Apple Computer Question

My wife wants to change our home computer from Windows to Mac. At work she uses Microsoft Office for Windows. She wants to email documents from work and edit them at home on the Mac. What do I need to buy to make this easy? Do Office documents created on the Mac have the same file extenstions, .doc, .xls, .ppt? Is this going to be a major hassel changing platforms from Windows to Mac?

 

Microsoft makes an Office product for Mac.

 

I converted to Mac a few years ago. You will need to purchase the Microsoft Office set for Mac seperately, it is not part of the package of an Apple purchase. If you purchase the student/teacher version the software costs $150, the normal version is $500! It is the exact same software, the difference being the student version can only be loaded three times, how would the CD know how often it is loaded?

If your wife's office software is up to date you will have no problems, but if she is still using 95 or 98 you may encounter a glitch or two.

 

Thanks for the responses. So you are saying if I buy Microsoft Office for the Mac and create a document then send it to someone using Windows everything is transparent. No one has to do any type of conversion to read or write the document? Just open the document and read it or edit it.

 

roger roger

You are good to go.

 

Just curious: why does she want to switch to Mac? Yes, years ago Macs were superior, and maybe for certain applications they still are, but as much as I hate Bill Gates, PCs are actually better most ways now. My father is a die-hard Mac guy and even he has a PC as well and is gradually seeing the light/coming to the dark side......

 

And that would be one of the areas that Macs just trounce PCs. Others would be video and music.

 

Ummmmmm, surely there is a PC option? Anyone? At worst I would buy a Mac for that and keep the PC for everything else, but even that seems drastic.

A few years ago I bought an hp scanner that was bundled with Adobe PhotoDeluxe (a simpler but very useful and user-friendly version of Photoshop I think)

I'd be happy to send you a copy...I don't think it counts as piracy if it was free way back when.

 

That would be piracy ( if this adobe photodeluxe isnt a freeware ) as the soft was as you said bundled with the purchase of the scanner.

 

You are correct. My wife bought an iPod Nano yesterday. That's what started this "let's buy a Mac" thing. After she bought the Nano we found out that our computer is too old (Windows 98) to download iTunes. So we were going to have to upgrade our computer anyway. While she was at the Apple Store she played with new G5 and fell in love with the software and the ease of using it.

 

I switched over to Mac a few years ago and I can tell you that it really has been easy. No compatibility problems with my old word/excel documents, and everything - once you get used to the new OS - has worked flawlessly. Plus your wife will probably like the ease with which the OS works with the digital camera. All she'll need to do is plug the camera in and the computer will do the rest.

 

I just want to clarify for you that it should be new ver. on both the Mac and the Win XP machine

 

Actually, I think you've got that backwards. Just recently, since the release of OS X, have Macs triumphed over Windows.

You'll only hate the switch if you want to play the "hottest" games. Otherwise, from the entire iLife suite to increased online security (a la viruses, spyware, malware, etc.), it'll be the best buy you've made.

 

I haven't got a ton of time here to spend on a well written and thoughtful post, but do want to chime in here...

I am a HUGE Mac proponent, and will be willing to say with certainty that you'll absolutely LOVE the Mac once you purchase it and spend some time with it. And before you completely bash me here, I do have experience with both systems -- here at my company we have Macs and PC/Windows machines happily living together on the same network.

One of the reasons I love Apple so much is for their attitude/mindset as a company: Apple builds computers to satisfy their customers, while many PC manufacturers and certainly Microsoft build their machines and software to satisfy developers. This is, IMHO why some Windows applications, and certainly some of the "less than honorable" developers have the ability to take a greater-than-desired command over a user's machine -- Microsoft has given the developer's that power, because their products are ultimately built for the developer.

In addition, I really love the graceful, thoughtful, beautiful and "form-follows-function" design of Apple products -- in many ways it's a lot like a Ferrari vs. a pimped out Honda or Toyota: both can be fast, but only one machine does its thing with style, grace and class.

Just my $0.02, worth exactly what you paid.

 

Oh, never mind then, I don't do the piracy thing.

 

Case in point (I couldn't resist)... Someone just now sent me this in via email.

***

from www.foxnews.com :

Experts: Sony BMG Rootkit 'Fix' Only Makes Things Worse

Tuesday, November 15, 2005



BOSTON - The fallout from a hidden copy-protection program that Sony BMG
Music Entertainment put on some CDs is only getting worse. Sony's suggested method for removing the program widened the security hole the original software created, researchers say.

Sony has moved to recall the discs in question. But music fans who have
listened to them on their computers or tried to remove the dangerous software they deposited could still be vulnerable.

"This is a surprisingly bad design from a security standpoint," said Ed
Felten, a Princeton University computer science professor who explored the removal program with a graduate student, J. Alex Halderman. "It endangers users in several ways."

The "XCP" copy-protection program was included on at least 20 CDs, including
releases by Van Zant, The Bad Plus, Neil Diamond, and Celine Dion. Sony BMG
said 4.7 million were shipped, with 2.1 million sold.

