Mac/PC - assistance please

impmann · January 2018

My head hurts.

OK... I read the Linux for noobs thread hoping to get some kind of blinding light of a eureka moment. It didn't happen. And I'm no closer to understanding it enough to make any informed choice.

To explain...

I have two Macs (an ancient Macbook I bought from someone on the Music Radar forum and a fairly old MacBook Pro) both of which cannot be updated any further as their chipsets are too old for the latest software. However being Macs, iTunes doesn't work on either any more as its out of date - but I can't download the latest because the OS is too old, see above so I can't play WAV or MP3 files on them unless they are imported into Abelton. Ditto internet browsers. Eternal circle.

On the ancient Macbook, I have all my music software - Ableton, PodFarm etc and many songs/unfinished stuff etc. It works PERFECTLY for this and aside from a catestrophic hard drive failure five years ago (new drive fitted, only two pictures corrupted.... not bad... all done by someone who knows what they are doing... I don't) it has never put a foot wrong. The MacBook pro works fine too - its got an SSD in it, so its superfast but ultimately bloody useless because of the OS issue.

The issue is, sharing music files between my bandmates is impossible... because I can't use either mac to upload to sites like Dropbox, Googledrive, WeTransfer etc because of the OS issue (and the resultant out of date internet browser).

So I dug out an old desktop that I rescued from my old work - it was my everyday work PC and had been pretty stable (for a PC) running Windows 7 on a network etc. The old IT manager had installed a fresh version of Win7 on it before I took it (company policy) and it *was* working fine. It had been sat for about 2 years unused. I plugged the old girl in, and it fired up ok... but then did exactly what frustrates the living shit out of me about PCs.... it started doing *everything it wanted to do* and ignoring everything *I* wanted it to do. Updating this that and the other... or rather trying - it wasn't connected to the internet deliberately for that reason.

My knowledge of computers is minimal - and I have utterly no interest in becoming an IT expert. In my opinion a computer should just *work* like a microwave, or a TV or a mobile phone. Its my opinion - and I'm sticking to it. FWIW, the Macs have always fallen into this category.

Therefore, after wasting an hour of my life trying to get Mr Gates' shite to respond to any input, I lost my temper and threw the bloody thing out the window and onto the patio below... in the snow. And there it sat for most of Christmas. Fucking useless piece of junk. Looking at the state of it now, I'd say its landfill fodder. There will be no tears shed...

Back to my point... it took me a long time to learn how to use Abelton, Pod Farm etc and they still work fine - and do all and more of what I want them to do. I'm not sure that now I'm a dad, and being away from home for 11.5 hours a day, I'm going to have the time to learn something else... plus, why should I - they still work fine, its just I can't share the output with others. So I have been looking at options for what to do...

Option 1:
Buy a brand new Mac - expensive and fraught with "oh shit, have I over/under specc'd this", as honestly... I'm just going to be a salesman's dream. TBH, I'm not sure I have that sort of money... and pound to a penny, I'll need different soft/hardware to run with it.
Option 2:
Buy a secondhand Mac - worried that I'm buying something that in a short time I'm going to be back to the same issue I have now.
Option 3:
Buy a new PC - every fibre in my being is saying "NO", as nothing has got me more angry/frustrated by Windows based PCs fucking up. Genuinely. However, all my "expert" friends say... "a PC is superior/cheaper... blah blah blah". Not convinced, as a layman USER. See comments above about it should just *work* - in my experience, no PC does that.
Option 4:
Buy a s/h PC and shove a different OS on it - I like the idea of this, as I'm told the software that I like about Macs is based on other platforms plus my impression is that there's a lot less of the World Wide Wait of using Gates' cacky software - ie nothing running in the background that I didn't authorise/taking up memory/"Sorry Dave I can't do that"/arrrrggggghhhh. However, I fear I'm going down a rabbit hole armed with a blunt spoon and a poundland torch in terms of getting this to work. I realistically just want plug n play, as I have not got the IT skills to fart about with it, nor the time or ethusiasm to invest in it.

So flat spin has been acheived. And my head hurts...

