Need non-gaming PC

**DJ Ms. White** · 06-27-12, 11:01 AM

Looks like a Mac Air with Warranty and a 11" screen runs about $1400. The new OS is snazzy. Personally, I just can't justify paying for linux.

**AetheLove** · 06-27-12, 11:59 AM

Originally Posted by DJ Mr. White

Looks like a Mac Air with Warranty and a 11" screen runs about $1400. The new OS is snazzy. Personally, I just can't justify paying for linux.

Nah. That more than doubles the money, and he still doesn't have MSOffice (or Win7).

Where does paying for linux come into it?

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**DJ Ms. White** · 06-27-12, 12:04 PM

The latest iterations of the Mac OS are linux with an Apple GUI over it. It's why you can go into command line and GREP. It's also the reason why they can offer an upgrade to the latest OS for $30 to everyone.

**AetheLove** · 06-27-12, 12:09 PM

Originally Posted by CivilWars

Most of my coworkers are on Mac, and I am on PC. We use Google Docs for virtually everything, but some things we have to DL as Excel/Word. It is rare, and nothing deal breaking, but there are some conflicts. Some of the ones I know of off of the top of my head is if they lock a document nobody on a PC can unlock it. Also color formatting messes up for some reason on Excel spreadsheets. I am sure there are other "inconveniences", but I am not aware of anything that would make a document/spreadsheet unusable by going cross platform.

Thanks, Civil.

I've only used GoogleDocs a couple times, so I have almost no experience there.

I'm still thinking about pushing him to put the whole thing into a web app. Google Docs is one way. Does anyone have experience with any of the others? His technical requirements are minimal. He needs to do things like put up workout schedules (a calendar) and small tables or text documents. He thinks of "a table" as "an Excel spreadsheet", but that's just for visual convenience. He doesn't use formulas.

The DropBox idea might work, but having a simple URL would be even better.

Cheers,

AetheLove

**CivilWars** · 06-27-12, 12:13 PM

For that basic stuff Google Docs would be perfect. He could grant them access to view only, or edit, depending on what permissions they need. Now with both Google Drive and Dropbox you can send a file/folder as a link, and they can view it, but not edit. The only downside I know of to Google Docs is that they don't support some of the same advanced formulas that Excel does, but you said he doesn't need those.

**AetheLove** · 06-27-12, 12:33 PM

Originally Posted by DJ Mr. White

The latest iterations of the Mac OS are linux with an Apple GUI over it. It's why you can go into command line and GREP. It's also the reason why they can offer an upgrade to the latest OS for $30 to everyone.

No, they're not. They don't use the linux kernel (they started with Mach, but I have no idea what it's grown into), and their style of unix is more BSD than anything else.

There are a number of GNU tools available, and because it's a real unix (and is POSIX compliant) it has all of the standard unix utilities (including grep - which is older than linux by about 20 years). I think the default shell is now bash (very linuxy), but it used to be tcsh (which is what I used before I switched to bash). The point is that you can run any shell you like - because it's unix.

You can add your own unix software if you like; either command line stuff (htop is better than top), or graphical (which generally requires you to run an X server; which you can do, because it's unix).

So please, Bro, don't say "Mac OS X is just linux with an Apple GUI over it" or you will forever lose any geek-cred you once had.

Cheers,

AetheLove

**AetheLove** · 06-27-12, 12:39 PM

Originally Posted by CivilWars

For that basic stuff Google Docs would be perfect. He could grant them access to view only, or edit, depending on what permissions they need. Now with both Google Drive and Dropbox you can send a file/folder as a link, and they can view it, but not edit. The only downside I know of to Google Docs is that they don't support some of the same advanced formulas that Excel does, but you said he doesn't need those.

Does Google Docs allow you to publish to an open URL, or do you have to have a Google account to see shared documents? What I'm asking is; would everyone on the team need a google account, or just him?

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**CivilWars** · 06-27-12, 12:45 PM

I am a dedicated Google nerd, but I believe you can access documents without having to have a Google account. I believe you would just login to the document using your email address, and a password you establish. If you have a non-gmail email address I would be willing to share a document with you, so you can do some testing. PM me, or contact me on steam or something.

**Xavsnipe** · 06-27-12, 01:06 PM

Ae...I´ve been a mac user since 2005 ... I work alot with MS Office, mostly word and excel....mostly excel...it is 100% interchangeable...most people I work with here and the majority of my clients have PC´s....everyone at the banks have PC´s...I do financial models and send them out to everyone...NO ONE has a problem opening them...I´ve never had a compatibility problem between MS Office for MAC and MS Office for PC.

**AetheLove** · 06-27-12, 02:04 PM

Originally Posted by Xavsnipe

Ae...I´ve been a mac user since 2005 ... I work alot with MS Office, mostly word and excel....mostly excel...it is 100% interchangeable...most people I work with here and the majority of my clients have PC´s....everyone at the banks have PC´s...I do financial models and send them out to everyone...NO ONE has a problem opening them...I´ve never had a compatibility problem between MS Office for MAC and MS Office for PC.

Good to know. Thanks for the practical advice.

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