Our iPad won’t play flash just wondering if their laptops are the same and if there is anything else we should be aware of.
Our computer takes at least the time of a shower and dry to start up and connect to the internet.
Please don’t use any technical terms as I am a computer Luddite.

Apple computers play Flash just the same as any other computer would. They can take a little while to get used to after using Windows computers though. I hated using them for a long time, now I dont mind so much.

reason for long boot times on most pc’s is the amount of crap software they’ve had loaded on them after they were bought.

best way to speed it up is do a backup of your data and then reload windows and just the applications you actual use.

you’ll be amazed how much faster it is.

Mac book pro here. Came over from using a dell as it took 15 nins to get onto the internet, and hten it would crash.

The Mac is fast, simple and does what i need it to. the downside, I find the keyboard a bit strange, hence my crappy typing.

Can you not download a flash player on your ipad? Can they be “cracked” like an iphone?

Have a look as I can’t be arsed!!

http://www.google.co.uk/search?aq=0&oq=flash+for+&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=flash+for+ipad#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&source=hp&q=flash+ipad&pbx=1&oq=flash+ipad&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=11192l11192l0l11369l1l1l0l0l0l0l0l0ll0l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=853521af576fd2a2&biw=1217&bih=992

Please don’t use any technical terms as I am a computer Luddite

Then a Mac is for you, my friend. Plug them in, turn them on, and you’re off and running. Why do you think designers and such like them so much? Because I don’t give a flying **** how they work, I just like them to do what I want with no stupid fuss.

Macs do this
PC’s don’t

Macs do this
PC’s don’t

That’s the fuse lit then…

I eventually treat myself to one a few months ago, MacBook Pro, I was sceptical as to how good they’d be. The OS is very good, build quality excellent, it’s fast but it would be with i7 chip, it now comes with word-processing, spreadsheet and slideshow software with the OS. The amount of ‘apps’ that quietly run in the background for it is excellent, many are free or cheap.

If you have other Apple products, iPod, iPad or iPhone then they will sync and works together effortlessly over the internet/intranet. They’re quirky at first the keyboard I love but it’s layout takes some getting use to and the different shortcuts too, it’s good quality too. The screen quality is superb and the interfaces it has built in for peripherals is perhaps second to none.

However they are expensive but if you want to treat yourself get one but it’ll cost you. I still use my windows desktop but this Macbook I find a pleasure to use and use it the most.

If you have an iPad why do you want a laptop to connect to the interporn?

Flash is not supported on iOS devices. See Steve Job’s tortuous justification of this.
You can get various 3rd party apps and browsers that will enable Flash, see Accessing Adobe Flash Content On The iPad.
Adobe have also updated Flash Media Server to send Flash content to iOS devices in Apple’s HLS format, but this won’t work for Flash based games, animations or adverts, only videos.

Flash will be dead soon anyway. All the good interporn sites use HTML5 (I think).*

*Sorry, not all, but some of the more popular ones.

There are paid for browser apps on the iBone which will play Flash video but in my opinion, they feel a bit klunky at times when playing it.

Windows laptops are not at all slow, in fact they are pretty much faster than Apple ones when they are new.

The problem is software and hardware suppliers. They each give you some handy-dandy utility that gets installed with your product that you really don’t need. After a while all this junk is starting up when your computer starts, and using up memory which makes your computer a lot slower. Also it can leave your computer much less stable.

The real advantage of Apple over Windows is ironically that the platform is much more protected. There is far less junk around that clogs up your computer.

Most (but not all) of the Windows junk leaves an icon in the ‘system tray’ which is the little area next to the clock in the bottom right. You used to see this bit get longer and longer, but since Windows XP it hides the ones you don’t use. I reckon this is a big mistake, because users don’t see how much crap they have on their computer.

Ironically, iTunes seems to be one of the worst bits of Windows software for hogging resources. At least it is on my in-laws PC, never used it myself.

So in short, click on the little arrow by the system tray and see how many icons are there.

Can I just say I have no idea what a system tray is or where to find it!
It will involve swearing no doubt.
I’ve always thought computers are built by people with a grudge. Why can’t they use simple words? To a normal person to format something doesn’t sound that dangerous, why can’t they say delete? Yes I am talking from experience.

I have a macbook pro (os x 10.6) and a pc running windows 7 and if i was switching from an old machine (whether pc or mac) to a new one (again either pc or mac) then i’d find the new one to be a big improvement on the old.

These things are subjective but i find windows 7 to be more user friendly than snow leopard!

Can I just say I have no idea what a system tray is or where to find it!

…but you have heard of Google?

Linux.

