thinking about making the switch

i have had PCs for years now and my current system is a couple years old and its about time for an upgrade. but this time around i was toying with the idea of getting a mac. but i have some concerns.

I am a web developer specializing in coldfusion. so mostly i will be using my system for that but of course i will be using it for some personal things too. basically here are the items i use on a regular basis on my current system:

Dreamweaver 8 - i have a copy of this for windows - do i need to buy another copy for use on mac or is there some other way - i really dont want to have to spend $300-400 for software i already have
Photoshop - again - i am not sure if i have to buy this again to get the mac version
Acrobat -
Microsoft Money 2007 - i doubt this will run on mac - am i correct?
Quickbooks 2005 - will this run on a mac?
Microsoft Office (word, excel and access primarily) - they still offer ms office for mac right?
Nero - i assume that if this doesn't run on mac there is some equivalent burning software that can be used.
firefox - i assume i can get this for mac right?
itunes - obviously i can use this on mac
VNC - do they make this for mac?

i guess the key is that if i have to buy all my software again then that adds a lot to the price of switching and it is no longer affordable. so i am curious how the licensing works if i already own the windows version.

also if i get a mac with an intel processor, i can dual boot with winxp now right?

sorry if these are dumb questions but i have very little experience with the mac and want to make sure i am doing the right thing before i make the switch.

Essentially, all of these can run on the mac if you load windows on there. As far as photoshop goes, if you contact adobe and say you have switched to the Mac OS X platform they will send you a new copy of photoshop. You can get office for mac or you can use something like OpenOffice or Neo Office. Unfortunately there is no access for mac though. When it comes to Nero, I suggest Roxio's Toast 7 much more powerful than nero.

Hello, like you I was a very long time PC user who made the switch about 2 months ago. I have installed Parallels on my Imac and run Xp thru it. So far it has operated everything (windows related) that I use which includes Office.

Firefox: yes there is a mac version, but you may like Safari more which comes with the system.
Itunes: Yes comes with the system
MSOffice: There is a Mac version

What I have found interesting so far is that I cant remember the last time I had the desire or need to start Parallels to run XP, but its there just in case.

Good luck

Guardian said:

Hello, like you I was a very long time PC user who made the switch about 2 months ago. I have installed Parallels on my Imac and run Xp thru it. So far it has operated everything (windows related) that I use which includes Office.

Firefox: yes there is a mac version, but you may like Safari more which comes with the system.
Itunes: Yes comes with the system
MSOffice: There is a Mac version

What I have found interesting so far is that I cant remember the last time I had the desire or need to start Parallels to run XP, but its there just in case.

Good luck

Click to expand...

thanks for the info - it sounds more and more reasonable. with any luck, if adobe will give me the mac version of photoshop, they might give me the mac version of dreamweaver (fingers crossed).

now another question - i will still have 4 other windows systems running in my house (one is a media center for the living room, one runs homeseer for home automation, one is for video editing, and one is a laptop.) the nice thing about having all windows systems is that if i am upstairs on the video editign system and i need to check on somethgin runnign on my office pc downstairs i can just use remote desktop to connect to it and do what i need to do. i assume i will not be able to connect to windows pcs via remote desktop using macOS?

also for file sharing on my home network, i have an unraid server (http://www.lime-technology.com/)
i assume i will be able to connect to the shares on that with no problem?

The short answer, yes all the protocols are the same.

mdjerome said:

The short answer, yes all the protocols are the same.

Click to expand...

so then is there software for mac that will allow me to connect to a windows pc via remote desktop? if so then does it come with mac OS or is it a 3rd party product?

There are other 3rd party apps to do this with. I haven't gotten my other Windows machines up and running so I haven't had a chance to test any of these. But I did find this, which may help answer your question.

http://www.redstonesoftware.com/products/vine/server/other/index.html

To connect to the PC from the Mac, you can use RDP Client from Microsoft:

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/otherproducts/otherproducts.aspx?pid=remotedesktopclient

I do this daily to connect to my headless servers from my MacBook, and it works great.

To connect to the Mac from PCs, you can either use the built in "Apple Remote Desktop" that is compatible with most VNC clients on the PC (ultravnc, realvnc, etc), or you can use the OSXVNC server with those same clients. OSXVNC has a lot more options to customize...