Finally I've Decided

I have decided to get a Mac book maybe a black book tonight, i am also getting a wireless mighty mouse. the cheapest Microsoft suite for word processing and all that because i have heard it is mandatory in college which is where I'll be next year is this true? I am also considering buying toast unless there is a reason not to. Do you guys have any suggestions on what i should get while I'm at the apple store getting my mac book!

I'm so happy I am finally switching over i realized i didn't need all the power of the mac book pro thanks in advance for all the help.

p.s. software or hardware suggestions from the apple store

p.p.s. how much does the black book show scratches, is it bad enough to get a white mac book instead. If it isn't too bad I will be getting a black book with 2 gbs of ram and a 120 gb hdd.

 

I'm thinking about the Blackbook as well, same configuration as you.

I would get iWork instead of Microsoft Office at this point, because it's
(i) very cheap with the education discount,
(ii) the current Office isn't Universal bindary (and will never be), and
(iii) the new Office which will be Unviversal binary will come out in the first half of next year, so it'd be a waste of money to invest in Office 2004 for Mac now. (Besides it seems that one can get along fine, at least temporarily, with iWork, which can read .doc files and also export into .doc)

 

I have a Blackbook..Very nice...Scratches dont show unless they are major!

If you have the money and you dont have an ipod i would buy a new nano or a new video if you are up to it!

 

... You might want to wait till Tuesday...

Joking, of course...

 

The white Macbook is more likely to show scratches.

I would recommend Office because most things are done through Word and Powerpoint. You could get by on iWorks, but it might be tricky, I have no idea, since I use Office. My teachers frequently give notes through Powerpoint that are downloadable, I don't know if you can view them if you don't have Powerpoint.

If you go to college - try your school first. I can get Microsoft Office from my college for $80, whereas through Apple, even with the EDU discount it's more like $100 or $150. And Apple gives me the Student Edition for that price.

 

Great choice on the switch. I'd recommend you try iWork. It comes as a 30 day trial on your mac. No harm in trying it. It works with word and keynote imports and exports powerpoint. Just make sure you have a good case for your new black book and a good set of external speakers. The built in speakers aren't very strong. Other than that enjoy!

 

I didnt know the current version of microsoft office was not universal binary, i guess that is out then. Thanks for the suggestion I already have a video ipod.

What are some speakers you would recommend and why wait until tuesday i wasnt aware anything was happening.

Is open office as good on a mac as on a pc, because im using it right now and it is fine for whatever i need.

 

Nice choice. I have heard good things about the Macbook. I think I will be buying one also here soon for my fiance'. I would get office personally. Although I have never used iwork. I would just choose office because I know it really well and it seems to be almost exactly like the one for PC.

 

but if it isnt universal binary isnt it useless to me?

Will i be able to play starcraft/warcraft 3/ diablo 2 on my macbook?

 

w3 = best game ever

yea you can play it

 

Just because office isn't universal doesn't mean that its useless to you. True there will be a newer version coming out next year. That's more of a reason not to buy office than the former. Office does run a bit slower on the intel macs but seriously folks...how much performance do you need when taking notes????

As for speakers, I like the Bose companion 2's. 99 bucks gets you a great clean sound. If you want a subwoofer setup, get the klipsch pro media gmx 2.1 if they have them. Tons of sound for 150 bucks.

 

I'm hoping that your bad grammar in your first post is attributable to your excitement for getting a Blackbook.

Congrats, you are going to get a great computer!

 

OpenOffice.org will take care of you until the new MS Office. Also, for better Word compatibility than OpenOffice, try www.writely.com, one of google's fun creations.

 

'
congrats G, but i would hold up if i were you. as someone else mentioned, new mac books are supposedly on the very, very near horizon. you don't want to buy and then get ticked at a new version....

 

how far away are they, i have been waiting for 3 months to get a mbp and im getting a little anxious

 

In your original post you said you were looking at a macbook, though in your last post, you said you wanted a macbook pro. Which one is it? I have been using the macbook from release, and it is a nice machine. Love the keyboard, and screen. Size is awsome, and one of the only major differences from the macbook pro is the graphics. I run MS office, and it works fine. What are you looking to do with it?

 

paying $150 for a color?!? lol.

 

What I meant was I have been waiting for a Macbook Pro for several months, however I have come to the conclusion that a Macbook would suit me better. I have come to this realization because I will not be doing any video editing whereas beforehand I assumed I would need the MBP for this Purpose.

The point of this thread was to recommend software that I could buy while getting the macbook for example toast, does anyone have any recommendations?

 

an update coming soon? tuesday. do share the details.. because i just got a mb

 

Starcraft and Diablo no.

Warcraft yes, but on the Macbook it won't be blazing. I've tried it before

 

I don't see why Diablo 2 wouldn't run on a macbook. It ran alright on my 800mhz iMac G4. most emulated programs run better on my MBP than they did natively on my iMac. I haven't tried it on the MBP yet, I got a PC.

Otherwise, if you game on your macbook, you could do Bootcamp and run PC games from Windows.

It was a joke. New updates usually come on Tuesdays
and it is common for people here to joke about "big
update this tuesday!"

the Core2Duo macbooks are rumored to come out soon,
but my guess is that it won't be for at least another
month, probably 3 months or more before it gets in the
macbook. It isn't that huge of an upgrade anyway. Be
happy with your new macbook! It is fast and nice!

 

Diablo 2 requires Classic support, which is absent in Macintels.

 

Would I be able to run diablo 2 and starcraft in parallels, i would get bootcamp but i only have copies of windows home version.

 

Congrats on your purchase. I''m not sure what you'll be using Toast for but you may want to check out Popcorn. It's cheaper and has a lot of the features found in Toast.

 

It would be slow because Parallels does not really do virtualisation for 3D applications yet.