Re: Why should I buy an Apple and what teething difficulties can I expect
- From: J.J. O'Shea <try.not.to@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 9 Jul 2006 12:16:14 -0400
On Sat, 8 Jul 2006 03:05:12 -0400, drystone@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote
(in article <1152342312.355515.174810@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>):
This is a sincere post, I promise.
We're a PC family and are considering buying an Apple when we upgrade
our laptop. So I thought I'd post to this group for genuine reasons as
to why are Apples are better than PCs.
they're a whole lot easier to use.
I'd also love to hear reasons
that Apples aren't so good as PCs.
You spend so much more time on your WinBox... fighting malware.
And now for some basic questions:
I imagine we'll be networking a PC and Apple (if we buy one)--is this
easy?
Networking Mac:
1 get Ethernet cable.
2 plug one end into Mac, other end into router, switch, or hub.
3 turn Mac on.
By default the Mac's TCP/IP stack, like Windows' TCP/IP stack, uses DHCP and
will pick up an IP address if you have a device, such as a router, on the
network which is set up for DHCP. Standard home/small office routers have
DHCP turned on as part of the factory settings.
If you're going wireless, the sequence is:
1 install a _good_ WEP or, preferably, WPA, key on your wireless access point
or wireless router.
2 turn Mac on.
3 AirPort should be a little 90-degree-arc-of-a-circle icon on the menubar.
Pull down the AirPort menu, turn AirPort on if it's off, select the network
and enter your WEP or WPA key.
Will our Word, Excel, Powerpoint files work in the equivalent Apple
programs?
Word files can be opened by assorted applications on Macs, some of which come
with the system, TextEdit, for example. Some of which don't ship with the
system but are free, NeoOffice, for example. And some of which cost money,
which would include Pages, (part of iWork, total cost US$80), or MS Word for
Mac, part of MS Office for Mac. Total cost of MS Office 2004 is US$150 for
the Student/Teacher edition, which is legal so long as you have at least one
person in the household who even breathes hard near some kind of educational
institution K-12-university; no students, teachers, staff at a school?
Officially Office is US$400 for the standard edition and $500 for the pro
edition. The Student/Teacher version and the Standard version are effectively
identical, except that you can't upgrade the Student/Teacher version, and
both contain Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Entourage, that last being sort of
Outlook Express and Outlook in one. The Pro version is Standard, plus Virtual
PC. Note that VPC doesn't work on Intel Macs and Microsoft has not said
if/when it will run on Intel Macs, so if you're buying a new Mac it would be
prudent to not buy the Pro version.
TextEdit does a fair job of opening simple Word files, but (IMHO) falls down
badly on complex files with tables and lots of formatting. YMMV, depending on
what you call 'complex' and how big the tables are. The NeoOffice/Open Office
duo do a better job, and are free; they're still clunky, and have problems
with very complex Word documents. (Example: don't try to open a 50-plus page
Word doc which has a 10-page table, a dozen styles, and graphics, in either
NeoOffice or Open Office. They will barf.) AppleWorks will read Word files at
least as well as NeoOffice and isn't nearly as clunky. It's also old and
semi-abandoned and you'll have problems finding a copy. Pages will open even
complex documents; certain Word features, including paragraph border effects,
are not supported, and are simply dropped, but the data comes through in the
correct places. (Usually. There are sometimes font issues because of the
different ways that the Mac OS and Windows in general see fonts, and the ways
that Pages and Word in particular handle them.) MS Word usually simply opens
Windows Word files. Again, sometimes there are font problems, but that's
usually it.
There are several freeware and shareware apps which say they do Excel, but,
frankly, I trust only AppleWorks (and it's been years since I've used it) and
Excel itself. YMMV. AppleWorks will reliably open Excel files but doesn't
support many Excel features. Mac Excel is Excel; Excel was, after all, a Mac
product which moved to Windows. (Proud owner of Excel version 1, and of its
immediate ancestors, Chart and MultiSomething, I forget the name, it's been
20 years.)
I don't use PowerPoint anymore. Keynote, part of iWork (same $80 full price)
does a much better job of handling PowerPoint files than PowerPoint on Mac or
Windows can do.
Or do we need to install Word etc on the Apple?
See
<http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/office2004/howtobuy/howtobuy.aspx?pid=h
owtobuy> for MS Office 2004. Check out the Apple Store online or
brick-and-mortar for iLife and AppleWorks; the Apple Store's URLs expire
after a short time. You can get NeoOffice from
<http://www.planamesa.com/neojava/en/index.php> and Open Office from
<http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/>
Cheers.
D. Stone.
--
email to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com.
.
- Follow-Ups:
- Re: Why should I buy an Apple and what teething difficulties can I expect
- From: Wes Groleau
- Re: Why should I buy an Apple and what teething difficulties can I expect
- From: Wes Groleau
- Re: Why should I buy an Apple and what teething difficulties can I expect
- References:
- Prev by Date: Re: iBook as a stopwatch with an external switch
- Next by Date: Re: iBook as a stopwatch with an external switch
- Previous by thread: Re: Why should I buy an Apple and what teething difficulties can I expect
- Next by thread: Re: Why should I buy an Apple and what teething difficulties can I expect
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
