Switching to Mac?

Posted by: Simon Perry on 30 March 2006

Hi,
I have a PC at the moment but I was thinking of buying my girlfriend a mac notebook so she can surf t'internet and write (she is writing a book) on the sofa/around the house generally. I already have a wireless network set up in the house.
Some questions:
1) What word processing software do people generally use on their macs?
2) For those who made the switch from PC to Mac, did they find it easy to adapt to the Mac. I have never tried one and don't want to saddle my girlfriend with anything too tedious.

Cheers
Simon
Posted on: 01 April 2006 by long-time-dead
... and have you changed since ?
Posted on: 01 April 2006 by ianmacd
LTD

Er, yes. I now have 135's, CDX2, XPS2, S/Cap 2, 102, Kabers.

Go on, put me out of my misery. Please spell out the point you want to make.

Regards, Ian
Posted on: 01 April 2006 by long-time-dead
So you are not afraid to change hifi but seem totally focused on an operating system by making one test in an unbalanced environment.

That's my point.

You complained about people "knocking" PCs yet seemed at ease "knocking" a Mac.

Windows (assuming you are using XP) requires a minimum of 512MB (you have nearly double) and Macs prefer 1.5GB min (you have 2/3).

Hardly a fair comparison.

Macs are not tedious and easy to adapt to (especially with OSX) and the Word Processing options are plentiful in both paid and free versions.
Posted on: 01 April 2006 by Basil
quote:
3/ Which virus software are you using? Many slow the Windows OS to a crawl.


Ian,
Which free anti-virus would you recommend for XP?
Posted on: 01 April 2006 by Steve G
quote:
Originally posted by long-time-dead:
Windows (assuming you are using XP) requires a minimum of 512MB (you have nearly double) and Macs prefer 1.5GB min (you have 2/3).


Windows XP doesn't require 512MB, it will run most things with considerably less (128MB works ok for basic work processing and web browsing although 256MB is a more realistic minimum for general use).

My experience with OSX is more limited however my wife's laptop has 1GB and seems to run ok within the limitations imposed by the old G4 processor. I wouldn't want to do any image processing on it though as it doesn't really have the necessary grunt.
Posted on: 01 April 2006 by Steve G
quote:
Originally posted by Basil:
quote:
3/ Which virus software are you using? Many slow the Windows OS to a crawl.


Ian,
Which free anti-virus would you recommend for XP?


The free version of AVG works well if you combine it with Microsoft Antispyware (both of those get very regular updates).

I use those on my kids PC's and haven't had any spyware or virus issues on their machines - despite kids websites tending to be loaded with spyware.
Posted on: 01 April 2006 by Basil
Thanks Steve,

My new PC, a neat little Shuttle, came with AVG pre-installed. The only MS anti-spyware I can find is "Windows Defender" which is marked as "Beta2". Even from MS, I wouldn't touch anything marked as "Beta" with a bargepole!

Were you referring to "Defender", or is there another one tucked away on their site?
Posted on: 01 April 2006 by Nuno Baptista
Another good anti virus for Windows is Kaspersky,and is not expensive
Posted on: 02 April 2006 by Malky
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Steve G:
The free version of AVG works well if you combine it with Microsoft Antispyware.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Indeed is does, however,it is next to impossible to uninstall Norton which comes with Windows.
Posted on: 02 April 2006 by Steve G
quote:
Originally posted by Basil:
Thanks Steve,

My new PC, a neat little Shuttle, came with AVG pre-installed. The only MS anti-spyware I can find is "Windows Defender" which is marked as "Beta2". Even from MS, I wouldn't touch anything marked as "Beta" with a bargepole!

Were you referring to "Defender", or is there another one tucked away on their site?


Yes that's the one - they've just started to use the name "Defender" for it. Don't worry about the "Beta" tag - I've used it from Beta 1 on lots of machines with no problems.
Posted on: 02 April 2006 by Steve G
quote:
Originally posted by Malky:
Indeed is does, however,it is next to impossible to uninstall Norton which comes with Windows.


Norton doesn't come with Windows as standard however lots of machines (like Dells) ship with it on. It is pretty flaky these days but I've not had any problems uninstalling it and putting something more reliable on in its place.
Posted on: 02 April 2006 by Paul Hutchings
quote:
Originally posted by Basil:
Which free anti-virus would you recommend for XP?


The main two are AVG and Avast.

Of the commercial products Kaspersky and NOD32 seem to get consistently good reviews, NOD is apparently less demanding on system resources. For spyware, Spybot is alright, but after trying quite a few things at work we've settled on Webroot Spysweeper for "after the event" cleanups.

Paul
Posted on: 02 April 2006 by Dicks Egypt
quote:
Originally posted by garyi:
Microsoft word processing.

Macs are tedious, get her a dell.


Apple is a larger company than Dell! And a company that incorperated on April 1st and is now 30 years old can't be that tedious
Posted on: 02 April 2006 by Martin Payne
quote:
Originally posted by Steve G:
Windows XP doesn't require 512MB, it will run most things with considerably less (128MB works ok for basic work processing and web browsing...



It will certainly run without falling over. About the best you can say about that config.

Martin
Posted on: 02 April 2006 by Guido Fawkes
quote:
Originally posted by Dicks Egypt:
quote:
Originally posted by garyi:
Microsoft word processing.

Macs are tedious, get her a dell.


Apple is a larger company than Dell! And a company that incorperated on April 1st and is now 30 years old can't be that tedious


He was joking - Big Grin (use of word Dell is the give away)