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I've been a mac user since '03, though I also use win7 and (mostly) linux for work. I'm due a new laptop, and fancy high res, thinner et etc.
But I like my touchscreens etc, so I've got myself a cheap windows laptop (yoga 2 13") to try out as my main machine for a bit prior to either getting a high end windows machine or a new macbook (new retina one).
So there's tons of info out there for windows users switching to mac, but not the other way round... so recommend me some good applications? What is there that's great software on windows?
I realise this is slightly unusual, but there are a lot of IT literate folk on here that might have some good advice - or folk just telling me to just get a new mac - it's a cheaper*, less hassle option for sure.
*people always seem to think Macs are expensive, but they're really not, you just can't get cheap nasty macs. Given I want a nice machine, most windows options I've looked at would actually cost me more.
What kind of software do you need?
https://ninite.com/ - this is really good for installing a load of useful applications, you can just pick the ones you want and install it in one go.
What do you want to do?
What do you need?
Basically I install Chrome to browse with
Google Drive/Dropbox for cloud storage
Malware bytes for malware, windows security
Office? OpenOffice?
Currently looking at loads of nice thin laptops with decent power for a lot less than any mac.
Most of the big packages are available on both platforms.
If you want options you can also run a VM and put OSX and Linux on there concurrently.
sound like something mac users say. Of course you can spend more on a PC but there's plenty of cheaper PCs that will do a very good job. My wife's £180 laptop will do a lot of things better than a mac and its lighter than a macbook air (and of course there's plenty of things a mac will do better)people always seem to think Macs are expensive, but they're really not, you just can't get cheap nasty macs. Given I want a nice machine, most windows options I've looked at would actually cost me more
Not sure about this catch all. Horses for courses really. Very little engineering software for macs. Graphic design and video editing on macs seems much better. And office for mac, have you tried it?!Most of the big packages are available on both platforms.
+ 1 for Ninite - check the box for what you want, download the intstaller and Bob's your uncle.
VLC for video
Irfanview for images/video
Libre Office
Foxit for PDFs
people always seem to think Macs are expensive, but they're really not, you just can't get cheap nasty macs
So they're not expensive, but there aren't cheap ones. That's the definition of expensive no?
No-one's saying they're not good quality - if you have a grand sitting around in the jar on top of the fridge then sure, you have the choice of premium quality vs value.
However, and this fact seems inconceivable to fanbois, not everyone has a thousand quid lying around. If you haven't, then Macs are expensive no matter how good quality they are. As mentioned above there are good solid reliable laptops around for half that, and they're not Mac.
Not sure about this catch all. Horses for courses really.
Well, he is going the easier way, but of course there are exceptions.
Very little engineering software for macs.
Autodesk software is mostly available now. Anything connected with education in any way will be going that way.
Graphic design and video editing on macs seems much better.
If you need to go outside Adobe, that is.
And office for mac, have you tried it?!
LOLNO. Libre or office 2007* here.
*found in a skip with a valid key 🙂
Ok, I don't really want to argue (much 😉 ) about mac vs. pc but I'll bite...
I said I want a nice machine. For me, that means nice materials, about 1-1.5kg, at least 8Gb ram, 512Gb SSD and a high-DPI screen. Pretty much the only things I've seen that come close to a macbook/MBP are the Yoga Pro 3, Surface pro 3, and HP Spectre x360. These would all cost the same or more. I know I can get cheaper machines, but I want a nice computer not a cheap one.
I'm not an uneducated mac user "something mac users say" perhaps, but I'm pretty sure I'm right. I am willing to be proven wrong though, hell I've put my money where my mouth is and bought a PC just to give it a proper go! And I do use PCs every day, there are two in front of me right now. And they're both more expensive than macs, but that's because you can't get powerful enough macs for my work needs - I know I'm an unusually demanding computer user.
What kind of software do you need?
Typically I'm browsing, RSS via Feedly, Instapaper, email, photo management etc (I'll try Lightroom for this), sync'd notes with simplenote (i'm trying Onenote out), video editing (iMovie currently meets my needs), plus cross platform stuff like spotify, skype etc.
I don't need work stuff nearly all the time these days. I did blog a bit about my thoughts on this here http://iainwallace.co.uk/2015/04/02/a-post-laptop-laptop/ for more background.
Currently looking at loads of nice thin laptops with decent power for a lot less than any mac.
