Mac alternatives

[gimmeiphone]

So im about to get a macbook but have been using windows since forever so its going to take some getting used to, theres certain things i need for the mac which i have on my pc now such as windows live messenger, utorrent, vlc player and nero. what are the best equivalants to these programs? need them or i cant make the switch to

 

[bartelby]

Off the top of my head:
uTorrent = xtorrent
VLC = VLC
nero = Roxio toast

 

[ki2594]

yeah the person above covered those 3 and for windows messenger you either have office08 which comes with it or you can download windows messenger through the apple download site.

 

[flopticalcube]

Transmission for torrents

 

[Killyp]

For Windows Live Messenger, there's Adium (which supports loads of other chat things too).

Miles faster/more stable/nicer to use. It doesn't have the same feature count, in fact most of the big (albeit completely pointless) features of Live Messenger are missing. The only 'good' feature which isn't there is webcam support - which has been missing for years, but is coming later this year apparently.

 

[gimmeiphone]

is roxio toast easy to use? and can i make data dvds and everything just like i would on nero? and for the windows messenger does it let me check my hotmail from within it like the normal windows live? also does it support video and audio and file transfer? i just wana be as prepared as i can to make the jump.

 

[ki2594]

is roxio toast easy to use? and can i make data dvds and everything just like i would on nero? and for the windows messenger does it let me check my hotmail from within it like the normal windows live? also does it support video and audio? i just wana be as prepared as i can to make the jump.

the one that comes with office08-yeah it shows how much email u gots and stuff.
I've never used the windows messenger thats from the apple site (maybe there the same?) so im not sure

 

[tersono]

If anything, Toast is easier to use than Nero - you'll be fine.

 

[cube]

Caveats:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Messenger_for_Mac

 

[gimmeiphone]

kool the mercury one looks like it will do the trick, also i was wondering if i use parallels will i be able to use xp exactly like i would on a pc? because i bought the desperate housewives game but it doesnt run on my crappy old pc, would it run on parallels on the mid range macbook?

 

[Killyp]

is roxio toast easy to use? and can i make data dvds and everything just like i would on nero? and for the windows messenger does it let me check my hotmail from within it like the normal windows live? also does it support video and audio and file transfer? i just wana be as prepared as i can to make the jump.

No video/audio support and it doesn't check your mail for you. File transfer support is good though, better than Windows Messenger.

If you want the other features, you should check out aMSN. It's very buggy and slow in my experience, crashes a lot (it's not that special TBH).

Adium is brilliant, other than the lack of webcam support, you won't find it at all limiting...

 

[cube]

There isn't any Direct3D acceleration virtualization anywhere yet. You might have to boot in Windows via BootCamp.

 

[gimmeiphone]

There isn't any Direct3D acceleration virtualization anywhere yet. You might have to boot in Windows via BootCamp.

so if i used bootcamp would i be able to play the games meant for pc? sorry for all my questions, i have googled a number of times but unless you know macs in might aswell be in a different language. i liked the look of parallels cos you cud merge xp and mac onto one and that would be perfect, but i also like to play games now and again nothing big just basic pc games such as desperate housewives! lol so bootcamp or parallels, which do yall prefer? and which would be better suited to me?

 

[ki2594]

so if i used bootcamp would i be able to play the games meant for pc? sorry for all my questions, i have googled a number of times but unless you know macs in might aswell be in a different language. i liked the look of parallels cos you cud merge xp and mac onto one and that would be perfect, but i also like to play games now and again nothing big just basic pc games such as desperate housewives! lol so bootcamp or parallels, which do yall prefer? and which would be better suited to me?

yeah with bootcamp u can play games if u install windows

 

[cube]

BootCamp is free. Parallels/VMWare is not.

If you boot Windows natively via BootCamp you can play heavy 3D Windows games. If you use Parallels/VMWare you can use Mac and Windows at the same time.

You still have to pay for Windows.

http://www.askdavetaylor.com/use_winxp_boot_camp_partition_in_parallels.html

WMware Fusion has experimental support for DirectX 9.0 acceleration.

Parallels 3 accelerates some "selected" 3D applications.

 

[Pigumon]

Bootcamp = Real Windows

I think someone should point out that when you use bootcamp, you are actually booting into Windows, just as you would on any other Intel-based PC. So even though you're on Apple hardware, you're completely Windows. No different from your current machine (of course, the hardware is newer and better). So if at any time a Mac alternative doesn't fit the bill for you, you can always go back to pure Windows.

Your best bet is using Parallels or VMware for convenience.

I haven't used Parallels for gaming, but I have used it for Zbrush 3, which is pretty graphics intensive (3D modeling in billions of polygons).

With Parallels (and probably VMware) you can run all your windows apps in “coherence” mode, which will have Windows windows floating right along Mac windows. It's pretty neat.

One thing that is extra cool is, if you hook up a second monitor, you can have one monitor as your Mac and the other monitor as your PC. But I prefer Macs so I use coherence mode usually.


Hope that helps

 

[gimmeiphone]

thanks everyone looks like im set

 

[mosx]

Off the top of my head:
uTorrent = xtorrent
VLC = VLC
nero = Roxio toast

Don't kid like that! Toast isn't even close to Nero. Sure it might be prettier and "easier to use", but Nero blows it away in features and functionality. Nero also smacks Toast around when it comes to video quality (encoding) and the speed at which video is encoded.

For Windows Live Messenger, there's Adium (which supports loads of other chat things too).

Miles faster/more stable/nicer to use. It doesn't have the same feature count, in fact most of the big (albeit completely pointless) features of Live Messenger are missing. The only 'good' feature which isn't there is webcam support - which has been missing for years, but is coming later this year apparently.

EH, Adium sucks. Its ugly, disorganized, and doesn't support enough of the client specific features. Its really better to just use the service specific messengers.

is roxio toast easy to use? and can i make data dvds and everything just like i would on nero? and for the windows messenger does it let me check my hotmail from within it like the normal windows live? also does it support video and audio and file transfer? i just wana be as prepared as i can to make the jump.

You can make data DVDs without Toast since Toast essentially sucks and is a joke compared to Nero.

Just right click on the desktop in OS X and click "New Burn Folder". Name it and drag and drop the files you want to burn to disc into the folder.

You're also better off with the Microsoft client for MSN/WLM. http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/messenger/default.mspx Adium just doesn't cut it. Theres no webcam support for WLM/MSN on OS X yet. But WLM in Windows sucks for that anyway. Just use Skype. Otherwise you can transfer all files and such as you normally would.

Oh and don't forget Perian for Quicktime. It's free. It will play all the files that VLC still refuses to play for some odd reason. Plus it adds support for just about every media file type to Front Row.