I'm pretty sure I know what I don't want - a PC - but I'm worried about buying another Mac and finding that 1) nothing I want to work will work on it or 2) in a very short time I'll be back to square one.
I like my Mac experiences (I've run them for the past six or seven years without stress - just this silly OS problem) but know that the costs can run to involving vaseline.
I think running a different OS on a PC based machine is beyond my limited skillset - unless I'm overthinking this?

Any wisdom or assistance would be greatly appreciated.

FatPete · January 2018

Kudos for actually throwing the thing out of the window.

crunchman · January 2018

Can you use a third party browser like Firefox or Chrome and use Googledrive or Dropbox to share files? Safari is horrible anyway. Or is it so old that you can't install any modern browser?

quarky · January 2018

impmann said:

a lot less of the World Wide Wait of using Gates' cacky software

Just to address that, people have dual booted Macs with Windows, and found they get more responsive applications on Windows.

To address your other points though, it doesn't sound like you are going to get on with a PC, so you may as well just stick with a Mac. Regardless of anything else, you will probably find it much less frustrating by the sounds of things. I certainly wouldn't look at different flavours of Linux either if you find Windows a pain!

Option 2 sounds like the best choice.

Danny1969 · January 2018

I'm still on Mountain Lion on my old Mac. I just use VLC player for playing mp3s, videos and stuff, much prefer that to iTunes. I use Chrome as a browser, things like Protools, Reaper still run fine. I still enjoy using it as a machine compared to Win 10 on my laptop.
How old is the MacPro, will that take Mountain Lion or above ?

impmann · January 2018

FatPete said:

Kudos for actually throwing the thing out of the window.

Photo proof... this was a few days later....

impmann · January 2018

Danny1969 said:

I'm still on Mountain Lion on my old Mac. I just use VLC player for playing mp3s, videos and stuff, much prefer that to iTunes. I use Chrome as a browser, things like Protools, Reaper still run fine. I still enjoy using it as a machine compared to Win 10 on my laptop.
How old is the MacPro, will that take Mountain Lion or above ?

Thats good info - thanks.

I can't remember its exact age - I'm not in front of it to check but I know its "on the cusp" meaning it may run Mountain Lion (some have said it will - Apple says it won't). Thanks to @ICBM I have a copy of that OS to try uploading onto it, but it may just go horribly wrong...

According to Apple its updated to the max it can be. Therefore I'm tempted to leave it well alone.

impmann · January 2018

crunchman said:

Can you use a third party browser like Firefox or Chrome and use Googledrive or Dropbox to share files? Safari is horrible anyway. Or is it so old that you can't install any modern browser?

I'm sure I tried on both and was told "no"... but I can have another try.

Dropbox won't work due to the OS - and so far Googledrive hasn't worked either.

TTony · January 2018

Danny1969 said:

I just use VLC player for playing mp3s, videos and stuff, much prefer that to iTunes. I use Chrome as a browser,

Exactly what I was going to say.

Sounds like you're pretty committed to Mac-land, and prefer to avoid the learning curve of getting a Win PC to work effectively. That's fair enough. (PCs can be configured to work properly, just as Macs can, but that's knowledge that you need to acquire!).

It pi$$es me off that Apple enforces upgrades - if you want this wow new functionality, you have to upgrade the app (fair enough). But before you can upgrade the app, you have to be on the latest OS (pita). Oh, and sorry, but your hardware is too old and/or underpowered to run the latest OS, you'll need a new machine (expensive pita).

But that's the price of using Macs - they've got quarterly earnings and a corporate valuations to maintain

Unless you want to spend the £1500-ish necessary to get a shiny new Mac that'll last you for a fair few years, I'd keep eyes open for something s/h that's perhaps 2-3 years old and has a reasonable spec. RAM and processor are the main things to watch - you can easily upgrade storage with a USB disc or NAS box. I'd guess that's still going to cost you c50% of today's new price though, because there seems to be strong demand, and you've obviously got no warranty on it.

Option B is to take a look at, or keep an eye on, the Apple refurb store for anything suitable. I've not noticed any mega-bargains there, but at least you'll have the Apple warranty behind anything you buy.