As I said, I'm sure cheaper machines exist but I've not tried or seen any I'd consider. However maybe I'm missing something - got some suggestions? I'll add that I want a touchscreen/2 in 1 if I go windows, if I just get a conventional laptop I see no reason not to stay mac?
[quote> https://ninite.com/ - this is really good for installing a load of useful applications
Looks good, I'll try it out.
run a VM and put OSX and Linux on there concurrently.
I use VMs fairly often, I didn't know you could run OSX on a non-OSX host os? Is it possible without too much hackery?
My wife's £180 laptop will do a lot of things better than a mac
Sounds like the sort of thing windows users say 😉 Seriously though, what are these things? That's the sort of suggestions I'm after.
VLC for video
Irfanview for images/video
Libre Office
Foxit for PDFs
VLC yup, use it on my mac too.
Irfanview - seriously, what's good about it? I used to use it back in the day and it doesn't seem to have moved on much?
Libre office - yup meets some limited office needs for me on my mac too.
I'll look into foxit.
As mentioned above there are good solid reliable laptops around for half that, and they're not Mac.
Oh yeah, I concede that point, and always have. I said "nasty" but I was trolling slightly with that comment, I debated leaving it out. The lenovo I'm trying out amazes me with the quality for the price, but it's nowhere near as nice as my metal mac (or even my metal dell at work).
It's just not what I'm looking for. My point was like-for-like Macs actually seem to be the cheap option.
My wife's £180 laptop will do a lot of things better than a mac
It certainly won't get the disinterested approval I get from my hipster barista.
....and that's all what matters.
Anyway, for those downgrading to Windows, most of the big guns have cross platform offerings. It's only the niche stuff that may be problematic.
My point was like-for-like Macs actually seem to be the cheap option
That's not quite the same thing 🙂
Conversationally, then, not argumentatively - I saw a rather nice looking Acer convertible tablet in PC world the other day. 10", so very small and light along with it. Would be ideal for what I want - the ability to check work emails and do work related stuff, but neglible weight to stick in a cycling rucksack. In tablet form, ideal for e-reading or mooching about on the net.
Price £280 - that's pretty persuasive!
Graphic design and video editing on macs seems much better.
meh, I don't rate Final Cut - been using Avid at work for the past two years or so and it's so much quicker. Of course it could just be familiarity but Avid works so well, whenever I use Final Cut now it just feels plain clunky. And Adobe stuff is the same on either system. fwiw all our edit suites at work are windows 7 based and are very stable and reliable - they have to be for live tv..
Final Cut demonstrates that Apple should stick to hardware.
molgrips - I know the Acers you mean. Look like nice enough machines for that sort of thing, but wouldn't meet my needs. I did try one out for a while though and they're very top heavy/falling over, and the mechanism means the screen doesn't tilt back very far - I'm tall so it's a issue for me.
Of course it could just be familiarity
I'm finding this an issue to work with just now, in general when I find something I don't like on windows I have to be sure to try it more, see if it's really worse or I just don't know how to do it right. Hence wanting to try it for a while first.
As I seem to have attracted some video people - what would you recommend for home use? I'm willing to pay* for software but not a fortune.
*i write software as part of my job, hypocritical not to...
Last time I looked you could VM OSX. Maybe it's harder now? Wouldn't surprise me, Apple are a bit like that.
I know the Acers you mean. Look like nice enough machines for that sort of thing, but wouldn't meet my needs.
Of course, I'm not recommending one for you, I'm talking about the choices you have with PC that you don't have with Mac.
Last time I looked you could VM OSX. Maybe it's harder now? Wouldn't surprise me, Apple are a bit like that.
Erm...ok.
Can we now establish that I'm very happy for all the PC users, and would like some software recommendations?
My wife's £180 laptop will do a lot of things better than a mac
Sounds like the sort of thing windows users say Seriously though, what are these things? That's the sort of suggestions I'm after.
Browses the internet (facebook, here, banking)
does basic stuff (90% of what most users do)
leaves £800+ in your pocket
so recommend me some good applications? What is there that's great software on windows?
Still don't know what you're after! TBH though, I don't use that many applications: Office, Adobe MS, Solid Edge, Solidworks and any of the Autodesk ones.
GAMES
That's where a real difference lies 🙂
You mentioned photography. Paint.NET is a decent, free "Photoshop Lite" if that's any use.
I put a list up there ^
I'm after any and all suggestions really, what's *good* software, not just "gets the job done". What software is worth switching to windows for?
