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Johns Hopkins and Mac

N

NomadicTy

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 11, 2007
244
184
Hello!

My sis is going to Johns Hopkins University in Maryland for her Masters. I'd like to buy her a laptop. As much as I'd like to buy her a mac, the important thing would be for her to not have any trouble exchanging files with professors and other students, connecting to the school network, etc. I would hate to be woken up by her in the middle of the night because she couldn't figure something out.

Are there any current or recent students of JHU in here who are using/used their macs on campus? How was your experience with them as far as compatibility goes in your schoolwork?

These are probably stupid questions, but when I went to college, we used pen and paper for taking notes. Computer work was done in the computer lab. I also hear that some college give preference or require students to either get a mac or a PC (shivers!). As for bootcamp and installing Windows with mac, I'd really rather it keep it simple and stick with one OS. Like I said, I'd rather not become her personal Help Desk because she's confused.

Obrigado!
 
Just get her a nice Windows computer so you know it'll play nice with the others. I don't (usually) have any problems on my home network. My school almost 100% Windows, so no Keynotes or stuff like that, so it might be a good idea to get MS office if a Mac is most desired.
 
I would definitely ask your sister if she likes Mac OS X. I know if this was going to be a surprise that that would ruin it, but if she has little to no interest in Mac OS X, I would agree to stick with a PC.

The only reason I made a switch from PC to Mac was because I fell in love with the OS, and it's stability. But 3 years ago, (when I knew nothing about Macs), I used to get frustrated with Macs.

Basically, I'm sure it would work with other computer's on campus (especially if you get her Office For Mac).

Also, I used to take notes on my Mac during lectures and I did pen and paper others - she might do the same. If she did use a Mac, I'm sure she would enjoy the long lasting battery.

So yeah, in conclusion - a Mac would perform fine with compatibility with other computers in terms of networking/Office files. It's a matter of preference though for her though (like you said, you don't want to make her sweat the night before an exam because she can't figure something out).
 
I would get her a mac. Even in the very small chance that a windows-only application is needed you can always install windows onto the mac too (and then you can switch between mac OSX and windows). You would be very surprised to see how many people in college/grad school have macs, the numbers keep increasing every year and they are at relatively high percentages currently.
 
Thanks for the replies so far.

I would just like to add that for the last three years, she has been using an iMac with Tiger that I bought for my parents... I will also definitely get her Office for Mac. Just worried that if she created a presentation or something in Office for Mac, that it would not work on her professor's PC.
 
NomadicTy said:
Thanks for the replies so far.

I would just like to add that for the last three years, she has been using an iMac with Tiger that I bought for my parents... I will also definitely get her Office for Mac. Just worried that if she created a presentation or something in Office for Mac, that it would not work on her professor's PC.
Click to expand...


Regarding presentations: Keynote is much better than PowerPoint. Of course a presentation made using the former will not work on a PC. But, she can always export it as a PDF and use that to present. Works out quite well.

To give you some perspective, this is coming from a college professor in engineering who uses a Mac exclusively.
 
If you are worried about compatibility, you can always run Windows in a virtual machine with any Windows flavour and and Windows Office.
 
Another prof here. Don't know specifically about Hopkins, but I can tell you that though my school administration is officially PC, all the computer tech guys are Apple.... as are about half the faculty. Office files are in my experience perfectly cross-platform compatible. Only time I ever have trouble is sometimes the mail relay gets confused by attachments sent from Mac, and they arrive with an extra extension (.dat, octet-stream). Savvy receivers know to just change the extension to what they were expecting. And there's no problem in physical exchanges (just copying files from a USB key).

But here's one warning-- the most recent Office (Mac or PC) has new file formats as the default (docx, etc.) First thing I did was set the default save to the older format, since lots of people on campus are still using previous versions of Office.
 
Thanks for all the responses. Adam's link was especially helpful... I guess I'll be ordering her a 13" MBP. Knucklehead better not lose it! :D
 
St Soichiro said:
Regarding presentations: Keynote is much better than PowerPoint. Of course a presentation made using the former will not work on a PC. But, she can always export it as a PDF and use that to present. Works out quite well.

To give you some perspective, this is coming from a college professor in engineering who uses a Mac exclusively.
Click to expand...

Why not just export to PowerPoint if you need to run on a PC? I've never tried exporting a Keynote with any animations, etc, but even if they get stripped out you are no worse than you are with PDF.
 
jzuena said:
Why not just export to PowerPoint if you need to run on a PC? I've never tried exporting a Keynote with any animations, etc, but even if they get stripped out you are no worse than you are with PDF.
Click to expand...

That's like turning a PSD into a PNG. You lose the ability to make good edits.

With the Keynote -> PowerPoint, you lose the ability to add the frames around photos and much of the other things that make Keynote great. And all the nifty transitions are gone and replaced with the most boring ones.
 
Shake 'n' Bake said:
That's like turning a PSD into a PNG. You lose the ability to make good edits.

With the Keynote -> PowerPoint, you lose the ability to add the frames around photos and much of the other things that make Keynote great. And all the nifty transitions are gone and replaced with the most boring ones.
Click to expand...

Well, export it as a QuickTime movie, and obviously keep the original Keynote file if you need to make any edits!
 
Shake 'n' Bake said:
That's really the best way to do it, but you've got to make sure the computer you're using has QT on it.
Click to expand...

If the computer is one owned by the uni for presentations, it really should. I'm a technician at a major university in the UK, and we keep just about every media player we can on our machines because we never know what type of file a lecturer is going to show up with.

Of course, she should be able to plug her new MacBook Pro into the projector and use Keynote for the presentation anyway. Just remember to buy a Mini DisplayPort adaptor.
 
St Soichiro said:
Regarding presentations: Keynote is much better than PowerPoint. Of course a presentation made using the former will not work on a PC. But, she can always export it as a PDF and use that to present. Works out quite well.
Click to expand...

How does that make it better, then? Honestly. It's totally retarded to say that Keynote is better and then go right ahead and say that it won't work on a non-Mac, which is really the entire point of the thread.
 
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