Mac/Office question

[fflowley]

I know theres a lot of computer expertise out there on TERB, so I hope some of you will share an opinion with me.

We are about to welcome our first Mac into the family.....a new IBook laptop. Currently use a PC, with the majority of use being preparing Power Point presentations, using Word documents, and occasional very light Excel use. Also on the Internet a lot, but that will continue to be mainly done on the desktop.

My question is this: Whats the best way to get Office functionality on my IBook?

I see 3 options.

1. Buy Office X for Mac with the IBook. Currently can be had for $200 US with hardware purchase. I've heard rumours it's a buggy program, but thats all they are, rumours.

2. Buy virtual PC with the IBook. I have a thus far unused copy of Office 2000 Professional that we got through school. I could then run Office Pro 2000 on Virtual PC. Cost is also about $200 for the Virtual PC program, but I get the added benefit then of also being able to runall my PC software on the IBook.

3. Save my $ and try Apple Works which comes standard on the IBook.

Any opinions sincerely appreciated.


Flooey!

 

[fflowley]

thanks CC

Went for the 14 inch (will omit obvious self-promoting penis size joke here), 512 RAM.

Have not heard of Keynote (sp?) before. What do you think of Apple Works?

Flooey!

 

[McMac]

Get Office X. Keynote is a new release by Apple to try to compete in the Power Point area. They beta version is ok....but it's only compatible with Macs.
I wouldn't waste my money on Apple Works. It will be an obsolete program within the next 2 years.
Virtual PC has many more bugs than Office.

Good luck.

 

[xarir]

Office X

I run Office X on my Mac at home. Here in the office we use Office 2000. I can transition files seamlessly between my Mac & my Windows PC. For small files I just email them to myself at home, then email them back to the office. For larger files I save them on a USB keychain I got "free" with my purchase of Office X.

For the most part I use Excel but I've also worked on PowerPoint presentations on both platforms. I generally find it easier to create PowerPoints on my Mac.

I use Virtual PC with Windows 2000 when I need to access PC specific programs. I've heard that WinXP is rather slow on the Mac. Speedwise I find that VPC Win2K feels like a Pentium III @ 800MHz. Not bad really - it's quite useable but obviously doesn't compare to running Windows native on an Intel platform. I would not recommend using VPC & Office when you can just buy a Mac version of Office in the first place.

 

[xarir]

BTW - Lots of RAM is a good thing for OS X

'Tis true. fflowley - your 512 of RAM will be enough to run OS X, but if you're looking to upgrade anything start there. I ran OS X on my Mac with only 256MB of RAM. But first chance I got I upgraded. It's worth it!

 

[xarir]

Re: New OS

I understood that the MAC has built a ne Operating System version 10 I believe that is linux based.....wouldnt that make the software compatible with a pc?

It's actually based on the BSD kernel of UNIX (v4.4 I believe). You can open up a terminal window on the Mac and presto! - you're in UNIX right along with all the power and cryptic ways of that OS.

Theoretically then you can run anything UNIX on your Mac. I've run a few gnu programs I had leftover from University years. Wonderously enough - they work! But sadly, I've forgotten most of my UNIX so I'll have to spend a lot of time reading the man pages again ... But I've read on websites that perl scripts etc work pretty well in OS X.

 

[fflowley]

reply to winston

I typically dont need to share files, but a common scenario for me is to make a PPoint presentation at home, then bring the disc into work and give the presentation on the PC that is permanently hooked into our auditorium.

Does that affect your advice?


Flooey!

 

[danibbler]

Note one thing at least. Virtual PC will NOT help you when it comes to PC games. Most, if not all, PC games will not run properly with VPC.

I would simply go with Office and check out Keynote. Not sure how good the latter program is because I don't have it (yet). Office should do you but make sure to download the latest patches for it. Supposedly helps with security. Good luck!

If you have any questions you can always PM me. Got a ton of OS X books here and can recommend some sites if need be.