Computer question

[ironspoke]

My dad is in the market for a new PC. His old machine with Microsoft Millenium is finally starting to show its warts. He has high speed and he wants to get the new 20 inch flat screenmonitor and everything.

The problem is he has been hearing me bitch and moan about Vista for the past year. Can he still get a new computer made for him with Windows XP? Please no comments about getting a Mac. He aint learning a new computer system and wants to use his existing printer which he just purchased a few months ago.

Suggestions?? I'm leary of buying anything electronic on ebay and I have a feeling he will avoid that option as well.

[jerman]

Please no comments about getting a Mac. He aint learning a new computer system and wants to use his existing printer which he just purchased a few months ago.


Just have to chime in that the Mac OS is easier to learn than windows. It is very intuitive and if his printer is usb then it will most definitely work on a mac.

[RandomDood]

Go to the Lenovo website. You can get a new fast machine, loaded with XP.

Vista sux. Use Linux! :D

[RepublicanSS]

jerman, we agree on something!!!!! yahooooooo!!!!

Ironspoke, I know what you said about macs and the new systems, but you can load xp on the new macs using a free software.

I won't use anything else. They really are great machines.

[50 Mission Cap]

My dad is in the market for a new PC. His old machine with Microsoft Millenium is finally starting to show its warts. He has high speed and he wants to get the new 20 inch flat screenmonitor and everything.

The problem is he has been hearing me bitch and moan about Vista for the past year. Can he still get a new computer made for him with Windows XP? Please no comments about getting a Mac. He aint learning a new computer system and wants to use his existing printer which he just purchased a few months ago.

Suggestions?? I'm leary of buying anything electronic on ebay and I have a feeling he will avoid that option as well.

well jimmy,

if your pop flies united, perhaps he can find our $2,500 mac i book my wife left on a plane a few weeks ago.... free for some one. Thank god for the $1,000 deductible.

[50 Mission Cap]

In all seriousness... get a dell laptop like the one I had before I got married - does the job baby and on the cheap. Then again, the cap (and I'm sure your dad is the same way) is not really a gadget person. I'm quite sure Jack Burton would agree in a time like this. We got a nice one for my father in law (x mas) for like $six hunge - he's ex-tatic.

[jerman]

jerman, we agree on something!!!!! yahooooooo!!!!


Oh no! The world is spinning off it's axis!!!:D

[RepublicanSS]

it's all good jerman, it's all good......:)



Oh no! The world is spinning off it's axis!!!:D

[BrevCampagnolo]

Yeah, at first Microsloth was forcing the big guys (Dell, HP, etc.) to install ONLY Vista, then they found out Mom and Pop shops were making a shit-load of dead presidents “downgrading” new PCs to XP. So now you can get XP from all the big guys.

[rockyrider]

I'm running Mac OS 10 Leopard on a Mac Pro and running Windows XP Pro in Bootcamp to handle all the PC only engineering software.

The Mac OS is so much less geekish, and it just goes off and takes care of computer stuff for you and comes back and says "Is this what you'd want?" and 99% of the time it is. Connected to the same network the Mac handles all the connections and determines what's on the network. Switch to XP Pro and it asks you to do all the computer stuff with the classic Windows attitude of "I am a computer but I know nothing about being a computer or how to configure myself, will you do it for me?"

[BrevCampagnolo]

I'm running Mac OS 10 Leopard on a Mac Pro and running Windows XP Pro in Bootcamp to handle all the PC only engineering software.

The Mac OS is so much less geekish, and it just goes off and takes care of computer stuff for you and comes back and says "Is this what you'd want?" and 99% of the time it is. Connected to the same network the Mac handles all the connections and determines what's on the network. Switch to XP Pro and it asks you to do all the computer stuff with the classic Windows attitude of "I am a computer but I know nothing about being a computer or how to configure myself, will you do it for me?"
I guess you missed the part where the OP wrote, "Please no comments about getting a Mac."