E.g. to make a suggestion or two the other way, I'd recommend Omnigraffle as a great diagramming tool. Nothing comes close on any OS for the ease of use and speed knocking up diagrams. Or texshop for writing latex. Or maybe pixelmator as a good photoshop alternative.
You mentioned photography. Paint.NET is a decent, free "Photoshop Lite" if that's any use.
You mentioned photography. Paint.NET is a decent, free "Photoshop Lite" if that's any use.
Cheers I'll check it out. I'd normally use Aperture (i'll try lightroom) for most photo tweaking but occasionally want to actually "edit" a pic.
Oh, any software to let me add my own gestures to Chrome, or in general? I miss shortcuts from my mac.
E.g. I'd like to two-finger swipe in the browser to go back/forward. I can do this with three fingers on the trackpad (fine) but what about on the touch screen?
Also is there anything to control DPI settings per-app? I'm surprised how poor/inconsistent display scaling support is. I've a 1080p screen in 13" so the default scaling is 150% but that means fuzzy text in apps that don't support it right - I was surprised this includes built in OS things like the device manager.
http://www.macbreaker.com/2015/01/virtualbox-yosemite-zone.html
Any use?
Others:
I'm browsing - FF or Chrome
RSS - Yuk. No idea.
Instapaper - never heard of it. Looks like it's trying to find a reason to exist. Google drive or a USB drive?
email - Google Mail? Also have used Thunderbird, but the idea of using a non-browser based email client makes me unhappy.
photo management - I just put all 14,000 pics in a folder and sort by date.
(I'll try Lightroom for this) - other people seem to rate it.
sync'd notes with simplenote (I'm trying Onenote out) - [OneNote] another useless piece of crap. In fact, while were on the subject - something you need to know is just how easy it is to get loads of crap running in the background in Windows, ON being a case in point. Uninstall.
video editing (iMovie currently meets my needs) - no idea. Something Adobe.
Plus cross platform stuff - that's more like it.
OK so seriously - you need antivirus. I quite like Avast, though I notice the free version is spamming me with ads at the rate of one an hour or so. It didn't used to. You could also pay and get the upgraded version with Firewall and no ads.
At the same time as this someone else asked me about hardware monitors:
HWMonitor by CPUID - almost hardware listed, plus all volts and clockspeeds.
CPU-Z by CPUID - details about the CPU.
Realtemp/RealtempGT [6core only] Accurate CPU Temps and multiplier - INTEL ONLY
Speedfan - graphs of temps, ability to modify fan behaviour, and VERY USEFUL - can test and report HDD SMART status.
Instapaper - never heard of it. Looks like it's trying to find a reason to exist. Google drive or a USB drive?
It's to save articles to read later, possibly offline. I like that I can push articles to it from a bookmarklet on any of the devices I use daily then read them from a device of choice at my leisure.
email - Google Mail? Also have used Thunderbird, but the idea of using a non-browser based email client makes me unhappy.
Fair enough, I've just never got on with gmails web interface for some reason. I think I like OS level integration for notifications, photo pickers etc.
[OneNote] another useless piece of crap.
Fair enough to say this, but "just remove it" isn't an alternative. I need something that syncs text notes across all my devices. I want to be able to see and edit my various text notes from everywhere. I currently get this with simplenote but there's no good windows client so I need an alternative.
OK so seriously - you need antivirus
What's wrong with windows defender? Is there a benefit to other apps?
HWMonitor by CPUID - almost hardware listed, plus all volts and clockspeeds.
CPU-Z by CPUID - details about the CPU.
Realtemp/RealtempGT [6core only] Accurate CPU Temps and multiplier - INTEL ONLY
Speedfan - graphs of temps, ability to modify fan behaviour, and VERY USEFUL - can test and report HDD SMART status.
Cheers - though I don't need to know that stuff on a home machine. If you're making a list add GPU-Z to that too, provides useful info on the GPU (I develop 3D stuff for work so it's useful when performance debugging stuff to get a rough cut on memory bus vs compute bottlenecks).
[OneNote] another useless piece of crap.
I couldn't disagree more.
OneNote is one of the finest pieces of software MS have ever written. Ok, I appreciate that to a Mac bod that's probably not much of an accolade, but it's seriously revolutionised both my work and home note organisation.
What's wrong with windows defender? Is there a benefit to other apps?
Windows 8? "No" is the short answer.
