THe new g5 mac, the intel/amd killer.

Actually, adobe had some benchmarks not too long ago, that showed a p4 beating a g4. But they took down becuase of pressure from apple (Hmm, paid off? lol) I think that all those PS benchmarks that say the mac is better are fake :p

well, to start if you actually take a professional graphics pc from somewhere like boxx with a dvd burner, dual cpu, etc., they're not as expensive as people make them out to be. yes, it is cheaper to build your own pc, but you also get a lot of extra software with a mac. there is also the ease of use issue (which is debatable, i agree) and the fact that they generally handle print files better. they're also very strong when it comes to video and its nice to be able to easily hot swap cameras, dv cams, etc., without having to worry about drivers and connectivity issues.

whatever the case, the biggest reason macs are used in design firms is simply history. service bureaus (i.e. printers) used them back in the early 80s because that's all there was. quark, pagemaker, illustrator, and photoshop came out for the mac first. design firms and other print related businesses (newspapers, magazines) started using them as well because of the availability of software. pc's eventually caught up, but so many design-related businesses were already using macs it made little sense for them to switch. most service bureaus i know still prefer mac files and generally have a ton of macs and one pc just in case.

chris

If your only criteria in purchasing a computer is how big the number with the ghz after it on the side of the case is, then you will probably not be very interested in the Mac.

However if you appreciate a polished, easy to use product that gets out of your way and helps you get your work done rather than constantly maintaining it, you might like it. You also might like it if you appreciate obsessive attention to detail and a beautiful user interface. You also might like it if you are sick of updating your operating system 3 times a week to fix "security issues" that shouldn't have been there in the first place. You also might like it if you are sick of being afraid to open emails from people you don't know, for fear of infecting your computer with the virus of the week. You also might like it if you are sick of flipping through 5 dialog boxes to do something that should be able to be accomplished with a click or two, or a simple drag and drop.

This article has some very intelligent insight as well:

http://daringfireball.net/2003/08/good_times.html

Good article, Derek.

Now, i'm not dissing macs here, just a thought about the whole security thing. Yah, windows and its e-mails do have lots of security problems. But why is that? In part, it probably is becuase of poor design. BUT, don't you think that one reason windows has so many security problems and virus attacks, might be becuase its the most used os? Macs only constitute something like 3% of the market share. If Macs were the ones that made up 90%(or something like that) of computers, I imagine that it would have security issues and viruses, as it would be the big target. Does anyone understand what I mean?:rolleyes:

Yes, gecko, that is true. But email clients other than outlook do not suffer from the same problems. I use Thunderbird for email on the PC and immune to all of the email viruses, unless I open an attachment. Again, it's the Microsoft program that has all the security holes, even when compared to other email programs on the Windows Platform.

Yeah thats true. But I imagine most programs have security holes. Again, outlook express is the most used e-mail client, and thus, the evil people aim at it.

If you read the article I posted above, he points out that if MS just stuck to the basic internet protocols like IMAP and POP3 and SMTP without adding all their extra proprietary crap, it probably wouldn't have nearly as many security holes in it.

Here's another good article on the security problems in XP (linked from the original article I posted above)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A34978-2003Aug23?language=printer

Basically saying how XP ships with 5 ports to the internet wide open, and also gives you full administrator access by default, allowing (and viruses/worms) complete access to do anything with your computer. Whereas Linux and MacOSX have you on a limited account by default. When I was using OSX this weekend, it would ask for the administrator password every time I wanted to install a program. This not only keeps other people from installing crap on your machine, but prevents viruses from installing things as well. You can restrict access on windows as well, but it locks down the system too much, not allowing you to access some files, or even change the time on the clock.

Those are the key words: "by default". Microsoft has really learned it's lesson, albeit being a little late. Windows Server 2003 is quite the vault out of the box (remember no vault is impervious). If you want to use any feature, you have to turn it on first. You can't even browse the internet on Server 2003. You have to actually turn it on, or allow access to only specific web sites (such as the Microsoft Support page, which you will likely need to get to). The next version of Windows (Longhorn) will be shipped the same way, and with Automatic Security Updating turned on by default. Now I'm not one to disagree with the fact that Microsoft has screwed up far too many times, but they, like us in life, can only learn from our mistakes. As I read on a "No Fear" poster years ago, "YOU MUST ALWAYS PUSH
THE LIMITS, BECAUSE IF YOU NEVER FAIL, YOU WILL NEVER SUCCEED". I don't think Microsoft should be severely punished for their screwups, and I don't think you should either (only the non or slightly illegal of course).