Option C is to find a student and buy it through them, saving you c15% (it varies) off the new price.

Option D - and the cheapest option financially - is to get a desktop WIn PC and put in some time to learn how to configure it to do what you want it do to. But I'd discount that option if your critical apps are Mac only (unless you want a whole other learning curve!).

FWIW, I've got a c10yr old MacBook Air running an old old OS, a 3-4yr old MacBook Pro (which dual boots for Win7), and a couple of desktop PCs running Win 10, so I'm not a fanatic of either OS - both have pros & cons.

impmann · January 2018

I think you've hit the nail there @TTony - I started off with PCs and got quite adept at sorting their foibles. However, I like the plug n play nature of the Macs - I've not had to do *anything* to either of them, aside from the hard drive failure... and that Mac had done two tours of duty in the Gulf with its previous owner and then I dropped it... not its fault, methinks.

What annoys me is all I want to do is use it - I don't want any extra functionality, or whatever. I just want it to continue working as it used to do - which it does in isolation. And I'm fairly sure that file sharing sites haven't changed *that* much in how they operate... and I can still use/view the websites I'm interested in on both.

Anyhoo... I'm going to try to install Chrome on them.... at least that gives me a fighting chance of getting them to speak to Googledrive. If that works, then I shall carry on regardless!! Else, I'm into buying something else...

digitalscream · January 2018

Given your obvious propensity for throwing perfectly functional pieces of kit out of the window because it's irritated you when it probably just needed to sit there for a bit and work out that it's been turned on for the first time in a long time, I'd honestly suggest not buying anything.

As for the Macbooks you've got...planned obsolescence. Apple may tell you that you can't update them to a recent one of their operating systems, but they could trivially have any Windows version up to the latest installed and would work just fine.

I'd strongly suggest, however, that you pay a local techie to do it for you, otherwise you'll end up with three broken, snow-logged computers.

crunchman · January 2018

To be fair, modern PCs are a lot more plug and play than older ones were, and Macs aren't completely painless.

When I had a Mac, I spent ages farting around trying to get Logic to actually produce sound from an audio interface. There was some obscure setting. That was an older audio interface that is no longer supported on Mac or PC. Modern ones may be better.

impmann · January 2018

digitalscream said:

Given your obvious propensity for throwing perfectly functional pieces of kit out of the window because it's irritated you when it probably just needed to sit there for a bit and work out that it's been turned on for the first time in a long time, I'd honestly suggest not buying anything.

As for the Macbooks you've got...planned obsolescence. Apple may tell you that you can't update them to a recent one of their operating systems, but they could trivially have any Windows version up to the latest installed and would work just fine.

I'd suggest, however, that you pay a local techie to do it for you, otherwise you'll end up with three broken, snow-logged computers.

Thanks chap... but if it was 'perfectly functioning', it wouldn't have irritated me. :-)

Another IT chum suggested that the issue was that I switch computers off when I don't use them (wtf?) and that if you leave them on all the time, they work better... yeah, nice. Bill Gates, sponsored by PowerGen.

Like I say, a computer should just work. I shouldn't need to wait for it to do loads of stuff I haven't asked it to do. And thats why I have BIG issues with Windows and has been the source of my irritation for many years.

Someone else suggested running Windows on the Macs, but if that's going to mean that on power up they are going to need to run through loads of tasks I haven't asked them to do before they dain to do something I want them to do, plus have all the other Windows foibles (anti-virus, auto update, etc) then its a retrograde step, IMHO.

digitalscream · January 2018

impmann said:

digitalscream said:

Given your obvious propensity for throwing perfectly functional pieces of kit out of the window because it's irritated you when it probably just needed to sit there for a bit and work out that it's been turned on for the first time in a long time, I'd honestly suggest not buying anything.

As for the Macbooks you've got...planned obsolescence. Apple may tell you that you can't update them to a recent one of their operating systems, but they could trivially have any Windows version up to the latest installed and would work just fine.

I'd suggest, however, that you pay a local techie to do it for you, otherwise you'll end up with three broken, snow-logged computers.

