have not regreted the decision. The Apple website has a place to look at reconditioned models. I just checked, and it looks like some iMacs are available there, in addition to other models. Here's the link: http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wa/RSLID?mco=D8593B5A&nclm=CertifiedMac

I'm on a mac and have never had any problem with it .

I've always owned a Mac and will be buying a new iMac in the near future.

I am forced to use a PC at work and hate the unprintable thing. I have had more problems with the PC in the 18 months I have had it that in 8 years I have owned Macs.

turvy

I love using a mac - when I want to take the "scenic" route to getting stuff done...

I can't remember the last time I had crashing problems with a PC, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't in this decade.

Last week, loading itunes caused it to turn OFF.

I can't run a defragmentation on my hard disk because it says I need to run scan disk. I run scan disk and it say all is hunky dory. I try to run defrag again - and I can't because I need to run scan disk.

This is the same PC that has deleted system files, reduced dissertations to meaningless symbols (on the same day the boot sector of my back-up disk corrupted itself) and I'm forever finding new glitches (firefox deciding not to load for three days) and the list goes ever on....

I'm sure there are PC out there than run windows and all programmes flawlessly. Mine is not one of them.

>>"I can't remember the last time I had crashing problems with a PC, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't in this decade."

My PC is a decidedly mongrel system - originally a home-build years ago, with almost every piece of hardware subsequently upgraded at one time or another.
Since switching from flaky old 98SE (the best of a decidedly bad bunch) to XP a couple of years ago (and buying a UPS to smooth out the dodgy rural power supply), I'm not sure I've had a single system crash on a machine that's used >12hours/day almost every day, and I don't think I've had any data-losing application crashes either.

As a programmer and a recovering sysadmin, I'm not by any stretch a Microsoft evangelist, and have a store of hate and scorn for them that will probably last a lifetime - but even I have to admit that at least on my hardware, XP really is stable, and does what it needs to do.

Mmm, pretty much the same here. Don't think I've had the whole thing die on me for ages, although I do thrash it a pretty big way so individual applications crash every now and then. My impression is that XP turns into a sluggish mess on computers with only 512MB of RAM though. Oh and computers with anti-virus software running in the background - more trouble than they're worth those things IMO.

I think the best reason to go for a Mac is the really nice user interface.

Alan Freeman


I have never used anything but mac n I don't really understand all the other problems I hear about cause I don't get them

For what you pay for a Mac you can get much more powerful PC for the same price. The only plus I can see to owning a Mac is the OS looks better - oh and the UNIX under the hood, which not many people would really be interested in.

I just built my own PC using top-of-the-line components. I have a widescreen LCD, 2Gb RAM, >1Tb hard drive space, a dual core processor, the works for about $1,600 (well under GBP 1000). It runs like a dream.

Ste

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Really? Is there an alternative? I'm not being sarcastic btw, I'm not that computer smart and I thought anti-virus software was essential.

>>"Really? Is there an alternative? I'm not being sarcastic btw, I'm not that computer smart and I thought anti-virus software was essential."

I think it depends *which* AV software.
I've had no problems with the *free* AVG from Grisoft, whereas sysadmin and subsequent experience has led me to consider Norton/Symantec as a real pain in the a**e (getting in the way of program installs, screwing up other running software, slowing down systems, etc). I'm not alone in that opinion.

I don't see the point paying for something that makes your computer slower and less stable. Much better to use a good free AV system, and spend your money on a nice hardware firewall, which should keep out all *kinds* of nasties that AV software might not prevent.

The free http://www.ghostsecurity.com/ghostwall/ is a very solid firewall (as long as you're running Windows 2k or later).

Well...I found XP to be pretty stable generally, but when it flips it *really* flips. Mine went when it automatically downloaded and installed an update from Microsoft, and subsequently wouldn't start. Think it was a registry corruption or something, but it looked like a hard disk failure. None of the recovery procedures worked, you can't boot Windows from the CD, you can't re-install over the existing copy of Windows, you need to install a new copy on another partition and by default there is only one partition...

In the end I had to buy a second hard disk and install XP on that before it would let me access the first disk (and found the disk to be fine). It took three weeks and about £40 to sort out . My next machine will *not* be running Windows.