Quote :

"its funny that photo shop will run better on win xp running INSIDE osx than in osx alone"

Are you referring to running it in XP in bootcamp? That's not within osx by any means. Or do you mean running it in parallels, because I've had trouble even getting it to run well in parallels at all.

7/23/2006 1:58:00 PM

And currently Photoshop runs poorly on Intel Macs because it's running on a software emulator for Power PC chips. Adobe hasn't come out with Universal Binaries yet.

7/23/2006 2:04:10 PM

That'll be in CS3. I think Feb. was the release month for that.

7/23/2006 2:05:21 PM

Adium X is the best chat client i've ever used
Stuffit is definitely better than anything i've seen so far, = || > than winrar and the rest

7/23/2006 3:08:27 PM

Quote :

"aim 5.098 does everything you could possibly want out of an aim client(minus tabs) but they're easy enough to add with deadaim or you could just run gaim. if you want to strip it down to nothing, there's miniaim and miranda. adding in a fuckton of stuff that isn't instant messaging.. really doesnt add the IM client now does it? windows launcher? you mean like the command prompt, start menu, or quicklaunch bar? I really have no idea what you mean by launcher"

Adium kicks so much ass I crap myself every time I use it. (Actually, one of their little marketing slogans (just a caption for a pic on the official website) was "so many options you'll crap your pants.")

As for Launcher, yea, that's pretty much what he means. Anything that you use to launch programs (primarily) as well as some documents and locations.

7/23/2006 11:17:08 PM

what's so great about adium? ive tried it, but never really got into it. sure it can be made to look cool and stuff, but is there anything real special about it?

something else i like about the mac is Growl, which is sorta like a notification system that applications can register with and send you informational messages.

and textmate deserves to be mentioned again

7/23/2006 11:21:13 PM

Adium: customization (a lot) & stability (i don't know that it's ever crashed on me, maybe once or twice), it's free, and there are no ads or anything else that you have to get addons to get rid of, etc., the notifier in the dock is also very nice when u have IMs from different people, giving their names on the icon instead of just a blinking task

it's just better

[Edited on July 23, 2006 at 11:57 PM. Reason : ]

7/23/2006 11:54:51 PM

Quote :

"aim 5.098 does everything you could possibly want out of an aim client(minus tabs) but they're easy enough to add with deadaim or you could just run gaim. if you want to strip it down to nothing, there's miniaim and miranda. adding in a fuckton of stuff that isn't instant messaging.. really doesnt add the IM client now does it?"

you've completely destroyed your entire argument. 1) if the latest AIM doesn't do tabs, then I have no reason to even try it. 2) by listing any number of other programs you could use like deadaim, gaim, miniaim and miranda, you're completely missing the point of having a single, free[i/] program that can do [i]all of that stuff built in, which is exactly what AudiumX does. 3) AudiumX is a milti-protocol client that support AIM, ICQ, Jabber, MSN, Yahoo!, Yahoo! Japan, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Novell Groupwise, and Lotus Sametime.
If you look at the screenshots here - http://adiumx.com/screenshots.php - you can see that AudiumX isn't "adding in a fuckton of stuff that isn't IM". It doesn't add in a lot of extra functionality, but it does the stuff it does do perfectly, and with style.

Quote :

"flashfxp is the single best ftp client ever, it's not even a question of personal preference"

....ok..... i can see i'm dealing with a zealot here, so i might as well just bang my head against a brick wall. but disregarding your "it's not a question of personal preference", yes, I do prefer Transmit over FlashFXP, which I use when i'm on my PC. Like IM, there is only so much functionality you can add to FTP clients. Given that FlashFXP and Transmit have basically the same functionality, I'll still pick the one that is an actual pleasure to use.
http://www.panic.com/transmit/

Quicksilver..... look it up - http://docs.blacktree.com/quicksilver/overview
Anyone with a mac who's not using Quicksilver is not being as efficient as they could be
http://docs.blacktree.com/quicksilver/tutorials
http://theappleblog.com/2005/02/18/quicksilver-changes-everything/
for some Windows semi-equivalents, try
http://colibri.leetspeak.org/
http://www.launchy.net

Quote :

"winrar >> stuffit, no one uses winzip anymore"

you're fooling yourself. Maybe you and the geeks you hang out with use winrar, but winzip is still the default for the general public. just look around on the bittorrent sites and see how many posts are full of kids asking "what do I do with this .rar file"?

7/24/2006 10:18:13 AM

I am not a gamer I do however have several windows open at once, musci playing, adobe photoshop etc etc. I just want the machine to run smoothly with no freezes or slow loading times. Will 512 MB RAM be enough or is it worth it to upgrade to 1GB for $100?

