A switchers story and questions.

Hi all!

This is my first message and let me say it is not only good o be posting here for the first time but, also posting on a mac. After dealing with the last issues with my windows machine I finally have my little mac mini (intel duo 2gig ram maxed out).

I think I made the switch in my mind when I installed Norton anti-virus 2006 on my computer at the turn of the year and it slowed my computer like molasses. Not to mention dealing with ad-aware, office (outlook locking up) service pack issues and such. So, taking stock of my aging computer, considering a new one I thought of what I really needed.

A computer with e-mail, internet, and the ability to tool around some multi-media. I don’t need to play games or worry about sharing files from work to home (i.e. office). So I talked to my friends about a Mac. I grew up a p.c. guy having an Osbourne and the first Compaq laptop in my parents house growing up with dos and so forth. But, then came the metaphorical epiphany that I no longer wanted a that American pickup truck (p.c. Microsoft machine). It was functional, everybody had one and you could get parts for it on any corner auto parts store (because it did break down allot). The mac conversely was like a nice German sports car, handled like a dream (an extension of your body) and looked good. True it was a little more expensive and had to be fixed by a guy named “Hans” but, it drove like a dream.

Meanwhile I got so sick an tired of my “windooze” machine running like crap that I re-imaged the machine (usually a windows fix after about a year or two), this time a dual boot with a unbunu linux . Linux was cool it was clean and a **** of allot faster but, my life was relegated to looking up everything I individual thing I wanted to work on the forum boards and allot of fooling around with a terminal. Now once you got it to work it was bullet proof and you never had to mess with it, but man allot of trial and error. Umbntu BTW is a great version of linux and I highly recommend it to linux newbies.

Along comes March, a tax refund, an announcement of the intel mini’s and my mac purchase. Finally!

While I am cautious about having the rev a of the intel mini (maybe should invest in Apple care?) I just needed my life to be simpler and easier in computing. After spending the first week with my computer I have learned how to TRULY quit out of programs (no x’ing out like windows), learning the file systems etc. I really love this mac. Love the feel and want the whole mac experience.

I hate Windows and want nothing to do with it if I don’t have to. with that said I have a few questions and will repost in the proper forums if nobody reads this longwinded message.

1. need some basic Word processing program and wondering if iwork is worth it? Would like to stay away from Windows if I could. Am I crazy to want nothing to do with the evil empire? and oh yeah don’t want a clunky open source program.

2. Can’t play windows media files...do I really have to download their player?

3. Want a web site do some pod-casting, bogging etc. Saw spymac, but they are not taking new accounts and the forums talk about allot of down time. .mac integrates with their software (have the trial version right now), but it seemed kind of slow (anyone else?). .mac worth it? Additional comments to the ones I have read already.

Well I got other questions. Figured I would start with this long one. Love the mac! Don’t want to go back to “winblows”

Thanks,
Windows 12 stepper.

1. Well Microsoft Office isn't exactly windows related, but created by the same creator of that OS. MS Office is actually pretty good and I'm sure a lot of people recommend it. But if your looking for an alternative look into Neo Office J.
2. I don't know.
3. don't know because i don't have either .mac or spymac.

1. iWork will do fine unless you do a LOT of office work, but for the occasional paper or presentation it's great.

2. Flip 4 Mac will play WMVs without Windows Media Player.

3. .Mac is worth it if it's it worth it to you. (does that make sense? ) Try it out and see. I really like it, other than the fact it is kind of slow (.Mac doesn't even use Apple's X-Serve servers...), it's really great.

Welcome to the boards.

1. Check out TextEdit in your Applications folder. It's included with OS X. I purchased Office 2004 for $130 from Amazon (get the Teacher and Student edition). Works just like the Windows versions except I needed to increase the font size with the high resolution of my Powerbook screen.

2. Ditto on Flip4Mac, however, it's not 100%. I still can't get Yahoo's Launch site to play music videos but I have no trouble with movie, news and sports sites.

3. There are lots of places on the 'net for blogging. I'm not familiar with podcasting except to listen to them.

1. iWork is great if whatever you do is going to be pbulshed, meaning anyone except for you is going to see it. Everyone who sees my documents goes "wow, how did you do that?". But for simple text fiddling, try textedit (on all macs).

2. Flip4Mac is not native on Intel yet, and rosetta doesn't support it.

3. .mac has recieved mixed reviews, but if your going to use it with iWeb (and podcast studio in garageband, and maybe some pics from iphoto), you'll have a positive expeience. Apple's servers are quite good, and you get iDisk and photocasting, which might be of interest.

Thanks for the advice guys. Looking foward to contributing to the forum and having a good time with my mac.