Getting prepated to order macbook

rodo · 2 Jan 2009 at 15:38

Well I've almost finished selling all my old tech stuff to get a mac book white for uni. The spec I'm likely to go for is 4GB Ram, 120GB Hard drive and get a dvi converter to connect it to my samsung monitor (and get wireless keyboard and monitor when I get the funds).

I don't have any experience with apple software. I guess some questions I have:
- Will iwork documents be compatible with windows as all my work needs to be windows compatible to be marked?
- Can you install windows messenger or a mac variant which I can use my hotmail account on?
- Does leopard come included when you buy a new mac from the apple store online?

No doubt I'll think of some more questions...

Slogan · 2 Jan 2009 at 15:51

- Yes.
- Yes.
- Yes.

rodo · 2 Jan 2009 at 16:01

Slogan said:
- Yes.
- Yes.
- Yes.

-yay
-yay
-yay

Thanks

Slogan · 2 Jan 2009 at 16:03

No problem. If you need more specifics to those answers let us know.

rodo · 2 Jan 2009 at 16:11

I think that should do for now. I'm a pretty simple user! I would assume the apple wireless mighty mouse and keyboard would work with the macbook?

Slogan · 2 Jan 2009 at 16:11

Yeah will work and connect without too much bother at all.

rodo · 2 Jan 2009 at 16:15

Fantastic, well I'm looking forward to hopefully a lot less problems than what caused me to get rid of my windows rig

Fillado · 2 Jan 2009 at 17:30

Slogan said:
- Not Really.
- Yes.
- Yes.

This might put a downer on things, but you'll end up with formatting problems and such exporting to MS Office sooner or later (unless you do incredibly simple Word documents). The iWork file format isn't compatible with Windows itself (hence you having to export it to an MS Office file), infact it's probably the most proprietary office file format there is!

If you need things in MS Office files, bite the bullet and get MS Office 2008 for Mac...but even then you can run into trouble with some files :eek:

rodo · 2 Jan 2009 at 17:38

Well it literally is for reports in text with the odd image in it. Maybe even a table or two

rodo · 2 Jan 2009 at 21:16

Fillado said:
This might put a downer on things, but you'll end up with formatting problems and such exporting to MS Office sooner or later (unless you do incredibly simple Word documents). The iWork file format isn't compatible with Windows itself (hence you having to export it to an MS Office file), infact it's probably the most proprietary office file format there is!

If you need things in MS Office files, bite the bullet and get MS Office 2008 for Mac...but even then you can run into trouble with some files

Makes me wonder if I'm better off getting iwork or getting MS office 2008 for mac... I don't want to buy both :confused:

Slogan · 2 Jan 2009 at 21:38

Get iWork.

I have Office for Mac and it's pretty crap. iWork is pretty nice if you need basic compatibility. (You get a free trial so try it before you buy it)

rodo · 3 Jan 2009 at 00:18

One more: every now and then I do some basic image cropping, lightening etc for uni projects.. very basic stuff.

I have been using photoshop on my old windows PC. Is there anything that comes with leopard that will suffice to do these basic things or will I be looking at a software purchase?

J1234 · 3 Jan 2009 at 00:21

iPhoto will come with your new Mac, will do everything you want there and more.

It's basically a simple image editor and organiser in one, very handy

rodo · 3 Jan 2009 at 00:26

Justin said:
iPhoto will come with your new Mac, will do everything you want there and more.

It's basically a simple image editor and organiser in one, very handy

Sounds like more than I could ask for! Well will hopefully order next week and get rolling. Do most people install firefox instead of using safari? I've seen a mix of people using both.

J1234 · 3 Jan 2009 at 00:43

It's up to you really, I used to love Safari but tried out Firefox 3 and it grew on me. Much prefer Firefox now.

iMacMart · 4 Jan 2009 at 19:48

Justin said:
It's up to you really, I used to love Safari but tried out Firefox 3 and it grew on me. Much prefer Firefox now.

+1

rodo · 4 Jan 2009 at 20:18

In terms of budget. I have the choice of either getting the new macbook with 2GB of DDR3 OR the white macbook with 4GB of DDR2..

Which is better for general web, itunes, movie watching?

iMacMart · 4 Jan 2009 at 20:27

rodo said:
In terms of budget. I have the choice of either getting the new macbook with 2GB of DDR3 OR the white macbook with 4GB of DDR2..

Which is better for general web, itunes, movie watching?

Can't you get a new MBP and source the RAM elsewhere and install yourself?

Or is that not an option?

J1234 · 4 Jan 2009 at 20:28

Just a note, don't ever upgrade your RAM with Apple, costs waaay to much.

rodo · 4 Jan 2009 at 21:48

tweakinfreak said:
Can't you get a new MBP and source the RAM elsewhere and install yourself?

Or is that not an option?

Not at the moment. I'm kind of looking at one or the other. I'm just wondering in terms of RAM whether 2GB of DDR3 or 4GB of DDR2 would be more effective for my type of usage.