I need something that syncs text notes across all my devices. I want to be able to see and edit my various text notes from everywhere. I currently get this with simplenote but there's no good windows client so I need an alternative.
EverNote is the big one. Though it didn't "click" with me like OneNote did.
Interesting list of recommendations - Chrome, Dropbox, Google Drive, VLC, Open Office. That software is available on both mac and PC so the real answer is just keep using the software you like
[OneNote] another useless piece of crap.Fair enough to say this, but "just remove it" isn't an alternative. I need something that syncs text notes across all my devices. I want to be able to see and edit my various text notes from everywhere. I currently get this with simplenote but there's no good windows client so I need an alternative.
Oh, shoot, my bad, I got it OneNote mixed up with EndNote. Sorry 🙂 This isn't a surprise as I installed ON by accident because I was told to use End Note. Then it kept launching at startup, and interfering with the print screen button so I got in a huff and binned it. I binned EN too, seemed like a giant waste of time.
Please ignore that 🙂
My needs are simple, I use
MS Office - because it's used home and office everywhere I go
One Note - Notes (and more) in sync everywhere. I like it a lot.
Make MKV - for DVD ripping
Handbrake - video transcoding
DBPoweramp - CD ripping
Sony Movie Studio - Video editing. It was the only cheap editor that did 3D when I wanted it and now I'm accustomed to it.
Internet Explorer - good these days though I sometimes use Chrome
Anti virus I just use what MS offer and have had no problems.
Endnote makes more sense, that is guff. I recommend Zotero for good cross platform reference management and bibliography tool (I write papers a lot)
Sony movie studio any good? What are the alternatives?
I recommend Zotero for good cross platform reference management and bibliography tool
LOL Who's helping who 😉 Thanks dude.
What are the alternatives?
Adobe Premiere, good solid and use it here.
Sony movie studio any good? What are the alternatives?
I think most would go for Adobe Premier (Elements or Pro depending on budget)
you need antivirus
W8 and above comes with Av I think so you can ignore third party products unless you are unhealthily paranoid.
I'll give premiere a look, cheers.
I get the point people make about cross platform stuff being the same, e.g. chrome. But although I use chrome on windows/linux at work, I use safari on my mac as there are massive performance/battery life benefits, there may be similar tips i'm missing out on regarding good Modern apps etc.
I know that typically mapping/GPS software has been better on windows*, anything particularly good?
*well, more that I don't know anything that great on the mac and I have looked.
Is there really a battery life difference between comparable Mac and Windows machines? They have the same batteries inside and the same hardware after all.
I use safari on my mac as there are massive performance/battery life benefits
There is?
Yup. ~30% / 3 hrs less battery life on chrome compared to safari.
http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/10/8381447/chrome-macbook-battery-life
Regarding vs. PC, the new XPS13 has decent life but apart from that nearly everything else is worse:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8983/dell-xps-13-review/6
Note that excepting the XPS everything is worse than the MBA13 - even the MBA13 but in windows.
Yeah Premier is fine once you get your keyboard shortcuts all set up and running 🙂 it accepts pretty much any file format as well which is nice, not too much hassle with having to transcode everything if you don't want to mess around.
Hmm potential software bill of £160 for Lightroom and premiere elements is slightly off putting for a move to PC (compared to iMovie and photos.app). Will give them a go though.
honestly please don't stick with a mac, it will save lots of threads 😉
iMovie is really limited compared to a proper bit of software though but I guess it depends how in depth you want to get. But unless you're getting paid for the work, you might as well just torrent your software.
iMovie is really limited compared to a proper bit of software though but I guess it depends how in depth you want to get.
Lets me browse and organise clips, scrub through them easily, trim them, stick them together adding transitions and layer on some audio, all I need really.
you might as well just torrent your software.
Did you see the bit where I said I write software for a living... I'm not about to start stealing it. Good software takes a phenomenal amount of effort to produce. I'm not sure a recommendation of "use X, Y and Z but I wouldn't pay money for it" holds much weight.
Is there still a Windows Live Movie maker?
Edit: yes
MS Visio is a good program for your diagrams, a bunch of us got it free (Dreamspark before anyone lights a pitchtorch) and it was well recieved. I'd have to be sure I wanted it mind, £225 for a flowchart maker is quite steep!
Not sure if Dreamspark licence would be breached if you got a trial of it, you definitely cannot do anything commercial with it though so it would have to bea strict trial (assuming you can find someone willing to do that for you).
re OneNote; If your in the Google services already - Google keep?
