Hey everyone,
I was wondering if anyone could offer some advice. I currently have my 4th laptop and have experienced many problems. Now I need to purchase a good system as i am a Web Developer, and need something that won’t let me down as much.
I mostly develop in php, however also create the occasional .net sites. After liaising with peers and looking on reviews it seems as though the Mac is a VERY good option.
Am i making the right decision?
Any advice would be much appreciated.
Thanks again.
You know what: this is very, very true. I installed ubuntu once on virtualization on my mac and man when you have to go to the terminal and run a bunch of commands just to get wireless installed and working, you know you must be a geek to love that stuff
Honestly I don’t see what the argument can be against getting a Mac (besides the price) when you can either set up windows via a VM or if you want that native support, bootcamp is more than sufficient. I have OS X and Windows 7 on my mac and I switch between them rather frequently. They are solid machines and honestly AppleCare has been the best insurance that I’ve seen for a long time. And Macs being based on Unix technologies enables you to be able to run terminal and start working with linux servers right from the box. I used to try to do the same with cygwin and although I am very impressed with what they accomplished, you can’t beat native.
I don’t think so. A real geek runs a PC with Linux on it. 
I would highly recommend a Mac. Get an iMac 27" or an MBP.!!
Something else to consider in addition to hardware costs is software. I upgraded to a Mac about three years ago and have no regrets. It took awhile, though, for me to be able to replace all my Windows versions software to Mac software which, depending on your software you use, can be an expensive proposition. Of course, using VM software running Windows on your Mac is an option for those not wanting to (re)purchase Mac compatible software.
Thus, the first year I ran Windows through Parallels (3.0) which I wasn’t impressed with (reliability was questionable, although I am sure many improvements have been in the newer versions).
Now I use my iMac and MacBook Pro as my primary machines sans Parallels or VM Ware and run a Windows testing machine as well.
After the initial brief transition period becoming customized with OS X, using a Mac became second nature and I am unequivocally happy with my Macs.
Your individual requirements and preferences will guide your selection of a computer that meets your needs and that is the bottom line!
I have used both PC and Macs for website development and I find that im more productive on a mac. I really can’t describe it other than saying you can do more with less clicks and crashes.
Right now im stuck on a Windows 7 machine. Windows 7 actually is a great step forward for Microsoft but I would still prefer working on a Mac.
As for a virtual machine I would recommend http://www.parallels.com I had 3GB of RAM and was able to work without lag.
I know quite a few very good windows/.NET devs who use macbooks as their main machines. Now, things are spit between bootcamp and paralells in terms of what environment to use, but it is definitely workable. The whole VS/SQL stack is definitely VM friendly.
If your use to PC’s than remain there, Win 7 is much more solid than Vista and a good PC is much cheaper than the same performance Mac.
Anyway the final decision is up to you.
Can you say that again?
If you are a PC geek then you can go for Mac or else PC is the best thing for you.
Dude, go with Windows 7 and use Acronis True Image… and plan on
not keeping any data (in your My Documents folder) on your C Drive
by using a secondary drive to save all your data to as you work
Win 7 is rock solid, but if you do run into any problems you can
restore your system exactly how it was prior to the problem
in about 8 to 10 minutes using Acronis True Image
It’s the only way to compute, so you can restore and not just reboot 
I have developed on Mac, Linux and Windows at various times over the years - and they all have strong point/weak points. I now develop almost exclusively on Macs, simply because I find the OS a pleasure to use. As my main “tool”, it is important that the experience is nice for me. I haven’t delved into Bootcamp (not a .net developer, so no need), but suspect it would mean that you can happily develop cross-platform on one machine.
I always have a Windows/Linux machine kicking around for testing - and I will confess that with the advent of Windows 7 the whole experience has become quantumly better - but the lack of things like symbolic links (a facet shared by OSX and Linux) make it a platform I would still not have as my number one.
Having said that - I am currently looking at business management software (my home rolled is creaking a little) and the options for Windows (and even to an extent Linux) seem far better than those for Mac.
Mac is more nice and protected. Windows is more popular.
I had used Windows since Windows started, and switched to Apple Mac about 4 years ago. Its been one of the best decisions I’ve made. I agree with all the earlier comments from kohoutek. I haven’t found anything I can’t do, but have to switch to XP (under Parallels) now and again to check sites in IE6/7/8. On a Mac Pro, this is no problem. Parallels is a little slow on a 4-year-old MacBook Pro with only 2Gb memory. I develop PHP sites and this is no problem. I don’t use .NET so can’t comment on that.
In general, I found my productivity improved considerably (after the first couple of months of getting used to the changes). The best way I can describe it is that I don’t seem to be ‘fighting’ the computer and opsys any more and can just get on with the job of building sites.
I’ve used Mac for 4.5 years now if I recall correctly and I will not go back to PC. There is one PC in my apartment, it’s my girlfriends computer, and I can’t stand using it or even watch her using it.
So obviously I’m all for a Mac and you already know the “why”'s.
Using virtual machine(s) to run Windows software works very smoothly. You can set up different “spaces” on you Mac and simply flip between them. Both VMWare and Parallels now have what is called “Coherence Mode” which means you won’t have to actually “see” Windows anymore. You can simply run Windows applications and just see the application window in your Mac environment, using the same shadowing as regular Mac apps.
Edit: Check this out to see a demo of this “Coherence Mode”.
Works great. So I’d suggest getting a Mac. 4 GB of RAM will do and you can upgrade to 8 GB when you feel the need to. Go for an Intel i5 or i7 CPU — I think that will definitely last you longer than the “old” Core 2 Duo.
If you are doing web development you should prefer mac.
Why?
I am a Mac user, but there’s nothing I can do on the Mac that I wouldn’t be able to do in Windows. Not sure whether any of the Linux distros are as “designer” friendly in terms of available software…
hi friends i am also planing to buy laptop and may be i go for Apple and i am software engineer and i need to run Dot net ,java ,oracle and many softwares (Developments) so should i go for apple ,HP or dell
Plz suggest me
Probably not if you want to use .NET, the .NET platform is proprietary to Microsoft so unless you plan on running it virtualized within the Mac using Windows you might want to stick with Windows itself. As far as I’m aware, there’s no support for .NET’s framework on the Mac.