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Originally Posted by !@#$%!
that's exactly what i hate about mac, namely, the fucking twattery and arrogance of their advertising and the fucking poser shit that comes with owning macs.
however, i had to surrender to it given its much simpler way to run it. everything seems to work together with great ease and you spend more time working on your work rather than working on the computer. it's not a surrender-- i was seduced, and it's hard to go back.
macs can do everything windows can cuz you can run windows on it-- dualboot. you can get yourself an old copy of XP and run it and play all the shit you want. not sure about ubuntu-- ask verme again. but remember, osx is unix, just more user-friendly-- so a lot of linux programs have mac distros.
another advantage of the mac for your purposes is that it comes with imovie , idvd, garage band and some other shit preinstalled. imovie is not my thing but it's simple and intuitive for most users. i dvd is awesome, i love it, because when you get the program to erase the shitty apple logo you can customize to look any way you want and you get some really good quality DVDs. some people here swear by garage band for music but i haven't fucked with it.
if you wanna up your video editing game and get final cut express or pro (express is cheap and works with some consumer-level HD resolutions), it will work seamlessly. i work with Avid, and the compatibility issues are shit with PC-- you need this video card and that kind of firewire, etc-- too much headache-- that's one of the reasons i switched, cuz Avid works very well on the mac.
the mac mini is great, the graphics are integrated though, so it will display 2D very well (video, movies, etc) but if you wanna get 3D work or games it might get clunky. i don't do 3D or games so that's not an issue, but my dvds work awesome.
when i was ass-broke and had no money however i ran windows on DIY machines-- takes a little reading to learn to build but you can customize everything and it's fun-- requires time though, so if you have time available to fuck with your machine you could run one. shit, you could even build and run a hackintosh-- google the word, and check it out. OSX without damaging your street cred.
me however i depend on my machines to make a living so i need the simplicity of this twat computer to get things done faster. plus they are fucking flimsy, so i pay extra to have a fucking warranty. i miss my built-like-tank thinkpads, but they weren't compatible with Avid and i had to give them up.
but i have to say i love my mac mini-- i have it plugged to a stereo with bigass speakers, so i can watch movies and listen to music and use it as a general purpose thing-- photo editing, etc . i haven't yet fully exploited its potential as it's only 1 month old but i'll be installing protools on it to see. i have a 22" samsung monitor on it, i paid maybe $300 for it 3 years ago and it looks fucking great-- you could get a used one for lots less these days. at some point i'll wanna jack the machine to a bigass tv (i don't have a tv, but i like movies, and some shit on hulu)-- looking forward to editing on a beast-sized screen.
i also have a white macbook, bought this past summer, but the new models that just came out have no firewire. no fw = no thank you. both i had to pay for "apple care" to upgrade their shitty one-year warranty. i know, i know, but i need them for work.
if money is short and you can't pay for applecare consider building yourself a small form factor box that you can take to gigs like other people would carry a small amp. my own frankencomputer lasted me 10 years as parts were successively upgraded. i had to give it up when it started giving me shit at work.
if you like windows however and you want a dell laptop then don't sweat it, it's good enough for most things, plus you can get lots of warez (and the viruses that come with it), and since your life doesn't depend on it so go for the fucking kill, learn to tweak the bios and get in its guts and fuck with it with a dremel tool; if you'll ever own a frankencomputer, this is the time for it.
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