Considering buying a Mac

isofa

errrm Microsoft Messenger not only is supported, but it's a free download for the Mac as well as coming bundled with MS Mac Office 2004 and 2008.

It's due a major upgrade for video chat, but you have numerous video chat alternatives on the Mac.

There is a massive list of free mac software here, there are thousands of applications: http://web.mac.com/simon_elliott/simon_elliott%40mac.com/Software.html

There is no key mainstream software (other than Access and Outlook, and MS make Entourage as a Mac equivalent to Outlook) not available on Mac OS X.

But there is specialist PC software not available on the Mac, and specialist Mac software not available on the PC.

And don't forget, anything not available for Mac, but available for Windows only - you can either dual boot the system into Windows, or run the Windows software alongside Mac software on the desktop using virutalisation like Parallels or VMWare Fusion too.

pulliptears

isofa, thanks for that link! Some good free aps on there, but Im especially loving liquid Mac. As a fan of MacSabre I think its fabulous!

isofa

No problem A smaller, but good list of excellent apps is at: http://www.opensourcemac.org/

freebo_2

One more vote for the Mac here. I "crossed over" to mac 4 months ago, its great.

The only real downside so far is there's no driver for my old scanner.

I'm no Apple fanboy, I work in IT in a technical role, I'm comfortable with Linux and many commercial flavours of Unix, but at home I like the mac (I also run XP and Solaris on it, via VMWare but almost never need to start XP).

The thing that finally made me drop the PC was Vista, that was the last straw as far as I'm concerned :mad:

HelzBelz

sorry, meant windows messenger

Millionaire

Another Vote for the Mac here.

Switched over about 6 months ago to the New iMac and haven't looked back since.

isofa

HelzBelz wrote: »

sorry, meant windows messenger

Messenger is Windows Messenger / Windows Live Messenger. They are all the same application - the standard IM chat client from Microsoft. And Messenger is available for Mac and PC, free from Microsoft.

Adium is a much better IM client though.

toasterman

jim83 wrote: »

The moneysaving way would be to get a similarly spec'd PC for a few hundred quid less and install Ubuntu on it. It's got all the benefits that Mac OSX has over Windows, but without having to pay for it. Everything you need it for will work out of the box - it's bundled with Openoffice, etc.

I'm not knocking Linux - it has it's place.
BUT I'd love to know how this is any cheaper than buying a PC preloaded with Windows, and using..well..Windows.. on it?

Any Dell, HP, etc.. will come with Windows preinstalled.
My sister bought a dual core HP desktop last week with 160gb hard drive, 1gb ram and Win xp pro for £260. I doubt I could build one without an OS for that price..certainly not to the same build standard/quality.

Yes there are suppliers who will sell you a pc with no operating system, but they're often more expensive than just buying one from Dell/HP with Windows on it.
And if it comes with Windows already on it, who would go to the hassle of removing it, and installing Linux?

toasterman

JoeyG wrote: »

I agree Macs are great machines, but being the only PC user in an office full of Macs I am constantly being requested to open/print/re-save files which simply cannot be opened on a Mac... I think they have their place as professional graphics/multimedia workstations, but for everyday home use in a world of Windows I think you would soon notice restrictions.

I converted to a Mac around October last year having used Windows for as long as I can remember. I'd never really used a Mac prior to buying one.
I'm yet to find anything I can't open...? I'd love to know what it is they can't open, that you can on Windows...?

JoeyG

toasterman wrote: »

I converted to a Mac around October last year having used Windows for as long as I can remember. I'd never really used a Mac prior to buying one.
I'm yet to find anything I can't open...? I'd love to know what it is they can't open, that you can on Windows...?

Nearly always Office documents... not your standard formats like .doc, .rtf, .xls but usually one of the other countless extensions they seem to support (off the top of my head I think .docx is one example)

At a guess I'd say these files integrate with Windows scripting technologies, which would explain why they may not work on a Mac... and the situation crops up more often than you would expect in our office.