7/24/2006 10:45:03 AM

upgrade

7/24/2006 10:55:25 AM

upgrade, but not through apple. just get some RAM through Crucial or something.
what are you getting, though? I was dissapointed to find out that in the Macbook with 512MB, it's actually 2 256MB SO-DIMMs, so you have to replace one. I was hoping it came with a 512MB module and an empty slot.
So if you buy a 512MB SODIMM, you'll end up with ~775MB, or if you get an additional 1G SODIMM you'll end up with 1.25GB, but either way you'll have to replace one of the original 256MB modules.

7/24/2006 10:59:45 AM

I'm getting the 2.0GHz Intel Core Duo1

512MB memory (2x256MB SODIMMs)

60GB 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard drive2

SuperDrive (DVD±RW, CD-RW)

Also, How difficult is it to upgrade the RAm in a Mac. I've done it on my PC and its just plug and play. I don't neessarily want to tear it apart. How much is RAM for a MacBook?

7/24/2006 1:05:37 PM

the upgrade is easy. on the macbook, you remove the battery, then the ram slots are on the inside edge of the battery bay. you have to unscrew a small plate on the inside of the bay, but then there are little levers you can pop out the old RAM and pop the new one in.

"RAM for a MacBook" costs the same as "RAM for a PC" - it's just standard DDR2 PC2-5300.
here it is at crucial - http://tinyurl.com/ol44h

7/24/2006 1:10:48 PM

Quote :

"Quicksilver..... look it up - http://docs.blacktree.com/quicksilver/overview Anyone with a mac who's not using Quicksilver is not being as efficient as they could be"

What is quicksilver?

7/24/2006 1:17:18 PM

helps you do automated tasks, along the same lines as automator... at least that's what i gathered from looking at the program's website. Google: Quicksilver OS X

7/24/2006 1:30:39 PM

^^ use any of those links I provided to see what QS does.
At it's most basic level, it's another way to launch programs, but it is (or can be) completly keyboard driven, so you never have to take your hands off the keyboard.
to activate it you hit a key sequence (like cmd-spacebar) and a little box pops up, and you start typing the name of the program you want to start, and it will dynamically narrow down the list. So if you want to open iTunes, you probalby only have to type "it" and iTunes will be at the top of the list.

second, you can search for files like in Spotlight, so just type the name of a file, and you'll get a list of matching file names. This works for music too, so if you want to hear a song, just type the beginning of the song name and hit Enter, and it will open up in itunes.

Third, and most powerfully, there are lots of plugins for programs like itunes, iphoto and mail. So if you want to send an attachment using Mail, you can just click on the file in Finder, activate QS, type a couple characters and a new mail message will be created with attachment(s).

A lot of this stuff sounds trivial and pedestrian, but if you use it a lot, it can be a good time saver and just make you more efficient at getting around your computer.

7/24/2006 2:10:04 PM

It looks like AdiumX is just Trillian except it looks better and works right. But it doesn't have IRC support which is kind of annoying for me personally. I use Trillian right now, but as any IM client user right now, I am not completely satisfied.

7/24/2006 3:51:15 PM

6^
RAM installation halfway down this page: http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/macbook.ars/2
I've never had any problems installing RAM on any Macs. Turn off, open case, ram in RAM, close case, turn back on, viola. It would be pretty gay if there were any more steps than that in any modern computer system.

7/24/2006 4:04:12 PM

^^ youre not even using the best windows client... adium x is by far better

7/24/2006 6:49:38 PM

One thing I always wondered about quicksilver was does it learn short cuts like launchbar does? For example, if I invoke launch bar and type t when you first start you get terminal, but if you scroll down to select text edit, it learns to associate t with text edit.

7/24/2006 6:54:39 PM

from what i've found, quicksilver has a kind of learning memory, so if you type t and go to textedit a couple times, by the 3rd or 4th time you do that, textedit will come up first instead of terminal, even though terminal is first alphabetically.

7/24/2006 7:50:34 PM

^btw your winrar comment isnt really true. Very few people buy winzip anymore because its built into windows.

And winrar is vastly more popular in business environments

7/24/2006 8:00:20 PM

The built in unzip functionality lacks features, though

7/24/2006 8:07:33 PM

which is why we like stuffit :-)

7/24/2006 8:27:12 PM

which is a joke compared to shareware winzip

7/24/2006 8:27:46 PM

aim 5.0.98 is a 4 year old version. it is not the current version. I believe the newest version of aim has tabs, but I don't like all the shit piled onto it, so I use an older version with dead aim to add tabs. you said transmit was better than any windows ftp client, but it doesnt come close to touching the flashfxp feature set. I guess quicksilver could be nice.. but in windows you can just map your own hotkeys and add whatever you want to the path/command line. you also have the quicklaunch bar. all im saying is that there are very few examples, if any of a piece of software for mac that doesn't have a counter part in windows that is equal or superior.

[Edited on July 24, 2006 at 11:36 PM. Reason : and no one downloads/buys winzip, winrar is infinitely superior to winzip and stuffit]

7/24/2006 11:35:40 PM

ive owned a couple Macs and PC's.

