Why A Mac in Church?

[chaselivingston]

Very good points brought up there Jim. I can reluctantly say that the tech ministry I'm a part of doesn't have a 5 year plan, but that's something I'm going to look into now.

[josh.willits]

I'm going to jump in on this discussion. I do find it a bit amusing, all this MAC vs. PC talk. It's basically just like the commercials. For me, it's been 6-to-1, half dozen to the other. I have two laptops running Windows XP, and I've always been a PC guy, for no particular reason other than I started out on it and stayed there. I bought an iMac a few years ago to help me with some business stuff that I was doing with multimedia, and I wanted to see what all the hype is about. I have friends who switched over and they won't touch a PC now. I work on both and I only prefer PC because I haven't spent enough time to know the Mac inside and out like I know my PC. That being said, this whole discussion is like saying, "I have a delivery business and I want to know if I should buy a Ford or a Chevy." It's kind of the wrong question. The question should be, "I need a truck for my delivery business, what best suits my needs?"

We run EasyWorship on a PC at my church. This PC was spec'd from scratch (we purchased it as a dedicated PC to run visuals), so I guess we had the option to do a Mac. The church runs PC's, so it just made sense to keep it consistent. Plus, I was very happy with my trial experience with EasyWorship. But MOST IMPORTANTLY, I understood our requirements. We rarely (at that time) even showed video, let alone were we doing any video editing. We wanted it for something simple to do worship lyrics, bible verses, and sermon slides - that's pretty much it. It has allowed us to do a lot more as we've grown, but the point I'm trying to make is that PC made sense because we had someone in-house to build it to spec inexpensively, it met our needs perfectly, and it still works *almost* flawlessly. Sure, we have an occasional glitch, but gosh, I've had glitches on my iMac, too.

Does that mean you shouldn't use a comparable Mac with ProPresenter, then? Of course not. Is it worth the extra expense? That may be a tougher question. I'd tend to say no, but I think that's the wrong question again. That's assuming a Mac is going to be more expensive, too. That's historically been the case, but isn't necessarily true. What you might use it for in the future factors in, too. This is all part of the process of figuring out the best solution for your needs (present and future). It's no coincidence that a huge portion of the design community swears by Mac's, especially for video editing - it's just a better product. So if video editing is in your future (AND if it's going to happen on the same machine), then you should consider a Mac, because it's the best tool for your needs.

This post is much longer than I anticipated. In a nutshell, I think you have to consider all of the various needs for the application, and then (and only then) can you define what will work. Otherwise, "PC vs. Mac" is nothing more than subjective opinion, nothing more than those funny commercials.

[owl]

I'm new to the forums, and I apologize about reviving an old thread, but I just want to throw in my "2 cents."

Background:
- I have a tech (software programmer, hardware tinker-er by hobby) background
- I am currently the IT director of a small group at my workplace
- Our church is fairly small, with about 35-40 people on an average Sunday
- I provide some of the help on the audio/video/tech area - though we have no formal IT/tech ministry
- God's blessed me with several computers over the years, and I keep them running well, and because of work and church and personal interests I have a mix of PCs and Macs (one (9 year old) Windows desktop, two Windows laptops (1 year and 4 years old), one Mac Macbook (1.5 years old), one Mac Mini (8 mo old) - this is for a household of two people) - each serves a specific purpose - and yes, I don't "need" all of them

I'll keep my points brief:
- I've repaired over a hundred computers (laptops and desktops) over the past decade - recently I've gone through 40 iBooks, Powerbooks, Macbooks, and Macbook Pros - each had different issues - Macs and Windows computers all fail for various reasons, much of the time because of user issues, but a good amount of time because of hardware issues - in my opinion, Macs and Windows laptops are almost equally prone to hardware issues (even the expensive Powerbook and Macbook Pro lines) - go to the Apple Store genius bar if you need proof - lots of hardware issues every day
- Macs and Windows OS: both have advantages and disadvantages - personally I prefer the Mac for multitasking but Windows for flexibility
- Viruses and Malware: someone's already covered it - malicious programmers always go for the "best bang for the buck" so Windows computers will be attacked prevalently until Mac computers saturate business settings with big/majority share of the market - though one day I hope someone writes a really virus to hack in to Mac computers just to get some attention ==> the good that will come out of it is that Apple will need to clamp down on security issues

Current thoughts:
- I just purchased a Mac Mini (used) on Craigslist to donate to my church - It's a mid-2009 that can do dual display - it will be used, initially, as a media player (powerpoint, dvd, etc), and sermon recorder, but I plan on making it do a lot more, such as web hosting, streaming, automation, etc. Original price: $600+tax - my cost today: $350 - warranty is still active - this was a great bargain, and I can't put anything close to it (just comparing hardware) together in the same size foot print on a Windows box. I've considered "Nettop" boxes - these have Netbook Atom processors - for $200-250 - Dell sells a really nice one that has a low-voltage AMD processor and a built in optical drive - but those are in the $300-400 range. The Mac Mini is just more powerful, and I've opened several up to modify and upgrade, so I'm comfortable with it already. Flexibility: I can install Windows on this as well - I've got a few extra licenses in my inventory.
==> I was looking for something small (6"x6" fits the bill) that I can lock down, because theft has been an issue at my church in the past - laptops can have screens broken, and we've got several church members willing to let us use their laptops if needed - I wanted something we can leave in place

[Stuart]

I'm new to the forums, and I apologize about reviving an old thread, but I just want to throw in my "2 cents."

That's the great thing about forums, no thread really ever dies and welcome to teh forums good to have your thoughts.

I've always been a horses for courses guy as well and will use whatever I believe will work best in any given situation. Unfortunately I don't hav eneraly enough Macs in my house but that's a financial thing as well as familial responsibility - I already drive the wife nuts with my mess of computer kit.

Anyway, just wanted to drop a note to you to thank you for your comment and also to point you at this: http://churchit.com/decision-time-mac-o ... ch-part-1/ and
http://churchit.com/decision-time-mac-o ... ry-part-2/ and
http://churchit.com/decision-time-mac-o ... ry-part-3/

Good stuff in there.

And of course there's always *nix of some form.

[owl]

Thank you for the references

I'm new to the forums, and I apologize about reviving an old thread, but I just want to throw in my "2 cents."

That's the great thing about forums, no thread really ever dies and welcome to teh forums good to have your thoughts.

I've always been a horses for courses guy as well and will use whatever I believe will work best in any given situation. Unfortunately I don't hav eneraly enough Macs in my house but that's a financial thing as well as familial responsibility - I already drive the wife nuts with my mess of computer kit.

Anyway, just wanted to drop a note to you to thank you for your comment and also to point you at this: http://churchit.com/decision-time-mac-o ... ch-part-1/ and
http://churchit.com/decision-time-mac-o ... ry-part-2/ and
http://churchit.com/decision-time-mac-o ... ry-part-3/

Good stuff in there.

And of course there's always *nix of some form.