I successfully made the switch

H

heathpitts

Registered
Well after three days, I have switched my main home computer from a WinXP Pro machine to a used G4 Cube that I bought and installed OSX 10.2.

I have gotten everything working like I basically wanted to. I got iTunes working from my network server though and can even burn cds from a network drive...something I could not do in MusicMatch. I have backed up pictures and songs to my firewire dvd drive. This is funny but IE is actually better on my mac than on pc. At least it is to me. The fact that you can hide all the buttons with a single click is awesome and the browsing is quick enough to me. I don't see what the big deal is. This IS Microsoft we are talking about.

The only problems that I have run into is that I would have liked to been able to store my pics for iPhoto on a network drive off my linux server but it just seems too slow when I do that. I don't have but around 1.22 gigs of pics anyway so they are not filling my harddrive anyway. My biggest gripe though is that iDVD does not burn to external dvd drives. This is just unacceptable. The only reason that I am not more pissed off is that when first considering a mac, I was going to get a $2500 Powerbook. If I could not have burnt dvds with it I would have hit the roof but I bought the Cube and I am not so mad. Anybody know a way around this or another program that can burn iMovies this way?

I have noticed that Macs take a lot more memory to run than pcs but I haven't really thought of the new macosx as slow as discussed in other threads on this board. It seems quick enough to me and I simply love the user interface. It really does seem to let you just get your job done and not get in the way with MS propaganda. I even made my own applescript program (albeit small).

To end, I am really enjoying the Mac World. The Mac does everything that I need a home computer to do. Digital Pictures, music, and movies...these are the things I really want to do at home.

If anybody has any hints about any of my problems or suggestions on how to make my "switch" easier please just let me know.


Thanks,

Heath Pitts
www.heathpitts.com
heath@heathpitts.com
 
not sure exactly what kind of DVD's you want to burn but, I would try Roxio Toast for all of your CD and DVD burning needs. Simply put it ROCKS!
 
You can't burn to an external DVD burner with iDVD. And before you get all mad and pissed at Apple, there is a reason. Apple bundles the cost of the iDVD software with their DVD drives. Basically you'd be complaining that Apple isn't giving you software for free that every other company in the world sells. There are many licensing issues with giving away DVD software for free. Every copy that gets used, basically needs to have royalties paid to the patent holders of the DVD technology. Do you really expect Apple to pay the royalties for you out of the kindness of their heart? No, they bundle the royalty costs into the cost of their drive. They do the same thing with the DVD player, thats why it only plays DVD on Apple DVD drives, you need to pay royalities on this. If this is an issue for you, talk to the folks who own the DVD patents who require money for the technology they invented. You don't find free software for a PC to burn DVD movies, you may get some software free with a DVD burner you bought, but you paid for that along with the hardware costs.

Brian
 
Whoa dude before sending me "Do you really expect Apple to pay the royalties for you out of the kindness of their heart?". NO I DO NOT! I also asked in another thread if there was any software that i could "purchase" (meaning pay money for) to burn dvds from iMovie like idvd does. Also, for your information, I ordered a copy of iDvd 2.1 from Apple, got the dvd in yesterday and it will not start because I don't have the correct hardware. I guess I didn't read the requirements. I believe I paid these royalties you mention so don't think that I am trying to get a free ride.

"And before you get all mad and pissed at Apple, there is a reason." I am not getting all pissed at Apple I understand why Apple needs to do this. I was simply mentioning the problems that I was having with the switch.


Heath Pitts
www.heathpitts.com
heath@heathpitts.com
 
I apologize if I went off a bit too much, but I've become very sick of people lately complaining about every little thing in OS X that doesn't match their hardware perfectly and blaiming Apple. The iDVD thing is one that has been especially hot lately as some company found a way to reverse engineer iDVD to work on their external superdrives, and Apple asked them to stop. _ALOT_ of people blasted Apple for this. I was assuming this was a complaint along the same lines. If it was not, and just a simple question, I applogize. Maybe with luck someone else searching for info and is pissed with Apple about iDVD will read my rant and understand, but ofcourse that is just wishful thinking.

Oh, and congrats on leaving the dark side :)

Brian
 
That's cool btoneill. I know alot of people have been bitching about Apple doing that with iDvd. I just thought it was kind of silly since that would knock people with powerbooks out of burning dvd movies with iDvd. But they have to do what they have to do.

Yeah dvd studio pro will burn to external burners but I dont want to pay more for that program than I did for my cube. I was looking for something around the $100 - $150 range.

By the way, I was real impressed with the Mac last night. I checked the box to level the volume on my mp3s (which are on my server), then I burnt a cd from iTunes, and surfed the Internet all at the same time, all with acceptable performance and the cd did not mess up. I was impressed.

Heath Pitts
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top