To PC ... or not to PC?

[Dave2002]

If you don't like typing on a laptop and find the screen too small you can use Target Disc Mode to run the laptop from the desktop.
(If that makes sense?)

Does that always work? Maybe!

I remember asking when I bought one a new machine a few years ago whether I could use the old (large) screen to do 2 screen working, and was told that it would only work if they had the same version of Mac OS X - and a recent one at that. I have done shared screens over a LAN - there are several ways of doing that, but the performance is generally very poor. Things might get worse if the network is WiFi.

There are adapter devices - I've seen them used, but I don't think they are Apple gadgets. We had them at work to allow 2 screen working.

I think another option is plugging the devices together with some form of cabling, but then there are issues about which versions of Thunderbolt or Displayport are being used.

One option on some 2013 models (Retina - plus HDMI out) of the MBP is to use an HDMI cable with a TV or suitable screen. Our 42 inch TV is too big for sensible computer work, but fine for watching videios. Yet another option is to use an Apple TV - though that might not solve all problems.

I'll have to check out Target Disk Mode further - to see if it's something I already know about but haven't recognised the name.

PS: https://support.apple.com/kb/PH10725?locale=en_GB

[french frank]

If you don't like typing on a laptop and find the screen too small you can use Target Disc Mode to run the laptop from the desktop.
(If that makes sense?)

It sort of does, except … can't quite put my finger on why I'm frowning a bit at the solution … Can you link the Windows partition to an iMac?

dave2002 - the MacBook is 2011, but I probably bought it in 2013 as it was secondhand (haven't bought a new computer for years). If we're talking storage I've only used a miniscule amount; if memory, I'm not sure why I would need very much anyway (is that halved too if there's a partition?).

[Dave2002]

It sort of does, except … can't quite put my finger on why I'm frowning a bit at the solution … Can you link the Windows partition to an iMac?

dave2002 - the MacBook is 2011, but I probably bought it in 2013 as it was secondhand (haven't bought a new computer for years). If we're talking storage I've only used a miniscule amount; if memory, I'm not sure why I would need very much anyway (is that halved too if there's a partition?).

No - if you're using Bootcamp pretty much all the memory is available in both Win and MacOS modes. The only slight difference I can think of would be if there's any smail software overhead which gets tucked up into memory at startup - which should be virtually insignificant in any case.

Doesn't sound like a problem for you, though you could buy a wireless keyboard (Apple ones are about £50) and maybe an Apple TV to get full screen display if you wanted that as your 2011 model might not have a suitable output for a display - though it might. I don't quite see how mrgg picked that up - maybe I missed something. If you have a disk drive based model you probably do have enough spare capacity anyway - certainly for your needs - though the SSD models are much faster, but have smaller memory (for a given price).

Trying to get larger screens with Thunderbolt may prove difficult and/or expensive - http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/...erbolt-display

[MrGongGong]

Target Disk should work fine as it's effectively running one computer using the keyboard and screen of another
BUT if you are doing this a lot you might find it more convenient to simply get a USB (or wireless) keyboard and a switch to share a screen with the desktop.

[Dave2002]

Target Disk should work fine as it's effectively running one computer using the keyboard and screen of another
BUT if you are doing this a lot you might find it more convenient to simply get a USB (or wireless) keyboard and a switch to share a screen with the desktop.

I still think you have to consider the nature of what one wants to do. There will be data to transfer between the machines in order to drive the display. Might work OK for word processing - would have to test. I think it'd be useless for video or games though because of the data traffic.

Have you used it much?

[MrGongGong]

I still think you have to consider the nature of what one wants to do. There will be data to transfer between the machines in order to drive the display. Might work OK for word processing - would have to test. I think it'd be useless for video or games though because of the data traffic.

Have you used it much?

Only as a way of problem solving rather than an everyday thing.
I was only suggesting it as a quick way of solving the problem rather than a long term option.

[Sydney Grew]

. . . my guess is that a laptop would do. . . Comments.

In response to the Original Poster, I would advise you to insist on any new machine's having the "AES New Instructions" - second last on the right. Only about one in five of the Intel chips - the "high end" ones - presently has this technology.

Also I would never purchase a new "Windows ten" machine because at least with some of them it is now impossible to boot anything but windows! (As Mr. Tipps has already indicated.)

Nor would I ever purchase a "Macintosh" thing, because - excuse me if you must for this - I prefer pure text and grown-up thinking to pretty pictures and grotesque transatlantic baby-talk.

The "Acer" laptops - the ones with an Intel chip - are reliable. I have purchased about half a dozen over the years and never had any failures. Avoid Hewlett-Packhard (overheating) and Samsung (bios errors). "Toshiba" laptops have the best built-in facilities for musical reproduction - real little speakers etc.