It's a Chrome app - xplatform(win,mac,iP..,droid). Once you add it as a chrome app, it's available from launcher/dock etc. you can even remove Chrome then if you prefer..
Aperture a bit trickier, even if it is EOL.
For free/iPhoto's equivlnt basic edit/organise on Win -> Picasa? (Google again, but you don't have to sign in)..
Offbeat suggestion: IF you can bear life in a browser, Chromebook pixel? HiDPI, touch, good performance, sideload Crouton for GIMP or other essential stuff browser apps suck at. (Ligthroom/Aperture gap is why I keep Win&Mac personally). But 92.5% of screen time is on the rather nice Pixle screen..
For the reasons I keep a Win/Mac: Adobe do keep promising a remoted Lightroom/Photoshop service for Chromebooks - but right now it's limited to academic plans. The target storage must be Google drive as well (I understand).
Then the cloud slurp could be complete! (but I can see the attraction personally).
Is there still a Windows Live Movie maker?
Will have a look, did try it a while back and it was bobbins but maybe improved.
MS Visio is a good program for your diagrams
I've used Visio (work, and old versions when I was a student) and it's ok, but no Omnigraffle. I've less/little need to diagram at home now these days so it's not a big issue.
re OneNote; If your in the Google services already - Google keep?
I thought about it, and had a look, but I'm iOS for mobile devices and there's no good support. Early days yet but I'm actually quite liking onenote. However that's just two days of usage compared to years with simplenote so we'll see how it goes.
For free/iPhoto's equivlnt basic edit/organise on Win -> Picasa? (Google again, but you don't have to sign in)..
I'll check it out, though I suspect I'll end up wanting Lightroom, partly as it should be able to import my Aperture library properly, and be able to set up auto-import from photostream etc.
Offbeat suggestion: IF you can bear life in a browser, Chromebook pixel?
I did think about this, or lesser spec machines, but my issue is mostly disk space. All my photos etc need to live *somewhere* and i'm not quite ready for that to go full cloud yet, I could get a NAS...but then that's adding complexity etc and they're not with me when I'm elsewhere...maybe that doesn't matter...but not quite sure I'm ready to take the leap yet. Also performance with pics on a NAS still won't be that good, even on 5Ghz AC wifi. It's "ok" on my current setup (database and previews on SSD, masters on HDD).
I'm not quite ready to go "full cloud" as I kinda want my own backups... but I do see the attraction. I've heavily used cloud services of various forms as I ran two macs for years, plus ipad and a phone of some sort (various OS) and wanted access to stuff on all machines.
Chrome books can have lots of local storage.
I though the pixel was up to 64gb? Any with a 512 or 1 Tb SSD?
I'm not gonna be getting a device with a HDD, they have their place but it's not been in anything other than a server for me for years.
I doubt a chromebook is a good option for me, but I did ponder it briefly.
The fact that most PCs don't seem to come with PCIe/NVMe SSDs is slightly off putting TBH, if I'm getting a new machine I don't want old tech in it, and IME fast disk makes a big difference.
*
I've had nothing but mac since 1996. there have been times at random jobs were I've worked on pc's. i think there are plus and minus points for both systems and you can do practically anything on either.
suppose its the same as other stuff (like wheel sizes!!) were 'the quality of the journey' comes into it. and i personally like the way the mac interface looks and works. despite many doing extremely serious stuff on computers (more serious that me and graphic design), i think its important to enjoy the process of 'working your computer'. my new mac pro is the most underwhelming object ever (a sith r2d2) and outrageously capably of everything i throw at it and pleasant in doing so...
its all very rigid 29er/fat frontish...
I have to say, iOS looked great to me a few years ago, but now I reckon it looks dated. Windows 8 and 10 otoh I love, aesthetically speaking.
The fact that most PCs don't seem to come with PCIe/NVMe SSDs is slightly off putting TBH, if I'm getting a new machine I don't want old tech in it, and IME fast disk makes a big difference.
Still going.... reckon you will probably hate it 😉
All my photos etc need to live *somewhere* and i'm not quite ready for that to go full cloud yet, I could get a NAS...but then that's adding complexity etc and they're not with me when I'm elsewhere...maybe that doesn't matter...but not quite sure I'm ready to take the leap yet. Also performance with pics on a NAS still won't be that good, even on 5Ghz AC wifi. It's "ok" on my current setup (database and previews on SSD, masters on HDD).
