I want a MAC soooo bad, but its not in the budget at the moment.. Not when I have two perfectly good running PCs *maybe I should break one*

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Tamika R. Johnson, MBA, Principal
administrative partners, llc
www.administrativepartners.net | http://adminpartners.blogspot.com

LOL that is cute Tamika, I am sure there are a few people out there that would help in breaking your PCs . That is how I felt before switching also, but a great thing about Apple products is that there are great discounts available. Especially if you are in school or own a business. Apple is trying to get business owners to see the benefit in using Mac's so they are offering constant perks and extras to business owners and college students. I visit their site almost daily to see what is new for business owners. It is a great resource. Good luck!

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Rikki Green
www.timeforlifeconcepts.com

I have a MAC and a PC. I primarily use the MAC because I LOVE IT! I only use a PC when necessary.

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Christina Shirley
Virtually Handled

I wanted to add that I have found that some of the great resources and tools that have been suggested at low costs (whether it is a low monthly rate or low one time cost) on this site have not been necessary for me to download because the Mac has those or similar functions built in. Therefore, buying a Mac is more expensive up front, but it saves in the long run.

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Rikki Green
www.timeforlifeconcepts.com

I completely agree with Rikki. There's so much less maintenance that has to be done to a Mac. Further, there is far less aggravation with a Mac (i.e., slow downs and locking up).

I think Apple has been offering those discounts for years. I know the first Mac I ever bought had some sort of educational discount.

Finally, the support you get from Apple is fantastic!!

I got my G4 because I had issues with documents done in Word - mostly issues with graphics and it's happened on more than one pc with Word documents from different Macs. It wouldn't show graphics in Word docs done on Macs or charts would have black backgrounds, so I called me friend who had a bunch of Macs she wanted to get rid of and asked how much. Her husband gave me one (I made him an apple pie ) and it solved the problem. I'm now finding that I want to do more, so am contemplating buying a new one.

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Julia

I have recently bought my ***y Mac desktop and love it. It has 320Gb of disc space and I have an external drive connected that does a backup every hour (all through the Mac Time Machine software that comes free). I will recommend taking it slowly and not getting too excited as you may make things more difficult than they need to be when setting up (speaking from experience!). I had trouble with setting up the email and then when setting up Boot Camp you need to have a single boot disc for XP with the Service Pack 2. I had to do some research and make a disc as our XP was quite old, but now I can use my QuickBooks and Photoshop whenever I need to on the PC side. I just restart the machine and choose Windows.

You can purchase a program called Parallels which when installed can run PC and Mac side by side, so you don't have to log on and off, which I am thinking of purchasing if I find I use the PC side more and more. I have Office 208 for Mac too, so I have Word, Excel and PowerPoint and can save as a previous version, so my clients don't even realise I have a Mac it runs so smoothly. There are so many little programs and things to play with. I recently downloaded a free program with 3d design for floor plans. I can now see just what my bedroom will look like after renovations and can see what size furniture fits! I love my Mac. :-)

I think if I wanted to have a separate PC I would purchase one of those small notebooks with the 9 Inch screen. They have the capacity to run XP, access internet, email etc. They have card slots and usb connections, but don't have an internal CD/DVD drive. For an emergency backup I think it would be great.

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Marie Chandler - your virtual assistant
www.officesupportonline.com.au

Originally Posted by White Rose

I have been planning to get a Mac for quite a while and that will come into reality very soon. I have never heard of Boot Camp, I will have to check it out. Is it expensive?

Boot Camp comes free as part of your Mac set up along with things like iMovie, Photo Booth (a great little program that you use the built in web cam and take photos and can add effects), iPhoto to view/sort photos and do basic fix ups, Safari (web browser like Internet Explorer), iCal (calendar), Apple Mail. I opted to use the Entourage mail system which comes with the Microsoft Office for Mac and it has been going great. I don't even realise that I'm not on my PC sometimes - except when I look at this gorgeous screen and slim keyboard and see how much space I have on my desk!

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Marie Chandler - your virtual assistant
www.officesupportonline.com.au

I went out yesterday and bought a new iMac with Microsoft Office and iWorks. I've retired my little one (to be used as a backup if needed). What a beautiful machine. I can see why people love them. That built-in webcam was a surprise when I was setting up the machine - didn't expect to see my picture and a message asking if I wanted it to be my avatar

The mac shop also had cute little keychains with digital cameras on them. I got one for hubby as part of his birthday gift.

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Julia

i went to the apple store this week... but only got a new ipod..*sadface*... its nice but I want the MAC... i need to network more this week.

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Tamika R. Johnson, MBA, Principal
administrative partners, llc
www.administrativepartners.net | http://adminpartners.blogspot.com

I am such a PC person, I can't even think in "Mac." My husband brought home his Mac laptop from work a few times and I could barely figure it out. I am definitely a PC person.

Originally Posted by tracy_dos

I am such a PC person, I can't even think in "Mac." My husband brought home his Mac laptop from work a few times and I could barely figure it out. I am definitely a PC person.

I used to be that way too then I got a job in an office where everyone but me had Macs and over the year there, I learned a bit about them. They're actually more similar than you'd think.

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Julia

My main work computer is a 24 inch iMac (awesome, there's so much screen space that it makes multi-tasking so much easier). I also have a MacBook for when I'm travelling. Both my Macs run Windows through Parallels Desktop rather than Bootcamp. My experience with Bootcamp is not very positive. I found it kept giving me errors. I've never had problems with Parallels or VMWare Fusion running Windows XP and Vista.

Oh...I also have a standalone Windows computer with a dual-boot into Linux.

So, basically, I run every major operating system out there.

My favourite, by far, is Mac and I use this as my primary system. Linux is second and Windows falls way behind! I only use Windows for website testing, software testing and for playing around with Windows repair and maintenance (I also run a computer repair business so I have to have a Windows computer to test new fixes and data recovery systems).

I just had to write again and tell everyone how much I love my Mac! I did end up purchasing Parallels as I have a few PC based programs that I use regularly. I still have my normal Mac screen/desktop just with the Windows bar across the top. So at any time I can go in and open a program, almost as if it was part of the Mac programs! I have even clicked on a Publisher file by mistake and it automatically opened Publisher in the PC side of things - awesome! So many wonderful little free programs out there also. Would definitely recommend Mac - you have the best of both worlds on one computer. Ahhh - life is good!!

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Marie Chandler - your virtual assistant
www.officesupportonline.com.au

Congrats Marie!

I still use bootcamp because it was free with the machine. However, I hear good things about Parallels.

It's great to be able to go back and forth between both platforms.

I wouldn't trade my Mac for anything.

-Alice