How do I break loose of the PC?

Let me begin by asking for forgiveness for a couple of items. 1. If this is a regularly discussed topic, please forgive me; I did not see it addressed somewhere else 2. I am a PC user (please no throwing things at me, I already have enough trouble to deal with)

The problem is I am a PC user and always have been. I got my first PC around 1987, and have never known anything else. I sit at a PC for work all day every day, and then any time I do things at home it is also on a PC. Suffice it to say I am tired of the trouble I have always assumed to be a necessary evil when working with computers until recently when I have had some people around me discuss a Mac.

Here's what it boils down to: How in the world can I switch from a PC to a Mac when everything I have (software, hardware, smartphone, etc.) was made to work with Windows. Honestly I could see moving all of my personal stuff to a Mac as I know there are applications which can make most of the hardware work, but my biggest issue is with my work related applications. I use a Dell Laptop at work, and often have to bring work home. Of course the work system is all Windows, and I just don't know if there is any way I could switch over my work computer to a Mac and still operate. If I am stuck with having to use a PC at work, then I will have to live with one at home to so that I can make sure I can transfer everything back and forth without problems.

Anyway, sorry for the rambling, but any suggestions anyone has would be appreciated.

Well if need be you can always either install windows on either a virtual machine through vmware fusion or parallels, or bootcamp, and use that to do stuff @ home for work, or you can see if any of the programs you use on windows have a mac equivalent or mac version so you can just transfer it over. While the program may be slightly different, likely you can do comparable stuff on the two, but with the intel chips, it allowed using windows on your machine so you can go either way.. Using a virtual machine for windows would also allow you to access your files on your mac while also doing stuff for work on windows at the same time, and with newer versions of parallels or vmware (beta but still viable) you can transfer files back and forth between xp and windows.

Is there any possibility of running a Mac on a MS network at the office?

There really isn't much on the PC side that I can't do natively in Windows. Microsoft Office works very well on the Mac, in fact for most things I actually prefer Office for Mac. Entourage is missing some features that are in Outlook, but has one huge advantage over Outlook (the Project Center).

OmniPlan works with Microsoft Project files (although not being a Project user myself, I don't know how it compares feature-wise).

You can sync your Smartphone with the Mac using either PocketMac or Missing Sync (although neither are quite as robust as ActiveSync; in particular, the ability to sync your email is not supported, at least it wasn't a year ago. PocketMac has a few features missing in ActiveSync however: you can automatically sync iTunes music [non-protected] based on an iTunes playlist. Likewise you can sync a photo album [including a smart album] from iPhoto).

The majority of other major applications are available in Mac versions: Dreamweaver, Photoshop, etc.

We have a few custom applications here at the office, but I run those (when needed) under Parallels. Using the coherence mode of Parallels makes those applications run nearly transparently, as the Windows applications float alongside those in MacOS.

carguy said:

Is there any possibility of running a Mac on a MS network at the office?

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Yes... At least sort-of. I don't know for certain that a Macintosh can join a Windows domain, but you can access Windows services such as shared files and printers, and share your Mac files in such a way that your other less fortunate Windows folk can see (but the drawback of not joining the domain means that you would have to create local accounts on your Mac for them to have access to your files).

...I take that back. It is possible to put a Mac onto a Windows domain. Apple has information about this here.

Doing so will probably require the resources of your IT department. I don't know if your IT folks are more open-minded than mine, but I would never get anyone at my company to authorize adding a machine they don't have control of onto the domain (and I'm not sure I blame them).

The scary thing is that I pretty much am the IT department (in house anyway). We are a small business (Medical Practice) with about 40 PCs on the domain. I do most of the day to day work and can do minor things on the network (adding new computers and users to the domain, etc.), but when it comes to upgrading the server and major changes we have an outside company that comes in and does all of that. Problem is our outside IT people are of course all about PC, and I don't know that they would have any more knowledge about getting a Mac up and running on the domain with all the software we are running any better than I would.

carguy said:

Here's what it boils down to: How in the world can I switch from a PC to a Mac when everything I have (software, hardware, smartphone, etc.) was made to work with Windows. Honestly I could see moving all of my personal stuff to a Mac as I know there are applications which can make most of the hardware work, but my biggest issue is with my work related applications. I use a Dell Laptop at work, and often have to bring work home. Of course the work system is all Windows, and I just don't know if there is any way I could switch over my work computer to a Mac and still operate. If I am stuck with having to use a PC at work, then I will have to live with one at home to so that I can make sure I can transfer everything back and forth without problems.

Click to expand...

My recommendation is to keep work and home separate. You're probably stuck with a PC for work, but you may have options at home.

For work related things, you've actually got a pretty good situation. Not only do you have a work PC, it's a laptop. Yay! Work at home? Bring home the laptop. If it messes up, it's a corporate resource; it's their problem, not yours. Let them take responsibility for the configuration and maintenance. My company does. You may be IT, but it's their computer and their nickel. If you try to go Mac in a Windows workplace, they'll have no sympathy or tolerance when your Mac-produced Office document doesn't quite work with their PC; conversely, if they can't open your PC produced doc, well, you have a mutual source of frustration.

