Buying a Mac mini

I have been thinking about getting my mother a new computer. She has a basic dell computer that's two or three years old that has been giving her nothing but trouble. She doesn't do much but surf the web and play the occasional game like mahjongg or jeopardy. I was wondering if a mac mini might be the thing for her. She's been a windows user for years, but doesn't really get into the nuts and bolts of it. How hard would it be for her to change over? and how hard would it be to find these types of games? She doesn't really play anything that's graphics intensive. Also, she has a lot of stuff saved in microsoft works would it be hard to change them over to the mac system? I was planning on getting iworks for her also.

Thanks

Sounds like an excellent plan.

Not sure which versions of Mahjongg & Jeopardy she's playing, but if these are web based versions (in Java or Flash) they'll run fine on the Mac too. Obviously there are OS X games to be found as well. As for opening Microsoft Works files in iWork, it handles things like .doc and .rtf files no problem.

I would argue that the Mac OS is more intuitive that Windows, while similar enough so that someone who is familiar with the basics of Windows won't have much trouble getting up to speed.

One thing you didn't mention is email. If she uses her Windows machine for email, then a little planning may be needed to migrate any mail she wants to keep over to iMail/Thunderbird/etc. on the Mac, but it's usually achievable.

if you get office for mac all the files should work fine. i think the student edition should be fine for her. it runs about $130

I would offer an alternate point of view. It sounds like your mother is happy with her Windows environment, but experiencing issues with the computer itself. If she is unhappy with Windows, then she is "primed" for the change to Mac. If she is just unhappy with her current computer (the box itself) she may see no value in moving over to Mac.

People should only switch if they are motivated to do so. Mac OS X isn't Windows, and there is a learning curve. She has to be willing to undertake that.

Just my two cents.

I bought one for my Mom as a christmas present last year and she couln't be happier. She had no preference for any specific OS, just wanted something easy to use. I remotely accessed her new mac with my imac, screen shared, and walked her through all the set up. Not that there really is much. Just getting her email account set up and little things like that. In the remote chance she gets hung up on anything, I can always do the same again and help her out. She is happy as a clam and claims she has, "a Cadillac computer!"

I think its a pretty safe bet, just make sure she doesnt have a lot of older periphrials as they may not have the drivers to work on OSX.

Printer working with Mac

I switched in Nov and my Lexmark printer cannot be updated to work with Mac. It is 3 yrs old and it doesn't look like Lexmark is going to update the drivers.

Depends on the Lexmark model and your OS patricci. Use a Lexmark AllinOne Print Centre and the new driver works brilliantly under Leopard, and just worked without the Utilities under Tiger and Panther.

Not much value contacting Lexmark IT people. Argued for two years there was no proper Tiger driver, and in the end they admitted that even though the Lexmark web site still continues to advertise X.4 compatability.