I know. I didn't mean to imply that you were endorsing my opinion (or that I was explaining yours) - I just like the phrase. :-)
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Well, I had to include that line to make sure you guys know that my Windows/Mac rants have to be taken as 50% technical and 50% sarcasm. In reality Microsoft dumped money into Apple years ago to keep them afloat. I assume he did so to prevent the SEC from filing anti-trust litigation.

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-202143.html

For this reason if no other, Apple will be around as long as Microsoft is. While I don't worry myself with Apple users, I occasionally have the misfortune of informing them that the $4,000 iBook they just bought isn't supported for many of our business needs. Big wig doctors in large regional medical groups don't tend to take that kind of news well. Especially when the app they need most (financial) is one of the ones they can't use.

Mike
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4000$ iBook?

Is this 2005? And since when did an iBook cost 4000$?
:-)
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Last time I looked( which was 30 min ago) Macbooks Started at 1000 dollars and only run up to 2500 dollars.
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Macs are suppose to be more user friendly compared to PCs. I have always used owned PCs, but I have supported users with Macs and they seem to be easier to configure and use.
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That's correct if you don't add any options, or pick something that isn't on the higher end. You can easily make the macbook pro 17in over $4,000 with options.

Regardless Windows or Apple I wouldn't spend that much on any laptop. Price isn't really a big issue to me. I will pay to be happy with my laptop and not have headaches because of it.
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ever check out the Asus?

It'll knock out whatever you need for 1100
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I have.. You have a good point. I'll look into it more. Thanks :-)
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don't do any upgrades you can avoid with Apple. If you want more RAM or bigger HDD, do it yourself.... will save a lot of money. Not too many other options you should need.

If you want portable, the 13'' is a nice size, 15" starts to get a little big to be taking around and fitting on a desk in classes (at least for me it was)

Just thought I'd throw that out there as I too had concerns about 13" being too small, but its really a nice size actually.

I always chuckle a little when people have their big ass 17" older-gen MBPs that barely fit on a desk
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That sums me up perfectly. I just recently bought a new laptop, thanks Andrew :-), and I said all along that I was going to get an Apple as my next purchase. Why? Because I heard nothing but good things from people that own them and it just seemed like the right thing to do. But I couldn't force myself to pay twice as much for a comparable machine especially when I've never had any of these problems that I hear so much about. Plus, I'm no geek so as long as I can do what I want with no problems, I ain't out to impress anyone.

So I bought another Toshiba. My last one was great, this one is incredible, and I took the rest of the money that I would have spent on the Mac and bought some crack.
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13" works fine for me.
If it was up to my wife, she would rather go smaller.:-):-):-)
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The macbook pro can easily go over 4k on apples site since they overcharge for parts. King James nailed it, do it yourself and save a ton of money.
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http://store.apple.com/us/configure/...co=MTM3NDcyOTc

Pick your options...17" MacBook Pro start at $2500 and without adding any major software you can easily put them in the $3500-$4000 range.

My point was said doctor was a big shot and wanted the best. He bought the top of the line Apple laptop for about $4000. He brought it to work and expected corporate IT to "make it work" with all of our business applications. He was lucky to get the basics to work. No Citrix (most of the hospital's apps are delivered this way), no VPN, no financial apps = one pissed off doctor. It was his own fault but we had to have a $150K/year security guy waste a ton of his time just to see if he could find a work around for VPN access. The rest they threw at us.

In the business world they are a giant waste of time and money. Personal use we can debate to the end of time. That said, the old Amiga and Atari PCs still have a niche following too. :-)

The bottom line is they overcharge for their hardware. Back in the days where you could only run their OS on their proprietary hardware if you wanted their OS, you didn't have any other option. Now you can run their OS (if you like it so much) and buy (non-Apple) name brand hardware for 1/2 the price and pop in the OS X disk.

Mike
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We have quite a few Mac users that are able to VPN and use VNC.
I couldn't justify the extra cost of a Mac, although I did consider it.
If I were upgrading on my own terms, rather than replacing a laptop whose motherboard had gane bad, I may have bought a Mac.
$600 versus $2000 made a huge difference. The 13" is just too small for me.
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"Th-th-the Amiga was v-v-very good to m-my walpaper! Haaa!"
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i've used for a long time. I own a 15" macbook pro (work and portability) and a pc (home desktop). If my pc ever died, I would probably just use the mac, but if i had to buy another computer it would be a mac. There's no reason to choose a pc over a mac unless it's a money issue, which you said it wasn't. I've done every single thing on my mac that i could do on my pc, whether it was within the os x environment, or booting windows within it.
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http://store.apple.com/us/configure/...co=MTM3NDcyODk
$1699 MacBook Pro:
15" screen
2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4.0 GB RAM
250 GB SATA Hard Drive 5400RPM
SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Video Card = Specs not listed

OR

http://www.salescircular.com/mi/computer/laptpp.shtml (@ Office Max)
$449 Toshiba Satellite L505-S5998
15.6-in. Widescreen
Intel Pentium T4300 processor (2 Cores @ 2.1 GHz)
4.0 GB RAM
320GB SATA Hard Drive 5400RPM
LabelFlash DVD +-RW drive
Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 4500M
802.11B/G/N WLAN.
Webcam, Microphone.
Windows 7 Home Premium

+

$102.50 Mac OS X 10.5
http://cgi.ebay.com/Mac-Leopard-OS-X...item2ea9eaf2be

Total = $551.50 vs $1699
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you get what you pay for.
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Hey Mike - what do you think of Apple computers?


































:-) :-) :-)
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