Hi all,
I am posting this with great reluctance. While I am truly wanting legitimate information, I know I am risking a lot of posturing in the PC vs. Mac, MS vs. the world camps, etc and would prefer to just get the straight info without all the politics, posturing, name-calling etc. I have been a dedicated PC user since they came out. So has my wife. Both of our workplaces are fully and 100% PC and it is imperative that we are able to connect from home (VPNs etc) and more importantly to have our work products at home be fully compatible with the products that are coming out of the hundreds of PCs that inhabit our professional careers and workplaces. And so our desktops and laptops at home are all PC and windows-based (some Vista, some XP pro). Like many, I have always wanted a Mac. In fact when I was a young 'un in academia I would have preferred my first computer to be a Mac but I couldn't afford it. I recognize that price differentials are not what they used to be so price per se is no longer an issue. Communicating with and being compatible with 2 workplaces is however of utmost criticality. So my questions relate to what is the real-world experience of Mac users in what is still a predominantly PC-world. I cannot afford an expensive experiment of buying my first Mac and finding out that, while I may love what I can do with it at home, it causes me grief when trying to be fully and transparently compatible with work. Main applications that need to be seamlessly integrated are all of the MS office suite (esp. Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint). Are the Mac versions of these REALLY interchangeable with the PC versions? Or do I need to run the a Mac in some sort of PC-emulation mode? And if so, why bother, as in, do the benefits of a Mac disappear if you are not running it in some "native" mode. In short, if I bit the bullet and went Mac, what will be the advantages and what will be the hurdles I will face in needing to stay fully compatible and connected to my PC-based world out there? And, while I am pretty technically savvy, I am not really in the mood for a long learning curve either - how truly "intuitive" and easy will it be to re-transfer what I do with proficiency on my PCs and learn to do it on a Mac instead? Many thanks for all constructive and impartial advice. Michael ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