For home, you have options. Maybe there are equivalents in the Mac world for what you currently do in the Windows world. There *are* equivalents in most cases, but it's a matter of them being close enough to satisfy your needs.

You may still find you have sufficient dependencies at home that you really can't go Mac. If however you keep work and home separate, maybe that helps make your choices a little clearer.

Hope this helps!

I have done just this with a Macbook and Parallels with XP installed. In fact today I worked remote using the Virtual machine running in a window to get some things done on one of our Windows 2000 servers running a windows only application. Here's what we use that is issued on a company supplied Dell laptop computer (that has sat idle, or used for other purposes while I'm using my Macbook with Parallels to do work stuff at the same time I'm using the Mac to do personal stuff):

Lotus Notes for email (and a lot of other things)
Sametime Connect for Instant messaging/meetings
Check Point SecureClient VPN for connecting to the office network over broadband (or wireless while in the office)
Internet explorer for the Intranet
MS Office (of course) for docs, spreadsheets, and Powerpoint presentations (oh yeah, I have an expense report due...lemme jot that down in..well, see below)
Windows Media player for training videos
Remote Desktop to administration Terminal Servers
Microsoft Project for coordinating uh, projects
Secure shell to access UNIX servers
Oracle DBA administration tools
Adobe Reader to read PDF documents
Miscellaneous Windows only client/server apps specific to the application we develop.

All of this runs in a window while simultatneously with Mac OS X I can:

Use iChat (with built-in iSight camera for video) to chat with my buddies (well, okay my wife but still...)
Photoshop to touch up my pictures
Mail for my personal email
Safari to surf the net
Safari to manage my wireless and wired routers (neither of them Apple branded) for the occasional times the DSL modem goes nutso)
Quicktime to watch videos or movies, including Windows Media movies
iDVD to watch a movie on DVD
iTunes to play music in the background
Epson Print CD to print CD labels on my direct-to-printable-CD printer
Photobooth to watch myself stare at my screen for hours on end using the built-in camera
Snap N Drag to take pictures of the screen (did that today to show an error to vendor technical support)
Various widgets with Dashboard to keep an eye on the weather, look up words in the Dictionary, translate the occasional french, jot down reminders (remember that expense report? Stickies reminds me that I do), calculate some figures, check what time it is in Cairo, when the next Netflix DVD is coming, when Battlestar Galactica will be airing next, etc.
Edit some musical tracks that I recorded from an internet radio station
Buy some tunes from the iTunes store that the internet radio station doesn't have then sync it to my iPod
Burn an audio CD that I can listen to in my car
Print out an audio CD jewel case cover consisting of the album art of all the songs on the CD (okay, so you can do this with Windows too, but you don't have to)
Run some shell scripts that I wrote on my Linux box that work without modification on my Mac
Run some Applescripts in iTunes that check if the tune has album art, exports an HTML list of my library, and other useful stuff (this is a Mac only thing, even with iTunes for Windows)
Play a quick game of Unreal Tournament 2004 to blow off some steam during a break
Use an external monitor spanned with the Macbook monitor so it's like I have one HUGE monitor (13" screen on the bottom, 20" CRT on the top; each running at their max resoloution.)
Let's see...what else...oh yeah run that Parallels virtual machine in a window so I can do all the stuff with Windows apps that I listed in the first part of this post.

At the end of the day, I close the lid on the Macbook and it goes to sleep. The next day I open it up and it wakes up. Instantly. Ready for another day of doing all of the above.

So really, unless you're into hardcore gaming, you get the best of both worlds with a Mac. Heck even if you ARE into hardcore gaming, there are lots of games that run fine on a Mac, natively.

It does Mac, it does Windows. Corporate applications (most of which are not graphics intensive) heck, I even can use my Palm PDA with it. Haven't tried it with my iPaq Pocket PC yet, but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work. Oh, and I take this thing everywhere I go, so I can do this stuff (including the Windows stuff that I'm forced to do to put food on the table) anywhere. If the power goes out...well, I think you get the idea.
A lot of these apps overlap between Mac and Windows, but I have found (and you probably would too) that I prefer to do things with the Mac the majority of the time, and things with Windows only when I have to.

Come on over, the waters fine. We'll even put in a Window for you.

(Plus they look pretty. This screen is gorgeous!)

I am in the same boat. My problem is with school though instead of work. What I did is bought an Imac, then installed bootcamp and Windows XP Pro. It runs the Windows OS really well and then I can use my school software and other prepurchased software until I upgrade at a later date. When I update software I will look into Mac options. I use the Mac side for email, web surfing and general "playing around" for now. I plan to slowly migrate as muck as possible over to Mac over time.

This situation would probably work pretty well for you also.

carguy said:

How do I break loose of the PC?

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Just buy the Mac you are eyeballing. Thats the only way you are going to really know if you can or cant live without Windows.

I hemmed and hawed for 2yrs about getting a Mac. Finally, one day, I went to the store and bought one without giving myself time to do the back and forth, should I/shouldnt I bit that Id done before.

That was 8 months ago, havent used Windows since.

You can use a bit of software called "Dave" which lets the mac browse PC Networks. We've used it for a couple of years on OSX talking to two XP Boxes. Works great.