Are Macs good for web design?

I'm strongly considering switching from a PC with Vista (which I hate) to a Mac.

The only problem is that I am a web designer, and I'm concerned that testing my sites will be a problem on a Mac. Any web designers out there with Macs, how does it work? Is it easy just to test on another machine? Or is there a way to install IE on a Mac?

I was thinking about just buying a cheap copy of XP from my school's computer store and using it with Bootcamp to test out websites, would that work? Or is there a better solution?

Thanks for your help,
Zack

Parallels will let you run Windows (and therefore IE) alongside OS X.
Bootcamp will also work for that but requires a reboot. Parallels would be perfect for web site testing because it doesn't need 3d graphics (which is the main reason to choose Bootcamp over Parallels).

http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/

The only shortcoming for web design on OS X is IE, but that can be easily done with as there is Parallels, VMware and even crossover. I mostly check my sites in Safari and Firefox and just at the end of the design process, I double check in IE to see that everything looks 'readable'.

I use CrossOver with IE6. No windows OS required. It does most things well. For positioning and css bugs it's perfect. It doesn't handle scriptaculous animations very well though (doesn't render the tween frames).

i was about to get crossover, when i realized you need a valid copy of windows to download ie... how do you get around this?

What makes you think you need a valid copy of Windows to use Crossover? That's the exact opposite! Parallels and Bootcamp both actually do need Windows because they run the whole OS, but Crossover emulates Windows and therefore doesn't require it. It uses technology called WINE to provide Windows compatibility without windows.

no.. to download internet explorer. everytime i have ever tried to download ie in the past, i have needed a valid copy of windows... so how would you dowload ie with crossover?

http://www.download3k.com/DownloadLink1-Internet-Explorer.html

there ya go.