“If you’re considering switching to a Mac, you’re probably wondering if you’ll need to buy a lot of new software,” Al Fasoldt writes for The Syracuse Post-Standard. “Maybe not. Apple’s OS X (pronounced “oh ess ten”) computers might not need extra software to do the tasks you want.”
“You don’t need any extra software if all you want to do is open Word documents. All OS X computers come with a competent word processor called Text Edit, and it knows how to deal with Microsoft Word documents. It will open them so you can read them, and it will save documents in Microsoft Word format, too,” Fasoldt writes. “What about e-mail? Apple’s OS X comes with a program called, appropriately, Mail. It’s excellent. It has a built-in spam filter and a built-in spelling checker. Apple’s Mail software can even group your mail by message topics, or threads. It lets you find replies you wrote to any message with a single click.”
Full article with more examples here.
More information about smoothly adding a Mac OS X machine to your computing arsenal here.
Good article… and the trend grows.
Windows is a liability.
Apple Mac is stable, virus free and just works.
What is difficult in CD burning with OS X?
“What about that software to kill all of the viruses, worms, etc.? Oh, you don’t need those.”
Who the hell reads “The Post-Standard”???
I’m with Seahawk, I can’t imagine anything simpler or easier than dragging files onto the icon of the cd and then dragging it to the burn icon on the dock. For a music CD, you just select “burn playlist to disc” in iTunes, and similarly with DVDs of movies, etc. If Dragonburn is any easier to use than that, it must have some sophisticated AI and robotics that predicts what you want to do, orders the cd’s, loads them in the tray, and organizes them on your shelves while you read McSweeney’s.
Seahawk…
the difficulty in OSX CD burning is that it is all done via the Finder Interface (excluding cases where you are burning through an application like iTunes or iDVD). You insert a CD, tell it to show up on the desktop and then drag folders over. This is not the situation that many people like to burn in. I for one like the Toast interface and the options it has like reducing write speed.
The author did not say anything about cross-platform upgrade. I doubt MS will cross-platform upgrade Office, but I think company like Adobe will let the owners of Windows version of their application to upgrade to Mac version (at least they did for Mac to Windows). So, if anyone is considering upgrading their software, may be they should ask the vendor if they can upgrade to a Mac version.
eh ? There’s no ‘difficulty’ in using the Finder. Toast may be your preference, but for most people it would be a waste of time to launch it just to burn a few files to a CD.
I’d only use Toast if I was burning something a VCD or something like that.
More worrying is that this claims that TextEdit will open and write Word docs. While that’s true to a certain extent, the sort of docs it’s going to cope with are only the simplest. It won’t cope with the kind of documents I use for work on a daily basis. The claim is misleading. If you told this to someone and suddenly they had to shell out another �350 for Office, they’d be pretty annoyed with you. Best to be truthful. There are enough positive things about switching such that this kind of misinformation is simply not necessary.
MacOS X sux … I tried to run all my favorite viruses – SomeFool, Bagle, Nimda/CodeRed, Dumaru, LovGate, and hundreds more, and _none_ of them worked. I asked the salesman, and he said those viruses just weren’t available for MacOS. He said that none of my spyware would run either. This blows – there are thousands of different viruses available for Windows, and you can download them all for free in minutes, just by hooking your PC up to a DSL modem. I’m staying with Windows, since it’s clear that software writers aren’t supporting the Mac any more.
I, too, fail to see the difficulty in burning disks. My Finder preferences are set to display CDs & DVDs on the desktop. Mac treats them like any other folder; drag and drop. To burn, again it’s drag and drop (onto the burn icon in the Dock).
I have never heard of anyone needing to set the speed of the burn rate, Mac does an excellent job of detecting the fastest and safest speed for burning based upon the drive and disk specs. You never see any articles about burn problems on Macs. I think the need for a burn application is a bad habit (or myth) that ex-PC users think is necessary on all computers.
Perhaps, the ex-PC users are unaware that the Mac changes the Trash icon to a Burn icon. But, even so, selecting the Disk icon and then selecting “Burn” from the Finder menu is faster than loading any application.
I cannot imagine how loading/running a separate application and tinkering with its settings can be any faster than dragging the disk icon to the Dock.
Perhaps I am missing something here. Can someone, please, tell me why I would want such aps like Dragon Burn?
Re: Aryugaetu.
I run design dept and we only use dragon burn because you can create cross platform or single platform cds.
