Civil Engineering Association

Since Mac computers started to offer or made available to have two operating system on their computer. A lot of people started to switch to Mac computers.

It has been a better operating system since the beginning but it was expensive, and there were no (almost none) softwares for technical people.

Searching the internet and their application store reveals that now Mac / Apple also have solid softwares for eveything else.

I was just wondering , what if Dear Admin and Moderetaors would explore this area to start / allow a section about this new trend. In the form I have found some posts for Mac already

Same thought goes with iPad, iPhone, smart phones etc.

I myself started to use a Mac, it is impressive ( Even Windows opearates faster and better in Mac environment

We want CivilEA stay ahead always

Thanks for your time

At the first moment sounds good. This idea was exposed here some time ago, but for "others OS", like Android.

But, firstly we need a Moderator(s) with this "other" OS skills.

My personal point of view is: We could consider open a new generic section called "Non Windows Engineering Software/APP" and see the quantity, quality and difficulty to moderate of the posts. After evaluate the members interests and receptivity, and how to moderate, we can decide what to do.

Let's see other opinions.

Regards

I agree with ykhackhack. I have switched to mac since few months and am noticing a great performance improvement when it comes to computing power. To be honest I am not a Mac fanatic and I dislike their policy of having a communist OS...., but their system is quite reliable. For example I installed AutoCAD for Mac and it runs very good, so I am satisfied. Unfortunately there are not too many civil engineering programs for Mac, but there has to be first a demand for them. I believe that creating a new section in civilea for this platform will show developers that there is a demand for mac applications. Trying this does not hurt, right? In the meanwhile we could put a disclaimer on the Mac software section saying "software is not tested, use at own risk" until moderators are found or are ready to take charge of the section.

Maybe but only for engineering software. I don't like too much the Not Engineering Software for Windows and in the past i explained that this is the place for small utilities helping engineers like WinRAR, WinZip and alike, translators, units converting utilities etc..

For wordprocessors, burning software, backup software, movies and graphic editing, music and all the stuff (including porno) anyone can find in thousands of sharing sites and is no place here to post such material.

And a reminder, no Microsoft software here (operation systems or Office), no Autodesk products related to movies, animation and alike.

Because i saw every day in some sharing sites 10-20 programs for Mac (not related to civil engineering) i want to be clear, if the section will be created any civil engineering program is welcome but any other will be deleted and the user warned.

Just to explore this subject further, I would suggest to view following links.

Using windows on a MAC;

WMware Fusion 5;

By installing "Boot Camp" and "VMWARE Fusion 5", any Mac computer can be used like a PC

With "Wmware Fusion 5" , I think it is possible to Virtualize the whole PC and use it as a virtual machine.
Also All of the Virtual Machine which are created already can be tranferred or backed up like file.

With the windows when the hardware like "CPU" malfunctions we loose all of our installed programs.
The images created with various softwares can not duplicate the PC on another PC
But WMWARE , I think this is very well possible.

I am just trying to explore this subject, just for the sake of discussion.
I think the MAC environment is a lot more safer and stable in this sense.

I am still learning MAC, but with the help of my computer engineer. I can see the possibilities.
MAC still more expensive than PC, that is for sure. But logically they are same price, since they last longer.

If I may, I would like to ask, MAC users to post their thoughts on this , so the decision will be more logical for everybody

Thanks for your time
Regards

We have been using MAC for quite sometime now but most of our engineering softwares run only in windows OS. We have use dual boot successfully another option is boot camp. The reason why we used MAC because most of our clients (architectural firms) used Archicad which runs in MAC OS. What separates MAC from windows is that you do not need anti virus software virus cannot penetrate MAC OS.

Dear
@ASEC
Could you please elaborate on Pros and Cons of using Mac, just to educate us.

Thanks

Pros:
It's very robust and fast
If you are using IMac you will have a very huge monitor in your desktop without the need of cpu. the CPU is built in the monitor. It's very cool to look in your desktop without wires for keyboard and mouse.
It is invulnerable to virus
design is ver sleek

Cons:
More expensive than windows
If using dual boot you have to switch to windows or Mac one at a time you cannot use it simultaneously
very few engineering softwares run directly under Mac OS

I'm interested too, especially benchmarks.
If possible can you please run some tests like run an analysis model and share here the model and results (time spent) so we can compare? Any analysis software available on this forum would do.
An nonlinear analysis or a model with many shells or solids.
If possible can you please load a huge drawing in a drawing software and use Fraps for it.
And after share here the drawing and Fraps results.
Also attach the Mac version hardware+software.
If possible repeat the above in a different environment like bootcamp or vmware or ....

Or at least please provide some synthetic benchmark results like:
IntelBurnTest 2.54
or y-cruncher results.

Thank you very much.

Dear Admin, Moderators
I know we have a lot of scattered posts which could have been in the new section for Non Windows operating environment.
Can we make mirror posts when we can.
Could you please explain
Thank you