Post #65,152
11/26/02 11:13:59 AM
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Okay, be honest.
I am SERIOUSLY thinking of jumping ship (at home anyway) and getting a Mac. (laptop) What could I expect for the transition?
I practically live in:
Access
SPSS
EndNote
Word
Corel Draw/Photo-Paint
I could probably switch to WordPerfect, too. I'd rather not use Word.
Plus I have an Epson printer, an HP flatbed scanner, and a Minolta Dimage II slide/film scanner.
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Post #65,177
11/26/02 2:12:35 PM
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I'll give it a (partial) shot
Let's see now...
Access - not sure about this one. I think you'll have to export the data in any event. However, MySQL is available for OS X (as well as other DBs.)
SPSS - Which product? I see from their homepage that they have some versions for Mac.
EndNote - Available for OS X
Word - Available. However, there are other WP packages available as well. (No WordPerfect for X, however.)
Corel Draw/Photo-Paint - No sweat.
As far as the hardware goes....
Printing support is much improved with the addition of CUPS to 10.2.
Scannners - Looking at Minolta's website, it looks like it'll work. Silverfast ([link|http://www.silverfast.com/osx.php/en.html|http://www.silverfas...m/osx.php/en.html]) has some decent OS X scanner software.
Apart from that, I'd refer you to the respective vendor's web sites.
Tom Sinclair
"Everybody is someone else's weirdo."
- E. Dijkstra
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Post #65,378
11/27/02 6:53:22 AM
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Depends as usual
Access - what about access do you rely on? If its just email then Mail.app is really pretty decent and the spam filter is fairly smart. I use it and it understands multiple mail sources just fine. IMAP and POP3 at least.
SPSS - I have no idea - what do you use it for? Just reports? There are some good reporting tools. DB exploration - I use sqlgrinder - it just lets you browse tables though.
EndNote - seems to be ported so you're golden.
Word - its there but I think Word on all platforms sucks. It depends on your demands. To tell you the truth, I get by using TextEdit (Basic styled text editor/wp that stores docs in rtf). Appleworks isn't bad either. I use it for spreadsheets but hardly ever do wp in it.
Corel Draw/Photo-Paint - lots of alternatives. For charting - I use OmniGraffle and it is really good (think visio but with good coloring effects - many image output formats, and a decent UI). For general painting on the pixel level Appleworks has the stuff I need.
Epson printer - lots of Epson drivers available.
Don't know about the others.
I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration.
Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
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Post #65,421
11/27/02 10:32:45 AM
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Update on scanner software
I got my Umax Astra 1220S working just fine under OS X using Vuescan. I really like this software. It's only forty bucks from Hamrick software ([link|http://www.hamrick.com|http://www.hamrick.com]) and comes in OS X, Linux and Windows flavors.
It supports a really wide variety of scanners, old and new. Check out their home page to see if your scanner is included.
Tom Sinclair
"Everybody is someone else's weirdo."
- E. Dijkstra
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Post #65,423
11/27/02 10:38:34 AM
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Neat. Thanks for the pointer!
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Post #66,071
12/2/02 11:16:16 AM
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Re: Okay, be honest.
I keep going back and forth. On the one hand, OS X has me really jazzed on the Mac. I hate hate hate to spend another dime on yet another half-assed M$ "operating system", but I've got a lot of time and money invested in apps and data to have to switch everything over to all new apps and move all that legacy data over.
On the other hand, I've been thinking I could get a Wintel box (actually a laptop) and hope that Linux matures enough to get all of my specialized apps covered (Endnote, SPSS, Arc View, etc.) and make the transition gradually, using my old one as a test machine. That way I could leverage my existing stuff.
On the other other hand, I guess I could use Virtual PC or something on a Mac.
I just don't know. . . .
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Post #66,207
12/2/02 5:17:40 PM
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I don't envy your dilemma (sp?)
I just hope that whatever decision you come up with is the right one for *you*.
On the other hand, my TiBook with Jaguar kicks ass something righteous.
Tom Sinclair
"Everybody is someone else's weirdo."
- E. Dijkstra
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Post #70,126
12/20/02 1:53:18 PM
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Well, I ended up getting a Dell.
