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Can y'all stand another "help me" thread? Shopping for a computer.

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  • Can y'all stand another "help me" thread? Shopping for a computer.

    I think I know what I want, but I will be the first to admit that my technical knowledge of computers is quite basic. I'm hoping some of you that are more knowledgeable than I can steer me in the right direction.

    Background: the computer will be primarily for my oldest son. He has the same bone disease as the child that uses a wheelchair, but his issues are mostly upper body instead of lower body like his youngest brother. His major issue is difficulty with fine motor skills and intermittent, temporary paralysis of his arms. He uses an iPhone 6 Plus at school to take notes, record lectures and take pictures when he can't write.

    Needs:

    -must have voice control software
    -must have some sort of drawing app for things like chemistry, math, physics, etc.
    -must be able to easily transfer files back and forth between the phone and the computer.

    Preferences:

    I want a desktop. A laptop would be too tempting to take to school, increasing the risk of damage or theft. His school is on the rough side. I'd like a larger monitor so I can more easily see what's on the screen from a distance. The house is huge and individual rooms are large. I have been considering a laptop with a docking station. That means there's still the temptation to take it to school, but it also means it's more portable for hospital stays.

    What I think I want:

    I think I want a 27 inch iMac loaded with Microsoft office for Mac. Most of the other devices in the house are apple products. The file transfer thing is extremely easy between them. In my personal experience I like being able to work on a document on my phone and then be able to open the same doc on my computer without having to do anything special. I think he would like that as well. OS X has voice command integrated into the OS so I wouldn't have to buy a separate piece of software. If I buy the apple trackpad, I already have an app I bought for my computer that uses the track pad as a sensor to draw. With family sharing, I would not have to re purchase it.

    That said, I really don't understand the technical specs. There's a few options and I honestly don't know what makes things better or worse. I also don't really know if some of the options for PC's might actually be better, even if I have to give up the seamless sharing between Apple devices.

    I'd appreciate any thoughts or advice you guys might have.

    ETA: Cost isn't much of a factor. I'm paying for this with a dedicated fund that can only be used for medical or educational needs. This is qualifying as educational. There's still nearly $12k left in that fund. I don't want to spend it all, and I still don't want to spend more than I have to going crazy with things he doesn't need, but I don't have to be cheap either.
    Last edited by mathnerd; 01-05-2016, 08:55 AM.
    At the conclusion of an Irish wedding, the priest said "Everybody please hug the person who has made your life worth living. The bartender was nearly crushed to death.

  • #2
    Don't worry too much about the technical aspects, computers these days can pretty much handle anything thrown at them - my current machine is a 2008 model Mac Pro, all I've done us replace the GPU and I can still power through modern games.

    It sounds like you've already made a pretty sound decision, knowing the OS already,mthem fact that most devices are already apple, and you've already got a license for software you want to use - go for it.

    Plus Apple's built in screen sharing means you can quickly check up what's going on from your computer discretely of you need to.

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    • #3
      Thanks prjkt. The fund manger approved the purchase today with a budget of $3,662.00. I'm pretty sure I can get everything he needs and want and then some for that. I'm picking the kid up after school and we are going to the Apple Store to play with the different machines and make a final decision.

      Also, thanks for reminding me about the apple to apple "snooping" capabilities. I knew it was there, but didn't think about it. That's another huge mark in the "pro" column for an iMac.
      At the conclusion of an Irish wedding, the priest said "Everybody please hug the person who has made your life worth living. The bartender was nearly crushed to death.

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      • #4
        Quoth mathnerd View Post
        I have been considering a laptop with a docking station. That means there's still the temptation to take it to school, but it also means it's more portable for hospital stays.
        Don't know about the Mac side of things, but on the PC side the docking stations I've seen came with a lock so that if the user so wished, they could lock the laptop into the station. So long as you keep the key, this should eliminate the temptation (or at least keep your son from acting on it).

        Even if the docking station doesn't have that capability, all modern (i.e. last 10 years or so) laptops I've seen have a standardized "lock" slot where a cable lock can be inserted. Fasten it to an immovable object at home (or at the hospital - that's not a secure environment) and it won't wind up going to school.
        Any fool can piss on the floor. It takes a talented SC to shit on the ceiling.

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        • #5
          Not sure if the Apple laptops use the Kensington lock thing, so that might not work in this instance.

          As for docking stations at home, the Apple Thunderbolt display works pretty well as one, gives you the large monitor, USB ports for keyboard/etc and a power cable to charge the Macbook, so you can keep the separate charger in a "go bag" ready for hospital/whereever if you decide to go that way. Cost-wise it's more expensive for less performance, but it might be what you need.

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          • #6
            And I might get both. I qualify for the educator discount, which isn't huge, but is substantial. We went to the Apple Store today to play. The 21.5 inch iMac actually works better for him. The downside is that you can't upgrade the memory on that one like you can with the 27 inch. It's also a little slower, but we won't be using it for gaming, so the difference won't be intolerable. It's $800 less expensive, and a laptop similar to mine is $800 with the educator discount, giving me both machines for the cost of just the larger iMac. The money should be transferred into my account by the end of the week so I still have a couple days to decide.
            At the conclusion of an Irish wedding, the priest said "Everybody please hug the person who has made your life worth living. The bartender was nearly crushed to death.