[ironspoke]

OK, well he is getting a desktop because he has high speed and basically only sits in his one office at his house. A loptop is defintly not an option. Well I always said my desk computer would be a Mac so maybe I should steer him that way now. The problem is cash. He wants to spend no more than $1500. Isnt a Mac desktop going to run more than that??

[RepublicanSS]

www.apple.com, ironspoke, you can purchase imacs starting at $1199

[Zinger]

OK, well he is getting a desktop because he has high speed and basically only sits in his one office at his house. A loptop is defintly not an option. Well I always said my desk computer would be a Mac so maybe I should steer him that way now. The problem is cash. He wants to spend no more than $1500. Isnt a Mac desktop going to run more than that??

Not at all. If he's already got a serviceable monitor and keyboard, mac minis can hook right up to them, and they start at about $600.

[Zinger]

I guess you missed the part where the OP wrote, "Please no comments about getting a Mac."

Oh come on. "I'm looking for a way to get around town, some gravel roads, and a little singeltrack, but please no comments about getting a mountain bike." Pretty hard to stay quiet when you read something like that.

When someone too quickly dismisses what may be a very good solution, a few polite "well, think about it" posts are perfectly in line. Especially between friends like we have here.

[ironspoke]

I know Zing and maybe this is a viable option. The problem is he is in his mid 70's and not one to change too easily. But I am thinking about it even more. The problem is I currently dont own a Mac and he would be the first of all of his buddies who are computer literate to actually head in that direction.

The initial comment was kind of directed toward what happens when a new rider comes on here and asks what kind of bike he should get..thinking he only needs to spend maybe $500 and he is given options that are 3 times that amount.

I was on the Apple web site and I'm kinda sold at this point on this Paralells schtick. I priced one up and he would be looking at about $1500 (just what he said the max would be) with the bose speakers, the Paralells software and the extra tech support.

I should have looked a bit closer but I'm assuming he would then need to go and actually purchase Windows XP, right?

[RepublicanSS]

Yes, you'd have to purchase windows XP, I believe it's around $200. Bootcamp is free.

[jerman]

I know Zing and maybe this is a viable option. The problem is he is in his mid 70's and not one to change too easily. But I am thinking about it even more. The problem is I currently dont own a Mac and he would be the first of all of his buddies who are computer literate to actually head in that direction.

The initial comment was kind of directed toward what happens when a new rider comes on here and asks what kind of bike he should get..thinking he only needs to spend maybe $500 and he is given options that are 3 times that amount.

I was on the Apple web site and I'm kinda sold at this point on this Paralells schtick. I priced one up and he would be looking at about $1500 (just what he said the max would be) with the bose speakers, the Paralells software and the extra tech support.

I should have looked a bit closer but I'm assuming he would then need to go and actually purchase Windows XP, right?

Spoke, I've got parallels on my MacBookPro and it works really well.

[Zinger]

The problem is he is in his mid 70's and not one to change too easily. But I am thinking about it even more. The problem is I currently dont own a Mac and he would be the first of all of his buddies who are computer literate to actually head in that direction.

Yeah, that's a tough one. In this case it's maybe better to shop around for something you and he are familiar with, because ***guess who's gonna do the tech support!***

But I am glad you looked into a Mac, at least briefly. It's a worthwhile option -- not for everyone, but worthwhile for many. Keep us posted on how this all works out.

[wigger thomas]

I don't know how wise it will be to set him up with XP in the twilight of its existence. Before you know it,he won't be able to get on a lot of sights or do a lot of things.

My PC w/ XP is starting to show warts too. The next computer will be an Apple.

I'm sure your dad will be able to learn the Apple OS.

[rockyrider]

Unless your dad used to teach Fortran and is a DEC PDP-8 hex code command line kinda guy, a Mac is perfectly suited to people who want a computer but don't want to be a full time computer service tech like Microsoft expects from you. It takes plug and play to a level that Microsoft has apparently never considered possible.

