31–40 of 118 posts
I was a mac user when macs weren't cool. Mac OS 9 was like that edgy indie band that suddenly became an overnight success. Sellouts! :-)
You're not missing out on anything, there are no significant advantages (specially not over a t61) I sold my powerbook on ebay, and I'm still happy with my t42 running gutsy as well.
Almost all of my coworkers use Thinkpads. I started off on a T43, and have recently been upagraded to T60. Would never trade it in for a mac.
Because it's the best desktop unix machine available. Where else can you find true unix with a great user experience and full hardware and software support? I don't use Linux because I no longer enjoy doing sysadmin crap. I also like the MacOS UI.
And you can get an Ubuntu machine from Dell that is very well supported.
I wouldn't recommend it to my parents, just yet (they're happy with OSX), but I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Dell+Ubuntu to people here. It might not be as sexy, but it's a setup that works pretty well. I had a tibook a number of years ago, and while it was certainly a beautiful machine that got lots of looks, in the end, I'm just as happy with my ugly clunky (but cheap and well supported) Dell.
I'm generally a person that values function more than form, but I have to say it is a real daily joy to work on gorgeous hardware like a Macbook Pro. The reason Macs are more expensive because they only offer high-end hardware specs. A similar spec'ed Dell comes roughly at the same price. If you are hacker, always use the best tools there are. This is an invest in yourself. Hardware aside, the real reason you should…
Why hack on a laptop? Why not use a desktop that's much cheaper, much more powerful, much more reliable, and easy to fix in one day? You can get two for the price of a new laptop.
If you're on the road with sufficient frequency that you actually need a laptop to work then you're probably a salesman or manager, not a hacker.
I can get to all my data from any machine: everything is on the web or accessible by ssh. I don't need to lug one with me. Paper works fine for the occasional six hour period away from a machine.
I do have an old laptop I sync to my desktop with unison to use on the road when need be, but that's just not very often.
I tried to switch over to a mac a year ago. It didn't work, so I switched back after three months. I found that a lot of little things were annoying, and made me spend more time than I needed on doing trivial things sucha as resizing of windows. On mac it can only be done from one corner, on windows from all four. There are lots of these little things that mean you have to spend three clicks instead of two. I see why…
> 'budding hackers' nowadays coding on a Macbook Why hack on a laptop? Why not use a desktop that's much cheaper, much more powerful, much more reliable, and easy to fix in one day? You can get two for the price of a new laptop. If you're on the road with sufficient frequency that you actually need a laptop to work then you're probably a salesman or manager, not a hacker. I can get to all my data from any machine: ev…
Plus, the size of the macbook is perfect when it's not your primary computer. It's the best piece of hardware I've ever owned.
The keyboard feels great on the macbook pros. The downside is the lame insistence on a single mouse button.