Question Regarding Remoteing into cisco routers

I admit I used to hate macs, before my dad got a mac mini. Now I see them as well designed pieces of machinery. I am going to be getting a laptop as a graduation gift for graduating High School, I was looking at the powerbooks and the Ibooks. I was wondering if it is possible to remote into a cisco router and if there was software for the OS-X to do that. Also what programming languages would OS-X support, because I'm going to be a computer engineering major and I want to make sure that I would be able to use it when working on servers and stuff, because I'm wary about Windows Vista's system requirements and the cost it would tax on for the ultimate or proffesional edition, and as most of you know microsoft tends to do an extremely poor job with operating systems, and its only plus is software availability.

If OS-X doesn't allow for the use I require then I'd probably get a dual core amd 64 laptop and install linux on it.

Just noticed the other cisco thread so that answered one question, now I just need to know which programming languages I can use, also is it possible to program but not compile and run c++ in it useing a meathod besides the archaic notepad meathod?