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Flip Flopping between macOS and Windows

Steve Adams said:
Something close to a macbook pro 14 with less ports (nothing in the 14 inch space in windows even has a sd card reader anymore), is at least 80 % to 100 % more in costs to get similar performance. Apple silicon has the magic sauce for price vs performance now.
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Its hard to recommend a PC at this point, the pricing, the performance, the issues with Windows. Yet with that said, there are some really good models out there but its something that you have to be sure that's the platform you need.

For me, I'd be hard pressed to buy a MBP, over a thinkpad, mostly because I would want to run an OS other then macOS. Don't get me wrong, I like macOS, but, there are things that both Windows and Linux do better over Macs. For instance, using Office on windows is so much better then that on macos.

MBPs does some things better then Windows, and Linux does some other things better then macos and windows. It really depends on your priorities and needs.
 
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BSDnostalgia said:
Pardon my ignorance, but, I don't really understand the "Notes" process you are hinting at. I guess I don't really understand the basic requirement here.
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iCloud Notes is a lightweight Notes application. Evernote is an example of a more heavyweight program. I want to be able to edit locally with minimum formatting and have it saved locally and synced with the cloud when there's internet access.
 
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BSDnostalgia said:
Yes. Or, rather, what do you personally miss on the MacOS version? There is a bunch of stuff "missing", but, I never missed it. I personally haven't needed Office on Windows for a while...
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Mostly excel, but I had found VBA for my macros was lacking, visually windows does a better job - I typically need to increase the scaling to 150 to 200% when viewing the same spreadsheet on my Mac. Keyboard shortcuts can be slightly different in some cases (cmd key vs. ctl) but given muscle memory it messed me up. I think there's some key combos that are PC only and some that are mac only to make matters more confusing.

I'm not talking huge differences, but when you're using excel along with other products like powerbi or have some significant macros written, the differences do seem to grow.

At one point, I had written full fledged account application in VBA for excel, using journals, ledgers, full reporting for income statements, and balance sheets. It was not something that I could do on my mac without making major changes. Maybe the situation has changed because I largely don't run excel on my mac.
 
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eltoslightfoot said:
I use Obsidian.md. Works great. https://obsidian.md/
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I moved to Obsidian a couple of months ago, and I never looked back. Apple Notes was ok, but lacking in some areas. I tried Bear, it was good, but still lacking. Obisidan, on the other hand, just gave you notes, done well, and so much more that you could use if you wanted, nothing forced.

I still use Apple Notes as it's easy for the family to share notes.
 
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BSDnostalgia said:
Yes. Or, rather, what do you personally miss on the MacOS version? There is a bunch of stuff "missing", but, I never missed it. I personally haven't needed Office on Windows for a while...
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A lot of what @maflynn said above. I just can't use Office on macOS due to the differences. I mean, who would have thought Office was better on Windows than macOS 🙂

Issues with Power Pivot, Power Query, VBA/Macros, the add-ins, ActiveX and more. Even on OneNote, macOS has fewer features.

Office is usable on macOS for most, really depends on your needs. Even just visually, the having to keep scaling to 200% in Excel, sigh..
 
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More Panther Lake laptops are showing up in the United States. The model I have, Yoga 9i 2-in-1 14 is now orderable. Single core and multicore is moderately better but this is not a gaming device. I think that it is still efficient but the design goal to increase performance. One thing that I'm seeing in laptops in general is that 4k options are getting rare. It is possible that these may be relegated to 17.3 inch workstations in the future with maybe 3.2k in 16 inch laptops. The MacBook Pro is about 3.4k. I am mildly tempted to buy an older gen Yoga 4k 14 if it looks like they will all be going away at this size. Lenovo typically sells laptops for several years after the original launch year.

I haven't seen Gen 5 SSD options on Panther Lake. Gen 5 SSD options add $1,135 in cost when upgrading from a Gen 4 1 TB to a Gen 5 2 TB. Better to just buy a Gen 5 and replace the original. I am seeing some 512 GB SSDs going into laptops that previously started at 1 TB.

I saw a review of a Yoga Pro 9i Panther Lake this morning. European user who paid 3,200 Euros for it but it sounds like a fantastic machine. He said that he can run a lot of games on it without it making a lot of noise. He has the high-end CPU and an nVidia RTX 5060. I'll keep watching; I do not need new hardware as the Yoga is close to ideal with my current setup. My MacBook Pro works really well too except for the size and weight.
 
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OneNote would work. Speaking of windows. Why is it that when I take out another system like my linux laptop or ipad and use it for a few hours, and then come back to my windows laptop workstation that It's just "HOME". if you get what I am saying?
 
Steve Adams said:
back to my windows laptop workstation that It's just "HOME".
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Familiarity I would assume. I'm much more effective and efficient using windows cmd shell and powershell, then I am with Linux's terminal

I don't see that changing, as I use the cmd shell and powershell extensively in my work, where as home use, its not as needed, so I have less opportunity to learn and use bash
 
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maflynn said:
Familiarity I would assume. I'm much more effective and efficient using windows cmd shell and powershell, then I am with Linux's terminal

I don't see that changing, as I use the cmd shell and powershell extensively in my work, where as home use, its not as needed, so I have less opportunity to learn and use bash
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That's what it is. Every time I try another OS, I just open my laptop and im like I can't change but the hardware that's available right now is meh. I wish someone out there would make a 14 inch Macbook Pro for windows.

I am hoping once it gets out in the wild the new A14 with the X2 Elite processor will do what I need. I have a USB-C dock with the reader and ports I need, I hate dongles but at this point, to stay on windows it's whats required.
 
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Obsidian is indeed really clean. Performance is a lot better than iCloud Notes but I suspect that is due to sync being turned off. I'm going to run it in manual sync mode (copy files to and from my NAS) for now and consider the Sync package in a week.

