First time Apple owner

Well, the day has come and I've made the brave decision to get my first apple product. I don't intend to start off with an iPod shuffle or anything of similar size. Instead, I wish to throw myself into the quagmire of notebook computers.

Here's the deal - I'm currently writing my second novel (The first being nothing you've ever read, I assure you, since it's in hebrew) and this time I'd like to avoid most of the incidents I've had while writing the first one - when I've reached the 400-page mark, a deadly infestation of viruses wiped out my entire hard drive, and not making a single backup beforehand, I was crowned "King bonehead". Regardless, I keep hearing all these mumbles about Macs being immune to viruses.

That pretty much covers my professional needs, which leads us to my hobbies - Hardcore gaming and tending to my website using various bits of software, including Flash and Photoshop. As opposed to the praises I hear about Macs being virus-free, I also hear they don't support most of the games out there.

Now, here's where you guys come in. I'd like some honest answers about the differences between Macs and PCs, and a recommendation for a suitable laptop for my needs, which are roughly described above. I've been a very enthusiastic PC-Fanboy until the loss of my 400 pages, I need the transition to be as smooth as possible. I know I can get all these answers from a salesman in the local Apple store, but I know they have an agenda to sell sell sell, and they may embellish the truth in their eagerness.

Edit: If possible, I'd like the screen to be no less than 15.4"

You'll probably be looking at a 15 or 17 inch MBP.

I'd suggest an external drive for backups, which you can use Time Machine, or any other method of backup.

The differences between PCs and Macs are vast. To my limited experience, a PC is like a souped up Toyota Supra and a Mac is like a Ferrari. They might both go the same speed, but which one can do it without the discomfort?

That being said, once you move to Mac, you will realize that everything is simpler. Instead of just print screen, going into Paint and saving it, it saves it to your desktop. Its little things like that (and Macs have many of them!) that really sell me on Macs.

From what I've read, depending on the needs of your portability, I'd do one of the following (this is with no budget )

1. MacBook Pro 2.5Ghz 15" w/4GB of Ram (upgrade on your own using Crucial.com, its a lot cheaper!) running Windows XP for games with an external monitor.

2. Macbook Pro 2.5Ghz 17" w/4GB of Ram (same as above) running Windows XP on Parallels for games.

If I were you, I'd go for the first option. Cheaper, especially if you have your own monitor!

Thank you so much for the quick response. I had no idea I could run microsoft products on a Mac. Sounds like something only Sigmund Freud could find the reason for.

What I'm more interested in is the professional aspect of my purchase. Will my writing be virus free? Will all, or at least most, of the hardware I buy (Such as my new Lacie external HDD for backups) work with perfect compatibility? I'm sure this all sounds like silly questions to you, but I really am ignorant when it comes to Macs. As long as I can get some answers, you can go laugh at the PC ape all you want.

Brin said:

Thank you so much for the quick response. I had no idea I could run microsoft products on a Mac. Sounds like something only Sigmund Freud could find the reason for.

What I'm more interested in is the professional aspect of my purchase. Will my writing be virus free? Will all, or at least most, of the hardware I buy (Such as my new Lacie external HDD for backups) work with perfect compatibility? I'm sure this all sounds like silly questions to you, but I really am ignorant when it comes to Macs. As long as I can get some answers, you can go laugh at the PC ape all you want.

Click to expand...

Now that Apple has moved over to Intel processors, modern Macs really are just PCs in very nice looking cases. The big difference is in the operating system, known as Mac OS X. Mac OS X, being that it is not (by itself) capable of running software designed for Windows, is not susceptible to Windows viruses. It is possible that someone may eventually write a virus for OS X, but to date that hasn't happened - which says a lot for how well the OS has been locked down.

Being that is essentially a PC, there are several options for running Windows on a modern Mac. The most direct way would be to install Windows with the help of a program that Apple calls "Boot Camp". Boot Camp prepares your Mac to "dual-boot", essentially giving you the option to start your Mac in OS X or Windows. When booted into Windows, your Mac behaves very much like a standard PC and you can run whatever Windows software you choose - the only downside is that you're just as susceptible to viruses as you would be on any other PC.

To answer your direct question - your writing will most likely be virus-free, providing that you stick with using a word processor on OS X. Also, most peripherals like external hard drives will work just fine with a Mac. The only caveat would be if the hard drive is formatted in NTFS. NTFS, the default format for most Windows machines is readable, but not writable. You have a couple of options. Either you can reformat the drive as FAT32 (universally compatible between both platforms) or you can purchase a program like Paragon NTFS for Mac, which allows full read/write support.

Alrighty, that pretty much sums it up. Now all that's left to do is figure out the best way to buy one. They're crazy expensive over here, and I have to do some homework on warranty, shipping costs and the likes.

Thanks for all the help guys, time for me to finish giggling at all the Mac Vs. PC ads, and get going.