Considering Microsoft has been in a downward spiral of increasing complexity and update/upgrade chaos since Windows NT, a Mac can be a very friendly productivity tool, unlike Windows where you spend as much time trying to keep it running as you do using it. Microsoft has become the Lucas Electric system of computers, if they could they would make your computer leak oil too.

[Ripp]

I'm running Mac OS 10 Leopard on a Mac Pro and running Windows XP Pro in Bootcamp to handle all the PC only engineering software.

The Mac OS is so much less geekish, and it just goes off and takes care of computer stuff for you and comes back and says "Is this what you'd want?" and 99% of the time it is. Connected to the same network the Mac handles all the connections and determines what's on the network. Switch to XP Pro and it asks you to do all the computer stuff with the classic Windows attitude of "I am a computer but I know nothing about being a computer or how to configure myself, will you do it for me?"

I'm not in the market right now, but not tooo far from it and I have never heard a better reason/description of differences to make me consider a Mac. RR are you serious about the Mac being a computer and not needing me to be a computer to know what the hell it wants anytime something isn't as it should be? Or maybe what you meant is the frequency that "things aren't as they should be" will reduced since the computer knows it's a computer and also knows I'm not!?

[jerman]

I'm not in the market right now, but not tooo far from it and I have never heard a better reason/description of differences to make me consider a Mac. RR are you serious about the Mac being a computer and not needing me to be a computer to know what the hell it wants anytime something isn't as it should be? Or maybe what you meant is the frequency that "things aren't as they should be" will reduced since the computer knows it's a computer and also knows I'm not!?

No Rocky is right man, You just dont have the problems with Macs that you have with windows machines. The worst you might have to do is a restart if something acts a little buggy. The only time I have difficulty with a computer is when I use a windows machine. They are just too complicated.

[Ripp]

I'm not very computer savvy, so my hesitation is that I've spent the last however many years learing what I need to get the damn thing to do what I want it to. I'm not interested in going through a similar learning curve. I'll need significant reasurance that the Mac is light years ahead of PC in intuative use before I seriously consider it. My Mom has been a Mac user for many years but she hires someone to deal with the computer (business expence) and she has also had more than a few issues over the years, mostly with the computing world being based on the PC, which seems to be shifting to be more Mac friendly.

Any comments?

[Zinger]

Unless your dad used to teach Fortran and is a DEC PDP-8 hex code command line kinda guy, a Mac is perfectly suited to people who want a computer but don't want to be a full time computer service tech like Microsoft expects from you. It takes plug and play to a level that Microsoft has apparently never considered possible.

The crazy thing is that I do Fortran every day, on a Mac. Its unix underpinnings make the thing so damn stable that I can do all of these weird memory tricks to get around bugs in 30 year old legacy code. And I can do it at a terminal window using a command line interface, just like when these scraps of code were written.

But I can also listen to Brother Jimi over on iTunes while I'm working (grin), have a couple of graphics apps open, and be editing a MS Word doc at the same time. And when Word hangs up (several times a week...) the kill menu takes it down cleanly while everything else proceeds as if nothing had happened.

Now that's a real OS.

[rockyrider]

I'm not very computer savvy, so my hesitation is that I've spent the last however many years learing what I need to get the damn thing to do what I want it to. I'm not interested in going through a similar learning curve. I'll need significant reasurance that the Mac is light years ahead of PC in intuative use before I seriously consider it. My Mom has been a Mac user for many years but she hires someone to deal with the computer (business expence) and she has also had more than a few issues over the years, mostly with the computing world being based on the PC, which seems to be shifting to be more Mac friendly.

Any comments?When I got this Mac, I unboxed it, connected all the cables to it, and turned it on. It found everything, including the modem/firewall, other computers on the network, it configured everything it needed to configure and was ready to go.

I bought the Mac last August and had to upgrade to Leopard in December to keep Bootcamp going (it was a beta in the old OS). Being a long time PC user I dreaded the idea of an OS upgrade... how many apps would it kill? which drivers would be unavailable? How many favourite configurations would be screwed up? I did the upgrade and it just worked, nary a hiccup. And they made the file manager more sensible to me in Leopard.