Unless you need everything all the time then a NAS is a much better option, keep a complete backup off your main machine and take what you need when you need it. I'm editing 1080 video over wired off a NAS with no real issues at the moment, yes not as fast as a SSD locally but I don't need to have a few TB of drives stuffed into a machine. Keep the working stuff local and the rest remote.
My adobe subscription gives me cloud storage/sync for the stuff I'm playing with at the time and pics and everything else on google drive or dropbox and on hand to DL and get to if I want.
Unless you need everything all the time then a NAS is a much better option,
Until you're burgled, or the house burns down, or some other site-wide disaster.
Has the OP cracked, realised the true path, and just gone and bought a Macbook Air/Pro yet?
Until you're burgled, or the house burns down, or some other site-wide disaster.
I offsite archive everything occasionally and online backup everything automatically too, that doesn't worry me too much.
Has the OP cracked, realised the true path, and just gone and bought a Macbook Air/Pro yet?
I've already got a pro and bought a windows machine, read the OP 😉
And my follow up post - I'll not buy a new pro (unnecessarily bulky) or air (low res screen).
So far in answer to my OP - no one's held up some software and said "this is some great software and a reason to switch to windows"
I've already got a pro and bought a windows machine, read the OP
Oh, I read the OP, OP. I'm just telling you how this is going to go 😀
Maybe 🙂
I'm giving windows a fair shot though, and there are things I like better about it so far.
So far in answer to my OP - no one's held up some software and said "this is some great software and a reason to switch to windows"
Well the definition of 'great' depends on what you need, doesn't it?
Well maybe, let me decide that. If no one can provide examples of software that's great on windows, maybe there's no great software only "good enough" and I should stick with mac?
E.g. I gave some examples of software that I think is great on mac, and not anywhere else. Omnigraffle and texshop/bibdesk in particular are so good for what they do I used a mac for work when I had a provided PC that would cost me nothing.
Isn't this all faintly ridiculous, though? As someone could recommend a fantastic bit of software for airbrushing the nipples off of cats, but if that's not what you're into, then it's of no use.
You got to set some parameters, dude. Otherwise there will be anarchy.
Also, to go back to the OP, you stated a touchscreen was what drew you to Windows machines. So isn't that enough? In that you can interact with the same software, just in your preferred way?
If no one can provide examples of software that's great on windows,
If that were true, there wouldn't be a variation on "how do I install Windows on my Mac" / "how do I make this Windows software run on my Mac" / "what's the Mac equivalent of this Windows software" threads oh here on pretty much a weekly basis.
But what boogiesomething said is right - what are you looking for? You don't buy a hole saw and then go "right, can anyone recommend me something I can cut holes into?"
Eg, STW, last week:
http://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/which-windows-emulator-for-mac
I can recommend you some great games, office products, retro computing emulators, network analysis tools, notepad replacements, FTP clients, instant messaging tools... give us a clue!
Also, to go back to the OP, you stated a touchscreen was what drew you to Windows machines. So isn't that enough? In that you can interact with the same software, just in your preferred way?
It might be, but I'm not sure - so I bought a windows machine to try it. Now I've got it, maybe I'm missing some good stuff so I thought I'd start a thread to find out. I know what I use on my mac, and what of that I can use on windows, but maybe there's stuff I don't know about because I can't use it on my mac? What cool things can I do with this holesaw I've got now that I didn't know about?
great games, office products, retro computing emulators, network analysis tools, notepad replacements, FTP clients, instant messaging tools... give us a clue!
I'm into all that - so please, crack on!
Got notepad++ for that, I have a steam box I use for games but more recommendations always good. A good FTP/sftp client would be handy. Something to scan wifi channels/monitor a connection etc would be handy too.
More specifically:
Mapping software - something to view OS maps and plot a GPX trail.
Something to let me map touch gestures?
Something to set per-app DPI scaling, or any way to improve the seeming mess that is hiDPI support in windows? (though I guess win8 might sort that, or getting a machine high enough res to run 200% scaling and pixel doubling might look neater where it's crap).
Alternatives to Premiere/Lightroom
You got to set some parameters, dude. Otherwise there will be anarchy.
If it's an anarchy of good software recommendations that's great. That's the sort of thing that would inspire me to switch to windows - knowing there was a wealth of great software to do whatever I want. E.g. that's a big reason people use iOS. I'd love to hear there's great nipples-off-cats airbrushing software, after all, if that exists, there must be other great software right?
