Re: A convert to Apple needs friendly advice

On Wed, 31 Aug 2005 18:22:37 +0100, James Taylor wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Sorry about the length of this. If you can answer even *one* of my
> queries, please please do so without feeling you have to answer them all.
> I'll be hugely grateful for any help. Thanks.
>
> I am a London based Linux and RISC OS user who is in need of a new laptop
> and I've heard good things about MacOS-X. I've never owned an Apple
> machine before, and my experience of playing with other people's machines
> is limited. The few Apple owning friends I have are not technically savvy
> enough to troubleshoot for me, or even guide me in the right direction, so
> I'm really hoping I will find a mentor or two here in this group.

You should have a good chance. There are people here (not me) who know
*everything*, or give a good impression of doing so.

> If I am
> to convert to Apple, I want to be reassured of a few things before I
> take the plunge. I am also helping and advising a friend in the same
> situation as myself, so there are two possible converts here.
>
> Which is the biggest and/or best Apple specialist in London where my
> friend Susie and I can play with the full range of machines and get
> plenty of one-to-one expert advice on any necessary peripherals or
> additional software? (I'm in Fulham but can travel.)

Apple? Regent Street.The level of knowledge of the black clad minions
varies greatly, so it might be worth asking around.

> Am I correct in thinking that there are just four models in the current
> range of Apple laptops: 12" iBook, 14" iBook, 12" PowerBook, and 14"
> PowerBook?

No, the Powerbook comes in 12, 15 and 17 inch varieties. There are other
variations in makeup as well. Check the apple website for details.

> Am I correct in thinking that the innards of the lowest spec.
> machine can be upgraded to those of the highest? If not, which aspects
> cannot be upgraded, and how much would I miss them?

On the whole, upgrading is pretty much limited to RAM and to some extent
hard drives (voiding the warranty), so everything else is fixed. What you
would miss depends on what you want the Mac for. How important are speed,
video card, DVD writing etc.?

> Susie wants to be able to play DVDs (from various regions). Will an
> iBook allow that, or is it limited to just one region?

Pass. It used to be that you were limited to 5 changes. I'm not sure now,
but there is an application called VLC player that doesn't care about
regions.

> Can it play them
> at full screen and full frame rate?

Yes, but they may struggle with HD video.

> What level of USB is supported? Is it always possible to connect with
> any camera, printer, scanner, MP3 player, or other storage device, or do
> you have to choose the device carefully based on a list of known to work
> USB devices? Is there such a list?

I *think* current Macs are all USB 2, with USB 1.1 support as well, but
best check the specs at Apple. Devices rather depend on drivers. Scanners
in particular are limited, you'd need to check with the manufacturer.
However, scanners without existing drivers *may* be supported by an
application called Vuescan. A wide range of printers are supported already
by the OS, no additional drivers required, and the printing system is CUPS
with Ghostscript, so gimp print drivers usually work. Most cameras *just
work*, no additional drivers required, unless they use a very odd chipset
or storage approach. MP3 players? Tricky. Obviously iPods, I think the
others usually load as mass storage devices, but no iTunes integration.
Give us some specifics and answers will be more detailed.

> What is the Bluetooth support like? Is it stable and mature? Has anyone
> experienced difficulties getting the Mac to talk to mobile phones,
> cameras, printers, or the like? Is there a list of known working
> devices?

In my experience, Bluetooth is fine and usually easy to configure and use.
Phones aren't all supported, at least as far as syncing address and
calender details, there is a list on the Apple site under iSync, but new
models are frequently supported in OS updates. Again, any models in mind?
Then specific answers can be given. I've not tried bluetooth with cameras
or printers, but the link to my Pocket PC is fine,as is the link to my
mobile (k700i).

> What about wireless ethernet (Wi-Fi)? Which 802.11 standards are
> supported?

b and g at the moment.

> Is there anything proprietary or even just quirky about MacOS
> Wi-Fi?

No, except it is very easy to use. Reception with the built in airport
extreme (802.11g) cards, where installed, can vary according to model.
iBooks are generally reckoned to have the best reception. Oh yes, hex
strings need a $ at the front.

> Can I assume 11g frequencies and speed are fully supported, or is it
> still only 11b?

As above.

> Are the 11X authentication mechanisms supported, and the
> 11i encryption protocols such as TKIP and especially CCMP (AES)? If not,
> how soon can I expect these standards to be supported?

Pass.

> Are Bluetooth and Wi-Fi fitted as standard?

Standard on all 'books now.

> If not, what are the costs
> involved in getting them fitted? Can they be fitted internally without
> the need to use up PCMCIA slots? Will fitting them take up expansion
> space that limits my options for later expansion? Are there different
> versions of software drivers to worry about? What is the impact on
> battery life?

No driver problems - all built in to the OS. Battery life is shortened by
having wifi on, unsurprisingly, but not dramatically in my experience,
about 20-25% at a guesstimate

> The printer on my home office LAN is currently connected to my Linux box
> and is accessed via IPP (Internet Printing Protocol). My RISC OS machine
> just prints to a postscript file which is sent via IPP to the Linux box
> which then converts it to the HP PCL format required by my laser
> printer. Does MacOS-X support the IPP protocol? If not, what is my best
> bet for network printing?
>
> We would like to get into using Voice over the Internet (VoIP) but first
> we need to know if there are any robust and open VoIP implementations
> for MacOS that will work on the laptop when one of us is away on
> holiday. Can anyone claim success at getting VoIP to work, and how
> tricky was it to set up?

