I’ve had my G4 i-book for the past four years or more and it still feels as fresh as it did that faithful day i purchased it,also when using a PC mouse the right click works on OSX!Awesome! if u do get it, i can point you in the right direction for nice free software.

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I’m not a big fan of the Mac’s ultra minimal mouse, but my current mouse is supposedly Mac-compatible. Thanks once again for the reply Jim.

1) Now that Mac’s ship Intel-based, games on BootCamp should run smooth as silk. That being said, I haven’t bothered to deal with bootcamp as I have the laptop for XP.
2) Shouldn’t a be problem. Lot’s of Mac owners have dual monitor setups. Again though - I haven’t done it myself, so I can’t say for certain.
3) This one I’d be on the fence about. The Mac Keyboard is pretty different from a standard keyboard in a number of small ways. For instance - if you want to eject a disc, you have to use a special key on the keyboard — there’s nothing on the Mac itself to do so. Using a standard keyboard/mouse could be a problem, but like I said — I know nothing..

So there you have it — relatively useless advice from a guy with no actual experience with any of this. Hope it helps.

- most PC games can run smoothly on OS X using Boot Camp
- I can combine my current flatscreen monitor with a new Apple monitor for a dual monitor set up
- I can use/share my current PC keyboard and mouse using Synergy?

Assuming that Boot Camp runs Windows XP easily then I should always have that as a fallback… the only question is whether it’s inefficient and wasteful to buy a Mac and then end up using Windows most of the time. I’m hoping/assuming the Mac OS and software will win me over though.

http://www.delicious-monster.com/

The thing is, you can’t really judge Macs on your experience with the LC III. Currently, there are probably more programs out there that run on both systems than don’t, also like you mentioned, if you get an Intel Mac, you can run Windows as well. My big beef with PCs is all of the unnecessary, memory hogging garbage on it. It took me three days to track down and uninstall all of the annoying apps I didn’t need. Many of the HP and Microsoft stuff (like messenger) were not easy to get rid of. Even now, when I install a new app, I always specify that I don’t want it to launch on start up but many of them still do! On a PC it just seems that software is more intrusive and all of the software companies are vying for dominance of your system and your valuable RAM usage. I don’t think I should have to be a computer expert to know how to keep my computer under control. The average household PC is bogged down by useless crap, worms, viruses and whatever else you can unknowingly download and when your PC is running at a snails pace after owning it for a year, the easy solution seems to buy a new one. There’s something unethical about that whole idea so in the end I see the value in owning a Mac. Besides, I wonder how many PCs I would have owned in the passed 6 years if I hadn’t chosen a Mac instead.

I was a Windows user all my life (and still partially am - the laptop I’m typing on as we speak is an XP machine) - but for the most part I made the switch to Mac a month or so ago and I couldn’t be happier. This lack of software you speak of is really a myth - it’s just that most of it is direct download. There are so many cool programs out there that are Mac only that it makes my head spin. If you have a huge media library, you can keep track of it and actually scan in each item’s barcode via the built in iSight camera to add it to your library. For podcasting, Garageband is super-well-rounded and completely free. If you use your computer to as an entertainment center for the room it’s in, Front Row (also free) rocks the socks off anything on PC’s. I watch movies/tv on there every night before going to bed. It’s brilliant.

I could go on and on about this, but I was terrified of getting a Mac and a month later I couldn’t be happier.

Here’s my advice: Buy a Mac, but do it at Future Shop. If you’re not happy with it, you can bring it back within 30 days for a full refund. And yes - you can do that with computers. How do I know?

Before buying the Mac, I bought a prefab HP Vista machine and had nothing but problems. By Christmas, Vista should be great. Until then it’s just far too buggy and doesn’t jive with a lot of the programs and accessories I use. It will, just not yet. This happens every five years with Microsoft.