Mac Lovers, Need help

[SAChick]

Okay we bought a refurb mac. Should be getting it in the next few days. Couple things:

1) should we get the airport express thing? We have DSL.

2) I would like to be able to work from home occasionally and use word and excel documents. Do I need Office for Mac or will Iwork do the same thing? I would like to be able to open word or excel documents, make changes, save 'em and open them back up at work on my PC.

3) Anything else you would recommend for us?

 

[Chult86]

VMware Fusion is a nice little program that will actually run a clone of Windows in a box on your screen. It's expensive, but it can be had by other means quite easily.

 

[pied2]

I run open office and it works for me. I do very little home business. Can't comment on iwork. I have the macbook, and it hooked to the wireless network already in my house.

 

[LPDog78]

Unless you're interested in connecting wirelessly you do not need to purchase an Airport. Your DSL should work just fine.

The Office for Mac product will allow you to exchange documents with their Windows counterpart. The iWork product will allow you to open and edit Word and Excel products, but you could loose some of the fancier things Word or Excel does.

The VMWare product mentioned in the other post is not all that expensive, the expensive part of using this product is having to buy a copy of the Windows OS. VMWare sells for about $70.00, whereas a legal copy of Windows can set you back about $250.00. If all you're going to do is exchange documents and spreadsheets you should not need the VMWare product.

If you have any other questions don't hesitate to ask.

 

[BadgerinATX]

1) I have a time capsule for backup which is both a backup HD and wireless source. If you're getting a desktop, I don't think you'll need an airport extreme or airport express, but the time capsule might be useful.

2) If you are exchanging MS Office files (reading, changing, etc.) I'd recommend going w/ virtualization software and running MS Office on Windows. As soon as you get a little fancy with the files, incompatibilities crop up - even with Office for the Mac and especially with Open Office. If you are making your own files and not sharing them, you can really go with any of the packages - even the free Open Office.

3) I was thinking about subscribing to MobileMe (online syncing for email, contacts, calendars; file sharing; publishing pictures and webpages; access your computer from anywhere), but I understand they have been having a lot of trouble w/ this service. Also, Google is doing some of these things for free (contact and calendar syncing). My recommendation, if you are considering this, is to wait a little bit and see how Apple responds.

 

[LosIllini]

It's easy enough to purchase/ install a mac airport card. Just did that myself- found a cheap one on ebay. If you are getting a desktop unit and are close to your modem/ router- it should have an ethernet port. Either-or call. I usually run wireless, but, have connected my laptop to the network via wire. All good.

My primary machine is a PC desktop- running word/excel/ppt. But, I carry a MacBook Pro when I travel. Do all my heavy lifting on the desktop- but, run MS-Office for Mac on the Apple.

I wouldn't trust swapping files back and forth (though some may tell you there's no difference) for major spreadsheets w/ crazy macros, or doing some complex linked- word .doc or report- but, for most of the stuff I do- it's no problem to swap the docx and xlsx files back and forth- w/o loss of data or incompatibility problems.

Running Firefox and Thunderbird for web/email - though I understand Safari/ AppleMail do a good job too.

 

[brntorng]

Apple's MobileMe service (formerly .Mac) did go through a rough patch when they rushed a new release out prematurely. Steve apologized for the screw up, they gave subscribers months of free service, and it's been running fine for months now. While you can cobble together some of MobileMe's services from Google and the like, the level of integration it provides with multiple Macs, iPhones, iTouchs, etc. is unprecedented. I don't come anywhere near using all its features and I still think it's well worth the subscription. You should be able to get a free trial for a month or something, so at the very least it's worth a free trial to see if its features have value for you.