[Anastasius]

Nor would I ever purchase a "Macintosh" thing, because - excuse me if you must for this - I prefer pure text and grown-up thinking to pretty pictures and grotesque transatlantic baby-talk.

.....

May I suggest that perhaps the Mac has moved on since you last looked at one.

I have no idea what "grotesque transatlantic baby-talk" is and as for pictures, doesn't Windows have those as well these days?

[Frances_iom]

May I suggest that perhaps the Mac has moved on since you last looked at one.

I have no idea what "grotesque transatlantic baby-talk" is and as for pictures, doesn't Windows have those as well these days?

having just bought a 2nd hand Mac mini with OS X, I can see what he complains about - bouncing pictograms etc tho considerably less toys-r-us than win7 + 8 were - anyway it seems I can install Debian Linux without too much hassle which I'll probably do in short term - then I feel I own the machine - with Macs and latest windoze get impression very like the early 19th century attitude of Methodist 'hierarchy' to local chapels - " the debts are yours, the pulpit is ours"

[ahinton]

May I suggest that perhaps the Mac has moved on since you last looked at one.

I have no idea what "grotesque transatlantic baby-talk" is and as for pictures, doesn't Windows have those as well these days?

I've no idea what's supposedly meant by "grotesque transatlantic baby-talk" either but, since it seems not to be of much importance other than to the writer who referred to it, I cannot say that I am especially bothered by the reference.

[P. G. Tipps]

Apart from being rather unkind to babies, whom all right-thinking and politically-correct persons must surely adore, I find 'grotesque transatlantic baby-talk'' effortlessly comprehensible and almost ineluctably appropriate to the discussion, though I confess to finding 'to the write to referred to it' rather more challenging.

The contribution by Mr Grew is most welcome indeed and I thoroughly commend it! I would go even further than the member by revealing that my first glimpse of one of those tastelessly garish and obscenely over-priced Apple computers (in my local Johen Lewis Department Store of all places) made me feel decidedly queasy and, so desperate to escape the sick-inducing eyesore, I willingly agreed to accompany Mrs P. G. Tipps to the Ladies' Shoes department instead.

Whilst I've been deeply wary of John Lewis stores ever since, I do hope that Apple designers have not only 'moved on' but have finally "grown up" ...

[ahinton]

Apart from being rather unkind to babies, whom all right-thinking and politically-correct persons must surely adore, I find 'grotesque transatlantic baby-talk'' effortlessly comprehensible and almost ineluctably appropriate to the discussion, though I confess to finding 'to the write to referred to it' rather more challenging.

Too challenging a typo for you, it would seem; never mind - it's now corrected.

The meaning - if any - of "transatlantic baby-talk" continues to elude me, however. Where and how might the speech efforts of babies come into this? Isn't "transatlantic" indicative of both sides of that ocean and, if so, is the reference intended to relate in some way to the old cliché of two nations divided by a common language? - a rather antediluvian notion today when the use of English everywhere is moving at a faster rate than ever before.

The contribution by Mr Grew is most welcome indeed and I thoroughly commend it! I would go even further than the member by revealing that my first glimpse of one of those tastelessly garish and obscenely over-priced Apple computers (in my local Johen Lewis Department Store of all places) made me feel decidedly queasy and, so desperate to escape the sick-inducing eyesore, I willingly agreed to accompany Mrs P. G. Tipps to the Ladies' Shoes department instead.

Whilst I've been deeply wary of John Lewis stores ever since, I do hope that Apple designers have not only 'moved on' but have finally "grown up" ...

Much side-taking and the adoption of entrenched positions going on here, it would seem, although I don't doubt that something similar could have occurred in that shoe department where perhaps the only common feature of the products on offer is that they're never knowingly undersoled...

[P. G. Tipps]

the only common feature of the products on offer is that they're never knowingly undersoled...

... and that to already well-heeled clientele ... ?

[MrGongGong]

obscenely over-priced Apple computers .

aaah yes
and I've also heard that you have to pay over £150 to get a ticket for Opera

Try comparing like with like

[P. G. Tipps]

aaah yes
and I've also heard that you have to pay over £150 to get a ticket for Opera

Try comparing like with like

I am, so I don't have to try any further. In the bad old days to which I refer Mac computers were famously more expensive (and considerably more garish as previously indicated) than their Microsoft rivals. To be fair, I understand the former did have a reputation of being rather more reliable and 'user-friendly' as well.

Of course things may have changed since then but, apart from an occasional dabble with Vista, I prefer to put together my own bespoke hardware operated by free Linux software, and use this instead of a regular, so-called 'eye-candy' system with unnecessary and unused programs and features, all supplied at a hefty premium by either of the two 'Desktop' giants.

What other members do, of course, is entirely up to them!