The thing that takes the longest to adapt to with a Mac vs. Windows is that the minimize and close buttons are on the upper left corner of the window rather than the upper right corner, leading me to believe that most Apple programmers are those artsy left handed types.

Oddly enough, the software that does crash in Mac land are the Microsoft applications like Word.

[jerman]

I'm not very computer savvy, so my hesitation is that I've spent the last however many years learing what I need to get the damn thing to do what I want it to. I'm not interested in going through a similar learning curve. I'll need significant reasurance that the Mac is light years ahead of PC in intuative use before I seriously consider it. My Mom has been a Mac user for many years but she hires someone to deal with the computer (business expence) and she has also had more than a few issues over the years, mostly with the computing world being based on the PC, which seems to be shifting to be more Mac friendly.

Any comments?

I suggest you go test one out. I don't know if there is an Apple store near you, but BestBuy has started selling Macs. So if you have a BestBuy near you, go check one out. You will like it. But, unless BestBuy is having a great deal or something, I would probably just buy directly from Apple. You can configure the computer how you want it on their website. Just my $.02

[tryandgetme]

My dad is in the market for a new PC. His old machine with Microsoft Millenium is finally starting to show its warts. He has high speed and he wants to get the new 20 inch flat screenmonitor and everything.

The problem is he has been hearing me bitch and moan about Vista for the past year. Can he still get a new computer made for him with Windows XP? Please no comments about getting a Mac. He aint learning a new computer system and wants to use his existing printer which he just purchased a few months ago.

Suggestions?? I'm leary of buying anything electronic on ebay and I have a feeling he will avoid that option as well.

<skipped all previous posts to post an opinion> yeah, I agree with you. if you MUST use windows, go XP. Dell has XP available on alot of models as an option, especially if you go up into the buisness class. IBM does XP as well. So does my local hole-in-the-wall computer shop.

[tryandgetme]

Considering Microsoft has been in a downward spiral of increasing complexity and update/upgrade chaos since Windows NT, a Mac can be a very friendly productivity tool, unlike Windows where you spend as much time trying to keep it running as you do using it. Microsoft has become the Lucas Electric system of computers, if they could they would make your computer leak oil too.

my dad's girlfriend called me up and asked if I had a solution to the ridiculous updates the computer kept telling her were neccicary to download for 3 days once a week over her dialup link. gave her ubuntu gutsy (linux) to try, she's never been happier. it's easier to install than windows, and it's more user friendly as well. leaps and bounds over 1995

[real_ss_budgie]

スティーブの地球をEnjoy♪』第二弾（欧州編-1 Part-3）公開しました。

[Nate H.]

I'm running ubuntu and vista (both 64-bit) and I have to say if it wasn't for the windows-specific software (geographic information systems) I have to run, I'd probably be on ubuntu exclusively. It really is an elegant system. Intuitive, FAST and easy install (it auto-detected more of my system drivers than vista did).

To top it off, it's free and it already comes bundled with firefox, thunderbird (e-mail), and openoffice. Openoffice handles MS Office documents without complaint. Funny thing is that Ubuntu can read and access my vista HD no problem. Vista doesn't even recognize my linux HD. It would be nice if Vista could play nice with it.

I might have tried OSX on my system if I didn't have to use a hacked version of it. Might have even considered an apple system if they didn't overprice certain parts (hard drives and memory in particular).

To be completely fair, Vista hasn't been the nightmare everyone told me it would be. Sure, it's got hiccups and bugs that probably shouldn't be there. From what I've been reading on some mac forums, Leopard has its own share of those, too.

[tryandgetme]

(it auto-detected more of my system drivers than vista did).

yeah, I was pleasantly suprised when ubuntu knew what to do with my HP printer when I had to download a 35mb driver for windows before it did anything except scream "new hardware found".