iBook

[moonpxi]

Okey, so here I am, seriously thinking about buying a new notebook, when a coworker suggest to me that I should consider buying an iBook. Well, the thing is, I've never ever ever used a Macintosh in my whole live, but after seeing a few iBook specs, I was seriously tempted!! Since I know a few of the board users are Mac user as well, I seek advice.

My need for a notebooks is that it must be small. It does not necessarily mean it must have the fastest around the earth, but I must be able do make my programming work in it, and possibly develop games on it (2D games, or small and simple 3D). The possibility to test my games portability on it is very teasing.

On the other hand, I've only seen a Mac in use, but never touched one. My experience is based on Windows and Linux brands, and I think I might have an easy time adjusting to it, but it stills worries me a bit that this idea might be very silly.

So, any tips and advices from Mac users?

[Sillysoft]

If you want a nice small notebook then an iBook is a great choice. You should go play with one somewhere apples are sold. I have some friends with iBooks and they all like them.

The Mac OS is slightly different, but you will become accustomed to it. You should be able to find equivalent applications for most stuff if it hasn't been ported directly. Some MS stuff does not run (except maybe with emulation). What are the critical windows apps that you use?

If you are familiar with Linix then there is a good quality unix underneath that you can use. Stuff like apache and php come built in, and fink (http://fink.sourceforge.net/) is a package manager for everything else. It will come with Apple's devtools, basically a set of applications using gcc and associated tools. A variety of other text editors are available. I do all my stuff in java, so I don't know much about compiling windows DLLs or stuff like that. What kind of programming do you do?

Also, getting a mac = a fun adventure!

[moonpxi]

Unfortunetly, where I live we don't have any official place where Apples are sold. Except the market, but in this case it's a different kind of apple. Fortunetly, I have a few coworkers who have Apples and who I will pester a bit next week.

As far as MS applications go, I used them very, very rarely. The most I use is the Office suite (which I know there is some kind of port, already), and even this I use rarely, since I am doing, lately, my text editing with Latex.

And, as far as programming goes, I am also pretty much doing all my stuff with Java, even games. And, if Eclipse runs on it, I am pretty safe.

[Sillysoft]

Eclipse runs on macs just fine. One thing to note about java on macs is that the VM is created and released by Apple, not sun. So currently java 1.5 is only available to paid members of apple's developer program. I do my work in java and am happy with the mac environment.

The keyboard and screen on apple notebooks are very nice, and they are good sized. iBooks have a maximum resolution the screen is capable of, so you might want to look into that (I am not sure what it is). Another thing is that there is only one mouse-button, although you can recreate the second one using the control key. And you can plug in any USB mouse you want.

iBooks are sweet. I say go for it.

[aduro]

what platform are you going to develop for? you are going to need a windows machine to compile and test a windows exe and if you are doing something for mobile devices (like phones) you are going to need windows as most (all?) vendors only make a windows sdk. i was looking at the 12" powerbook, but there are no java j2me sdk's for mac osx. so i would need a separate windows machine and wouldn't be able to build and test on the same machine unless i bought virtual pc.

[moonpxi]

Thanks for the advices!! I had the opportunity to "play" with an iBook this week and, basically, I got hooked, really hooked!!

I am about to buy one, actually import one. The problem is it will take about a month to get here!! Oh well...

[Kinfira]

If you want to use Windows programs on the Macintosh there is a program by Microsoft called Virtual PC. It allows you to run any x86 based operating system on the Mac.


Regards,

Jeff.

[ggambett]

I am about to buy one, actually import one. The problem is it will take about a month to get here!! Oh well...
Hey, I didn't notice you're from Brazil. We are practically neighbors :)

I bought my iBook in eBay, had it sent to an acquaintance's place in the US, and waited someone to come here. Maybe you can do the same. Much easier and much faster than sending it via mail.

[moonpxi]

Thanks, Kinfira!! Actually, Virtual PC weighted a bit in my decision to buy a Mac. With it, I have some sort of "safety net" in case I really, really need an unsupported, Windows only, application on the notebook. However, I hope I don't have to use it! :)

Yes, ggambet, we are very close by!! I've actually been in the Uruguay's border a few times.

I've thought about the buying through eBay, like you said. The hard part is "waited someone to come here". It can take a loooooong while!! My plan is to buy it through here: http://www.bhphoto.com. A few coworkers bought from there, and it's guaranteed.

[Sillysoft]

Congrats! Welcome to the Apple fold.

One application that you (and other mac users) should check out is LaunchBar (http://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/). It's an amazing program that lets you easily open anything with a few keystrokes. It's the first thing I install on any new mac computer.

[moonpxi]

Thanks for the tips!!

By the way, Sillysoft, do you use XCode or Eclipse for Java programming?

[Sillysoft]

I use xCode. My original reason for doing so was that I was doing some Cocoa-java development and it made it easy. Now I am just doing pure java, but I am used to xCode and it's text navigation shortcuts. I have considered trying out Eclipse but have never got around to giving it a real test. I subscribe to Apple's java-dev (http://lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/java-dev) mailing list and from what I have heard there xCode lacks many of Eclipse's features, like refactoring support.

I have xCode set up to just be a wrapper around my ant build script. So it should be pretty easy for me to move IDEs. What do you think of Eclipse?

[moonpxi]

Well, what I've heard around here is that xCode is a pretty good environment, but for Java programming Eclipse is still favored.

Eclipse, for me, is a superb IDE. The whole pluggable architecture is great, and there are tons of plugins available (even for C++ editing). Of course, most of them are not very useful, but there is also a possibility.

Anyhow, an "out of the box", vanilla, Eclipse is, in itself, powerfull. Ant is already integrated, and there are quite a few usefull features, such as integrated CVS features. No to mention that refactoring can be a bliss.

I would say, give it a shot!! Download it and play with it for a while and see what you think of it. There are a few (perhaps a lot?) who hate it, but I take it as my favorite Java programming IDE, so far...

[Mark Fassett]

I used xCode for Derelict, and I think xCode's features and options are widly scattered all over the place, and that it's really annoying and difficult to find exactly what you're looking for. Making multiple build targets work easily and simply has eluded me However, the price is right.

[moonpxi]

Hmmmm...I am yet to use xCode for anything. Hopefully, in about 30 days I will be able to check it out!! :)

Oh, I have a question that Sillysoft, and perhaps Princec, can answer. I saw somewhere that there is some sort of problems with Java Sound on a Mac. How does this stand of, so far?

[Sillysoft]

I only use very basic sound effects support, using the java.applet.AudioClip class. It works fine for what I do. I haven't done any music.

The apple java list that I linked to above is a good resource for mac java stuff. There is an archive you can search through (although the search interface isn't that great).