Becoming a Mac

Where do I begin? I think I mentioned before,my wife is currently taking college courses online. Which means she's on the Main PC in our bedroom a whole lot doing research, responding to discussion questions, and participating in online lectures. This has really brought to light how sloooow our setup has become. I've done everything I could to speed up the computer such as...

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In my endeavor to go from PC to Mac, I am researching some options on exactly what system would be best suited as a "starter" for my family. Of course, price is a factor in this decision, and if you look for the lowest listed price on Apple.com you will come the Mac Mini. Listed at $599. Take a look at

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One of the critical steps towards making a transition to Mac is to perform at least a basic needs assessment.  

What I will need to replace my current configuration:

• Microsoft Office (MS Word, Excel, and Powerpoint) - These are very important for home business and online college coursework.
• Wireless compatibility - My main PC is connected to my DSL Modem and wireless router - may need to look into this a little closer, hmm.
• 80+ Gigabyte Hard Drive - Main PC currently is 60 GB

In my initial review of new Macs its pretty clear that all other items in my current configuration are pretty old and would easily be met or exceeded by any new Mac.

 

 

 

 

I thought it would be a good idea to layout exactly what I'm working with.  Call it a little self discovery or inventory.  At home, currently I have three PC's setup and one collecting dust on the floor.  

• Main PC - Resides in my bedroom and is used mainly by my wife, S, to work on small business adventures, her current online college course work, and the usual net surfing, bills, email, etc...
• The software loaded for work and school is MS Office.  Which is very important because we have a lot of files and documents in the various MS Office file formats and will be a factor in the Mac purchase.
  • Compaq Presario
  • 15" CRT (old school) Monitor
  • Tower with 2.4 ghz Intel Celeron processor
  • 256 mb ram
  • 60 gb Hard drive
  • Windows XP

• 2nd PC - upstairs mainly for the kids.  Another tower, this time a Dell and used for some internet, kids school assignments, and PC computer games.

• 3rd PC - also upstairs, in my cubby hole called an office.  This one I use mainly as a second PC for work when I am doing work on my day job at home.  I like running two PC's at once because it allows me to have more distractions!  - Thats multi-tasking.  ;-)

I decided that I'm not going to detail everything for the other PCs as these will likely stay where they are for a long while.  In addition to my set up at home, I have a company issued Dell Laptop and I'm pretty much stuck with that unless the company has some miraculous revelation and switches over to Mac!  It could happen. Right? 

My main computer is the one I'm going to focus on.  It will likely be the one that will be replaced with a new, shiny, pretty Mac.  But there is another option...  Instead of replacing the Main PC, I may opt to get a personal Laptop.  One that I could take along for use on the road and at home for whatever my heart desires.  I'll have to see what happens because my main PC is getting dirty looks from S since it's getting slow and groggy.