Sunday, December 30, 2007

Changes

Hey guys,

I recieved my new laptop a few days ago. It's a really cool shiny new macBook Pro. I've never had a mac before so I'm pretty excited about it. Unfortunately I'm going to have to go without a few things though. First, I found out I can't use my 2d animation software since they aren't universal. Then I found out I can't install the driver for my tablet since it only supports mac os9. I guess it's a good time for an upgrade anyway. Lol, it's not like I have a wacom or anything though, just a simple aiptek tablet. A few minutes ago I realised I won't be able to update my website while I'm at SCAD because I created it using Frontpage. I bought office 2004 for the mac but frontpage didn't come with it. I'll check to see if there's a mac version of frontpage. Until then I'll have to go without updating my site. I will continue to update this blog though, so no worries. =D

7 comments:

net perin said...

Hey Jocelyn,
Congrats on the MacBookPro!

You might want to consider using Bootcamp(I think it comes with OSX) to be able to put another OS on your Mac, like your old Windows OS. It would act just like the original, and then you could run some of your old software(like frontpage), and maybe even some of your peripherals too(like your tablet)

Congrats again... the Mac's look awesome these days!

Cheers!

~Net

Jocelyn Cofer said...

Hey Net,

Thanks a bunch for your help! I've never heard of Bootcamp before. I searched for it on my computer ad nothing came up. I'll check the internet and see what comes up. Will adding another OS take up a lot of space on my computer?

net perin said...

Hey Jocelyn,

It would take about 1.5 GB of memory, which would be a drop in the bucket for a 160GB. hard drive that comes on the MacBookPro's(assuming that you got the smallest size hard drive) You would have to determine how much space to allow for the windows portion of your partitioned hard drive... that would depend upon how many programs you want to put on it...and how much working space each one of those programs would need and a bit of space for storing files that you are working on perhaps would be nice as well.

I wouldn't recommend getting Vista, I've heard of too many problems with it running things, crashing,etc. Your best to stay with the version of Windows that you were running before. I've heard that Windows is going to be supporting XP for one more year longer than originally planned due to all of the problems with Vista.

BTW, a friend was pointing out the fact that you can add ram and harddrives to the Mac's for less money if you search around on the internet and change out the ram/hard drive memory yourself. It's usually really simple to do.

Good Luck with things!

Jocelyn Cofer said...

Hey Net,

Thanks a bunch for all the info! 1.5 GB is fine, since I got the 250 GB hard drive, lol. How would I determine how much space to allow for windows? Do I add up the sizes of all of the programs I need to install? I can store files on my external hard drive so they won't be a problem.

Lol, there's no way I'm using Vista. The whole reason why I got a mac is to avoid having to get a computer with Vista on it. XD

net perin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
net perin said...

Hey Jocelyn,
You might want to do a little bit of extra research on the subject before you make your final move. A friend of mine recently got a new MacBookPro and they have let me toy around with it a bit. (On a side note, they tried to load an older version of Maya and they were having some trouble with it... have you loaded Maya yet? the latest version? is it working well? any differences between it on the Mac vs. PC?) Anyway, there is evidently two different options that you can explore... the bootcamp is one option and the other is called Parellels(sp?)
Basically Parellels is a VM(Virtual Machine) Program used for running Windows on a Mac without leaving the Mac environment. Bootcamp allows you to partion your hard drive so that you can put a whole other operating system on the hard drive, but you wouldn't be running your Mac OS at the same time... you would be chosing one or the other. A VM Program lets you run some programs, like Windows programs in your case, while you are booted up and running your Mac OS. I'm thinking that however, if you chose VM instead of Bootcamp that it wouldn't fix your problem about your tablet???? but I am unsure. I have heard that for running a program... VM can be faster than Bootcamp.
Never the less, it's always a good idea to read up a bit on stuff like this... just playing around with my friends computer a bit I've realized that there are more techy differences between the two OS's than what I originally would have thought...
If you live near a good technical school it's a great place to check out books of a more technical nature... each bookseller and each store can have a very different selection of books to peruse through... so check multiple stores.
Good Luck with things... let me know how things work out for you ;D

Jocelyn Cofer said...

Hey Net,

Thank you so much for all of your help! I would have been lost without your knowledge, lol. I don't know anything about this stuff. I'll ask around and see what I can find out. I need to find a solution quickly though since I'm going to start animating my senior project for SCAD in 10 weeks or so.