Greetings everyone,
Let me preface this by saying I've been a mac user for the last 3-1/2 years and think it's great. A few little "burps and spits" but nothing major from my machine.
My mother and I are looking to buy my dad a mac for Christmas. This decision has come on the heels of numorus crashes and hardware/software compatibility issues on his current "DIY" 1 GHz PC running win2K. He doesn't know this and he wouldn't go out and buy one if we gave him the money. I don't think he really want's one solely due to his xenophobia - fear of the unknown. Knowing how he is, once he was presented with one, he would learn it and use it. So with that said, I'm trying to do a bulk of the PC-to-Mac changeover homework for him so it's as easy as possible. As far as he's concerned, it's "an old shoe" and while he admits that the PC has some problems, he hates to shop so he'll suffer through it.
Let's call him a true "Curmudgeon extraordinaire".
The machine would be primarilly used for Photo/Image work in Photoshop, Email, Web viewing, Word processing and soon-to-be digitizing old vinyl LP records.
I would surmise that he borderlines on mild OCD when it comes to his computing world and some issues that I'm facing are his rigidity and shall I say, "utter love" with some programs on his PC. One of those being Corel Wordperfect. He loathes, hates, is repulsed by(and any other word in that context) by MS Word. He likes the other MS office applications but if it's word processing then he's going to use WordPerfect.....End of story! His attachment/love for "Reveal Codes" is the 'clincher'. Should another program out there have this feature...Problem solved but I'm unaware of any at this time. My instinct was to think that Boot Camp would solve this but I'm not sure. I don't want him to treat this machine as a fancy PC with an Apple logo on the side. The other concern I have is depending on how much PC use it actually gets, would the aspect of a virus on the PC side of things cause concern with the Mac side? For sake of the conversation lets suppose a file corrupting virus were to infect the windows side; could that virus running under windows corrupt/erase/change Mac Files? I understand that this may be an elementary question.
The other aspects of are secondary but I'll mention them anyway. I'd like to allow him to still use his film and flatbed scanners. They are older and use a SCSI interface. I've found drivers for the flatbed (Microtek E6) but not the film (HP Photosmart S10). While I'm hopeful that these devices might be able to be used on the future Mac, it may be a incentive to get better and more current scanners.
All and all, I think a Mac for "my ol' man" would be good given the unrelenting problems and extreamley slow (four minute plus) boot-up times. I want him to be treated by a machine that make him want to warm up to it quickly and wish he'd gone to a Mac years ago.
Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated and I'd be happy to expound and/or clarify anything. I've only got one chance at this and don't want to blow it.
Thanks in advance,
Dee
Let me preface this by saying I've been a mac user for the last 3-1/2 years and think it's great. A few little "burps and spits" but nothing major from my machine.
My mother and I are looking to buy my dad a mac for Christmas. This decision has come on the heels of numorus crashes and hardware/software compatibility issues on his current "DIY" 1 GHz PC running win2K. He doesn't know this and he wouldn't go out and buy one if we gave him the money. I don't think he really want's one solely due to his xenophobia - fear of the unknown. Knowing how he is, once he was presented with one, he would learn it and use it. So with that said, I'm trying to do a bulk of the PC-to-Mac changeover homework for him so it's as easy as possible. As far as he's concerned, it's "an old shoe" and while he admits that the PC has some problems, he hates to shop so he'll suffer through it.
Let's call him a true "Curmudgeon extraordinaire".
The machine would be primarilly used for Photo/Image work in Photoshop, Email, Web viewing, Word processing and soon-to-be digitizing old vinyl LP records.
I would surmise that he borderlines on mild OCD when it comes to his computing world and some issues that I'm facing are his rigidity and shall I say, "utter love" with some programs on his PC. One of those being Corel Wordperfect. He loathes, hates, is repulsed by(and any other word in that context) by MS Word. He likes the other MS office applications but if it's word processing then he's going to use WordPerfect.....End of story! His attachment/love for "Reveal Codes" is the 'clincher'. Should another program out there have this feature...Problem solved but I'm unaware of any at this time. My instinct was to think that Boot Camp would solve this but I'm not sure. I don't want him to treat this machine as a fancy PC with an Apple logo on the side. The other concern I have is depending on how much PC use it actually gets, would the aspect of a virus on the PC side of things cause concern with the Mac side? For sake of the conversation lets suppose a file corrupting virus were to infect the windows side; could that virus running under windows corrupt/erase/change Mac Files? I understand that this may be an elementary question.
The other aspects of are secondary but I'll mention them anyway. I'd like to allow him to still use his film and flatbed scanners. They are older and use a SCSI interface. I've found drivers for the flatbed (Microtek E6) but not the film (HP Photosmart S10). While I'm hopeful that these devices might be able to be used on the future Mac, it may be a incentive to get better and more current scanners.
All and all, I think a Mac for "my ol' man" would be good given the unrelenting problems and extreamley slow (four minute plus) boot-up times. I want him to be treated by a machine that make him want to warm up to it quickly and wish he'd gone to a Mac years ago.
Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated and I'd be happy to expound and/or clarify anything. I've only got one chance at this and don't want to blow it.
Thanks in advance,
Dee
I'd imagine turning him to the light side won't be a trip in the park