It’s all penguins and happiness here. 8)

On our iPad I have been able to set up our shop email,tried it on the big computer but have no idea where to start.
Hoping an Apple laptop would have same sort of setting up.

I’d stick with Windows if you’re just replacing a laptop- you’ll save yourself a wedge of cash, and in all honesty, you’ve given no reason to change other than for the sake of a change. If that makes sense.

Course, change for change’s sake can be valid.

Sent from a house full of Macs.

Please don’t use any technical terms as I am a computer Luddite

Then a Mac is for you, my friend.
Interestingly a lot of my friends that work in IT are moving to Macs for everything other than work use. I run a document imaging bureau that is PC dominated but at home we’ve moved from PC laptops to Macs/iPads as it just better/easier/nicer

Sent from a house full of Macs.

In Scotland then?

Lol @ Jamie.

Can I just say I have no idea what a system tray is or where to find it!

the ‘system tray’ which is the little area next to the clock in the bottom right.

A lot of computer illiterate people assume they are never going to know anything about computers so they clam up. The answers are all around if you believe you can find them and look 🙂

And format means something different to delete. Formatting is something you do to disks, and it means wiping the entire thing clean. Deleting is something you do to individual files.

I got a MBP after many years of Windows machines, never looked back, just so much nicer to use and live with…

Windows 7 is a vast improvement over many previous incarnations whilst Lion is a bit meh compared to previous versions of OS X.

A new one of either flavour will feel 100 times better than what you already have, so pay your money and take your choice.

As a semi competent techy, I’m 100% Apple, but I don’t mind using Mrs J’s netbook running Windows 7 at all.

My new MacBook Air is VERY nice though! 8)

I sometimes have to use one at work, and I find using a Mac slightly infuriating, weird things are different, like it has the crazy top left corner thing with the mouse, if you head to point at something in the top left corner of the screen (like the file menu, or the apple menu), all your apps suddenly zoom out. For some reason instead of the control key (labelled CTRL on PC), they use the ‘command’ key, and lots of mac software / manuals / help sites / people, will say ‘just press ‘COMMAND’+C to copy something’, ommitting to say that when they say ‘command’, they mean the mystically labelled key on the keyboard next to alt and CTRL with a funny symbol on it. Oh, and the keyboard layout is subtly different from any other keyboard I’ve used, the keys just seem to be in slightly nonstandard positions, punctuation is in different places – slightly annoying if you touch type.

It is okay, just as good as Windows 7 in the end, and most stuff works fine, it’s just really quite different in subtle ways. It is very much something you have to learn, it can be a bit of a pain if you have to use PCs all that much as well though. Do expect to have to learn things again, and expect it to have new terminology that you don’t understand, just slightly different ones.

Oh, and whilst lots of people say it ‘always works’, just ask anyone who has ever had a pain with ‘fixing disk permissions’, it isn’t really true, they just stop always working in slightly different ways.

On the plus side it is quite nice shiny hardware. I know people who use Mac laptops but primarily run Windows on them.

like it has the crazy top left corner thing with the mouse, if you head to point at something in the top left corner of the screen (like the file menu, or the apple menu), all your apps suddenly zoom out.

You can turn this behaviour off.

Assuming you are running Lion:

System Preferences > Mission Control > Hot Corners

^ Same in Snow Leopard

Can I just say I have no idea what a system tray is or where to find it!
It will involve swearing no doubt.
I’ve always thought computers are built by people with a grudge. Why can’t they use simple words? To a normal person to format something doesn’t sound that dangerous, why can’t they say delete? Yes I am talking from experience.

That’s the reasoning behind the Mac OS. If you get one, and can afford it, the Air laptops are amazingly fast on booting, as they use SSD’s, Solid State Drives.
Even handheld devices that supposedly run Flash do so very poorly, and the one really significant failing is that Flash sites often require a mouse hover for content.
Which is fundamentally flawed on a touch screen.
I recently bought a new Mac Mini, which does not have Flash installed on it.
I do, however, have Chrome on it, which opens and runs Flash natively, so that’s all you need to do;
Chrome should cover all the occasions when Flash is required.
I can recommend the Mini as an alternative to a lappy. Mine’s not the latest, but the previous model, which I bought new when it was superceded, and reduced to clear. I had the optical drive removed and a second HDD installed in the bay, an extra 2Gb RAM, and the BT keyboard and Magic Trackpad. All in it host me £620, with the 4Gb RAM, and 1.1Tb of internal storage. It’s plugged into my 40″ Bravia via HDMI, and a 3.5mm/TOSLINK optical connects from the headphone socket to my Yamaha A/V amp. And I use Remote on my iPhone to control iTunes, as it shows everything in there.
Works an absolute treat.