Fed Up With Windows / I need an apple

[gpurtz]

Many, many years ago I relunctantly switched from Mac to MS. At the time it seemed Apple might go under and I was worried about support (Yeah, it was that long ago and yeah, I do indeed wish I had bought Apple stock). Anyway, I'm ready to switch back. Everything I've read says Apple/Mac will seemlesly read/handle usual MS docs/apps (standard Office programs) etc. If you have done what I want to do, I'd like to hear from you. Thanks.
Gary

 

[Passepartout]

Today's Woot was a Mini-Mac for $499.99. Sold out now. Coulda been your deal!

Jim Ricks

 

[Helaine]

Went to MAC, never going back!

I've had PC's since they came out. Switched to MAC a couple of years ago. Bought Microsoft Office for the Mac - it reads everything I try in WORD and Excel - but my demands on Excel are pretty easy. I've never regretted the change. The MAC is much simpler and easier to use.

Now you can get Boot Camp and Parallels and one other program - all of which let you run WINDOWS on the MAC, so you can use your old programs while you make the transition. The only MAC software I've found inferior so far is Quicken - it is a couple of years behind the PC version and there is really no excuse for it. There's not as much financial software available for investing, etc, or for doing horoscopes ;-) but I've found everything else I've needed.

You won't be sorry.

 

[jmatias]

After years of thinking about switching we finally moved to the cool side and picked up our Macbook and iMac yesterday.

Still have to load Office 2008 and Quickbooks but so far so good. DH is happy b/c he was able to sync his Blackberry with a very simple program and it synced to the icalendar, etc. seamlessly.

Aloha,
Jen

 

[Aussiedog]

such a difference

My friend, who is a 65 year old woman, bought a Mac, set it up herself and was up and running in a flash.

I bought a new Dell, stayed with Windows XP but bought Microsoft Office 2007 pre-installed. It still took 6 hours of a tech's time to get the thing up and running with all of my programs, printers, Blackberry, etc.

And don't even get me started about the new version of Word that is included in this package!!!

Ann

 

[AwayWeGo]

We Missed Out On That Too.

Today's Woot was a Mini-Mac for $499.99. Sold out now. Coulda been your deal!

Fret not. Our son the computer scientist (& bigtime Mac enthusiast) said today's Woot Mac Mini was a good deal but not a great deal. He says Mac Mini is what we should switch to. I'm about ready.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

 

[ctreelmom]

Hi Gary,

I did exactly what you want to do. I bought a Macbook and MS Office for Mac. While I pretty much use it exclusively now, at first I moved lots of documents from my Windows desktop to it and back (until I stopped to take the 2 minutes it took to set up my new printer for the Mac) without any problem whatsoever. The ONLY issue I've had is that even with the Firefox browser, there is the occasional website that I can't navigate for whatever reason, but they are few and far between--can't even think of one to give you an example.

I took it out of the box, plugged it in and, like the ads say, "it just works." More expensive than the Dell laptops I was looking at, certainly, but when you factor in the convenience and subtract the cost of virus protection over the life of the machine, I think I made the best choice.

 

[cindi]

I have been a PC user since they first came out, but have always been a bit intrigued with the whole MAC thing.

What is with the not needing anti viral programs? How can they not need that?

 

[AwayWeGo]

Too Few Macs (Relatively Speaking) To Attract Virus Writers.

I have been a PC user since they first came out, but have always been a bit intrigued with the whole MAC thing.

What is with the not needing anti viral programs? How can they not need that?

The virus-writers out there generally don't mess with Mac-compatible viruses because they have enough potential targets just in the world of PCs & Windows & all that.

My son the computer scientist says only 1 Mac-infecting virus has been detected in a long, long while for the recent-generation MAC-OSs.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia,​

 

[Steamboat Bill]

I have been an Apple II user (in the 80s), switched to PCs for most of my work, and just bought a Mac for the kids as I was sooooooo tired of fixing their frozen PC every week.

I can say one thing - if you want an easy to use (hassle free) computer, then buy a MAC.

Macs do not need antivirus software, anti-spyware software, registry editors and just seem to hum along without any issues.

You can buy a killer iMac with a 20 inch screen for $1,200 and the only additional software would be Microsoft Office for $150.

Another interesting thing - set-up is a breeze and there is no need to "decrapify" a Mac as the applications are built-in and there is no adware (like Norton, AOL, etc that clog up your desktop).

 

[Icarus]

MACs are not immune to viruses. And they certainly aren't immune to installing trojans. (Things you download and install, or receive in email attachments, which is the most common way of getting a virus.)

There have been several visuses that attack unix systems, and the underlying OS in the MAC is a unix-based operating system.

There just haven't been any viruses that specifically attack MACs yet. The one virus that was mentioned was theoretical only and required you to click on something to install it. It was more of a trojan/virus than a regular virus that can attack a computer without you doing anything specifically.

There are AV products available for the MAC, but most people say you don't need them. I think MACs ship with a built-in firewall, but you may have to enable it. Certainly if you travel with a mac notebook, you'll want to enable the firewall. If you just use it at home behind a router, you're generally already protected by your router.

No matter if you are a MAC or PC user, you still need to be very careful when opening email attachments or clicking on arbitrary web sites that might try to install something on your computer.

I don't own any MACs, but I think they are a great choice. They are much easier to use than PCs. And with Vista being the only choice for many new computers, MACs are a much better choice for most people. The choice and preference are definitely subjective, as is this last paragraph.

-David