PC to Mac - need advice

my Dell laptop is almost 4 years old. its slow as christmas, the "B" key keeps popping off, the screen barely holds itself up anymore and it makes a weird buzzing noise sometimes that requires a firm slap to make it go away. So its time for a new laptop. i was planning on a PC for price reasons and because i'm not familiar with macs but i'm starting to change my mind. here's one of the main reasons i dont want to get a PC. My dad (and myself) refuse to buy an American car as long as they continue to produce a mediocre product. i feel the same way towards windows. they have the market cornered (for now) and dont feel the need to actually try or produce a decent product. so why should i reward their lazy business practices? i have a serious problem encouraging mediocrity. so, for that reason i am very seriously considering a Mac. but i do have a few concerns/questions.

-What software do i need to order with a Mac? for example, a PC would need Office Suite and crap like that for normal day to day use. does a mac come with all that or do i need to order Ilife or some crap like that?

-what about existing files? I have an external drive with about 400 gigs of media. music, some porn, and many many TV shows i have downloaded and saved. with all that work on a Mac or does it have to be converted? Also, i like to download shows and put them on a flash drive and watch them at work. will stuff downloaded to a mac and put on a flash drive work on a PC?

-downloading programs. will stuff like bear share work on a Mac?

-DVR. i have a box for my PC that will hook up to a coax cable and i can use my PC as a DVR and record stuff to the hard drive. is there an equivilent to something like that for Macs.

-Colors. the macbook looks like it only comes in white or aluminum. what happened to black? is that not an option anymore? white would make me gay and aluminum is like$200 more than the white. whats up with that? my gf has a black one, i want something other than white.

-good deals? you can get a refurbed PC laptop for like $300 on sites like "pacific geek". any sites for cheap Macs?

-wtf is up with the single mouse button? do any of hte macs have 2 mouse buttons cause i use the "right click" all the time on the pc.

Ok, i think thats all the immediate questions i have. if anyone has any more advice for someone making the switch form pc to mac feel free to post it. Thanks

 

Dont worry about your media, you can plug in your external drive and Im sure it will work, about the office, theres a microsoft office for mac, and i think they have their own suite iwork, which is kind of the same... I dont know about the dvr thing

 

Welcome to the world of MAC!! You will begin to wonder why you haven't switched sooner

 

see i dont know about the external hard drive. when i first bought the hard drive and set it up, i'm pretty sure i remember it asking me if i was configuring it for a mac or a pc. so i'm thinking since its already configured for a pc it may not be compatible with a mac

 

-OS X can read and write to HFS, HFS+, and FAT32. If your drive is formatted to NTFS, you can only read from it natively. You can use ParagonNTFS to write to it though.
-I don't know why anyone would use P2P for media.. but there are other things you can use (like LimeWire) to get your warez.
-There are TONS of ways for you to record TV directly to your mac. Google yielded all sorts of results.
-You can get a protective sleeve to change the color of your laptop. The black was discontinued when the Aluminum came out (it wasn't selling as good as the White - who wants to pay $200 more just for a color). White doesn't make you gay.
-If you go to the online apple store and scroll all the way to the bottom left, there is a giant SALE tag. They have refurb macs here. Great deals, and they offer 1 year standard warranty.
-Place two fingers on your track pad, click. There's your right click button. No macintosh laptop has more than one button.

 

what?

yeah, bearshare sucks, but i haven't wanted to learn how to use torrents. i guess i need to go ahead and learn[/QUOTE]

no, i'm pretty sure the white ones make you gay. if i'm gonna pay that much for a laptop i may as well break down and get the aluminum one. freaking $300 more though [/QUOTE]

did not know that, thinks for the tip

no way! how come my gf doesn't know about that? she's been using a mac for like 8 years and uses one every day at work

thanks for all your help. i could use some clarification on the NTFS stuff. if it is configured as NTFS what are my options? i need another external drive anyway, can i get one and transfer it and convert it? God this sounds like its gonna be a pain to convert

 

I dont think that'll make any difference, mac should recognize de USB and install the drivers

 

here's a question. will iWork recognize stuff from office? so if someone sends me a powerpoint or spreadsheet or word document will it open in iwork?

