Helping me move to MAC

[milty]

The Mac Mini has really got me considering purchasing the item. With this I have no clue about Apple products other than I made my first program on an Apple II back in 3rd grade. Here it goes.

My wife in college uses Microsoft Office of course and was wondering if there is a difference for the MAC version. Is iWorks a viable(sp) option to MO?

Regarding the Mini. Is it worth the extra money for the processor upgrade? I plan on getting the basic memory and upgrading myself. I will, however, upgrade to 80 gig(may be too hard for me to install) and the superdrive.

I like the software bundled with the mini, I just need to know a bit more about the hardware for upgrades.

I will be posting some stuff on ebay to help me purchase the mini so wish me luck on raising the funds!

[am_fek]

Office 2004 is fully compatible with all Windows versions.

iWork seems like a more basic consumer-level suite for basic word processing and presentation work. It's not a professional-level office suite and it won't compete against Office 2004. Having said that, Pages looks really neat and at $79 it's hard to argue with it.

I doubt you'll be able to do DIY upgrades for the Mac mini, it's essentially a souped-up Power Mac G4 cube that's half the size, so it'll be packed pretty tightly. Honestly, I doubt the faster CPU will make any difference - just get some extra RAM put in. Unless you need the extra hard drive space, in which case you'll have to get the higher model i guess. It's only another $100 though.

GL raising the funds :)

[dt]

I don't think 0.15 GHz of a processor difference will matter THAT much...

Upgrade the RAM, and get Microsoft Office for Mac (the latest version) if you must have Office on your Mac. Otherwise go for OpenOffice (Free) or maybe iWork. iWork is new so who knows if that'll be any good?

Disclaimer: I don't own a Mac at this point. :s

[jerry]

Office 2004 is fully compatible with all Windows versions.

585277893[/snapback]

Office 2004 for Mac is better than Office 2003 for PCs, dunno why Microsoft did that favor to Apple but nobodys complaining :p

Get the Students & Teachers Edition. ;)

[kawai]

Office 2004 for Mac is better than Office 2003 for PCs, dunno why Microsoft did that favor to Apple but nobodys complaining :p

Get the Students & Teachers Edition.  ;)

585277918[/snapback]

hell no it's not, have you ever used that thing, it's slow as hell, plus the interface is horrible from a mac prespective

nice to look at, horrible for long time usage

[Coolme]

http://www.apple.com/iwork/

the new iWork pack is also compatible (import and export) with Microsoft word and Microsoft Powerpoint.

[jerry]

hell no it's not, have you ever used that thing, it's slow as hell, plus the interface is horrible from a mac prespective

585277922[/snapback]

Slow as hell ? You should have tried Office X. ;) Interface is horrible ? Again you should have tried Office X ;)

nice to look at, horrible for long time usage

585277922[/snapback]

Wow just now you were saying horrible interface ! :rofl:

Just bump up your memory. Office 2004 is v good. You can always download the 30 day test drive from Microsoft's Mactopia website.

[kawai]

Slow as hell ? You should have tried Office X. ;) Interface is horrible ? Again you should have tried Office X ;)

Wow just now you were saying horrible interface !  :rofl:

Just bump up your memory. Office 2004 is v good. You can always download the 30 day test drive from Microsoft's Mactopia website.

585277966[/snapback]

i have office 2004 on my ibook 700mhz with 640MB of RAM

it looks nice as in screenshots, the interface is horrible when you actually use it

OS X is nice as hell (xcode especially) but office is certainly not one of them

[milty]

Thanks for the responses!! Since my wife is in college I'm going to go for the Office Student Teacher Edition. I'm going to get the iWork as well to see how that one goes.

As far as the hardware goes, I was thinking of getting the basse model and just upgrade to the superdrive. I'll get the RAM later (looks pretty easy to install), I'll get an external drive if need-be, and the processor should not make a difference like you said.

