some questions before i make "the switch"

minhajminhaj
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
im using a windows pc right now and im fed up with the errors i keep getting and virus even after i install anti virus software.

so i have decided i want to switch to apple, after trying out my girlfriends mac mini.

im planning on buying the cheaper model without the superdrive.

some questions i had was,



if i buy this external dvd burner, would my Mac Mini support it?



are there any programs that allow me to transfer music to an SD card? for example i m using winamp and windows media player now.



does os x come with a word prosessing program similar to microsoft word? (all i need is spell check)



thanks an advance for ur help

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    minhajminhaj Posts: 2member
    oh and another question was

    does mac support usb hubs?
  • Reply 2 of 5
    sworthysworthy Posts: 71member
    yes, I believe almost any usb hub should work w/o any drivers. Also, Text Edit will fill your word processing needs.
  • Reply 3 of 5
    jabohnjabohn Posts: 593member
    Welcome switcher...



    DVD Burner - hard to say unless we knew what the drive model inside is. They don't list Mac in the requirements. If it didn't work you'd probably have to buy a copy of Roxio's Toast burning program which supports many drives. Might be better off to just get the Superdrive if you figure in spending money to get the external burner to work.



    SD Card - you can buy a USB card reader to hook up to your mac to access the card, but not sure how it would work past that...



    Word Processing - Mac OS X comes with a text editor called TextEdit which is bare bones but capable. You could also purchase a mac version of Word or Apple's program called Pages (much cheaper). Both programs come with the mini in trial versions.



    USB Hubs - the mac mini has USB 2.0 so it supports pretty much anything USB... hubs don't need drivers so they will work right out of the box, just plug it in.
  • Reply 4 of 5
    walkerjswalkerjs Posts: 11member
    Before I got my Macbook with Superdrive, I used a PPC Mac Mini which got me into the Mac world. My employer got our team a Sony firewire/USB external DVD burner for us to backup our PCs etc. I took it home a few times to make backups of my Mac, and found that the firewire worked superbly. The USB connection, however, gave me some kind of error. So I would recommend that any external DVD burner you get should be firewire. It's faster and you just plug it in. No extra software required; Mac OS just sees it and uses it.



    I forget the model, but just about any firewire external DVD burner should work.



    I've been using a USB hub from the start (only two USB ports on the Mini, one being used with the keyboard of the time.) I also recommend a bluetooth keyboard/mouse, as it frees up yet another USB port. Mac Minis of late have built in bluetooth (or at least my wife's old PPC Mini has it.)



    Also I've been using a firewire external HDD on both my Mini and Macbook. It works well. A firewire DVD burner would just daisy chain off the external drive so you can use both.



    Welcome to the world of Apple!
  • Reply 5 of 5
    galleygalley Posts: 971member
    NeoOffice is free.
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