Pls Help Me with some Questions.Switching...

A

Abercrombie

Registered
OKay, So let me tell you what I'm going to do...

I have a Windows XP desktop that is shared by my family, and I am going in to college and I would like to buy an Apple MacBook. Probably the higher end white one. Maybe the black one but not sure yet. So I have a couple of concerns, the first is my music. ALL of my imported and purchased music (2000+ Songs) is all on the windows desktop...What are my easiest options to transfer those to my new MacBook? (I have the new 30GB iPod...).
Next thing is word processing...My dad says I am crazy for buying a Apple. He thinks is stupid that Apps for Apple cost a lot more...But what comes with the new MacBook...if anything at all for word procesing...ect. That will be important to me for school. Does it some with Microsoft or anything...? How about AppleWorks?
And lastly, internet. We have a LinkSys 802.11G wireless router / internet networt or whatever. Will the MacBook run just fine on it for internet?

Any help would be great.
Thanks
Matt :)
 
Apple apps cost a lot more? Since when? Office for Mac is very much cheaper than Office for Windows. Windows XP Pro itself costs well over $200, while Mac OS X has always had a rock-bottom price of $129.

Besides, tell your father that the new Macintosh computers can run Windows XP just like any old Dell or clone PC -- giving you the option of either booting into Mac OS X or booting into Windows XP. Plus, with "Parallels" software, you can run Windows right inside of Mac OS X without the need to reboot. It sounds as if your father is making a judgement based on his own biases without educating himself as to what the Macintosh platform is all about now. Sure, in the past, Macintosh computers were not so compatible with the world of Windows, but times have changed. You may want to point your father to the following websites:

http://www.apple.com/getamac/
http://www.apple.com/getamac/windows.html

Go for it. You will NOT be disappointed. You can word process until your heart's content, either in Mac OS X or Windows -- whichever you choose. The MacBook is actually easier to set up for a wireless network than a comparable Windows PC (yes, your Linksys router will work just fine with the MacBook). To get your music from your Windows PC to the MacBook, simply set up the MacBook on your wireless network, then transfer away (you can return here for help setting up "Windows Sharing" on your MacBook) like you would transfer over the network between two Windows PCs.
 
First of all apple works imports and exports seamlessly with word and is even better than powerpoint and only costs $70. Only problem is there is no spreadsheet. I got the Macbook Pro that runs on intel and will actually boot up as a pc and load/run pc software. But actualy I haven't had to use the pc start up much. The question of networking with the family pc is a little tricker. People keep telling me it is easy and it sounds easy in the instructions, but I haven't quite unsnagged it yet.
 
zen_city said:
First of all apple works imports and exports seamlessly with word and is even better than powerpoint and only costs $70. Only problem is there is no spreadsheet. ...
Click to expand...
You are clearly confused. AppleWorks most certainly has a spreadsheet component. It also includes word processing, database, drawing (vector graphics), painting (raster graphics), and presentation. You are thinking about iWork which is really just two apps, Pages, a page layout app, and Keynote, a presentation app.
 
To add to what EDCC said, Apple has been more compatible with Windows and their apps and documents since the days of System 7 (possibly even System 6). When PC Exchange was introduced, I was able to take files that were made on the PC and use them on the Mac side without too many issues. Then when Mac versions of Office were made available, it got even better and pretty much transparent over time.

While I don't have any of the Intel Macs, I do have two other Macs: an iMac G5 (PowerPC 970 CPU, aka "G5") and a Quadra 650 (33 MHz 68040 CPU, pre-PowerPC). Both are productive for me. I use iTunes on the iMac G5 and MpegDec on the Quadra for listening to my MP3 files. On the iMac, I use NeoOffice for office work and Firefox for browsing the web. And while games support is a bit lacking on the Mac compared to the PC, I still get my game on with the games that are available for the Mac. I also love to play games using MacMAME and some other emulators.

Even though I am a father myself, your father is quite confused. Mac apps do NOT cost more than their PC counterparts. As mentioned, Office is cheaper and the Mac OS X operating system itself is cheaper still. Or, if you don't care so much about Office but need a great free/open-source Office-like application, NeoOffice will do it for you. I use OpenOffice 2.0 (from which NeoOffice is ported from) on my Linux laptop and it works fine for me. Both apps have great support for Office formats as well as other types of formats, plus they save by default in the OpenDocument format which is being widely adopted by many developers of office apps.

Plus, consider that you get a ton of useful applications with your new Mac such as iLife and other applications, while a new PC usually comes with a bunch of crap installed that tends to slow down your computer (my wife's Dell laptop was like this.....we had to do a complete reinstall without the excessive preinstalled apps that would slow down the laptop).

And if you need Windows, you can always install that for those perky Windows only apps.....but remember that it will make your Mac just as vulnerable and crash-worthy as any other PC. It's the operating system that makes the Apple hardware so appealing, something people keep overlooking.
 
Since you're a student you can almost always get discounts on software. The Mac OS is less than $100 USD for students and it still the full version, not any limited version. You can get discounts on all of Apple's software and hardware as well. You just need your student ID number and your school name to get the discount. It's usually about 10% on pretty much everything on the Apple store.

Networking with Windows is very easy. On Windows you just need a network share that you could access from any other Windows PC. If another Windows PC can access it, your Mac can access it.
I always set my Mac to be on the same Workgroup as my PC. You can use Directory Access located in /Applications/Utilities and set the SMB/CIFS workgroup to your PC's workgroup. The default is "WORKGROUP" for both the Mac and Windows so you may not have to change anything.
 
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