Swithing to Mac and OSX - is it worth it for me?

[Darkelve]

I've been a Windows user for the longest time... ever since Dos became replaced with Windows 3.1 as that's what my dad used, all the way up to Windows XP, which is what I'm running now on my desktop computer, in dual-boot with SuSe Linux 10.1.

I've been using Linux for over 4 years now... and I like it much better than Windows... I don't like M$ for ethical reasons but aside from that I find that Windows offers me much less functionality, unless you add a dozen of 3d-party apps to it, and then still.

In the near future it'll be time to upgrade again, and I'm sort of building a business case as to which platform will allow me to be the most productive in my tasks. I consider myself to be a 'power user' (although not a 'geek') and I'd like to go beyond the limits of what I'm doing right now. Only Windows doesn't allow me to do that and Linux up to a certain extent.

The problem is, I have no clue what the Mac is like... it's like an alien landscape to me ATM.

So I'm just going to try to describe the most important tasks I have to use the computer for, and I apologize for the avalanche of information and questions:

1. Website Development, Maintenance, Image Editing
For my job, I do manage the content of my company's website, using a Html-Editor (Html-Kit). However, I'm thinking about starting a small business of my own developing websites for private persons and small companies.

I'm not gifted with godly drawing skills (quite the contrary...), but I use my digital camera to capture sights and elements and then processing (filters etc.) in Photoshop to obtain the graphic elements for my webpage templates. In this case, things I'd like to be able to do are auto-downloading of photographs, batch renaming a bunch of files (with accompanying previews), batch resize of image files, e.g. to quickly create thumbnails for a thumbnail gallery. I also need to scan articles and export to PDF, or create a document from scratch and export to PDF (currently using OpenOffice, Scribus). One other question: does Mac have good OCR software?

Another thing that I do, is film movies with a digital camera, and then resizing it, putting music to it, and optimize the filesize for website playback. I don't like wmv or .mov files (both require extra plugins) however, so I'd like something that can export to mpegs or avi's

I use file management and FTP a lot, so a site-wide abd advanced search&replace functionality would be a godsend, as would be the possibility to automate certain tasks, for example resizing pictures to a thumbnail format and immediately upload it to the proper folder on the webserver.

What I don't do yet, but will need if I'm going to run a business, is a program for creating Mockups, Sitemaps, draft versions of website screens or PDF's, ... something with a set of stencils and 'connectors' that you can use to quickly layout or draw something.

As for file management, I'd like to do things like auto-sorting files according to a certain filetype, sender (mail), certain keywords, ... have the browser automatically download certain filetypes to a particular folder (e.g. all movies from site X go to the 'movies' folder), easy drag&drop and cut&paste between different applications and folders, ...

As for my personal time, I like to surf the web, e-mail people (Gmail or one of my other webbased accounts, most enabled with pop access), watch anime movies, listen to music (just bought an ipod nano last week), ...

I also play the keyboard, I have a midi-enabled keyboard and I'd like to get into producing my own music... playing the keyboard to 'simulate' the different tracks, record my voice over it, ... just hobbyist in the beginning... all this digital music stuff is overwhelming enough as it is, but perhaps I could switch to something more professional later...

I also play games, but mostly adventure games...

So is a MAc for me you think?

[bluedevils]

I would say the mac is for you because most of your requirements are graphical and macs are known for being graphical. Since you are familiar with linux, you will also be able to take advantage of the BSDish OS's commandline.

The only weak spot may be games. It's not too bad, but then you could always bootcamp it and install M$.

I come from a nix background and I am loving osx (mac mini 24/7 server). I think in future I will buy a more powerful mac and use it for video editting instead of my windows box. I just wish windows wasn't so king in the games department.

[MisterMe]

The tasks that you want to accomplish can be best performed on the Mac, for the most part. You need to think about your end product rather than the specific applications used to produce your product. You have some preconceived ideas that you need to reverse if you make the switch.

Use standards-based HTML editors rather than Microsoft products.

No commercial software title is a substitute for talent. Drawing is part physical skill, but it is mostly a sense of aesthetics. If you don't have a sense of aesthetics, no drawing app can turn your doodles into art. If you have a good eye, then a good drawing app can mitigate your lack of physical skill.

Every Mac ships with iMovie. Apple's Final Cut Pro is the standard for digital film production. Long before either app ever saw the light of day, filmmakers were using Macs to edit their projects like The Blair Witch Project. Suffice it to say, the Mac is the choice of professionals for digital video and film production.

The .mov problem is a Windows problem. This wrapper is the preferred format for iDVD. DVD Studio Pro is part of Apple's Final Cut Studio. Today, the default format of .mov video tracks is h.264. The DivX-based .avi is the choice of amateurs, not professionals. Think of it as the hacker counterpart to MPEG-4. H.264 (MPEG-4 Part 10) is newer and provides higher quality, and smaller file sizes.

The Mac is the standard for photo editing. Every Mac ships with iPhoto. Many ship with GraphicConverter. PhotoShop and PhotoShop Elements are at their best on the Mac.