Ok then. IBM business process manager, the client tooling only works on Windows. Very powerful tool for transforming your company's working practices that.
Also I am pretty sure Visual Studio is only available on Windows, that's essential for creating Windows Phone apps.
Cheers, I'd been meaning to look into what languages/targets are supported by VS recently actually, I seem to recall reading it's decent for some web services stuff and the latest Azure offerings are interesting.
IBM stuff less useful to me but the recommendation is still helpful, supports the impression "windows for serious business"
Got notepad++
... is the right answer. (-:
I have a steam box I use for games but more recommendations always good.
You could do worse than trawl GoG and subscribe to the Humble Bundle newsletter. I've enough games to last me till the grandchildren I don't have die.
A good FTP/sftp client would be handy.
FTP - Filezilla.
Alternatives to Premiere/Lightroom
Picasa is a half-decent Lightroom-lite.
IBM stuff less useful to me
I was being sarcastic. Business Process Manager is of no use to you unless you are running a large business 🙂
All I use at home is Chrome, Tracklogs, Garmin plugin for Strava, Office, Elements and.. er.. not sure what else.
At work I use eclipse, Office, and non-platform specific email client. Oh and VMware workstation. jEdit for text editing, SoapUI for testing, HermesJMS. Oh, RFHUtil is only available for Windows... 🙂
Not do derail the thread too much, but have we figured out what things the £180 laptop can do *better* than than a mac yet? And no, being cheaper isn't one of them.
Also, was there a link to this £180 laptop?
Inoreader for RSS, site opens in browser not a separate app so platform agnostic. (I switched to it when NetNewsWire went titsup when Google shut their news feeds).
have we figured out what things the £180 laptop can do *better* than than a mac yet? And no, being cheaper isn't one of them.
Being cheaper is the only thing a £180 laptop has got going for it, obviously. But it's quite an important factor 🙂
Finally people are coming up with some nice suggestions for me to chase up, thanks 🙂
For a decent laptop about £180 check out the HP Stream 11 - £200 tho I think.
Of course it's in no way better than a more expensive one (Mac or otherwise) but let's not go back there again...!
The software I sell, fairly awesome at what it does and not available for Mac, though if your not in the field not much use and quite expensive.
have we figured out what things the £180 laptop can do *better* than than a mac yet? And no, being cheaper isn't one of them.
Yep, think I did a couple of pages ago, 90% of basic web use and the rest of the low intensity stuff most people actually do for a fraction of the cost of a mac or ipad.
Yep, think I did a couple of pages ago, 90% of basic web use and the rest of the low intensity stuff most people actually do for a fraction of the cost of a mac or ipad.
Ok I'll bite. It's not better at that stuff, it's worse.
It's a worse screen, lower res with not as sharp text, worse colour gamut. The keyboard and trackpad won't be as nice, it may be bulkier. It'll render pages slower, it'll load pages slower and transfer files slower etc. Materials won't feel as nice when using it.
Now, some people don't care or notice these things, but it is objectively worse. It's also objectively cheaper.
Now, some people don't care or notice these things, but it is objectively worse. It's also objectively cheaper.
Biting...
The revolution in personal computing was putting the tech in the hands of millions, most don't GAS about the color gamut of the niceness of the keyboard or how the material feels. People want something that works, does a job and does what they need to.
http://store.apple.com/uk/buy-mac/macbook/silver-256gb
at 1k it doesn't seem like it's the right tool for everyone.
I agree with all that, the point I'm arguing is:
My wife's £180 laptop will do a lot of things better than a mac
Which wasn't from you - but the point is this £180 laptop will do nothing better, but it will cost less.
Maybe my OP should have said:
"Ignoring cost and hardware, why should I switch to Windows? Recommend me some great software as examples."
But hey, I was trying to attract the usual trolling to some extent, as surely the folk that come on strong with the arguing have good software they like on windows and the reason isn't just that you can get a cheaper machine? Or maybe it is, the reason is just "it's cheaper and good enough".
Assuming money is no object, it really is down to personal preference unless there is some specific piece of software you have to have. For general productivity there are alternatives on both; it's the specifics like a tool for work or the drivers for some piece of hardware that are only on one platform.
Ignoring cost and hardware, why should I switch to Windows?
There's no reason to switch - they are both good platforms.