Mac info wanted

[Bigtwin]

Having had enough of Mr Gates' stuff, and doing mainly music and photos, and having a second sprog on the way, and thus losing the spare room/studio/computer suite, I am deeeeply attracted to the mini mac, which with the addition of a flat screen, would make my life far easier methinks....

Has anyone got one? If so, how is it?

Also, given that I will have to integrate documents (Word) and mail (Novell) with the office, and possibly some other Office applications, am I likely to have any conversion problems?

Taah muchly!

 

[charlie b]

Macs...

Hi BT
I use a Mac Powerbook running the current OS 10 operating system with a good bundle of software
installed from Micros**t called "Office: Mac".

This bundle includes Word for Mac which means you can work normally, ie: create and work with Word docs,
from Mac or PC, no problem. Bundle also includes Entourage, Powerpoint and Excell.
Could be what you are after??

But, for email, the Mac OS10 system comes with Apple Mail which I doubt would be of any use.
Re: Novell, this is not listed on my dealers website as mac software... anyone know of a compatible email program??

HTH
Charlie

 

[Bigtwin]

Thanks for the info - hmm....looks like it could all get a bit complicated, oh what a surprsie.....

 

[nadeem]

It's not complicated at all...you say you want it mainly for music & pics - the mac will serve you well. The standard iPhoto package is pretty good as is iTunes. For e-mail, etc the standard Mail package does the job very well and is compatible with any pc users you want to send stuff to. Office for Mac is a separate programme same as Office for windows and can be had fairly cheap if you have a look on e-bay.

In any case the mac comes bundled with Apple Works, which has a word processing package, etc that can save docs to be compatible with Windows Word - the Mac Word is compatible with any version of Word though.

Overall you'll find the mac easier to operate than any windows system.

 

[judge]

Thanks for the info - hmm....looks like it could all get a bit complicated, oh what a surprsie.....

Check with your company IT bods, if they use straightforward POP3 mail services then the Mac will be fine - if it involves VPN's, Lotus Notes or the like then it could prove problematic.

Of course if you are required to collect work e-mail from home then your emplyer should be providing you with the means to do so, ISP, computer etc.

 

[Dahoum]

Apple do a very good switching section on their website which seems to cover most of your questions

Link here

You will not regret switching

Edit: dont know if this answers your Novell question?

About connecting to shared computers and servers

Using the Finder, you can connect to many types of shared computers and servers, whether they are on a small home network, a large corporate network, or the Internet.

You can connect to Mac computers that have Personal File Sharing or Windows Sharing turned on, and you can connect to Windows computers with shared folders.

You can connect to any file server on your network that uses Apple Filing Protocol (AFP) over TCP/IP, including Mac OS X Server, AppleShare IP, Windows 2000, or Windows XP servers.

You can also connect to SMB/CIFS, NFS, FTP, and WebDAV servers running on Mac OS X Server, AppleShare, UNIX, Linux, Novell NetWare, Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP servers.

 

[ianf]

Yup, I do the windows support stuff all day at work, and didn't like taking it home with me. So switched about 4 months ago.

The mac mini for example will do everything you need out of the box, if you really need to work on .doc files then you'd need to get hold of ms office, but that's the case with windows anyway. If you want to do it 'your own way' then you can use the Apple mini-office suite iWork, for about £50 and save things as pdf for giving to others.

I've now got 2 1.4ghz mac minis, connected to lcd panels, one apple, one 17"WS from Aldi, a number of peripherals, and NONE have thrown a spazz at installation time. Stuff like cameras printers etc. just work first time, same for wireless/bluetooth etc.

I can vpn into work, and work on my laptop sitting on my desk still running 'corporate applications' quite happily. MS RDP client and 3rd party Nortel vpn client see to that.

I've found only 1 website that's broken in Firefox for mac too. That was a bit of wanky java code that wasn't tested properly, and glaringly obvious from the source.

The ONLY issue is Mapsource for Garmin devices, but I keep the old pc about for that alone.

 

[Bigtwin]

Thanks one and all - I think that's pretty conclusive. I don't know about the work mail servers is the only issue, but in any event, they have given me a craptop (i.e. it's old, heavy, the battery lasts about 10 mins, and it looks like Noah left if behind when he was pulling up the gang-plank) that I can use for picking up the work mail if needs be. Or just ignore it mebbe

I popped into PCWORLD for a play yesterday afternoon (hilarious, none of the staff had a clue about any of the world of Mac; all the crappie special offer PCs were stacked to the roof, all priced up and polished etc, whereas "Mac Corner" as they call it, basically looked like someone had held a kids playgroup session in there). I was very impressed with the Mini. But not as much as the 20" G5 set-up they had in there - now THAT is nice, so long as someone else is payng for it. Which they're not

Cheers all.