Every Mac application which can print, can generate PDFs.

Jazz musician Herbie Hancock was the first to bring a Mac onstage way back in the day. The Mac is still the computer of choice for musicians. Few professional musicians use Windows computers in their onstage set.

The first step in changing is to want to change. You have taken that first step. I hope that you go all the way.

[Darkelve]

Originally Posted by MisterMe

The tasks that you want to accomplish can be best performed on the Mac, for the most part. You need to think about your end product rather than the specific applications used to produce your product. You have some preconceived ideas that you need to reverse if you make the switch.

Preconceived ideas like what?

Originally Posted by MisterMe

Use standards-based HTML editors rather than Microsoft products.

I am. Html-Kit is probably the best windows-based Html editor out there for writing in code and following webstandards and best practices. It's also certainly not a Microsoft product... I'm trained in using Dreamweaver, but nowadays I never use it anymore, I do all my html, css and scripting in an editor.

Originally Posted by MisterMe

No commercial software title is a substitute for talent. Drawing is part physical skill, but it is mostly a sense of aesthetics. If you don't have a sense of aesthetics, no drawing app can turn your doodles into art. If you have a good eye, then a good drawing app can mitigate your lack of physical skill.

Yes, I'm starting to discover that I have a sense of aesthetics... I just never thought about it that much before... reading the book 'The Zen of CSS Design' was somewhat of an enlightenment to me though. Suddenly website graphics took on an entirely different dimension. I even seem to look at the world with totally different eyes... noticing details that I never gave thought before.

Nowadays I can take a basic idea, and make that into something usable with creativity.

But I won't exactly draw Picasso or Dali... I've been thinking of taking drawing classes... I used to be bad at it a young age, which is why I alway s thought I'd be a lousy graphic artist... but you can't know until you actually try I guess.

The stuff I can do with digital photographs and Photoshop is sufficient -for the time being- to create the small-scale types of websites I'll have to create.

Originally Posted by MisterMe

The .mov problem is a Windows problem. This wrapper is the preferred format for iDVD. DVD Studio Pro is part of Apple's Final Cut Studio. Today, the default format of .mov video tracks is h.264. The DivX-based .avi is the choice of amateurs, not professionals. Think of it as the hacker counterpart to MPEG-4. H.264 (MPEG-4 Part 10) is newer and provides higher quality, and smaller file sizes.

It's not '.mov' that I'm talking about, it's offering a video preview on a website in a way that any platform can handle it... which is why I'm interested in the ability to save movies as mpegs... but what I saw of Apple they are very good with this kind of stuff... also streaming media etc.

Originally Posted by MisterMe

Suffice it to say, the Mac is the choice of professionals for digital video and film production.

I probably wasn't very clear on it, but the video creation is for 2 entirely different purposes:
- videos for websites (streaming or non-streaming)
- home videos (digital camera->movie->dvd burning-> watching result on DVD player)

Originally Posted by MisterMe

The Mac is the standard for photo editing. Every Mac ships with iPhoto. Many ship with GraphicConverter. PhotoShop and PhotoShop Elements are at their best on the Mac.

That's certainly good to know... is it possible to transfer a Windows Photoshop license to a Mac one, or get a discount when getting the Mac version?

Originally Posted by MisterMe

Every Mac application which can print, can generate PDFs.

Just curious: is this something unique to Macs?

Originally Posted by MisterMe

Jazz musician Herbie Hancock was the first to bring a Mac onstage way back in the day. The Mac is still the computer of choice for musicians. Few professional musicians use Windows computers in their onstage set.

My music is pretty hobbyist... still I would be interest to learn more... that's one thing in seem to keep doing in my life... learn, always more... it's like an addiction of some sorts... and creating things... I'm happy when I'm creating something new

The first step in changing is to want to change. You have taken that first step. I hope that you go all the way.

Well, I grew up using computers... I spend half my life in front of computers it seems... at the moment it's getting a bit much and I've come to a point where I want my computer to get the job done... as quickly, efficiently, and beautifully as possible.

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my long post!

[blikseme300]

You sound like a perfect candidate for switching. I recently switched and it was very painless because of my Linux experience. As pointed out, graphics type work is were Mac's have always excelled in. As you most likely know, Linux is better than 'doze for website work. As far as games go, get a console!

I particularly like that I can use the terminal environment to do my day-to-day *nix tasks and yet have a beautiful, functional, desktop environment for everything else. As cliched as it sounds, Mac's just work. Go on, switch, you will be happy you did.

[fryke]

I'd also consider Parallels' virtualisation tool as a kind of parachute. Any application you depend on that only runs on linux or Windows, you'll be able to run in a virtual machine. Not talking games here, of course. I, too, would go for a console there.

[blikseme300]

Fryke,

You are right about Parallels. I have one network device which can only be administered by a 'doze PC. I installed Parallels and XP. Performance is not bad and works just fine. (iMac 20" 2GB RAM.) No looking back, just keep learning new cool ways to do things with Mac's. (.....mumble...mutter....why did I wait so long to switch?......)