Compatibility Experiences with PC's
Some co-workers and I currently use PC's for all of our work (creative design, office). We we're considering getting Mac Pro's, but keeping our PC's along side the Mac's. I know Apple's site talks about the compatibility friendliness stuff, but I was hoping to hear some of your experiences with Apple to PC and vise versa (networking, occasional cross platform designing, etc..). Initially, we were thinking of keeping our PC's for the office/business side of things (outlook, etc..) and using the Mac's entirely for creative design. Also, since everything we have currently designed is on a PC... how would that come into play as well (fonts, etc..). So if there are any of you currently using both, I am very interested to hear what you have to say. Thanks.
Comments
Some co-workers and I currently use PC's for all of our work (creative design, office). We we're considering getting Mac Pro's, but keeping our PC's along side the Mac's. I know Apple's site talks about the compatibility friendliness stuff, but I was hoping to hear some of your experiences with Apple to PC and vise versa (networking, occasional cross platform designing, etc..). Initially, we were thinking of keeping our PC's for the office/business side of things (outlook, etc..) and using the Mac's entirely for creative design. Also, since everything we have currently designed is on a PC... how would that come into play as well (fonts, etc..). So if there are any of you currently using both, I am very interested to hear what you have to say. Thanks.
Cant speak for design stuff because I can't design crap. But I can do networks. I am a Network Analyst for two hospitals. I work along side our Senior Network Admin in supporting a Cisco env across a MAN (metro area network) including wireless and IPT.
Before taking a lateral move to the network team I was the desktop admin with an all XP envirnoment.
We are 100% M$ Active Direcotry, exchange 2003 SP2, sharepoint, M$ file and print, M$ Sql, push email, AIX/Linux...blah blah. I am the only Mac in IT.
I work 100% on my MBP. I use RDP to get to any servers I need. My MBP athenticates through our proxy just like IE. If I need to get to a newtork share I use SMB. Firefox is needed for managing Cisco Call Manager along with our wireless tools. For anything else I use parallels. Well worth the money.
My whole point in sounding all techy techy is that if I am able to function in my job....then so are you.
PS At home I use Mac Pro
I use Entourage for email to our Exchange servers and I can see our window shares under OSX. Authentication is as painless as for trailmaster308.
Outlook is better than Entourage for somethings still so I recommend Parallels as well. Fonts differ which was noticable when I moved some Powerpoint over. I didn't try very hard to get replacement fonts for those I didn't have under OSX...something I wouldn't think would be very hard for you. Plus, I moved to Keynote anyway.
There's no need to keep your PCs really as the Mac Pro has been fine running as a PC when I want it to. If your apps will run under Parallels or VMWare you don't even need to Boot Camp. I do as a developer that uses DirectX. YMMV.
Vinea
You're not Rafe H. from Australia are you ???
Nope. Sorry.