It looks like some users store their files on iCloud but I'd guess that sync is smoother with their package.
 
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pshufd said:
Obsidian is indeed really clean. Performance is a lot better than iCloud Notes but I suspect that is due to sync being turned off. I'm going to run it in manual sync mode (copy files to and from my NAS) for now and consider the Sync package in a week.

It looks like some users store their files on iCloud but I'd guess that sync is smoother with their package.
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Yeah I pay for Obsidian Sync, but the big advantage for me is that it uses Markdown and the plugin system. I use it with the web clipper to clip so many things on the web. I love it. And it's cross platform!

It doesn't take a single cent from anyone except customers. No venture capital at all. e2ee if you use their sync. Love it.
 
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Steve Adams said:
Speaking of windows. Why is it that when I take out another system like my linux laptop or ipad and use it for a few hours, and then come back to my windows laptop workstation that It's just "HOME". if you get what I am saying?
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I'm sorry to hear that.
maflynn said:
I don't see that changing, as I use the cmd shell and powershell extensively in my work, where as home use, its not as needed, so I have less opportunity to learn and use bash
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I'm just the opposite. Give me any version of *nix and I'm home. Which, of course, includes MacOS.
Windows shells - "meh".
 
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eltoslightfoot said:
Yeah I pay for Obsidian Sync, but the big advantage for me is that it uses Markdown and the plugin system. I use it with the web clipper to clip so many things on the web. I love it. And it's cross platform!

It doesn't take a single cent from anyone except customers. No venture capital at all. e2ee if you use their sync. Love it.
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I like to do a medium dive into the companies I buy stuff from and this seems like a really great company to do business with.

One other thing that I really like is that they store the database of your notes on every system. One of the potential downsides of iCloud Notes is that I have no idea where it stores the files and have heard of horror stories of people where their notes were wiped out.

What I normally do is archive iCloud Notes to Growly Notes which is a heavyweight program that only runs on macOS. It has really good encryption for objects and hierarchies. The downside is that it is macOS only. iCloud Notes has always made macOS sticky for me.
 
pshufd said:
I like to do a medium dive into the companies I buy stuff from and this seems like a really great company to do business with.

One other thing that I really like is that they store the database of your notes on every system. One of the potential downsides of iCloud Notes is that I have no idea where it stores the files and have heard of horror stories of people where their notes were wiped out.

What I normally do is archive iCloud Notes to Growly Notes which is a heavyweight program that only runs on macOS. It has really good encryption for objects and hierarchies. The downside is that it is macOS only. iCloud Notes has always made macOS sticky for me.
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Better yet, the files are just stored as .MD files on your system. You can edit them directly if you wish.
 
maflynn said:
I've spent so much time in DOS and then windows. I've used unix, and linux over the years but not to the degree that I could fully write shell scripts
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My first 10 years using microcomputers was spent working in DOS - started with 86-DOS (hence the SCP diskettes in my avatar). I actually liked using MS Word for DOS, with the emphasis on using the keyboard (e.g. <esc>ts for saving the file) and Stylesheets where you create a document with one stylesheet and then later change formatting by attaching a different stylesheet. My exposure to Windows took place after using VUE on HP-UX, and was rather disgusted with Windows. One thing I especially liked about VUE was that the default file type was text, unless the "magic number" or extension was in the database. Having liked how GUI's worked on UNIX like systems, MacOS seems much more like home to me than Windows.

One other thing abou MacOS versus Windows is that MacOS is much less "in your face" than Windows when it updates and other notifications.
 
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BSDnostalgia said:
I'm sorry to hear that.

I'm just the opposite. Give me any version of *nix and I'm home. Which, of course, includes MacOS.
Windows shells - "meh".
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Don't be, I like it just fine. YMMV. use what you like.

I watched an awesome video from a colab of Mr.whostheboss and Marques Brownlee. They did a video about how the tech industry lies to you via marketing. I knew most of it, but some eye opening things.

For example, 4k vs 1080. 4k is not 4k sharper/clearer/better than 1080. 1080 is a vertical measurement and 4k is measured on the horizontal. So in reality 4k is only 2x sharper/clearer/betterer (supposedly) than 1080. That one opened my eyes so now I am not even shooting in 4k for our content. Everything we do will be in 1080 and it will be fine.
 
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Madhatter32 said:
Sharper/clearer/better or not sharper/clearer/better?
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There is a difference, however....It's not nearly as much as the industry will have you believe. Take your 4k tv, sit at viewing distance, and put it on 1080. you can't tell a difference if the video you are watching is quality. Its only when you watch a ft or two away from the display. A quality 1080 display on a laptop/desktop, is quite good, sharp etc as a 4k display but scaling is different.

Just like processor speeds. YOY the new processor is a minor increase in speed unperceptable to normal workloads. It's only apparent during synthetic benchmarks. Like take the intel 14700 vs 265. about 2 seconds faster for the 265 doing a batch process of 500 images in lightroom. Other benchmarks the 14700 comes out on top.

Everyone is so caught up in manufacturer specs, marketing baloney, and benchmarks instead of seeing the real picture of it all. They are trying to milk money out of people every year claiming huge increases that are not there.

Take my current laptop. it's an 1165g7, it's quite comparable to the M1 macbook pro 13. performance wise it trades wins in REAL WORLD use, synthetic benchmarks are useless and does not provide real world results. It's shows what the processor / gpu is good at for that exact purpose. My battery life is 8-10 hrs and the Pro 13 is like 12-14. That's the only place where the M1 Pro 13 beats my system. Video editing, photo editing, etc they are so close it's seconds either way doing the same task.

 
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