When the discs were put into a PC - a necessary step for transferring music
to iPods and other portable music players - the CD automatically installed a
program that restricted how many times the discs' tracks could be copied,
and made it extremely inconvenient to transfer songs into the format used by
iPods.

That antipiracy software - which works only on Windows PCs - came with a
cloaking feature that allowed it to hide files on users' computers. Security
researchers classified the program as "spyware," saying it secretly
transmits details about what music the PC is playing. Manual attempts to remove the software can disable the PC's CD drive.

The program also gave virus writers an easy tool for hiding their malicious
software. Last week, "Trojan horse" programs emerged that took advantage of the cloaking feature to enter computers undetected, antivirus companies said. Trojans are typically used to steal personal information, launch attacks on other computers and send spam. (*Note: Bolding added by icantdrv55)

Stung by the controversy, Sony BMG and the company that developed the
antipiracy software, First 4 Internet Ltd. of Oxfordshire, United Kingdom, released a program that uninstalls XCP.

But the uninstaller created a new set of problems.

To get the uninstall program, users were asked to request it by filling out
online forms. Once submitted, the forms themselves download and install a
program designed to ready the PC for the fix. Essentially, it makes the PC
open to downloading and installing code from the Internet.

According to security experts, the program fails to make the computer
confirm that such code should come only from Sony or First 4 Internet.

"The consequences of the flaw are severe," Felten and Halderman wrote in a
blog posting Tuesday after being tipped by a Finnish researcher, Matti Nikki. "It allows any Web page you visit to download, install, and run any code it
likes on your computer. Any Web page can seize control of your computer; then it can do anything it likes. That's about as serious as a security flaw can get."

On Tuesday evening, Sony BMG was preparing to release a safe new method for removing XCP. It was unclear when it might be available.

Other programs that knock out the original software are likely to emerge.
Microsoft Corp. says the next version of its tool for removing malicious
software, which is automatically sent to PCs via Windows Update each month, will yank the cloaking feature in XCP.

A Sony BMG statement Tuesday said the company would pull unsold CDs with the software from store shelves and let consumers exchange already purchased ones. On Friday the company had said it would halt production of CDs with the technology and "re-examine all aspects of our content protection initiative."

"We share the concerns of consumers regarding discs with XCP
content-protected software," Tuesday's statement said.

First 4 Internet was not making any comment, according to Lynette Riley, the
office manager who answered the company's phone Tuesday evening in England.

 

Macs rule!

 

Run Virtual PC like I do, and have no need to buy any other software, 100% cross platform compatability. It IS Windows on the Mac. Only for about $200 too!

 

Macs have always been great computers. Even today, where most virus code is written to infect Windows, the Mac remains unphased.

Sony really stepped in it this time, when Microsnot has to bail your infected customer base out with patches, you've really gone and done it!

http://techrepublic.com.com/2100-1009-5949041.html?tag=nl.e101

The Redmond, Wash., software maker has determined that the "rootkit" piece of the XCP software on some Sony BMG Music Entertainment CDs can pose a security risk to Windows PCs, according to a posting Saturday to a Microsoft corporate Web log.

The Sony BMG software installs itself deeply inside a hard drive when a CD is played on a PC. The technology uses rootkit techniques to hide itself. Experts blasted the cloaking mechanism, saying it could be abused by virus writers. The first remote-control Trojan horses that take advantage of the veil provided by Sony BMG have surfaced.

The Sony BMG software installs itself deeply inside a hard drive when a CD is played on a PC. The technology uses rootkit techniques to hide itself. Experts blasted the cloaking mechanism, saying it could be abused by virus writers. The first remote-control Trojan horses that take advantage of the veil provided by Sony BMG have surfaced.

To protect Windows users, Microsoft plans to update Windows AntiSpyware and the Malicious Software Removal Tool as well as the online scanner on Windows Live Safety Center to detect and remove the Sony BMG software, the software maker said in its blog.

Windows AntiSpyware is Microsoft's spyware-fighting software that is currently available as a test version and used by millions of people worldwide. Microsoft provides weekly updates for Windows AntiSpyware. The Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool is updated monthly and is part of Microsoft's monthly patch releases

Detection and removal of the rootkit component will also be in Windows Defender, the forthcoming update to Windows AntiSpyware that will also be part of Windows XP successor Windows Vista, Microsoft said.

In its move to detect and remove the Sony BMG rootkit, Microsoft follows other makers of security software. Symantec and Computer Associates are among those that are offering, at minimum, rootkit detection capabilities in their products. Sony BMG itself has provided a patch that fixes the security problem and still allows CDs to be played on PCs.

On Friday, Sony said it had halted production of CDs with the controversial technology, which is designed to limit the number of copies that can be made of the CD and to prevent a computer user from making unprotected MP3s of the music. Sony does still produce CDs that use a different copy protection scheme.