Advantages of a Mac
I consider myself relatively new to understanding Macs, though i've always appreciated their aesthetic beauty I have always wondered about their compatibility with PCs.
My question is simply, is it difficult to use a Mac in a pre-dominantly PC world? For example, if i wanted to send programs/documents/etc to a friend using a PC-is it at all possible?
And if there are ways around those obstacles, what are the real advantages and disadvantages of using a Mac as opposed to a PC.
I'm concerned because i am interested in purchasing an iBook.
My question is simply, is it difficult to use a Mac in a pre-dominantly PC world? For example, if i wanted to send programs/documents/etc to a friend using a PC-is it at all possible?
And if there are ways around those obstacles, what are the real advantages and disadvantages of using a Mac as opposed to a PC.
I'm concerned because i am interested in purchasing an iBook.
Comments
PC for work, Macs for my sanity. The elegant simplicity is what I like.
If you are just uding the standard apps (word, excel etc) then their is no issues. For the more specialist apps you might have to find an alternative.
Another great plus is the lack of viruses on Macs (all the recent speculation was mainly a smokescreen).
Having said that... I use my iBook as my casual notebook. I do wireless web browsing, basic office stuff, e-mail... etc... The only thing I use my PC for is gaming.
using mac in a business situation is almost always no problem, in fact. however, you will find certain situations where no one can help you. you will be left to invent and find yr own solutions. these usually involve networking, or printing to a networked printer, etc etc.
in terms of transferring file (data), there is usually almost never a problem. i dont know what yr industry is, but if you find that there is a mac version of software that you absolutely need, then whatever that mac version is will produce a document or data that is able to be read by yr windows buddies.
make sure yr machine has a burnable drive on it, and you can always get data to yr colleagues no matter what.
i have stopped myself from buying a windows machine for work related purposes, and have never regretted it, but i am constantly surrounded by people (bosses) who are big on compatibility of hardware. i have had to get a war chest of stuff through the years to insure real compatibility.
there are frequent problems to be sure (fonts that get out of whack on window machines if the information was made on a mac is a pet peeve of mine). so i frequently need to cross platform check if it looks ok to windows machines.
in the end, os x is too wonderful and simple to give up.
Originally posted by produkt
My question is simply, is it difficult to use a Mac in a pre-dominantly PC world? For example, if i wanted to send programs/documents/etc to a friend using a PC-is it at all possible?
I don't have internet of my own at home, but i sorta hi-jacked someone's wireless connection from ... next door, i believe. in any case, this means that i have a free ethernet port, which i use to connect directly to my other pc laptop. basically, it's not very hard to transfer from mac to pc via ethernet cable... if you wanted to xfer pc to pc, you would need a different cable, called a cross-over cable. but with macs, that is conveniently unnecessary. With the adjustment of settings on both computers, it's not hard to share files or documents---in many cases you'l have to rename certain PC files if they are too long, ... and it's probably a good idea to leave out spaces---spaces in file-names have been known to mess up converted powerpoint files...
as long as you are consistent, and don't spill coffee on your machines, file-xfers aren't so bad. as for compatibility issues regarding software, that's a totally different story.
deunan