Thanks again! :yes:

[Daask]

just do whatever u want as long as u have enough rams, while mac os x in general depends mainly on ur rams, so... more rams u have = more performance, it realy worth it

[Steve]

iWork won't be a real alternative, until they make an app to take the place of Excel. Once they do this, it should be a fair alternative to Office. Currently i'd say the two main apps you need / use in Office is Excel and Word. Seems strange they made Keynote first out of all of the competing Microsoft Apps that make up Office...

[Spacedog]

It' s really interesting to note that Pages is more a DTP app than a word processing one, as observed by some keen eyes around (couple of links: MacCentral ; Backupbrain )

From the latter, a quote of what Dori Smith wrote:

My take, from the keynote and just a few minutes playing with Pages on the show floor: Apple is lying through their teeth when they call it a word processor. It's not. It's a page layout program.

It doesn't compete with Word. It competes with InDesign.

Okay, not for anyone who's doing hard-core layout. It's for those folks who want to do a two or four page newsletter or short brochure. For their school, their holiday family letter, their kid's sports team, etc. Which is a heck of a lot of projects that aren't appropriate to try to lay out in Word, but where InDesign is overkill.

It's entirely about laying out pages, not about editing text. You get some lovely templates with greeked text, and you drag and drop and copy and paste your text and images into the areas.

The rumor mill here says that Apple is more willing to **** off Microsoft than Adobe, so they're calling it a word processing app instead of an entry-level page layout app. But the latter is what it is, no question. It's no competition for Word in any way.

[PeterClark]

You cannot move a MAC, they are built into the hardware. However if you mean a Mac I would get all the upgrades you can afford, you will not (easily) be able to upgrade them later on.

[PureEdit]

Office 2004 is pretty nice, better interface then any of the adobe apps. But I have something against MS, so I will be moving to iWork as soon as my copy arrives.

Adding a superdrive to a Mac Mini after you get it is not a good idea, but the Ram/HD upgrades shouldn't be to hard.

[.....]

I would recommend you go with the faster model, especially if you're going to choose the hard drive; that's half the cost of the upgrade, which includes the bigger hard drive. Remember, Macs process a lot more per MHz, so even though it doesn't seem like a big difference, it's much bigger than it would be on a PC. As for memory, I would also recommend the 512mb option from Apple, as opening up the Mac mini will void your warranty.

It depends what your wife needs, but if it's only word/powerpoint, iWork might be perfect, as it's supposed to be completely compatible.

[heesey1010]

To that one person about adding "Cells" to iWork to make it more complete: I agree...but who does complicated functions on excel neways? its just simple adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing for me. And if it really bothers me, i'd just use a calculator.

[KeR]

I would recommend you go with the faster model, especially if you're going to choose the hard drive; that's half the cost of the upgrade, which includes the bigger hard drive. Remember, Macs process a lot more per MHz, so even though it doesn't seem like a big difference, it's much bigger than it would be on a PC. As for memory, I would also recommend the 512mb option from Apple, as opening up the Mac mini will void your warranty.

It depends what your wife needs, but if it's only word/powerpoint, iWork might be perfect, as it's supposed to be completely compatible.

585293667[/snapback]

you said exactly what I was thinking.

[giga Veteran]

It' s really interesting to note that Pages is more a DTP app than a word processing one

I'd say that its both. It can be used for both mainly.

http://www.apple.com/iwork/pages/word.html

treamlined yet Powerful Word Processing

Pages includes all the features you need to create letters, to reports including paragraph styles, table of contents, multiple columns, footnotes, headers and footers and more. Pages includes tables and charts that are easy to edit ? without leaving the application.

It?s the word processor you?ve been waiting for. A powerful, yet easy-to-use, application, Pages lets you make gorgeous documents. Whether you need to brainstorm ideas, draft a letter, create an outline, send an invitation, keep a journal, or write a term paper, you?ll find all the tools you need in Pages ? and none of the bloat you don?t.