Huge purchase
First of all, hi all. My name's Nick and I own a trading business in Hong Kong. i travel a lot to Europe but live in China (mainland). I think this might become relevant later on. Oh and excuse my English, I am French and I ain't fluent in English by a long shot.
I have been a fervent windows user for years and always refused to even think about buying a macintosh. and yet here i am considering it
Go figure 
I have become increasingly annoyed by windows, more specifically Vista. Confirming a dozen times to open a simple software was hard enough, but the compatibility mode was the final straw. Hence the interest in Apple. But i gotta say, I am a bit anxious about it, I don't know anything about MAC OS (leopard i believe, pardon the n00b factor
). So, I;d like to ask some questions:
- I used to have this small network: 1 workstation at home, made server of fortune for backup purposes, overclocked to the death for my gaming pleasures (have i mentioned that I was a nerd lol ), 1 blackberry bold and 1 laptop which i carried everywhere. Now, if I wanted to purchase the same configuration but with apple, what would you recommend?
- The workstation must be a beast (i own an top of the line alienware
). I browsed apple store and a mac pro seems to be adequate. 2 quad core intel with 16 or 32gb of mem, 30'' HD screen, 4 HD slots .... 2 words 
But isn't the GPU, well let's say it, pathetic regarding the rest of the machine? I am asking this because i have read about this software (i can't remember the name) that creates a second partition on the HD to install windows, you can then boot the machine with windows or leopard. And I gotta say, 512MB for some games is just too low. Is it possible to install another GPU in there? Just curious.
- The laptop will be used for work only. is there a num pad included in the keyboard or do i need an external one? What I mean is that many new laptop with widescreen come with a numpad incorporated next to the keyboard, is that the case with the macbook too (i couldn't see it on the picture) What is the battery like (4 hours like advertised or 20min?) It seems to be details but it is very practical in my work to have an inserted numpad.
- What's mobileme? Is it equivalent to the blackberry data plan? What i mean, will I be able to access my mail box or get mail alerts with an iphone? i am asking this question because most of those services from blackberry are very difficult to get to work in China.
- I have two HP printers at home (color laserjet and an all-in-one). Will there be any problems with the drivers?
- My pc is full of very important data for my work (220GB). PDF, excel, word files mostly. Some spreadsheets are very advanced (interlinked files, formulas, macros .... the whole shebang). I've been using onenote for a while now to keep them organized (for once, microsoft did a good job with that software). Will it be possible to open the files with whatever software apple is having, even with all the macros and formulas? And is there a software equivalent to onenot on mac.
- Finally, is it possible to sync mails between two PC through an iPhone? For instance, when i am in France, i will receive a bunch of Emails. I will have my laptop and my iPhone with me. I can naturally sync the mails to have them on both. But when i get back, how is it possible to transfer the emails to my main workstation? I used to do that with my blackberry. it was easier this way than to use the network (with vista). Doesn't seem important but I like my files neat and organized so ...
That's about all the questions that i had. Just some concerns that I would like to put to a rest.
For all the new users out there, the ones who went from windows to mac, waddya think??
How weird is it to migrate to this leopard thingy?
Thank you all.
Nick
I have been a fervent windows user for years and always refused to even think about buying a macintosh. and yet here i am considering it
Go figure I have become increasingly annoyed by windows, more specifically Vista. Confirming a dozen times to open a simple software was hard enough, but the compatibility mode was the final straw. Hence the interest in Apple. But i gotta say, I am a bit anxious about it, I don't know anything about MAC OS (leopard i believe, pardon the n00b factor
). So, I;d like to ask some questions:- I used to have this small network: 1 workstation at home, made server of fortune for backup purposes, overclocked to the death for my gaming pleasures (have i mentioned that I was a nerd lol ), 1 blackberry bold and 1 laptop which i carried everywhere. Now, if I wanted to purchase the same configuration but with apple, what would you recommend?
- The workstation must be a beast (i own an top of the line alienware
). I browsed apple store and a mac pro seems to be adequate. 2 quad core intel with 16 or 32gb of mem, 30'' HD screen, 4 HD slots .... 2 words But isn't the GPU, well let's say it, pathetic regarding the rest of the machine? I am asking this because i have read about this software (i can't remember the name) that creates a second partition on the HD to install windows, you can then boot the machine with windows or leopard. And I gotta say, 512MB for some games is just too low. Is it possible to install another GPU in there? Just curious.- The laptop will be used for work only. is there a num pad included in the keyboard or do i need an external one? What I mean is that many new laptop with widescreen come with a numpad incorporated next to the keyboard, is that the case with the macbook too (i couldn't see it on the picture) What is the battery like (4 hours like advertised or 20min?) It seems to be details but it is very practical in my work to have an inserted numpad.
- What's mobileme? Is it equivalent to the blackberry data plan? What i mean, will I be able to access my mail box or get mail alerts with an iphone? i am asking this question because most of those services from blackberry are very difficult to get to work in China.
- I have two HP printers at home (color laserjet and an all-in-one). Will there be any problems with the drivers?
- My pc is full of very important data for my work (220GB). PDF, excel, word files mostly. Some spreadsheets are very advanced (interlinked files, formulas, macros .... the whole shebang). I've been using onenote for a while now to keep them organized (for once, microsoft did a good job with that software). Will it be possible to open the files with whatever software apple is having, even with all the macros and formulas? And is there a software equivalent to onenot on mac.
- Finally, is it possible to sync mails between two PC through an iPhone? For instance, when i am in France, i will receive a bunch of Emails. I will have my laptop and my iPhone with me. I can naturally sync the mails to have them on both. But when i get back, how is it possible to transfer the emails to my main workstation? I used to do that with my blackberry. it was easier this way than to use the network (with vista). Doesn't seem important but I like my files neat and organized so ...
That's about all the questions that i had. Just some concerns that I would like to put to a rest.
For all the new users out there, the ones who went from windows to mac, waddya think??
How weird is it to migrate to this leopard thingy?
Thank you all.
Nick