Owning a Mac In a PC World - Some Questions

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This is my first post. I went back several pages to get answers to some questions as I am considering purchasing a Mac.

First, I have used Mac's before. twice. First when the Mac initially came out many years ago and about 10 years ago. I do have some experience here. In both of these cases the hardware was cost prohibitive to run the software in a stable environment. I don't believe this is the case today.

I work in a small high tech company. We use Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 for the server Software. This means Exchange for mail, and Microsoft for everything else.

Are there issues with Exchange? What about the web client for Exchange? Will the Mac operate with both of these? Will Safari run the Exchange web client?

Our accounting software is Quick Books which does not operate on the Mac. This means I will need to maintain a PC somewhere in the loop.

What about using the Linksys VPN client to VPN to a Desktop PC to operate the accounting software?

I do Itunes and a Ipod for my MP3's, this should work better.

I also use a Cannon Digital Rebel XT camera. Is there Software out there to interface with my Camera? What about Photo Editing? Editing RAW images?

My phone is a Blackberry 8830 which I tether to my laptop and vpn into the server. Can I do this with the Mac laptop? If the Iphone ever will interface with server push or BB push and allow tethering to a laptop, I would consider switching to an IPhone as well.

If you have made the transition from Mac to PC in a corporate environment, did it eliminate the driver/virus issues which now plague my PC world? Did you have any interface problems working with all the PC's while you are the only Mac?

Thanks!!!
 
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15" Macbook Pro 2.66 GHz, 4GB 1067 MHz running Snow Leopard
If you're looking into buying a new mac, all of the new ones have intel core duo processors or better and can thus run bootcamp, allowing you to install a windows operating system on a portion of your drive. Essentially you can run both OSes on one computer. Therefore you can use any program available to windows even if it isn't compatible with the mac OS.

As for your camera, iPhoto (comes bundled with every mac) should be able to get the photos from your CF card very easily. There are plenty of programs for raw conversion, and the software they sent with the camera (assuming you still have it) should work on a mac, but if it doesn't you can run bootcamp and use it through the windows partition, or find other software tat works natively. I use photoshop for editing, but there are a lot of other programs that will run fine on a mac.

I'm not 100% on the blackberry question, but I know the iPhone has bluetooth which would connect to the computer and possibly the server?

As long as you're aware of the formats you're saving things in, you should have no problem communicating with the PCs on your network. You could buy Microsoft Office if you're more comfortable with it but iWork understands .doc and all the M$ formats.
 
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Thanks, for these issues This was about where I thought we were on local machine based apps.

I am more concerned about server compatibility, and interfacing with the office email via the Exchange Wed interface and the ability to VPN into a desktop on the office network. Assuming connecting my BB to the Mac laptop is not an issue, and connecting up to the Verizon network is not an issue, Push comes to shove I will be able to run all my MS apps via remote desktop assuming Mac has this capability. Comments here????
 
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Mac Mini Core i7 2012 | White 2009 MacBook 2 Ghz | 733 Mhz G4 Quicksilver
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I'm a recent convert but Yes, you can connect via remote desktop with your mac. I have Cisco VPN client installed and Remote Desktop Connection:mac (BETA) installed on my iMac. I can remotely connect to work (school) and use all the Windows based software installed on the school's server. Your IT professional at work should be able to hook you up with the required software and do their magic to allow you through the firewall. Works great for me with one exception... the window that opens up in remote desktop once you get through the firewall is very small and I cannot figure out how to make it larger. Hope this helps!
 
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Your Mac's Specs
24" 2.8ghz IMAC, MB Pro
That would be your windows brain looking for an option button on the RDP client getting in your way as you look for a way to change the resolution. Remember this is a mac and with the RDP client open before you connect take a gander at the menu bar.

RDC -> Preferences -> Display

As for the OP

1) There are some small issues with Exchange yes. Entourage will not allow an exchange MAPI configuration. So you will be stuck with IMAP or POP. Outlook web access works in Safari but looks a little different and doesn't support ALL the features. Firefox has slightly better support for it.

2) To run your accounting software you do not need a PC. Install VMware Fusion and install a VM of XP. Then in that VM configure your domain membership, mapped network drives, and install Quickbook. Then run it in Unity mode and it will be like Quickbooks is installed nativly on your MAC. I suggest 4 gigs of ram to do this smoothly while doing other things in OS X.

3) VPN works in MAC but I would use the VM option.

4) You don't have a virus issue on a mac in a pc environment but in a corporate environment you should still run an anti virus package so that you don't pass anything on to the other PCs. Interfacing with other PCs, mapped netowrk drives, and mapped and shared printers works fine though.

The mac will also support your camera out of the box without any additional software needed. Not sure if you can use your blackberry as a modem to your mac the way you want or not. haven't tried but it will be dependent on the software available from blackberry I image.
 
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Thank you all.

For me, what his means is running a Mac Pro loaded up partitioned for about 1/3 PC ops and 2/3 Mac ops, or maintain a desktop PC at work that I VPN and remote desktop into for PC related stuff. I am a bit disappointed in these limitations. Undoubtedly, the Mac is the best Personal Computer, but I expected they would operate a bit more seamless in a Microsoft Exchange Network environment. One last question, What is the impact to the Mac Pro Laptop if I set it up with for dual boot with one sector configured for Windows XP and the other for Max OS?
 
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iMac 5.1 | iMac 7.1 | iMac 12.1 | iMac 19.1 | iPhone 11 Pro | Watch s5
I suggest 4 gigs of ram to do this smoothly while doing other things in OS X.

I'm running with 2GB ram and everything works very smoothly. I set XP VM to only use 256MB. I also learned how to slim it down and optimize it.
 
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Black MacBook- 2.2GHz, 1gb RAM, 160GB, Double-Layer Superdrive.
Thank you all.

For me, what his means is running a Mac Pro loaded up partitioned for about 1/3 PC ops and 2/3 Mac ops, or maintain a desktop PC at work that I VPN and remote desktop into for PC related stuff. I am a bit disappointed in these limitations. Undoubtedly, the Mac is the best Personal Computer, but I expected they would operate a bit more seamless in a Microsoft Exchange Network environment. One last question, What is the impact to the Mac Pro Laptop if I set it up with for dual boot with one sector configured for Windows XP and the other for Max OS?

Not as much Hard Drive Space for each partition.
 
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I'm running with 2GB ram and everything works very smoothly. I set XP VM to only use 256MB. I also learned how to slim it down and optimize it.

You may have but that doesn't mean its easy for others :) Also 256 megs isnt enough for the XP virtual machine if you intend to use it as a true XP without performance hits. The way I suggested to him is so that he can have Office, Quickbooks, and other things running in his VM without seeing a performance slowdown of any kind in OS X OR in XP. If you give 256m to the XP VM the XP apps will run quite poorly.
 

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