A SmartStep 250N. So far, I've only had some trouble with CorelDraw 8, which I can't decide whether it's M$'s or Corel's fault. If I Print from C-Draw, and then hit the Properties button for the printer from the Corel Print dialog box. . . .it kills CorelDraw completely. No warning, no error message, just BOOM, C-Draw is gone.
Well, at least it didn't freeze the WHOLE thing up. . . . .
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Post #70,189
12/20/02 8:51:51 PM
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Would that be an Epson printer sitting there?
If it is, it's NOT a Corel Problem *OR* an M$ problem. it's an EPSON Printer Driver Problem.
Epson, has some really nice products, but reallllllllly CRAPPY Windows drivers.
Get newer drivers for your Printer and pray. (Prey?!)
I have seen BIG problems with Epson drivers with *MANY* programs that render to the Print driver. AutoCAD, Xactware, Corel Draw, Adobe Photoshop, Pro Engineer, Design View, Adobe Pagemaker, Quark Express.... and so on but for Windows only. MAC OS9 Great support for Epson. (not OSX, haven't played with it REALLY yet!)
[link|mailto:curley95@attbi.com|greg] - Grand-Master Artist in IT
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Your friendly Geheime Staatspolizei reminds:
[link|http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,56742,00.html|Wi-Fi enabled device use] comes with an all inclusive
free trip to the (county)Photographer!
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Post #70,507
12/23/02 11:10:07 AM
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Re: Would that be an Epson printer sitting there?
Actually, no. I think I said upthread it was, but it's a Canon BJC-4400.
Honestly, I'd been hearing so many great things about XP I thought I was in for an unexpected treat, but so far it seems to be the same old half-assed turd like every other version. I brought home a couple of .WAV files but it won't play them. It will make some sounds, but nothing I tell it to. It also likes to mark files to my Zip drive as In Use so I end up having to reboot (What a surprise!) to get rid of THAT problem, blah blah blah. Just the same old babysitting of Winblows just to do anything simple.
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Post #70,690
12/24/02 1:13:07 PM
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Well, one thing fixed. . .
Okay, figured out XP sound problem. It worked fine for a while, but then I tried to play some MP3 and .WAV files and all of a sudden, no sound. Odd that.
So I went into System Sounds or whatever, and found that it was set to Mute. Okay, turn it off, try again from Control Panel System Sounds, it works. Try playing MP3 again, no sound. Go check and it's set back to Mute. Turns out some stupid utility called Music Match or something would always turn off the sound before playing anything. That's a useful feature. I think it was punishing me for not going to its fucking internet site and signing up.
It still seems to have a problem with thinking files are in use when they're not. Reboot, reboot, reboot. You'd think I was using Win 3.1 again. . . .
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Post #70,379
12/22/02 12:40:20 PM
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I spot a trend
Buy Apple. Harbinger of a tech upswing here.
I too, shockingly, am thinking of buying a desktop Mac. What's going on? It's like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. One morning I woke up, and I knew I wanted a Mac.
-drl
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Post #70,406
12/22/02 5:15:56 PM
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Join...us....<mrgle><drool>
Tom Sinclair
"Everybody is someone else's weirdo."
- E. Dijkstra
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Post #70,572
12/23/02 8:04:45 PM
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Not until they up the clock rate
For Apple's pricing, I'd like at least AMD clock rates (yeah, I know the PPC beats P4 hands down tick for tick....but I doubt it beats AMD by much, and AMD's at about double the clock rate).
As far as laptops go, well, I decided to go for small size & long battery life -- and Apple doesn't have anything close to a Sony Picturebook or SRX. If they did, I would have taken a serious look.
Oh, well, maybe sometime in 2003 they'll come out with some nice new hardware, since I would like to give OS X a try.
Tony
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Post #70,509
12/23/02 11:11:54 AM
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Re: I spot a trend
"What's going on?"
Microsoft still can't make an operating system that's more than a half-assed barely-functioning kludge, and Apple is making high quality products.
Very simple really.
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Post #70,656
12/24/02 10:03:01 AM
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CorelDraw ok
The entire Corel graphics suite is available for OSX. No Word Perfect, though :(
"We are all born originals -- why is it so many of us die copies?"
- Edward Young
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