Sebby's new mac - is it a big one?

[RichR]

My Mac Pro developed a fault recently. Occasionally I would see artifacts on screen. A reboot fixed it. But rebooting a Mac is almost never necessary. The problem got progressively worse until it got to the stage where the screen would either lock-up or just disappear.

I called Mac Support who told me that my Mac was one month out of warranty. Typical! But they asked me to describe the fault and immediately conceded that I had a video card from a batch that was known to be bad. Two days later I received a brand new video card free of charge. Fabulous service.
S

I had the same problem in my home Mac Pro. Took me slightly more convincing until I pointed them to the Blizzard bug report about them. This was a year or so ago when they had just started to fail and the common link seemed to be WoW and a new version of OpenGL. WoW was the only thing that took advantage of the multi threaded OpenGL and hence drove the card hard enough for it to overheat. I've had no problems with the replacement card.

[Najarak]

Thanks Weevil. Not sure which way to go with the office package. I have tonight tried to import a calender.xls 97-2004 windows file in to Numbers and it doesn't want to know.I have had no issues yet with word.doc files into Pages (trial version)

Have you thought of trying the free NeoOffice? It is a Mac friendly version of Open Office, I don't do a lot of spreadsheets etc. however it handles most Microsoft Office formats without any problem and will export in the various Office formats.

See http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php

[Steve]

Thanks Will take a look, All I need is to be able to export to Windows Office 97-2003 for work

[Tacitus]

Thanks Will take a look, All I need is to be able to export to Windows Office 97-2003 for work

Neo Office is written in Java and has a reputation for being slow - Apple's Java implementation not being one of the best.  Why not use Open Office?  I believe there is now a native version for the Mac and it's free!  WHSmith are selling it on DVD for £10 or so complete with a paper manual, which I think includes the Mac native version.

[Najarak]

Neo Office is written in Java and has a reputation for being slow - Apple's Java implementation not being one of the best.  Why not use Open Office?  I believe there is now a native version for the Mac and it's free!  WHSmith are selling it on DVD for £10 or so complete with a paper manual, which I think includes the Mac native version.

NeoOffice is perhaps slow to open, however in operation I don't find it slow. I have not tried the Mac version of Open Office itself, until Open Office 3 it was apparently difficult to use on a Mac requiring the installation of X11 which is way beyond me!.

[RichR]

NeoOffice is perhaps slow to open, however in operation I don't find it slow. I have not tried the Mac version of Open Office itself, until Open Office 3 it was apparently difficult to use on a Mac requiring the installation of X11 which is way beyond me!.

If you've got Leopard you should have X11 already installed. It is optional but installed by default.

[RichR]

Thanks Will take a look, All I need is to be able to export to Windows Office 97-2003 for work

Will you need any VBA? In one of Microsoft's more brain dead moments Office 2008 dropped support for it although it is coming back in the next release. If any of your work spreadsheets need VBA you'll need to get a copy of Office 2004 instead

[Lance]

Or Windows...

[Sebby]

Now why on earth would you want to do that, Lance?

[Simon_idnet]

I've just installed Sun's Virtual Box and then Windows 2000 Pro (as a Virtual Machine within Virtual Box) on my Mac - I've never seen Windows run so fast!
S

[Rik]

What, not Vista, Simon? 

[Steve]

I have done the same with XP using virtualbox it certainly flies, I thought about Vista but on the Macbook I've only 2gb to play with and as we know it could use all of that. I could double the memory but as far as I can see 2gb is plenty for me. The activity monitor shows the amount of page outs to the swap file and even with multiple applications open these are very small in comparison to page ins.

[Sebby]

What, not Vista, Simon? 

[Sebby]

At long last, my iMac has been delivered today. Unfortunately, I'm away from home until Friday, so I'll have to wait. It's killing me!

[Rik]

Send it to me, Seb, I'll play and let you know what I think. (I do understand your frustration, though. )

[Sebby]

[Steve]

So presumably any moment now I'll be finding out how to use my macbook

I will be intersted in any comments regarding memory usage especially if your are running a Virtual Machine. I feel 2Gb is borderline if I give more than 500mb to  a Virtual Device running XP. Certainly I can  have many applications open and have a Virtual machine in a "space" and it still manages photo editing of RAW images although at this stage pageouts are increasing to the swap file.

4Gb ddr3 is £58  from crucial but it depends how I use the machine .Is it sensible to leave applications open in their own "space" or should I use it as I used to run Windows which involved closing applications I'm not using.

[Sebby]

Well, I've had my iMac setup for a matter of hours, so everything is very strange for me at the moment. But, as I expected, I'm in love.

First of all is the look of thing... It's beautiful. A 24" screen is absolutely huge; it's going to take some getting used to, although I think I am already! The LCD is so bright and vibrant - it's just amazing.

The machine starts up in no time and hardly audible. Everything is rapid and a pleasure to do, but it's so different to Windows and that's going to take some getting used to. For example, installing and uninstalling is a very different process (much easier on the Mac, but a strange concept to grasp).

I don't think I'll be running Virtual Machine, Steve. Mine has 4GB DDR3. Are you sure 4GB DDR3 is only £58? I thought it was a lot more expensive than that at the moment.

[Simon]

Stop it!  You're tempting me!     But I think I'll wait for deflation to kick in. 

[Sebby]

[Steve]

Its laptop memory Sebby.. I am just wondering if its at a price I can't refuse

http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=2E9B2B4EA5CA7304

With regard to virtual machine. XP does run very well indeed inside virtualbox

[Sebby]

Ah, well that sounds like a pretty good price to me.

I'm loving this. Just copying everything across.

[Azy]

I got a imac 3 years ago migrated from windows (a user for like eternity) it gave me headaches for about 2 weeks and then everything just worked, what ever i needed to do, it just worked, no headaches (a bit like idnet)

but apple kinda lock you in and then you forgive them for setting you free, to be productive, with no hassles

plus every thing on screen looks beautiful, which is nice

[Sebby]

So far, everything has been a pleasure. I'm still getting used to the enormous screen. Things I particularly like - it switches on and boots within about 30 seconds and applications open instantly.

I've still got a lot to do today - bringing all my stuff across, getting things setup just how I like them, and getting the Time Machine backup sorted.

[Steve]

Worth a read should you be tempted http://sidstudios.blogspot.com/2008/11/virtualboxs-seamless-mode-in-mac-os-x.html