Thanks chap... but if it was 'perfectly functioning', it wouldn't have irritated me. :-)

You took a computer from an office environment in which it was expected to connect to a network and the Internet, and stay updated in order to be secure and stable, and so it had a whole load of configuration and software installed which was designed to handle that operating environment. You then fired it up without a network or an Internet connection, and expected...what, exactly? All of that security and other software to magically uninstall itself because it's in your living room?

Fact is, all it needed was Windows reinstalling, which - for anybody who's ever done it before - would take an hour or two, max. Charities, for example, often have volunteers who'll do it and give the computer to somebody in need.

Point is...you've already said you don't have the patience for dealing with anything you don't expect, you don't want to deal with Apple's planned obsolescence, you don't want Windows because of background tasks which you imagine other operating systems don't have (spoiler: they do)...conclusion: you shouldn't have a computer, because your yard is just going to get stacked up with computers you don't like.

Buy an iPad or Android tablet, and you'll be much happier. You'll just have to live with the limitations; the price of the extra power and flexibility of a PC is that you have to have the patience to learn or the money to constantly update it.

impmann · January 2018

digitalscream said:

impmann said:

digitalscream said:

Given your obvious propensity for throwing perfectly functional pieces of kit out of the window because it's irritated you when it probably just needed to sit there for a bit and work out that it's been turned on for the first time in a long time, I'd honestly suggest not buying anything.

As for the Macbooks you've got...planned obsolescence. Apple may tell you that you can't update them to a recent one of their operating systems, but they could trivially have any Windows version up to the latest installed and would work just fine.

I'd suggest, however, that you pay a local techie to do it for you, otherwise you'll end up with three broken, snow-logged computers.

Thanks chap... but if it was 'perfectly functioning', it wouldn't have irritated me. :-)

You took a computer from an office environment in which it was expected to connect to a network and the Internet, and stay updated in order to be secure and stable, and so it had a whole load of configuration and software installed which was designed to handle that operating environment. You then fired it up without a network or an Internet connection, and expected...what, exactly? All of that security and other software to magically uninstall itself because it's in your living room?

Fact is, all it needed was Windows reinstalling, which - for anybody who's ever done it before - would take an hour or two, max. Charities, for example, often have volunteers who'll do it and give the computer to somebody in need.

Point is...you've already said you don't have the patience for dealing with anything you don't expect, you don't want to deal with Apple's planned obsolescence, you don't want Windows because of background tasks which you imagine other operating systems don't have (spoiler: they do)...conclusion: you shouldn't have a computer, because your yard is just going to get stacked up with computers you don't like.

Buy an iPad or Android tablet, and you'll be much happier. You'll just have to live with the limitations; the price of the extra power and flexibility of a PC is that you have to have the patience to learn or the money to constantly update it.

Nope... I didn't.

Quote from above "The old IT manager had installed a fresh version of Win7 on it before I took it (company policy) and it *was* working fine."

It had been working fine at home previously but not for two years (too busy enjoying using Macs). It wasn't plugged into a network or the internet because... and this is one thing I do remember from messing about with PCs, that it *should* recognise that and should ask if it should shut down any tasks relating to update. That always used to be part of Windows software - probably deleted from Win7 knowing Microshaft.

My reasoning for not plugging it into same was that all I wanted it to do was allow me to access the harddrive, check that there was the software on there that I thought was there - MP3 conversion software - and then convert three WAVs to MP3 that were stored on a stick and then resave them to the stick.

"All it needed was Windows installing which would have taken an hour or two max".... all I wanted it to do was convert three fucking WAVs.... which should take seconds. Now can you see the irritation? I also had a one hour window (pardon the pun) to get this done, along with a load of other things that were not kids/family/house/work... as it was I achieved none of them due to fighting with a machine that should be serviant to me, not the other way around.

And yes, I could have donated it to charity - but I didn't because I lost my temper with it... and frankly, a crappy 9 year old DELL minus the hardrive isn't worth a lot to anyone even before its Icarus impersonation... so lets not be too pious about this, eh?

