While I'm working on the new HDD reviews for AT I'm also preparing for the new Mac section on AT, which brings me to this Macdate - what comparisons/reviews would you all like to see done in the new Mac section at AT?

I've got a couple of ideas already, including the new 2.5GHz G5 and a 64MB vs 128MB vs 256MB Exposé graphics card comparison but I'm looking for more requests. So just drop your requests in the comments section of this blog or drop me an email if you don't want the rest of the world seeing your request and I'll get cracking on it.

I'm a little behind on the Mac section seeing as how I have yet to develop a full benchmark suite for our Mac tests here at AT, but I'm planning on devoting some time to that later this week after I get these HDDs out of the way. I'm also open to any suggestions as far as benchmarks go; I'm thinking about trying to script together something to test office/general usage performance but given that I've been a Mac user for only a handful of months my talents are still quite lacking. I'm going to be doing more research over the next week or so, but always open to any pointers, suggestions, etc...

Back to work...
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  • Anonymous - Thursday, June 17, 2004 - link

    #34, I second that. I would also like tips on tweaking a mac. What parts I can change (fans, powersuply etc.) or how to overclock the system.
  • Me - Thursday, June 17, 2004 - link

    I'd like to see a "Whats a Mac made of and where"

    Through my own research (using Digi times et al) I've found Apple computers by and large are manufactured at the same taiwaneese plants as run of the mill PC's and are made out of the same parts (i.e ECS / Asus / Foxconn motherboard, displays purchased from the same suppliers as Gateway and so on...)
  • Louis - Thursday, June 17, 2004 - link

    How about a review of the Airport Extreme, Airport Express, and a comparison with a similarly featured third party base station?

    Express especially, and it's AirTunes and extender features. Maybe a comment for who would want/need the Extreme, the Express, and why they would want the third party/alternative instead?

    How about a review of the mini?
  • DarylF2 - Thursday, June 17, 2004 - link

    I would like to see a comparison (in terms of features, ease of use, performance, stability, quality, etc.) of XCode on Mac OS X, Visual Studio .NET on Windows XP, and perhaps KDevelop (or whatever is best) under Linux.

    Adding in cross-platform IDEs such as Eclipse, and cross-platform toolkits such as Qt and WxWindows would also be very helpful.
  • Anonymous - Thursday, June 17, 2004 - link

    Can you do a comparison of different repair/optimisation apps such as TechTool, DiskWarrior and Norton (curse!)
    How can I best maintain my mac?

    Also, I'd like to see you bring down that 2.5 GHz G5 + 8 GB ram to its knees. Launch all the apps you can find at once, see if you can crash it ;)
  • Anonymous - Thursday, June 17, 2004 - link

    Please add multitasking to the benchmarks, because that's what I think OS X is very good at. A slow G4 will beat a fast P4/Windows system when it comes to multitasking, switching from Photoshop (while doing some major filter stuff or while launching) to another heavy duty application is much faster on the mac.
  • vailr - Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - link

    How about a speed comparison between the fastest AMD-64 system running (via emulation using Pear 0.2) Mac OS-X 10.3 vs. the same OS-X 10.3 on a Mac G5 dual CPU 2.5 GHz?
  • Anonymous - Tuesday, June 15, 2004 - link

    Don't forget that licensed versions of GraphicConverter, OmniOutline, and OmniGraffle are bundled with Power Macintosh systems.
  • Krishna - Tuesday, June 15, 2004 - link

    Gino -- GraphicConverter is an excellent image batch converter that works beautifully under OSX. It's $30 but well worth the dough. It's gotten really positive reviews - be sure to google it to learn more about this app.

    For FrontPage - try either DreamWeaver or GoLive on the Mac side. And OmniGraffle Pro (by OmniGroup) can import and work with Visio files.

    MacMAME works for all your MAME roms, and MacUAE also exists for Amiga emulation. hope that helps.

    -Krishna
  • Gino - Tuesday, June 15, 2004 - link

    SOFTWARE EQUIVALENTS--because I want to be a switcher!

    What software can I use on a Mac that I currently use now on my PC?

    For example, I often use IrfanView on my PC for batch image conversion. Is there anything comparable on the Mac? Or how about MSPaint, which I use for super quick image editing?

    FrontPage and Publisher are two programs I occasionally use on the PC. Does Mac have any equivalents?

    I often hear people talk about the lack of Microsoft Visio. How about things like MAME, or MacUAE for Amiga emulation?

    My 2 cents. Thanks.

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