Mac and PCs

crunchman

chrispy108 said:

stickyfiddle said:
There is absolutely no reason for everything not to be absolutely as equivalent as possible, only switching Ctrl for Cmd. 

For everything else Office on Mac is just fine, but Excel is just not there. 

This! I've just got a Macbook Pro from work, and it's great, screen is quality etc etc, but it's taking me time to get used to when I need to use Ctrl or cmd in Excel. It can't see any pattern to it.

Wait until you need the @ or " characters as well.  Seriously annoying.

chrispy108

It's a bit mental, @ £ # € make no sense, the symbols printed on the keyboard as in the same place, but you access them with different keys/combination of keys!

Selecting text with the keyboard in Excel too. FML.

digitalscream

For what it's worth, I use an Apple keyboard (the only thing I think they ever did right...), but the labels are bloody annoying. I have it mapped using a standard PC layout (I use Linux), and just touch-type...half the labels have rubbed off anyway.

webrthomson

crunchman said:

webrthomson said:

If you have similarly spec'ed hardware there is very little difference.

This.  I suspect a lot of the problems some people report with PCs are because they are using budget ones with cheap hardware.

I agree - a £200 windows laptop is not going to be as good as a £2000 Apple one - it's somewhat like complaining your Ford Mondeo is not as good as an Aston Martin - well of course it's not

DefaultM

Isn't saying why buy a mac when for £500 cheaper you can have a windows machine with a better processor like saying why buy X guitar for £1500 when you can get Y guitar for £500?

Everyone is going to have their own preference. I was very anti mac until I actually owned one. It's specs are not as good as my previous windows laptop yet it runs smoother and faster, and has lasted a lot longer. Probably due to the specs being optimised for the OS or something? Whereas already said earlier windows is an OS and you have to trust a third party company to build a computer that works with it.

Bidley

DefaultM said:

Isn't saying why buy a mac when for £500 cheaper you can have a windows machine with a better processor like saying why buy X guitar for £1500 when you can get Y guitar for £500?

It's more the comparisons being drawn. Nobody buys an Encore strat and complains that it isn't as nice as a PRS.

Axe_meister

stickyfiddle said:

joneve said:

stickyfiddle said:

Windows = better Excel implementation and you can play Age of Empires 2
Mac = shit excel but really nice for everything else but it can't play Age of Empires 2

The newest version of office on Mac is actually surprisingly good (compared to previous efforts)...it's actually usable now. 

No laptop/PC I've ever owned, despite rigorous and time consuming efforts to keep it clean and virus/malware free, has never lasted more than about 3 years before noticeably slowing down and eventually becoming unusable. 

I've had 3 MacBooks - One original one, that would probably still be with us today, had the wife not got a bit over excited and somehow managed to crack the screen. But that gave me 8 years of use with no problems at all. It's replacement has started to slow a bit, but it's been neglected for the last 2 years or so, as work provided me with a Pro a few years ago, use it every day, and so far, no problems. 

Office is much improved, but excel is still a mess for advanced users (i'm someone who spends half their working life coding complex financial models in excel). You can do it in the Mac version, but the keyboard shortcuts are all wrong, making it a huge pain. Also the function keys have system uses by default, which slows you down hugely. I should make it clear this is all MS's fault, not Apple's. There is absolutely no reason for everything not to be absolutely as equivalent as possible, only switching Ctrl for Cmd. 

For everything else Office on Mac is just fine, but Excel is just not there. 

The question I have is. Why use excel for complex financial modelling would not be better of in the long run using a proper database with web based input, rather than having load of spreadsheets that get saved only for somebody to pick up the wrong version. 

crunchman

DefaultM said:

Isn't saying why buy a mac when for £500 cheaper you can have a windows machine with a better processor like saying why buy X guitar for £1500 when you can get Y guitar for £500?

Everyone is going to have their own preference. I was very anti mac until I actually owned one. It's specs are not as good as my previous windows laptop yet it runs smoother and faster, and has lasted a lot longer. Probably due to the specs being optimised for the OS or something? Whereas already said earlier windows is an OS and you have to trust a third party company to build a computer that works with it.

