My daughter is planning to go to optometry school and most schools are demanding that she have a PC laptop 'only'! The schools claim they don't support Apple computors and their 3D imaging software will not run on a mac. This has thrown her into a deep funk as she has been a mac-head forever. She has an iBook 600 which could be traded in for something more powerful......or she could buy a (cough)Dell.......perish the thought. Anybody run into this before?
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- Thread starter Franko
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I was cautioned not to buy a mac when I was an architecture student, because I would need to run Autocad. I decided I didn't need to give up my mac over one program, and so I got VPC. It's not the best solution, and I have ended up working on alternate CAD software as often as possible, but sometimes collaborative projects required Autocad. So I would run it on VPC. Like I said, not wonderful, but workable. VPC won't support dual monitors, and it won't print via my airport, but those are minor details, since 95%+ of what I do I can use the mac or pc equally. So I put up with a little inconvience with windows software to be able to be dual-platform. And believe me, my powerbook ended up saving many of my pc-using friends behinds when they would run into trouble connecting to a projector, or some other strange malfunction that always seemed to occur when it was presentation time.
So, long story short, if she will be using that specific peice of software a whole lot, or if there is absolutely no other possible alternative, maybe she does need a pc. But she will be in college, and all her friends will have them, so if she has VPC she might be ok. Kind of a judgement call, but any 'book from apple will play nice on the network, and will be less susceptible to any virus floating around as bonuses.
So, long story short, if she will be using that specific peice of software a whole lot, or if there is absolutely no other possible alternative, maybe she does need a pc. But she will be in college, and all her friends will have them, so if she has VPC she might be ok. Kind of a judgement call, but any 'book from apple will play nice on the network, and will be less susceptible to any virus floating around as bonuses.
Take caution when using VirtualPC. It will not run all the PC software you throw at it.
It's time to cough up the money and get your daughter a present. Consider buying her an IBM ThinkPad notebook, although a Dell's not bad either. Just make sure you stay away from Sony models. They might look nice, but the battery on their notebooks are not reliable at all.
It's time to cough up the money and get your daughter a present. Consider buying her an IBM ThinkPad notebook, although a Dell's not bad either. Just make sure you stay away from Sony models. They might look nice, but the battery on their notebooks are not reliable at all.