Any MAC users???

[tommy p]

I'm just wondering how hard they are to get used to and what cool software they come with. I know they have Garage Band and something called MovieMaker (???). Are they useful/intuitive? Does a MAC read files from Windows Office products with its Pages and Numbers apps?

Da da da, de de de, and whatever the hell else you wanna throw it there...

[JohnnyB]

I made the switch to Macs several months ago. They aren't cheap, but they also don't give you the problems and headaches PCs have. I'm happy I made the switch.

I bought my MacBook in July 2008 for about $1200 after decades of Windows use. Price seemed high at the time, but when I walk by those $599 Windows-based Notebooks at Costco I just smile to myself because the $600 you save up front for a Windows system, you pay out the ass week after week in frustration, crashes, viruses, worms, and erosion of functionality as an "unintended side-effect" of all the patch downloads.

I also have iWork and got Office for Mac for $20 through my wife's employer. With iWork's Keynote application you can create presentations you couldn't create in PowerPoint, and then save them as *.ppt files for presentations on Windows machines.

[Caddie]

I'm just wondering how hard they are to get used to and what cool software they come with. I know they have Garage Band and something called MovieMaker (???). Are they useful/intuitive? Does a MAC read files from Windows Office products with its Pages and Numbers apps?

Da da da, de de de, and whatever the hell else you wanna throw it there...

UPDATE on my LEARNING CURVE MS->MAC.

For the most part its going well.

- I absolutely love the way it handles photos.

- Luv the way it starts up. Hit the power button 20s or so later WAH LA! You are up & running. No more hitting the power button, go grab a cup of coffee, maybe someone left a fresh donut around, go back to see if Windows "Whatever" is available for biz. Go to the Mens Room, come back (did you wash your hands before touching that kybd?), see if your MS PC is NOW ready for biz.

- In the MS days when my kids went to nick.com & disneychannel.com, etc the MS PC performance went into the tank. The crap those sites put in your PC to track kids clicks....scheeeeeeettt! No noticeable performance issues yet on the Mac.

- If my MacBook is missing from my office I know where to find it, in one of my girls rooms. Except the wife. She's an MS PC bigot to the Macs.

2 issues that are high on my radar screen at the moment.

- I did not understand how deeply the MS "right click" had been gouged into my brain. Go ahead, pat your head & rub your tummy! Its kinda like that for me. Losing that right-click thing is gonna be tough to overcome for me.

- I know there is a method to it somewhere but I have yet to find it. OK...I create a document in Pages. I want to save it as both an MS Word doc and an Apple Pages doc. Some of my contacts want it as Word some want it as Pages. No need to ask why, don't pick a fight with the client, give them what they ask for.

So back to the orig question: I want to save the doc as both an MS Word doc and an Apple Pages doc. I seem to be getting caught up in this loop where saving as Word wipes out the Pages version then converting back to Pages wipes out the Word version and round & round we go. What am I failing to do? Should I rename the doc as I convert, ie orig is documentxPages save that then rename & convert that to documentxWord when I try to do it it feels like I'm doing several extra steps. Gotta be an easier way.

Overall up to this point my summary is that like most things they both have strengths & weaknesses. I still consider myself to be a newbie's newbie on MAC. I have barely scratched the surface of how to use what i have. I can certainly see how if you grew up on Mac, moving over to MS would be difficult. (right-click? wtf is THAT all about??) However I have not yet had an OMG, epiphany moment with MAC. Yet to hear that Chorus of Angels.

Noooooo...I'm not switching back to MS. I'm a patient man. But switching to MAC after 25y or so of MS is really challenging my brain and that's not a bad thing to do every once in a while.

caddie

[specialk]

- I did not understand how deeply the MS "right click" had been gouged into my brain. Go ahead, pat your head & rub your tummy! Its kinda like that for me. Losing that right-click thing is gonna be tough to overcome for me.

caddie

System Preferences>Mouse. Set your "right button" as the Secondary Button and you're good to go. Right-clicking will be the same.

At least it is with the older Mighty Mouse. I've not used the new Magic Mouse but I'm guessing it's similar. Best of luck!

[mathman]

I never have really liked the magic mouse. I bought a regular usb two button mouse with spinwheel and then it works perfect for right clicks and scrolling up and down webpages.

Pages question. Use Save to save native pages format. the extension is .pages

use "File>Export" to save a word formatted version with the extension : .doc

I'm just wondering how hard they are to get used to and what cool software they come with. I know they have Garage Band and something called MovieMaker (???). Are they useful/intuitive? Does a MAC read files from Windows Office products with its Pages and Numbers apps?

Da da da, de de de, and whatever the hell else you wanna throw it there...

UPDATE on my LEARNING CURVE MS->MAC.

For the most part its going well.

- I absolutely love the way it handles photos.

- Luv the way it starts up. Hit the power button 20s or so later WAH LA! You are up & running. No more hitting the power button, go grab a cup of coffee, maybe someone left a fresh donut around, go back to see if Windows "Whatever" is available for biz. Go to the Mens Room, come back (did you wash your hands before touching that kybd?), see if your MS PC is NOW ready for biz.

- In the MS days when my kids went to nick.com & disneychannel.com, etc the MS PC performance went into the tank. The crap those sites put in your PC to track kids clicks....scheeeeeeettt! No noticeable performance issues yet on the Mac.

- If my MacBook is missing from my office I know where to find it, in one of my girls rooms. Except the wife. She's an MS PC bigot to the Macs.

2 issues that are high on my radar screen at the moment.

- I did not understand how deeply the MS "right click" had been gouged into my brain. Go ahead, pat your head & rub your tummy! Its kinda like that for me. Losing that right-click thing is gonna be tough to overcome for me.

- I know there is a method to it somewhere but I have yet to find it. OK...I create a document in Pages. I want to save it as both an MS Word doc and an Apple Pages doc. Some of my contacts want it as Word some want it as Pages. No need to ask why, don't pick a fight with the client, give them what they ask for.

So back to the orig question: I want to save the doc as both an MS Word doc and an Apple Pages doc. I seem to be getting caught up in this loop where saving as Word wipes out the Pages version then converting back to Pages wipes out the Word version and round & round we go. What am I failing to do? Should I rename the doc as I convert, ie orig is documentxPages save that then rename & convert that to documentxWord when I try to do it it feels like I'm doing several extra steps. Gotta be an easier way.

Overall up to this point my summary is that like most things they both have strengths & weaknesses. I still consider myself to be a newbie's newbie on MAC. I have barely scratched the surface of how to use what i have. I can certainly see how if you grew up on Mac, moving over to MS would be difficult. (right-click? wtf is THAT all about??) However I have not yet had an OMG, epiphany moment with MAC. Yet to hear that Chorus of Angels.

Noooooo...I'm not switching back to MS. I'm a patient man. But switching to MAC after 25y or so of MS is really challenging my brain and that's not a bad thing to do every once in a while.

caddie

[Caddie]

Ooooooooo. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

mathman... you are a scholar & a gentleman... & an ubergeek! U 2 specialk!

caddie