That's why the comparison I did above was an £850 PC vs an £1150 Mac.  It's a fairer comparison.  Yes, I'm sure you could find a £550 PC with the same processor, but then you are in the realm of cheap components.

The price differential between Mac and PC isn't as bad as it was. When I bought a Macbook Pro in 2011, they were £1500.  I could have bought a basic PC laptop with the same processor, memory and hard drive for £550.  I don't think you could buy one for 37% of the Mac price these days.

Apple are still expensive for what they are though.  I haven't looked in detail, but I'd estimate that you could buy a decent laptop of equivalent spec to a MacBook for around 30% less.  You could save more than that depending on what you are willing to compromise on.  If it saved me some money I'd be willing to accept a 6 hour battery life rather than a 10 hour one.  I'd be less inclined to compromise on screen quality though.

stickyfiddle

Axe_meister said:

 

The question I have is. Why use excel for complex financial modelling would not be better of in the long run using a proper database with web based input, rather than having load of spreadsheets that get saved only for somebody to pick up the wrong version. 

Partly because noone outside the tech world has the foggiest clue how to work a database, but also because it's not really a database thing per se, as it's time based and every line in the excel has an impact on the outputs of the model. The stuff I work with is e.g. a power plant pricing model, where every line is a separate bit of data (like daily energy output, or fuel cost, or inflation, or debt pricing, or whatever). I worked plenty with databases in my last job, which was around sales figures and tonnages of waste and such, but what I'm doing now would need just as much coding to do in a database, but you'd have 10% as many people be able to use it and understand it.

Not that I'm saying Excel is the best tool for the job...

chrispy108

stickyfiddle said:
Also the function keys have system uses by default, which slows you down hugely. 


I've just found out you can change this.
System Preferences > Keyboard > bottom option "Use F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys".

One things sorted.

stickyfiddle

chrispy108 said:

stickyfiddle said:
Also the function keys have system uses by default, which slows you down hugely. 


I've just found out you can change this.
System Preferences > Keyboard > bottom option "Use F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys".

One things sorted.

Yeah but then you can't have them work as volume etc when not in excel. Unless there's a way to change their behaviour depending on what app you're using?

chrispy108

I'm happy holding the fn key to change the volume tbh, that keyboard shortcut isn't ingrained in my head the same way F4 is.

wave100

chrispy108 said:

stickyfiddle said:
Also the function keys have system uses by default, which slows you down hugely. 


I've just found out you can change this.
System Preferences > Keyboard > bottom option "Use F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys".

One things sorted.

Thanks for this, it will improve my quality of life considerably.

A lot of it is down to familiarity, I think. If you have been using any OS for a number of years, you can probably do everything you are likely to need to do and therefore that's your preference.

ToneControl

Axe_meister said:

stickyfiddle said:

joneve said:

stickyfiddle said:

Windows = better Excel implementation and you can play Age of Empires 2
Mac = shit excel but really nice for everything else but it can't play Age of Empires 2

The newest version of office on Mac is actually surprisingly good (compared to previous efforts)...it's actually usable now. 

No laptop/PC I've ever owned, despite rigorous and time consuming efforts to keep it clean and virus/malware free, has never lasted more than about 3 years before noticeably slowing down and eventually becoming unusable. 

I've had 3 MacBooks - One original one, that would probably still be with us today, had the wife not got a bit over excited and somehow managed to crack the screen. But that gave me 8 years of use with no problems at all. It's replacement has started to slow a bit, but it's been neglected for the last 2 years or so, as work provided me with a Pro a few years ago, use it every day, and so far, no problems. 

Office is much improved, but excel is still a mess for advanced users (i'm someone who spends half their working life coding complex financial models in excel). You can do it in the Mac version, but the keyboard shortcuts are all wrong, making it a huge pain. Also the function keys have system uses by default, which slows you down hugely. I should make it clear this is all MS's fault, not Apple's. There is absolutely no reason for everything not to be absolutely as equivalent as possible, only switching Ctrl for Cmd. 

For everything else Office on Mac is just fine, but Excel is just not there. 

The question I have is. Why use excel for complex financial modelling would not be better of in the long run using a proper database with web based input, rather than having load of spreadsheets that get saved only for somebody to pick up the wrong version. 

you would be amazed what has been done in Excel (not saying that's an ideal situation)