Help with Computer Science Major and Macbooks

R

Ravenark

New Member
Hey, I'm pretty much brand new to this forum but was wondering if anyone could help me out with a question I had.

I'm going to be going to college soon with the hope of declaring Computer Science sophomore year, and was wondering if getting a macbook with intel duo-core processor and dualbooting Windows XP and OSX would hinder me at all in my desired major.

If anyone can lend any help at all, it'd be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Ravenark
 
I doubt it would hinder you. You might want to look at buying it through the school because tlarkin has pointed out that you can get windows for free that way.
 
I don't see how it would hinder you. As for getting a free copy, it depends on your Universities MSDN subscription rules, some students in certain programs when enrolled are allowed to use the universities license for the application. In some cases, the OS itself is free. However, you must maintain being a student there to qualify if they offer this. Not every school does, but OEM copy of windows XP Pro you can find as cheap as $80 online.
 
What college are you going to?

Also, a mac with XP shouldn't be a problem at all. If you do end up needing XP, I think I can get it pretty cheap if you can't.
 
A State School, University of Massachusetts Amherst to be specific.

It doesn't seem like they offer the free activation key, but oh well :D

Thanks for the advice guys,
Ravenark
 
Actually many school districts (public schools that is) are starting to implement Macs and even Linux labs more and more. Using a Mac may actually end up helping you in the long run as Windows may be phased out ever so slowly in the coming years. Good luck!!
 
That may be true, but are macs an acceptable computer to use in the IT field?

With dual booting does it make them completely fine?

Thanks so much,
Ravenark
 
Ravenark said:
That may be true, but are macs an acceptable computer to use in the IT field?

With dual booting does it make them completely fine?

Thanks so much,
Ravenark
Click to expand...

I work IT for a living and have done so professionally for 8 years now. I have had several different laptops, and I can tell you right now, my current macbook pro is the best laptop I have ever had. I run 4 OSes on it, a plethora of open source utilities with the smooth speed of OS X and the under the hood power of BSD Unix.

Plus it runs windows better than my PC laptops.

Before I was using a NC4200 HP business class laptop, which I like a lot, but its not nearly as good as my Macbook Pro.

In all honesty, I have maybe booted into windows twice the entire time I have had the laptop, I got it back in December/January. There is no need to run windows.
 
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