Maybe it is about patience - but I don't need to have patience when using a Mac, normally. It may be doing all sorts of things in the background but I don't have to wait for them to happen before it will respond to what I want it to do. As I've said, I've had the Macs for years without issue - its only recently that they have become a problem - and thats only due to them being old/Apple's software updates - and they still function perfectly for the job they were bought for in the first place, its just I can't share that stuff. Simple as.

Thanks for the input - but I asked for help in trying to take the next step with this, I didn't ask for a sarcastically phrased and sanctimonious suggestion that I am somehow not worthy of a PC. That wasn't helpful, chap. Plus an iPad or Tablet won't work with my existing music software/hardware - which I have been more than capable of using for some years on the Macs.

I think I have a way forwards - and perhaps my ideas of running a machine with something other than OS or Windows are, on balance, not the best. If Chrome won't run, I think I'll just save the funds up to buy a Mac - s/h or new will be the choice.

Thanks all.

TTony · January 2018

Before computer wars 2018 break out ...

impmann said:

Maybe it is about patience - but I don't need to have patience when using a Mac, normally. It may be doing all sorts of things in the background but I don't have to wait for them to happen before it will respond to what I want it to do.

It probably is about the patience, and perhaps a little bit of "I hate Windows" before the PC is even turned on.

I don't know how a Mac would behave if I switched one on, having not used it for a couple of years, but I'd *hope* that all sorts of checks and updates would run, almost before it allowed me to do anything that could compromise the content of the machine.

With the frequency of security and virus updates, not to mentioned complete OS upgrades, any machine that's unused for 2 years will have all sorts of vulnerabilities that really should be patched before the machine is used. That's true of PCs and Macs. Else, you'd soon be shouting that the OS provider hadn't bother patching stuff, left you vulnerable to this hack attack or that well-known virus, and consequently you'd lost all your whatevers.

If you're using a Mac, day-to-day (or a PC), most of that stuff happens in the background and you don't see it that often.

But, bringing something back from a 2-year hibernation, it's going to need to catch up on a fair few updates before it thinks it's ready to use.

All of that said, you *can* (in Win 7) turn off all of that update activity and take your chances. Not too surprisingly, that option is tucked away out of plain sight so that users don't switch it off without due reason and thought - so you're back to the learning curve (and patience) thing again

impmann · January 2018

TTony said:

Before computer wars 2018 break out ...

impmann said:

Maybe it is about patience - but I don't need to have patience when using a Mac, normally. It may be doing all sorts of things in the background but I don't have to wait for them to happen before it will respond to what I want it to do.

It probably is about the patience, and perhaps a little bit of "I hate Windows" before the PC is even turned on.

I don't know how a Mac would behave if I switched one on, having not used it for a couple of years, but I'd *hope* that all sorts of checks and updates would run, almost before it allowed me to do anything that could compromise the content of the machine.

With the frequency of security and virus updates, not to mentioned complete OS upgrades, any machine that's unused for 2 years will have all sorts of vulnerabilities that really should be patched before the machine is used. That's true of PCs and Macs. Else, you'd soon be shouting that the OS provider hadn't bother patching stuff, left you vulnerable to this hack attack or that well-known virus, and consequently you'd lost all your whatevers.

If you're using a Mac, day-to-day (or a PC), most of that stuff happens in the background and you don't see it that often.

But, bringing something back from a 2-year hibernation, it's going to need to catch up on a fair few updates before it thinks it's ready to use.

All of that said, you *can* (in Win 7) turn off all of that update activity and take your chances. Not too surprisingly, that option is tucked away out of plain sight so that users don't switch it off without due reason and thought - so you're back to the learning curve (and patience) thing again

Thanks chap.

:-)

I know all that - hence it not being plugged into anything, so it can't be vulnerable. From the sound of things they've made the switch off harder to find - it used to be that if it couldn't find an internet/network connection that it would whinge that it couldn't update, and would tell you the machine was vulnerable if plugged back into the internet but that would be the end of it. But that was XP, IIRC...

