Mac/PC - assistance please

digitalscream

impmann said:

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 :-)

I'd advise just using the built-in Microsoft anti-virus - it's good enough, and it's generally the fastest. I think it's called Windows Defender, or some such...haven't touched it in years, I'm a Linux guy day-to-day. It's also pretty inobtrusive, because - unlike all the other AV options - Microsoft don't need to try to sell you any upgrades and such (they only wanted to sell you an operating system, so they've already got your money by that point).

Just stay reasonably up-to-date with your browser and get it to run its Windows patches overnight once a week (so you just leave it switched on in the corner on gig night, for example) and you're golden.

Oh, and no...I definitely wouldn't advise you running Linux Apart from anything, you have specific software you want to run; with Linux, you're almost certainly looking at alternatives.

Phil_aka_Pip

impmann said:

if you leave them on all the time, they work better... yeah, nice. Bill Gates, sponsored by PowerGen.

my old machine forgets the time & date if you switch it off for long enough. however there must be a memory leak in XP as it also grinds to a halt every 6 weeks, so I just do a restart

TTony

Phil_aka_Pip said:

impmann said:

if you leave them on all the time, they work better... yeah, nice. Bill Gates, sponsored by PowerGen.

my old machine forgets the time & date if you switch it off for long enough.

There's probably an old  rechargeable button battery on the motherboard, that's not holding much charge any more @Phil_aka_Pip. ; Tuppence to replace it, if it ever gets to be a pita.

Either that, or the machine is learning its behaviours from its master

impmann

Phil_aka_Pip said:

impmann said:

if you leave them on all the time, they work better... yeah, nice. Bill Gates, sponsored by PowerGen.

my old machine forgets the time & date if you switch it off for long enough. however there must be a memory leak in XP as it also grinds to a halt every 6 weeks, so I just do a restart

I had that too... there was a button battery on the motherboard that had died. Might be worth a look...

EDIT: Crossed with TTony in the ether... :-)

crunchman

If you do buy a more recent Mac (or PC) you may find you need to buy new audio hardware.  I had to buy a new audio interface because my old one wouldn't work properly on Windows 10.  Before that, I kept my old MacBook Pro on Mountain Lion because if I had "upgraded" past that point the audio interface wasn't compatible.

To be honest, I was happier on Snow Leopard but I had to "upgrade" to Mountain Lion as the Kemper Rig Manager needed OS10.7 or higher.  Mountain Lion slowed it down (especially after startup).  There was some indexing thing going on and it ran like a slug for about 10 minutes.  If you leave it on all the time it does it in the background, but I'm like you and I switch computers off when I don't use them.

I'm back on PC now and using Reaper and far happier.

impmann

digitalscream said:

@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

Ironically, I found that about ten minutes after the flight of Icarus!

impmann

digitalscream said:

impmann said:

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 :-)

I'd advise just using the built-in Microsoft anti-virus - it's good enough, and it's generally the fastest. I think it's called Windows Defender, or some such...haven't touched it in years, I'm a Linux guy day-to-day. It's also pretty inobtrusive, because - unlike all the other AV options - Microsoft don't need to try to sell you any upgrades and such (they only wanted to sell you an operating system, so they've already got your money by that point).

Just stay reasonably up-to-date with your browser and get it to run its Windows patches overnight once a week (so you just leave it switched on in the corner on gig night, for example) and you're golden.

Oh, and no...I definitely wouldn't advise you running Linux Apart from anything, you have specific software you want to run; with Linux, you're almost certainly looking at alternatives.

Thanks... OK... I shall investigate. :-)

Bridgehouse

If you buy another PC it will just annoy the crap out of you.

Yep, you could configure it to not piss you off - but doing so will actually piss you off as you do it.. 

Working in IT and it's surroundings, I have two views on the obsolescence issue. 

Firstly, as a consumer, it's bloody irritating - "how dare they force me to upgrade etc." "Thieving bastards etc."

But the thing is, we are becoming more and more reliant on technology. I'll be honest, I wouldn't want to do anything critical on a 6+ year old Mac - bits wear out, and reliability is really key for me.

Much as I wouldn't want to run a car much older than 6 years as I absolutely have to get to my client meetings on time or I lose money. 

So I accept new kit needs to be bought every 4/5 years and theoretically it gives me some peace of mind. 

From what you have said so far, I would suck it up, go to the refurb store:

https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/browse/home/specialdeals/mac

and enjoy your new Mac, even if you are poorer. Get your favourite apps on it, stop posting your angst in this thread and get on with using it for its primary purpose. You'll feel much happier.

ToneControl

I think you should buy a new Mac

Apple likes to shaft its customers with planned obsolescence, as noted. Microsoft expects users to get involved a little more in maintenance. You have clearly chosen Apple, and need to grin and bear the cost of new or newer apple kit.

Personally, I intentionally let any machine that's sat unused for a few months do a full cycle of updates and manually chase the Antivirus updates through before I use it for anything. Including my Macbook. I would be criticising any OS manufacturer that did not attempt to auto-update

Unless something has changed since I last dabbled, Linux needs more tech involvement than windows, so would not be attractive 

Ironically, I find Apple gear more difficult to use

Foster

Why didn't you use the mac to convert the files? There's online options which require no registration that will do the job.

wave100

A Mac Mini might be more suited to your budget, especially second hand.

crunchman

wave100 said:

A Mac Mini might be more suited to your budget, especially second hand.

Underpowered for what you pay though.  I looked at the link to the Apple refurb store that was posted yesterday.  There was a Mac Mini on there.  I built a PC that's probably faster than that 2 years ago for less than half the price.  If you pay full price rather than refurb price it's even worse.

