buying first imac--dividing hard drive

[alainr]

i am buying my first imac. i will need to keep some pc programs that do not have mac versions.
1. the apple salesperson said that i have to decide in advance what portion of the hard drive is for pc vs mac. is that true? how do i figure it out?
2. I want to switch from word perfect to word. On the pc, i can open a word perfect doc and save it in word. can i do that on an imac? i have business word perfect docs that i need to have access to and use as form for new letters, etc.
3. i plan to buy Vfusion (seems to get better reviews here than parallels). Can i attach a PC quicken file to an email and send it via my imac email?
i wld like to try to avoid buying PC anti virus software.
4. Does the mac only automatically backup the apple side of the hard drive? not the mac side?\
5. I hope that i will be able to sync my palm T5 to the apple.
the apple store people said that they will not help w/any non apple software.

it is starting to get a bit overwhelming! thanks
sandra

 

[Tallest Skil]

In advance of installing Windows, not buying. You can always resize it, but that entails deleting what you have.

There are no automatic backups at all. You have to have an external hard drive and set Time Machine up to use it. It only does OS X.

 

[LotusLord]

You should be able to sync your Palm with iSync. If not you can purchase MissingSync.

 

[carfac]

1. the apple salesperson said that i have to decide in advance what portion of the hard drive is for pc vs mac. is that true? how do i figure it out?

Not true. Set up boot camp at any time, and you can "cut" off any portion of the UNUSED portion of your hard drive for PC use.

2. I want to switch from word perfect to word. On the pc, i can open a word perfect doc and save it in word. can i do that on an imac? i have business word perfect docs that i need to have access to and use as form for new letters, etc.

If you can do it on a PC, you can do it on the PC side of the Mac. Id NOT think there is Wordperfect for Mac (I could be wrong).

3. i plan to buy Vfusion (seems to get better reviews here than parallels). Can i attach a PC quicken file to an email and send it via my imac email?

You can... or you can copy it from the PC side to the mac side of your mac directly. Or put it on a thumb drive at your PC and take that over to your mac (not sure which is your situation).

i wld like to try to avoid buying PC anti virus software.

So would every PC user. You can snapshot your PC side install, and just restore if there is ever a problem (you BETTER know what you are doing, though!)

4. Does the mac only automatically backup the apple side of the hard drive? not the mac side?\

As answered above- no.

5. I hope that i will be able to sync my palm T5 to the apple.

WHich side of the Apple- the OSX or PC side?

the apple store people said that they will not help w/any non apple software.

it is starting to get a bit overwhelming!

Do not get overwhelmed. SAlow down and enjoy yourself.