I work at a small public access TV station. All of our computers and servers are PC-based (XP Pro machines), but we have two Final Cut Pro stations (a dual G5 and a C2D white iMac) which are conceptually viewed differently. We are a Windows-based office.
Having been a PC person since the mid-80s, I finally bought a mac for myself (2.2 C2D MBP) four months ago to work with FCP, to avoid Vista, and for a change.
It is now time to upgrade my desktop machine at work. I'm thinking of going with a 20" imac, but need to sort out the switch. Here are some of my issues/questions.
1) Outlook. We use Outlook for email and calendaring. Sharing calendars is an important part of our workflow. What is the best way to integrate the mac into this? Will just iCal do it or do I need Office or another method?
2) Word documents. I end up handling a lot of word documents, though I find I use wordpad on my own for speed/system usage. I'm assuming I would need to invest in Office to maintain cross-system integrity--and even then I suspect Word for the Mac and for Windows will not be flawlessly cross-compatible.
3) Powerpoint. I end up using it frequently for submitted slides for our on-air bulletin board. I've looked at Keynote and think I will enjoy using it. How well does it handle importing Powerpoint slides? Exporting?
4) Networking. We have a contract IT guy who handles our heavy lifting work (server maintenance, networks, etc.). I handle the basics, but he still oversees it all. He is not opposed to my getting a Mac, but I want to make life as easy as possible for him. We deal heavily with networked drive usage - mail server, video server, file shuffling, etc. What should I be aware of for seamless integration into the existing network?
5) running Windows-only programs. I don't know what they would be at this point as I have found OSX alternatives for pretty much everything in my personal life (save for some specific music programs). I've played with VMware Fusion and have found it to not be too system intensive and easy to work with, but I imagine it would work for the occasional need.
6) What else?
Thanks for all your input.
Having been a PC person since the mid-80s, I finally bought a mac for myself (2.2 C2D MBP) four months ago to work with FCP, to avoid Vista, and for a change.
It is now time to upgrade my desktop machine at work. I'm thinking of going with a 20" imac, but need to sort out the switch. Here are some of my issues/questions.
1) Outlook. We use Outlook for email and calendaring. Sharing calendars is an important part of our workflow. What is the best way to integrate the mac into this? Will just iCal do it or do I need Office or another method?
2) Word documents. I end up handling a lot of word documents, though I find I use wordpad on my own for speed/system usage. I'm assuming I would need to invest in Office to maintain cross-system integrity--and even then I suspect Word for the Mac and for Windows will not be flawlessly cross-compatible.
3) Powerpoint. I end up using it frequently for submitted slides for our on-air bulletin board. I've looked at Keynote and think I will enjoy using it. How well does it handle importing Powerpoint slides? Exporting?
4) Networking. We have a contract IT guy who handles our heavy lifting work (server maintenance, networks, etc.). I handle the basics, but he still oversees it all. He is not opposed to my getting a Mac, but I want to make life as easy as possible for him. We deal heavily with networked drive usage - mail server, video server, file shuffling, etc. What should I be aware of for seamless integration into the existing network?
5) running Windows-only programs. I don't know what they would be at this point as I have found OSX alternatives for pretty much everything in my personal life (save for some specific music programs). I've played with VMware Fusion and have found it to not be too system intensive and easy to work with, but I imagine it would work for the occasional need.
6) What else?
Thanks for all your input.