Mac Laptops

[skate_bored]

im looking into macs as well, none of my geek friends know anything, just like me. i want it mainly for final cut pro, after effects, trying to get serious about editing etc. so i figured a laptop wasnt the right choice, but i dont really know anyone with a imac or whatever the fuck they are called. a home mac. must be some indie editors on here.

id just like to mention that getting serious about editing has nothing to do with what program you use. final cut pro does the exact same things that adobe premiere and sony vegas can do, for example. its really about the editor and your ideas. a great program wont help your skills/ideas. with that being said, a PC with at least 1 gb of ram, 500gb hard drive, and a good processor would be just as sufficient for editing. as for macs, laptops can be used for editing if you want to do it on the run, but an imac would be a lot more reasonable in pricing.

[ice nine]

im aware of adobe and have worked with it, i just like final cut more. also if i get a pc i know id end up trashing it with porn and games and shit. i think my semi hatred for macs would keep mine clean and a 'work' computer. ive made a ton of movies i just dont know what specs the school or friends computers had.

[artichoke]

a dvd and usps?

Yeah, that should work.

[grimcity]

im looking into macs as well, none of my geek friends know anything, just like me. i want it mainly for final cut pro, after effects, trying to get serious about editing etc. so i figured a laptop wasnt the right choice, but i dont really know anyone with a imac or whatever the fuck they are called. a home mac. must be some indie editors on here.

A regular Macbook would work fine for you, but I personally recommend a Macbook Pro if you're doing a lot of serious video rendering... the 17" hi-res widescreen is a lot of real estate, and as you already know, all of the video apps take up every square inch. I got mine a few months ago, after the death of my mobile video editing machine (a six year old Vaio). Most of my machines at home and at work are either Windows or Linux, and I wound up adopting the Mac into my workflow really easily. Scary-easily, actually. You'll pay some bank, but the refurb prices aren't bad, but I got mine through the government employee pricing which is really similar to the academic pricing.

Also, I don't think I was required to show any proof of my government employment... the discount on the laptop itself let me purchase a bluetooth mouse, backpack (recommended because it's a pretty hefty computer), and the Apple Care for roughly the same cost as the computer by itself at its regular price.

One last thing: Open Office (NeoOffice as it's called for Apples) is really good, but it tends to ignore some macros in Excel files and it doesn't seem to display certain types of text boxes or other floating elements that a PC user might send you in Word format... but that'll only come up in really office-type scenarios. It'll open basic Word, Wordperfect, Powerpoint, and spreadsheets that don't have a lot of crazy formatting in them (from PC users).

[ice nine]

thanks once again man

[tompettyandtheforeskins]

Used Academic pricing to get a new Macbook pro for a scary good price. Hawked the Ipod to a buddy and got the free printer as well as applecare, which is splendid. After years of PC'S I couldn't imagine going back and am frustrated it took this long to make the switch. Really good advice in this thread. The only reason i got the pro was for light video editing and I enjoy the bigger screen, but that can also be had on regular Macbooks. For most intents and purposes the Macbook will serve you well, but if your a tech geek the extra features on the pro are nice.

Thanks for the Open Office tip grimcity....im trying to avoid buying Office 2008 but do use a lot of Excel files. Am I screwed?

[grimcity]

Thanks for the Open Office tip grimcity....im trying to avoid buying Office 2008 but do use a lot of Excel files. Am I screwed?

If you're dealing with just plain spreadsheets, you probably won't need to worry about MS Office at all.
Now, if you're working with an Excel sheet that's got every Microsoft tool known to god being used on it, it might remove some formatting or fuck up on some math routines... but I'm talking about seriously officy-type shit. If you're just storing data or doing some calculations and other basic stuff in Excel, NeoOffice will work perfectly fine for you.

[no2]

Thanks for the Open Office tip grimcity....im trying to avoid buying Office 2008 but do use a lot of Excel files. Am I screwed?

Microsoft Office is one of the few programs that you can actually copy the file straight out of the Applications folder from another computer and into the Applications folder on your computer and it will work perfectly. I'm not sure about the 2008 edition, but I got the old edition from someone else by doing that.

For people buying new Macs, GET THE APPLECARE!!! If you ever end up needing it, you'll be glad you got it. The last thing you want is for it to go out of warranty and then have something go wrong and not know what to do or who to take it to since most people only fix PCs and not Macs (and they can charge a lot). And the great thing about AppleCare is that as long as you call during the day on a weekday you will ALWAYS get someone in California who speaks English fluently and can easily understand you and help you. You can call their number outside of those times and still get overseas support, but if you run into problems with them not being able to understand you, or you not being able to understand them (which happens a lot when you're trying to give your serial number to someone isn't a native speaker and they can't understand the alphabet all that well) you can still call during the day and get someone who can help you. They also ask almost no questions and won't give you a hastle when you need to get things fixed (unlike a lot of PC companies: HP, I'm talking to you...). I've only had to use them a few times for stuff, but they've always been super great and super fast and definitely the best customer service I've ever had to deal with.

[tompettyandtheforeskins]

Thanks Grimcity, I will try NeoOffice. Also no2 if I can find someone that has 2008, I will try that as well. The wealth of knowledge in this thread is much appreciated by me, a relatively novice Mac user.

[Prison Wallet]

I copped MS Office and Photoshop off a friend at work--stoked. It installed really slick, no product codes or registration, nothing.

Can any of you Mac dudes recommend cool dashboard widgets? Seems like there's a zillion out there--any stand outs?

[sebastian toombs]

i dont really use them, but look into these:

'superduper' for backing up your drive. 

azureus for torrents

camino browser  (firefox for macs, basically)

toast for burning cds and dvds  (find a torrent and DL it)

VLC player for watching AVI files

Disk Inventory for getting a good view of your hard drive