Adium X is the best.
Stuffit is really good.

and shareware blows.

7/25/2006 12:02:33 AM

transmit fucking SUUUCKKKS, and its by far the best OSX ftp client out there, which should tell you something.

Compared to about a half dozen pc counterparts its not even close. Hell Dreamweaver for OSX is better as an ftp client.

Adium is pretty good, but its still got a lot of problems/nagging issues about it (much like trillian)

Stuffit blows ass, always has. I pray that winrar will take off on OSX (did you guys realize it's available for OSX?)

but for the most part, the shareware/freeware stuff for OSX is right on par with the best stuff out there for windows, if you like that sort of thing.

7/25/2006 12:27:24 AM

^i use Fetch as my FTP client for OSX and I am happy with it.

-ZiP!-

[Edited on July 25, 2006 at 12:31 AM. Reason : also: dreamweaver is NEVER better as an FTP client]

7/25/2006 12:30:55 AM

What is a good IRC client for WIndows? ALl the free ones I find seem to be garbage.

7/25/2006 12:32:20 AM

i havent used fetch since the Classic days and I got so fed up with it i just finally gave in to transmit.

^mirc is still the best non-ereet irc client as far as i know, granted i havent touched anything irc related in over 4 years.

7/25/2006 12:55:32 AM

um... what problems does Adium X have again? i'm just curious cause i rarely have any at all

7/25/2006 12:56:41 AM

it was just little things, no big problems that i can remember. like not supporting file transfers and direct connections with a lot of clients, and it seemed to eat up a lot of memory, but that has probably been fixed by now

7/25/2006 1:37:12 AM

i'm pretty sure i've never had problems with file transfers. you might want to check out the latest versions of software you're going to critique

7/25/2006 1:44:09 AM

a quick check of adiums own website shows quite a few open issue bugs, and a lot of longterm, outstanding issues.

http://trac.adiumx.com/wiki/ConceptIndexOfTickets

i didnt say it sucked, i like it a lot, there were just a lot of nitpicky issues i had in using it

7/25/2006 1:55:30 AM

I've only been able to get file transfers to work in Adium with the past release. From what i heard, there were ways to make it work that involved third party hacks in previous versions.

The only problem I have with it now is that it will disconnect, but not reconnect. Other than that, now that file transfer works, I can probably scrub the official AIM from my HD.

7/25/2006 3:04:03 AM

aim for mac os x is so fucking ugly

7/25/2006 1:01:48 PM

Quote :

"transmit fucking SUUUCKKKS, and its by far the best OSX ftp client out there"

Nope, the best OSX client out there, and for that matter, the best FTP client anywhere is command line FTP.

7/25/2006 1:12:40 PM

whatever dude. i run ftp with punch cards. totally pwns command line ftp

7/25/2006 1:24:41 PM

command line ftp is good for some things, but if you want to ftp 70 out of 75 files in a folder, it's much easier to select them in a gui than it is to type them all out with command line. and ideal client would have both, or just use a gui when doing things that are more suited for it.

[Edited on July 25, 2006 at 5:02 PM. Reason : .]

7/25/2006 5:02:15 PM

an ftp client with a norton commander command line interface would be pretty badass

7/25/2006 5:28:23 PM

To not to my surprise, Microsoft applications such as excel, word , and powerpoint do not come standard on the any Mac. anyone here wanna hook me up?

7/26/2006 8:55:31 AM

http://www.openoffice.org

or buy the MS one.

7/26/2006 9:00:34 AM

^^ They don't come "standard" on any pc either... You have to pay extra for them. You can order a copy of office with your mac from either the bookstore or from apple directly.

[Edited on July 26, 2006 at 9:52 AM. Reason : ]

7/26/2006 9:51:20 AM

That's just like my friend at Chapel Hill that used to swear to me that they got free cable, just because it wasn't optional. It may be at a reduced price when bundled, but you are still footing the bill somewhere.

As for Office on OS X, give NeoOffice a try. It's a bit behind OpenOffice, because it works off of their builds, but it's a bit more user-friendly, and you don't have to have X11 running.

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/22021
http://www.neooffice.org/

7/26/2006 11:07:12 AM

I prefer office 2004, someone here must have a copy they wouldn't mind lending me, for a reasonable fee, for me to install.

7/26/2006 2:13:02 PM

(incriminating yourself on a public forum usually isn't a good idea)

7/26/2006 2:21:41 PM

The bookstore will lend you a copy for about $60.

7/26/2006 2:38:37 PM

Quote :

"(incriminating yourself on a public forum usually isn't a good idea)"

There is nothing to incriminate, the guy at the mac store said that one copy is good to put on any three machines. So I don't see the problem.

7/26/2006 2:48:51 PM

Thanks, I'll check the bookstore. $60 is much more reasonable price to me rather than $150

7/26/2006 2:49:56 PM