 

i havent seen this word in years

 

screw it, i went ahead an bought one of the refurbed ones. i decided not to overthink things (imagine that )

i got an aluminum macbook with the 2.4ghz processor and 250 gig hard drive, 2 gig of ram, back lit keyboard and all that cool stuff. i better like it or i hold all ofyou personally responsible

 

i hate you, i want a mac....

 

I have been using a MacBook Pro for quite sometime now and will be buying a MacBook this weekend. You will soon find yourself wishing you could do things on your PC the way you can on a Mac. I love two finger scrolling or three finger back and forward controls. Gestures, Expose, and Spotlight are some of the best tools out there, just makes getting around so easy.

Johnecon has a lot of good information for you above. iWork comes with Letters (Word), Numbers (Excel), and Keynote (Powerpoint) and will work with files that come from the MS equivalents. As for torrents, you can use Opera's built in client. Just go to a torrent site, search, and download.

You will be amazed by how flawless everything seems to work on the Mac. Then again if you don't like it, send it to me.

P.S. white doesn't make you gay, its that tingling feeling you get looking at other men that makes you gay.

 

Sweet! Nice purchase. If you need help getting all configured, you can come find me on AIM.
I may be able to assist you on getting away from BearShare as well

 

LOL

 

Mac's are perfect if you like spending twice the cash for half the functionality!

 

Join the CA and maybe you can get one....

i dont know anything about the scrolling or 2 or 3 finger forward and backward crap. where can i go to learn all that? thats one thing that kept me with PC is knowing all the keyboard shorcuts and macros and stuff. i live off of CTRL C, and CTRL V and CTRL A and all that. where can i go to learn all the little tricks on a mac?

Never heard of "gesture, expose or spotlight", can you elaborate? I held off on getting the iWork. sounds like i can get that from my gf or office mate for free.

and i'm pretty sure that tingly feeling i get when i look at guys is normal. But i'm pretty sure macs are a pre curser to gayness and the white mac is just guaranteed gayness. i'm gonna be a "closet mac user". i feel so dirty and ashamed that i got one. but i'm finally gonna be done with the blue screens and messages like "such and such program has failed, would you like to send a report to microsoft" on a daily basis. but my gf owns a black mac book and she confirmed that i would start making out with dudes if i got a white one

i definitely need to stop using bearshare. i know its old and outdated and crappy but its so easy to use. plus you can turn of file sharing which i do. the problem i have with torrents is that you are suppose to have a download to upload ratio and i dont like uploading.... or ratios. i got 2 day shipping so my mac should be here sat or more likely monday. i guess when it gets here i'll have to start listening to emo music in the dark and cutting myself when i'm not hanging out at coffee shops

 

well i'm actually not so sure about that. i priced some pc's too and for the equivalent they were within $100 of the mac i got. as for functionality, 10 years ago mac wasn't compatible with anything, now they are compatible with almost everything. my problem with pc is, even if they are cheaper, you're still paying for a half ass product full of problems. i've been a PC guy all my life and i am tired of all the spyware and virus's that bog my machine down. i reload my OS at least once a year (nobody i know with a mac has ever had to reload their os). i've always hated the typical mac user. i understand macs are better at graphic stuff. my gf works for an advertising firm and they all use macs. but i still get that mental image of the anti trendy emo kid getting it just because he wants to be different.... now i'm that kid

but lets face it, microsoft did this to themselves. They released one of the worst opperating systems of all times, then instead of fixing it or starting from scratch, they called it Mojave. then they were like "surprise! its the same thing we just fooled you!" i gave vista a chance for 8 months and hated it with an unholy passion. and now thats pretty much the only option you have when buying a new pc. Microsoft is the equivilent of American car companies. they are huge and have had the market for so long they are too lazy to make a decent product, they just keep producing the same bug ridden shit and expect everyone to be ok with it because they are the only option out there

 

ND, check this out

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/campaigns/new_to_mac?mco=Mzk2NzQ1MQ

 

plus, now my gf says i'm sexier and she wants to put my penis in her face more..... so.... thats a pretty good incentive right there