The Harris Media Services advisory board

I was going to suggest getting one of each. Even if you blow beaucoup bucks on the Mac you can definitely find an affordable (i.e. cheap) PC for the other.

 

Does Apple have a lease option? Could be a good tax deduction.

 

Maybe you could get Obama to throw you some stimulus money.

 

My advice:

1. www.academicsuperstore.com
You fax a copy of your current VCU ID, they keep it on file and you can buy software at academic prices. I've never found the academic versions of software to be lacking in anything. And you can't beat the price.

2. Get a Mac. I've got a MacBook (not a pro), and my significant other has a PC laptop running Vista. Sure, my computer cost three times what his did. But mine works. He wastes a lot of time waiting for it to do things, canceling alert pop-ups and trying to get it to connect to the wireless internet every.single.time he brings it back from sleep. It will drive you nuts. You get what you pay for.

3. I've always had Macs. Prior to my current 13-inch MacBook, I had a Titanium Powerbook Pro with a 15-inch screen. The only reason I didn't return to a Pro with this one was expense at that time. And you know what? My computer is a little sluggish when trying to run every application at once, but other than that I haven't noticed much of a difference. If you're not going to be churning out mega-graphic projects that require you to have Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash and Dreamweaver open at the same time, I think you could go with a regular MacBook. But learn the difference between a MacBook and a MacBook Air, which I think will be lacking in things you need.

4. You say you've got everything on an external drive -- what's the connection? Is it USB? If so, it will work with any computer, regardless of platform. There are a few options for essential "office" software: You can buy Microsoft Office for Mac, you can use Apple's iWork software ($70 for document, spreadsheet, presentation), you can use a free open-source program like NeoOffice. Both iWork and NeoOffice are designed to open all types of files, including those that come from an older PC. I use NeoOffice at work because my paper is too cheap to buy software, and it's decent. I use iWork at home and I love it, especially the presentation program. And all iWork stuff can be saved in a PC-friendly format.

 

I'm currently viewing this page on an iBookG4 that the wife and I bought in 2003. It's clearly out of date, and it doesn't have quite enough memory to do what I want anymore, but good lord, we bought it in 2003, when neither of us knew shit about computers. I've been through about seven Dell PCs in that time.

Get a Mac and you'll have it for five years. And it will probably work great.

Get a PC, pay a little less, and you'll be replacing it in two years.

 

edit to Cadet's post: Don't need NeoOffice anymore. There's an official Mac version of OpenOffice 3 using the Mac OS X interface rather than the bastardized Mac version of OpenOffice 2.x.x.

 

Thanks, 2MCM. I doubt our IT guys at work will let me download it. They're so lazy I'm dealing with NeoOfficeJ Beta with a Windows interface on one computer.

That said, I know some people aren't comfortable using open-source software. iWork for Mac is a good, inexpensive alternative to Microsoft Office for Mac.

Also: Spring for Acrobat Pro instead of the free Acrobat Reader. Yes, Macs will enable you to save almost all files as a PDF, but you'll want the ability to manipulate those PDFs if you'll be delivering them to clients.

 

What he said.

 

I'll echo the above: Macs are cheaper in the long run. Plus, it's a writeoff you can amortize over five years. Just remember that the new laptops don't have Firewire ports. I'd guess there's a Firewire-USB gadget that serves that purpose, though.

 

I've got a Latitude from work, and it's held up fine. As far as I know, the only problem with the scores of Latitudes we've got at work is when one fell off a writer's car roof. Make sure you get one with an internal CD/DVD drive though. It's a pain to use the external drive, which is what I've got.

As for the XP/Vista debate, I've used XP almost exclusively and if I were to get another computer, I'd probably go with XP. My daughter's laptop (an HP, btw) is running Vista. It had a few teething problems when I was setting it up, but she's had it for two years now at college and she has no complaints. And believe me, she'd complain if there were a problem.

I actually find Macs more difficult to use when I have to use one (we've got a few at work for graphics needs) but I suppose that's because I've been working mostly on PCs for 20 years. The question for you is, do you want to have to learn a new way to work at this point? Unless you're doing heavy graphics, I'd stick with PCs.

 

I just bought an HP laptop from Best Buy. It was about $579.00 and did come with Vista. As someone who is technologically inept, I can tell you that getting used to Vista hasn't been nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Apparently the only way you can get a PC with XP is if you buy from Dell directly.

I will look for the link to it and edit my reply.

 

Sorry it took me so long to get this to you. Here's the link to what I just bought and I love it.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9167947&st=Hewlett+Packard&type=product&id=1218041998788