:-)

FWIW, the Macs don't get used as much as they used to - iPhone does most of what I want in terms of browsing etc. It can be months at a time, but they do fire up and run normally while they do any patches etc. I've yet to encounter any PC that does the same in the same way. And yes, I do hate Windows... that's why I bought a Mac all those years ago, and this latest encounter does nothing to change that opinion. Hence the idea of perhaps using a PC with a different operating system. Nobody has commented on that, I notice... but perhaps that isn't a great idea... :-)

digitalscream · January 2018

impmann said:

Nope... I didn't.

Quote from above "The old IT manager had installed a fresh version of Win7 on it before I took it (company policy) and it *was* working fine."

My bad, missed that bit.

impmann said:

Maybe it is about patience - but I don't need to have patience when using a Mac, normally. It may be doing all sorts of things in the background but I don't have to wait for them to happen before it will respond to what I want it to do. As I've said, I've had the Macs for years without issue - its only recently that they have become a problem - and thats only due to them being old/Apple's software updates - and they still function perfectly for the job they were bought for in the first place, its just I can't share that stuff. Simple as.

Thanks for the input - but I asked for help in trying to take the next step with this, I didn't ask for a sarcastically phrased and sanctimonious suggestion that I am somehow not worthy of a PC. That wasn't helpful, chap. Plus an iPad or Tablet won't work with my existing music software/hardware - which I have been more than capable of using for some years on the Macs.

The bit in bold is why I said you either need patience or money. You need patience and a calm head when dealing with Windows, or money to buy a more recent Mac...there isn't really an alternative, other than a tablet. That wasn't said out of being sanctimonious or to suggest that you're not worthy - it was a genuine suggestion, because those things are designed specifically for people who don't like dealing with with the downsides of computers (for whatever reason).

As a bonus, when they piss you off, they're much easier on your throwing arm

For what it's worth, I had a similar issue to you about 13 years ago, with an XP machine when I had shit to do and Microsoft's activation services were down for the weekend; that's what led me to install SUSE Linux, but I had no choice but to persevere with the shit-show that was desktop Linux back then.

My other suggestion - install Windows on the Macbook Pro - is also genuine, because it will mean you can run the latest software as you like without worrying about Apple's planned obsolescence. Once you get vanilla Windows running as you like it, it's just as stable as anything else and won't interrupt your work if you don't want it to.

Buying a second-hand Mac is just putting off the problem, really, because Apple will deliberately (and artificially) kill off support for it as soon as they can justify it.

Sporky · January 2018

TTony said:

All of that said, you *can* (in Win 7) turn off all of that update activity and take your chances. Not too surprisingly, that option is tucked away out of plain sight so that users don't switch it off without due reason and thought - so you're back to the learning curve (and patience) thing again

Indeed - the PC that runs my CNC machine has a plain, unpatched WIN7 installation and will never be connected to any network. It is a fairly simple process to have a machine in this state, but it requires preparation and several processes that you just don't have to worry about if you're going to have the thing online. Even the offline version of the Windows activation process is a bit secret-squirrel.

impmann · January 2018

digitalscream said:

My other suggestion - install Windows on the Macbook Pro - is also genuine, because it will mean you can run the latest software as you like without worrying about Apple's planned obsolescence. Once you get vanilla Windows running as you like it, it's just as stable as anything else and won't interrupt your work if you don't want it to.

Buying a second-hand Mac is just putting off the problem, really, because Apple will deliberately (and artificially) kill off support for it as soon as they can justify it.

Your second paragraph is the one I keep coming back to - and is 100% on the money. But as someone who wants the convenience I guess that's just the price you pay.

Windows on the Macbook Pro. Will it still need the usual PC-levels of anti-virus though? The idea of running Win10 on it appeals from a point of view of it being current but if the downside is having to tether the machine to anti-virus bobbins that take forever to start up each time, then I'm going to be just as frustrated pretty quickly... any insight on that?

Thanks :-)

digitalscream · January 2018

@impmann - for what it's worth, if all you wanted to do was convert some audio files, you could've done it from a tablet (or even your phone):

https://online-audio-converter.com

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