Want To Switch To Mac And A Lot Of Questions On My Mind..

[hari.p]

Thank you so much for yr reply.

1. SYSTEM - ok - got it .
2. SPREADSHEETS - i'm not into VB macros but i noticed some very basic shortcuts required using the mouse in Numbers.
3. Entourage - actually, i wanted to know how is it to use Mail after coming from Outlook. I want to try and avoid MS as much as possible.
4. Blackberry - from what i've read most of the softwares are not stable.
5. Dock - this is fantasic! Now i just need to find a way to get it to Hong Kong..

Perhaps my posts give the impression of being "set" but the fact is that i'm primarily a business user - i spend 3 days a week out on the road - and i would like to educate myself properly before going in for it. For better or worse, my travels dont take me to metropolitan cities. I'm mostly in small towns - I dont want to get stuck with in a remote corner of a village and not know what to do. Hopefully that will explain my asking so many questions.

Oh yes, i did try setting up appointments with Apple guys - they seem to need a lot of help themselves.

 

[MacJenny]

I recently just switched back (my very first computer was a Macintosh SE!!). Because I needed Remote Desktop and wanted to play my Sims2 games without repurchasing the entire library of them, I partitioned my MacBook Pro with BootCamp and installed Vista on a 45GB hard drive. Runs beautifully.

I am a heavy emailer and calendar user (because of my work), so I installed Entourage and connected it to the Exchange account at my work. I absolutely hated it for one reason, and one reason only: calendar alerts. I have so many alerts for my job and when I'm signed in to Entourage, getting them is fine. But if I am not running it, I don't want to receive calendar alerts. It got so frustrating, I removed my Exchange profile completely and now I just rely on Mail or my iPhone.

As for your Blackberry issue: my boyfriend and I had Berrys. At the time, I was on a Windows machine, so I had no issues. But he was unable to sync to his MacBook Pro. On a personal note, I hated my Blackberry. It was the most cumbersome smartphone I've ever owned and I will never go back. I bought the iPhone 3G last September and it is hands-down the best smart device, period. Sending/recieving emails on it is cake, the UI is easy to use....I could go on. I work for an IT company and about 20% of us have iPhones now. And I'm seeing more and more of our clients switching. I would recommend it over any other phone. And it would solve your sync issues

 

[bobtomay]

If you do decide to go for a Mac - as a businessman relying on your computer, and knowing 'time is money', don't believe I'd recommend taking your first 3 or 4 trips without taking your old Win machine along with you. If for nothing else, just a peace of mind backup. It may take those 3 or 4 trips to really figure out from a business and time perspective whether you need to install Windows on it for one or two apps where the Win side just may be 'better', at least for your needs.

Will say, that I purchased a copy of XP to put on mine immediately and ended up removing it after about 6 months when I realized I hadn't touched Windows for at least the last 3 months of that time. You may find some combination to be the best for your particular uses.