Skype. Very easy. There may be others, or audio over iChat of course.

> What is the track record of MacOS-X on security matters such as viruses,
> worms, spy-ware, email & browser bugs, open ports, buffer overflows, and
> application macros? Is it necessary to feel paranoid and hide behind
> constantly updated security software, or is it more like RISC OS where
> nobody can remember the last time a virus was even seen? Does MacOS-X
> have a robust permissions system that protects system files from
> modification by the user or any insecure software the user might be
> running?

Fine. There are currently and have been no OS X viruses or worms. No
spyware is known of in the wild. Equally there are no browser or email
issues being exploited in the wild and patches for the few issues are
usually pretty quick.Word macro viruses are about as bad as it gets and
even those have little effect on the whole, just being incubated for
Windows users.The Mac comes with pretty much all ports closed by default
and has a built in ipfw firewall. Any fiddling with system files needs an
administrator password, even in an administrator account, and this also
applies to software seeking to make modifications. It is a form of open
BSD under the surface.

> Both Susie and I have been put-off by the shiny white plastic look of
> the iBook, which reminds us of a cheap kitchen appliance (think kettle
> or toaster). Susie is an incurable aesthete, and I just want something
> that won't look tacky in a professional environment. Matt black would be
> far more to our taste. The brushed aluminium PowerBook we saw looked
> *much* smarter, but the price seemed way too much to pay for cosmetic
> considerations alone. Do Apple produce any better looking laptops at a
> more reasonable price?

No. Although the differences aren't purely cosmetic. However the line
between iBook and 12" Powerbook is fine indeed.

> I am used to a three button mouse on both Linux and RISC OS. The purpose
> of the three buttons are particularly well assigned on RISC OS and
> greatly contribute to the fluidity of everyday use and productivity; not
> just in the OS but in all the applications too. I am worried that a one
> button mouse will cramp my productivity considerably. I've heard that it
> is possible to get a three button mouse for the Mac but I imagine that
> the assignments of these buttons are not well integrated into the
> operating system or applications. In fact, I suspect they may even be
> arbitrarily assigned by the driver software supplied with the mouse and
> not actually recognised as separate buttons by any other part of the
> system. Can anyone offer enlightenment or reassurance on this matter?

You don't need driver software for a three button mouse, the OS has it
built in. Anything fancier may need a driver. The use of right-clicks et
al is a bit of a debate for Mac people. The clicks are configurable and
are generally supported consistently across OS and software, except,
oddly Firefox in my experience. You can also use X11, as I am this moment
and that will function as ever, I am assured, but integrated to some
degree into the usual OS X windowing system.

> And now for a philosophical question:Coming from a RISC OS background
> with some experience of Linux, I am acutely aware of the importance open
> source, open file formats, and open protocols. I naturally *hate*
> Microsoft and everything their ruthlessly monopolistic practices have
> done to the world. As a minority platform, RISC OS has a culture of
> supporting open file formats, and, like Linux, many of the applications
> are hackable or customisable in ways the original author never imagined.
> My experience of MacOS is that it is a very *closed* system, ie. it is
> not possible to look "under the hood" of either the OS or the
> applications, and it is not customisable or hackable beyond what the
> software authors foresaw and allowed for. This makes me nervous because
> I am used to being able to fix problems by investigating and tinkering
> under the hood, or even enhance software by writing programs that
> convert application file formats, or by writing glue-code that calls the
> command line interfaces (or other APIs) of the applications I use. I do
> not wish to place any of my data into a proprietary file format that
> ties me to one particular application, and which might crash and corrupt
> my data. Has the advent of MacOS-X's BSD underpinnings brought with it a
> cultural revolution resulting in more of the kind of openness I'm used
> to? Or are the OS and apps all still very closed black boxes?
>
> The ugly reality, however, is that we live in a world dominated by
> Microsoft, its file formats, protocols, bugs & viruses. Is it possible
> to read and write the common MS formats (Word, Excel, PowerPoint,
> Access) *without* using Microsoft software or inadvertently letting a
> single penny slip Microsoft's way?

Apple is a funny mix. The base of the system - Darwin - was released as
open source, Safari is semi open, and much open source software runs on OS
X via Fink and Darwinports, but some applications are closed, together
with the file formats, as is the OS proper. There are ports of Openoffice
(Neo-Office springs to mind) for the Microsoft formats.

> Finally, I am a web developer and Perl programmer and I want to be sure
> that I can do my development work entirely on the laptop. This means
> that I would need at least Perl, Apache/mod_perl, MySQL (or a DBI
> accessible equivalent), a decent programmer's text editor, good graphics
> creation & conversion software, and a good modern web browser that fully
> supports all the latest standards. Are all these things possible? Are
> they pre-installed, or easy to install? Are they likely to cost much
> money?

Either pre-installed or easy to install. MySql is free. The text editor
will cost you if you want BBEdit, but there are free ones, including
Textwrangler (a cut down BBEdit).

Graphics - Photoshop, but also GraphicConverter - superb shareware - and
the Gimp via X11. Apache is included, but not Apache 2, that is an install
away.

HTH and welcome.

Giles
.

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