            Comment


            • #7
              That's actually not a bad option - one other cool thing with Macs you might like is the Target Disk Mode option - booting a Mac up in TDM turns it into an external hard-drive over Thunderbolt and/or Firewire - which you can then use as a boot drive for another Mac - ie using the Macbook as a bootdrive for the iMac - handy if there are documents/programs that are only on one machine.

              Or you can drag/drop using Screen Sharing to transfer files too, it's pretty handy

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              • #8
                Quoth prjkt View Post
                That's actually not a bad option - one other cool thing with Macs you might like is the Target Disk Mode option - booting a Mac up in TDM turns it into an external hard-drive over Thunderbolt and/or Firewire - which you can then use as a boot drive for another Mac - ie using the Macbook as a bootdrive for the iMac - handy if there are documents/programs that are only on one machine.

                Or you can drag/drop using Screen Sharing to transfer files too, it's pretty handy

                My technical knowledge is extremely basic. I think I understand what you're saying, but maybe not. Can you explain that in a little bit more detail, and explain why that would be advantageous?
                At the conclusion of an Irish wedding, the priest said "Everybody please hug the person who has made your life worth living. The bartender was nearly crushed to death.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Ok, here's a few scenarios.

                  1: You've got some data on a laptop you want to put on the desktop, but you can't be bothered setting up a network transfer
                  Reboot the laptop into Target Disk Mode (from the Startup Disk section in System Preferences or by holding T during startup)
                  Plug laptop into desktop via Thunderbolt or Firewire cable.
                  Laptop now shows up to the desktop as an external hard-drive. Transfer as you need to.
                  (note this works both ways - desktop could be in Target Disk Mode, or any other Mac type for that matter - laptop to laptop, desktop to desktop etc.)

                  2: THere's a piece of software on the laptop that's being configured and setup precisely to do what you want it to, but you want to use this on a desktop Mac.
                  Reboot the laptop into Target Disk Mode and connect it to the desktop via the above mentioned cables.
                  Reboot the desktop and hold Option/Alt during startup.
                  This will give you a list of disk drives you can use to boot from (useful for people like me with multiple OSes on one computer) and select the laptop's drive.
                  The desktop computer will now boot from the laptop, allowing you to use the software you need without setting it up twice.

                  Hope that helps - not necessary by any means, but something worth noting - I personally do a lot of photo editing on my Macbook Air, when that fills up I dump the photo libraries to my desktop by using the Target Disk Mode as an external drive method (scenario 1) and start again.

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                  • #10
                    That makes sense. And actually might be quite useful. DS is in the drama club and takes drama electives, but not as an actor. He does all the sound and lighting design, and serves as a back up set designer. The sound and light board at school is powered by Apple software. Having the ability to easily transfer large, complex design files would be advantageous. Theatrical design and production is one of his top choices for a college major, so that's easily in line with the requirement to be necessary for his education. With your information, I'm now 99 percent sure I'm going to get the smaller desktop plus the laptop.
                    At the conclusion of an Irish wedding, the priest said "Everybody please hug the person who has made your life worth living. The bartender was nearly crushed to death.

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                    • #11
                      Glad to be able to help here, let me know if you have any set up issues, I've been running multiple Macs for a while now

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                      • #12
                        Thanks again! The funds did come in today, so I went shopping. I did wind up getting both the smaller iMac (21.5 inch) and 13 inch MacBook Air. I think that set up will be far more versatile and better suit his needs. I added a trackpad in addition to the mouse it can with, and also got one of those drawing pad things. I forget what they are called. It's the accessory that you can draw in with either a stylus or your finger and the drawing will appear on the screen. I figured that would help him on the days where he has some use of his hands but can't manipulate a pencil, as it will let him write or draw with just his finger.

                        I also found out today that my youngest needs a Windows machine. He's transferring out of the hospital/homebound program and into a public school. He going to be going to a magnet program for math and science. He starts there on Monday and he chose the computer science track, and one of the courses he will be taking is intro to programming. They strongly advised that he have a computer that runs Windows. I didn't want to spend a lot of money because everything else I own is Apple*, so I was quite pleased with the extremely helpful salesman at Big Yellow Pricetag who helped me select an decent bare bones machine that would do what he needed and not be too slow. It's an HP laptop. It's got 4GB memory and 500GB hard drive, so it's limited, but it will do for a 7th grader who's only using it for that purpose. He doesn't really use a computer for anything else. He's got his phone and his iPad for everything else, and when he starts high school I will either get him a beefier PC (if he sticks with Computer science) or a Mac laptop or desktop. For $300, I'm okay with that.

                        *BF runs a Windows 8 laptop and a Windows 7 desktop. I got him using an iPhone, but I haven't fully converted him to Apple yet. My middle son also has an android tablet. Those three machines are the only non Apple computers in the house. We now officially have too damned many** computing devices.

                        **To damned many is defined as "13 phones/tablets/computers for a family of five."
                        At the conclusion of an Irish wedding, the priest said "Everybody please hug the person who has made your life worth living. The bartender was nearly crushed to death.

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                        • #13
                          Try "two dozen plus and counting for one person" for size. I'll give you three guesses...

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