Hello everyone!
I currently own an Alienware Area-51 desktop computer and now that I am starting college I am in desperate need of a laptop. I was browsing around a Barne's and Noble one day and saw a Macworld magazine and started flipping through it. Instantly I fell in love... er, lust, perhaps. I have a few questions before I take the dive, because if I am spending $3,000, I want to be sure I am making the right choice.
Firstly, I design a lot of websites... I know Macs are for the "hip and creative", but I see a lot more music, pictures, and video advertised than I do web design. Am I still going to be able to program my PHP/MySQL-heavy websites with a MacBook Pro? Currently I use Zend and Dreamweaver.
Second, along with these online sites comes the business side of things. This involves a lot of writing (business models/plans, charting revenue growth, etc.). Am I going to be able to create such documents and have them be compatible with Windows-based computers? I did see that Office 2008 is in the works, but currently there is only 2004. Has there been a release date set for 2008, or is it just a rumor?
Third, how is the OS speed compared to Windows? Some people tell me OS X is faster than Windows, and others say the opposite.
And lastly, I was wondering about a couple of hardware problems. First, no MacBook comes with a numpad on the right-hand side. Are there are USB numpads that I could plug in to use? Reason being is I deal with stocks and with a lot of numbers, so reaching above the keyboard will be very inefficient as opposed to a numpad. Also, can you right click with a mouse? I have read that you can OPTION-CLICK or something of that nature to replicate a "right-click", but again that would be very inefficient.
Thanks in advance guys, hopefully I hear what I am hoping to hear and end up going with it!
My Possible MacBook Pro Stats:
2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
3GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM
160GB Serial ATA Drive
SuperDrive 6x (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
MacBook Pro 15-inch Widescreen Display
I currently own an Alienware Area-51 desktop computer and now that I am starting college I am in desperate need of a laptop. I was browsing around a Barne's and Noble one day and saw a Macworld magazine and started flipping through it. Instantly I fell in love... er, lust, perhaps. I have a few questions before I take the dive, because if I am spending $3,000, I want to be sure I am making the right choice.
Firstly, I design a lot of websites... I know Macs are for the "hip and creative", but I see a lot more music, pictures, and video advertised than I do web design. Am I still going to be able to program my PHP/MySQL-heavy websites with a MacBook Pro? Currently I use Zend and Dreamweaver.
Second, along with these online sites comes the business side of things. This involves a lot of writing (business models/plans, charting revenue growth, etc.). Am I going to be able to create such documents and have them be compatible with Windows-based computers? I did see that Office 2008 is in the works, but currently there is only 2004. Has there been a release date set for 2008, or is it just a rumor?
Third, how is the OS speed compared to Windows? Some people tell me OS X is faster than Windows, and others say the opposite.
And lastly, I was wondering about a couple of hardware problems. First, no MacBook comes with a numpad on the right-hand side. Are there are USB numpads that I could plug in to use? Reason being is I deal with stocks and with a lot of numbers, so reaching above the keyboard will be very inefficient as opposed to a numpad. Also, can you right click with a mouse? I have read that you can OPTION-CLICK or something of that nature to replicate a "right-click", but again that would be very inefficient.
Thanks in advance guys, hopefully I hear what I am hoping to hear and end up going with it!
My Possible MacBook Pro Stats:
2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
3GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM
160GB Serial ATA Drive
SuperDrive 6x (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
MacBook Pro 15-inch Widescreen Display