In our working environment this is essential – e.g. hfs/joilet format cd.
Otherwise we just use the finder to burn.
Dragonburn is an excellent and far superior bit of software compared to toast (which is going to be discontinued anyway!).
You can copy dvds/cds, create multi-file format cds and has a very striking and easy to use interface (all icons!) – and at $15 it’s a steal!
Generally I just use one finder window. Navigate to the stuff I’d like to copy and drag it over to the disc, which is shown in the left column of the finder window. Once I’ve copied the stuff over to it, just click its burn icon.
That’s not so different from using Toast is it ?
I bought a new copy of Toast because it’s not expensive and can be useful, but I don’t really need it.
As for cross platform, If I use Finder to burn, the stuff shows up on my PC at work with no problems at all.
BTW, I don’t mean to say Toast or Dragonburn are pointless, just that burning regular data CDs that you can use on your mac or a PC is perfectly simple task using the Finder.
Re: Windows_r00lz
Remember that if you use viruses as often as I do, you can always use Virtual PC on OSX — that’s how I ensure that I still am able to easily upload and download daily viruses for Windows. I also get to keep track of and organize all the weekly security patches, which has become something of a hobby for me. VPC doesn’t run on the G5 yet, but that’s fine with me because I have a G4 — I found the G5 just ran too fast for my needs.
Windows_r00lz & Romeodawg:
I, too, was upset that malware and patches for patches that patch patches are nowhere to be found on the Mac platform. And what’s with the chess program being the only game that comes with OS X? How am I supposed to be ‘productive’ at work without Pinball, Freecell and Solitaire?
You can always use Appleworks! It offers all of the programs that Office has and it is compatible with Office files.
tell me about backing up dvd movies in the finder, please. or point me to a link. can i just drag the contents of my dvd (after putting on the hard disk) to the dvd disc image?
BillyG’s Significant Other says: “How am I supposed to be ‘productive’ at work without Pinball, Freecell and Solitaire?”
That’s what the web is for, Bill.
I am shocked that some one would compare Word to an “i” app called TextEdit.
Apple is trying to show that their apps are as good or better then the offerings from My Great Provider (MS).
We all know that applications like Word, Microsoft Windows Movie Maker, and Windows Media Player are the gold standard and used by everyone in the “real IT world” and are included free with the MS OS…
…and the soon to be released Longhorn will only improve the market share MS has and improve the work flow and output of the users of Windows computers !
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hey Sputnik…. last time I checked.. Office wasn’t free for WIndows either..
IF you’ve already paid for Office/xp.. don’t fell bad about switching.. you can download Office2004 for Mac on P2P…
I would beg to differ with the article. Switching to OS X has cost me a fortune! As soon as I opened up iTunes I needed to buy an iPod. As soon as I played with GarageBand I needed to get to a music keyboard. As soon as I opened iChat I wanted to get an iSight. Soon after getting my PowerBook I wanted to get a G5 desktop. Now I need a 23″ or 30″ Cinema Display. Damn you, Apple, stop making such cool stuff!
If you want Office compatibility, X11 and Openoffice ALL FREE
Isn’t Appleworks shipped with most new macs now? Isn’t that as good as word and excel with the ability to open and save word and excel also?
I use Appleworks and sometimes OpenOffice.
Sorry, but I need to shout this. APPLEWORKS IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH OFFICE.
And Appleworks also displays and prints text really badly. Shamefully badly. I thought my printer was screwed it was so bad.
Appleworks WILL read and write some office files, but were talking basic domestic stuff. We’re not talking technical documents with sections and headings and headers and footer and tables and graphics. We’re talking about basic text only with a little bit of formatting. Anything more and while it might work if you’re lucky, you’d be crazy to rely on it.
You wanna switch? PC users ALEADY HAVE A MONITOR!! How many times do people have to mention this?? I LUST after a G5 CUBE!! Did millions of users complain about INCLUDING A BASIC? A headless mac. How many people have said this? Once again, noone want’s it. ALL COMPUTER/TV HAVE FAILED (Steve Jobs). SO ONCE AGAIN….Apple intoduced the Apple II. NOONE BOUGHT IT! Apple NEVER introduced the mac…using money FROM THE APPLE II. You are NOT READING THIS BECAUSE APPLE NEVER USED THE MONEY FROM THE APPLE II TO MAKE THE MAC!!!