The only thing with the Mac Mini is that you can plug it into a decent size monitor.  If you go for a Macbook then the small screen isn't ideal for DAW working.  It's probably better than a Macbook.

ToneControl

crunchman said:

wave100 said:

A Mac Mini might be more suited to your budget, especially second hand.

Underpowered for what you pay though.  I looked at the link to the Apple refurb store that was posted yesterday.  There was a Mac Mini on there.  I built a PC that's probably faster than that 2 years ago for less than half the price.  If you pay full price rather than refurb price it's even worse.

The only thing with the Mac Mini is that you can plug it into a decent size monitor.  If you go for a Macbook then the small screen isn't ideal for DAW working.  It's probably better than a Macbook.

you can plug my macbook 12 into a big HD monitor
not much CPU for DAW stuff, but I bought it to be light, fanless and have huge battery life, because I couldn't find the PC equivalent on sale anywhere

crunchman

ToneControl said:

crunchman said:

wave100 said:

A Mac Mini might be more suited to your budget, especially second hand.

Underpowered for what you pay though.  I looked at the link to the Apple refurb store that was posted yesterday.  There was a Mac Mini on there.  I built a PC that's probably faster than that 2 years ago for less than half the price.  If you pay full price rather than refurb price it's even worse.

The only thing with the Mac Mini is that you can plug it into a decent size monitor.  If you go for a Macbook then the small screen isn't ideal for DAW working.  It's probably better than a Macbook.

you can plug my macbook 12 into a big HD monitor
not much CPU for DAW stuff, but I bought it to be light, fanless and have huge battery life, because I couldn't find the PC equivalent on sale anywhere

But then you are paying for the screen on the laptop and a monitor as well.

digitalscream

ToneControl said:

crunchman said:

wave100 said:

A Mac Mini might be more suited to your budget, especially second hand.

Underpowered for what you pay though.  I looked at the link to the Apple refurb store that was posted yesterday.  There was a Mac Mini on there.  I built a PC that's probably faster than that 2 years ago for less than half the price.  If you pay full price rather than refurb price it's even worse.

The only thing with the Mac Mini is that you can plug it into a decent size monitor.  If you go for a Macbook then the small screen isn't ideal for DAW working.  It's probably better than a Macbook.

you can plug my macbook 12 into a big HD monitor
not much CPU for DAW stuff, but I bought it to be light, fanless and have huge battery life, because I couldn't find the PC equivalent on sale anywhere

My Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro. Light (1.3kg), not fanless (but practically silent), plenty of grunt, 7hr+ battery life and easily enough power and screen resolution (3200x1800) for DAW work.

Just sayin'

Current equivalent is the Yoga 720 with the i7 at just over a grand.

ToneControl

digitalscream said:

ToneControl said:

crunchman said:

wave100 said:

A Mac Mini might be more suited to your budget, especially second hand.

Underpowered for what you pay though.  I looked at the link to the Apple refurb store that was posted yesterday.  There was a Mac Mini on there.  I built a PC that's probably faster than that 2 years ago for less than half the price.  If you pay full price rather than refurb price it's even worse.

The only thing with the Mac Mini is that you can plug it into a decent size monitor.  If you go for a Macbook then the small screen isn't ideal for DAW working.  It's probably better than a Macbook.

you can plug my macbook 12 into a big HD monitor
not much CPU for DAW stuff, but I bought it to be light, fanless and have huge battery life, because I couldn't find the PC equivalent on sale anywhere

My Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro. Light (1.3kg), not fanless (but practically silent), plenty of grunt, 7hr+ battery life and easily enough power and screen resolution (3200x1800) for DAW work.

Just sayin'

Current equivalent is the Yoga 720 with the i7 at just over a grand.

it was a Yoga I was looking for when the fanless CPUs were first made, but could not find any - it was more than a couple of years ago, so I got Macbook 12 when they came out
lighter than ipad+keyboard, and 8 hours of silence

prowla

I'm using a mid-2011 Mac mini, running High Sierra, right now.
It had a wobble a month or so ago, but I think it may have been a wonky software update.
The one thing Apple stubbornly refuse to do is support a middle mouse button, which means I could never have only a Mac.
But it'll do iTunes, MP3 and surfing just fine.

TTBZ

I was going to suggest a 2nd hand mac mini as well - no way would I pay new prices for a macbook etc! I've always been anti apple but have been forced to use one at work ("because it's what creatives need to use" apparently - bollocks) and have now got used to it so wanted something similar at home. Suspect I will end up with another windows laptop after seeing the current apple prices though! I think when it comes to upgrade time at work, the IT guys will be delighted to build me an absolute beast of a windows machine for a fraction of the cost of the latest spec mac pro

I think for normal use they're all much of a muchness once you get them set up and up to date and it's just what you're used to. I've always worked with Windows in a live 24h broadcast editing environment where things need to be stable, powerful and reliable - I think there were too many issues with macs being a pain in the arse talking with the networks at my previous place. 

NeilMcG

TTBZ said:

....

I think for normal use they're all much of a muchness once you get them set up and up to date and it's just what you're used to. I've always worked with Windows in a live 24h broadcast editing environment where things need to be stable, powerful and reliable - I think there were too many issues with macs being a pain in the arse talking with the networks at my previous place. 

This exactly. My workplace is probably 40:60 macs and windows and the drama level is much higher on the mac side. Every OS release/update breaks something critical and there are constant issues accessing corporate network resources reliably.

The windows machines are less trouble for general use. (and obviously a fraction of the price)

Axe_meister

The MacOS weak point is defiantly networking. Often very slow (especially when talking SMB/NFS)