Posted on 10/10/2010 1:44:42 PM PDT by ChinaGotTheGoodsOnClinton
Considering a switch to Mac
I am considering buying a MacBook for my next computer. I do typical office things on my computer so Id assume that Ill need to get MS Office for Mac.
Anything else that Ill need to keep in mind?
Get Parallels. Get at least 4gigs RAM. Be ready to be frustrated by the obtuse keyboard shortcuts.
APPLE Ping
No. You’ll be set.
Yeah! How pissed are your IT guys/gals gonna get at you? They can make your life miserable.....
Don’t buy the windows emulation software until you are sure you need it. Unless you are playing windows games you won’t use it.
Yeah, you'll wonder why you didn't switch a long time ago.
Macs are awesome.
These days I barely get by with 8 gig of RAM.
The keyboard short cuts are easy to deal with and if you want you can get a two or three button mouse. MACs are already set up to use them ala MS.
>>>>so Id assume that Ill need to get MS Office for Mac
OpenOffice is fine... and Apple’s Numers, Pages, and Keynote are great too.
let the flame wars... take a breather.
+1
Many MS Office programs have Mac counterparts. For example, you can edit a Power Point presentation using Mac's Keynote, return it to a PC and view and further edit it just fine.
Paging swordmaker...
I am not a “switcher”, as all of my regular computing since 1993 has been on the Mac platform. IF one is willing to turn lose of their pre-conceived notions and invest just a short time walking through the OS, then most (though not all) will like it.
As far as Office is concerned - OpenOffice is available at no cost. It feels kind of like an older version of MS office, though works well for some. Office 2011 is approaching release (so I understand). I hope and pray it is better than 2008 (which is much better than Office 2007 under Windows).
But regardless - a MacBook is a nice machine. Good luck, and watch out for the trolls who will inevitably find this thread and bad-talk Apple. If you have an Apple Store near you, pay them a visit, talk with a rep - they won’t try to squeeze you or up-sell you. Just tell them what you want to do and they will be helpful. Want to save some $$$? Watch the Apple store online for refurbs which come looking and working just like brand new (many are!), and have the exact same warranty as “new”.
Good luck!
You might want to look at getting Open Office. It’s a free version of Microsoft Office, and is available on Mac, Linux, and Windows.
The only fly in the ointment is that sometimes formatting gets munged a bit when transferring complex documents between it and MS Word. But other than that, it’s great, and a big money saver!
It certainly is worth a look before you shell out for MS Office.
If your Office usage is light, you may be able to get away with Open Office or NeoOffice, which are both free. If it's moderate to heavy, MS Office 2008 should do the trick.
But if your Office usage is intense (Excel macros and the like), you'll want to have a Windows virtual machine available, in which to run the real thing. Parallels and VMWare both run Windows quite well in a virtual machine. I use Parallels to run both Windows and Linux (the latter mostly).
Knowing that Windows was originally created to emulate the look and feel of the Mac, and that certain patents prevented a straightforward copy of will help you to understand just how keyboard shortcuts, buttons and sliders in the Mac desktop graphic user interface came to be the way they are, and why Windows is often the same but backwards, lol.
Seriously, though, if you’re coming from anything as recent as XP, there’s not a great deal of trauma involved and a lot to gain, such as not freaking out about whether to open that e-mail attachment or not.
Open Office.
You can learn a lot and read the latest and greatest on Macs from the Master Swordmaker.
Major pain in the ass. There STIIILLL is not complete functional file interchangeability between the two systems.
This shows up most often in sending MAC e-mail with complex attachments to PC user offices. Speaking of which, MAC Mail is a disaster. Safari is quaint, bit of a disaster and usinmg it as your home page is like getting a MAC catalog every 10 seconds. MAC's Pages is a very sorry excuse for a word processor.
To send a PC recipient a doc, you save to a PDF and send that. They download and save as Word doc. and vice- versa for you. MAC treats documents as "pictures." Not, IMHO, as "thoughts."
Microsoft for MAC has just improved greatly, so many of these interchangeability issues may be lessened.
Then theirre is the problem of applications. Yes it is slowly improving for the MAC. But the fact remains that glitches at the moment, IMHO, outweigh the MAC's undoubted user-friendliness and resistance to viruses.
BTW, The Clintons ran a MAC White House. It has helped them maintain secrecy of the nefarious activities.
Look at the refurbished Macs. Yes, that means they’re used; but they come with the same warranty as the new versions, and whatever was originally wrong with them has already been fixed.
I bought my refurbed MacBook Pro about a month ago, and was pleasantly surprised to learn that the unit they sent me had twice as much memory as advertised. I was expecting only the standard 4 Gb, but they upgraded me to 8, for free.
iWork is ok, but I don’t think it compares to Office. It’s what a $50 price differential between the two (Home Edition)? Just spend the extra money and get the better product, you’ll thank yourself in the long run. Also, don’t forget that Office 2011 is coming out next month; If you buy a copy of Office before then make sure to sign up with M$ for the upgrade program; they’ll give you the latest version without having to pay any more.
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