Got a MacBook. When it boots, I get to pick between Mac and XP.
I’ve never spent more than 2 minutes on a Mac. It’s different. But, I think I’m getting it.
Now: This “Garage Band” thing. THIS is pretty cool.
Dale
He gently casts out.
The rod bends in a gentle arc behind him and snaps forward; the line unrolls just like it has a million times before. The fly floats down to the surface of the bubbling water. He thinks “there’s a big one over in the ripple near the boulder”
Gotcha!!
Ain’t a dual boot Mac absolutely cool 
I’m saving my $$ for one
Whoa…thanks Dale. I was waiting for something like that to happen. My kid has a MacBook, bought 8/06, for her college computer. I figured if I held up for a while before I upgrade from my iBook I could get a jump ahead of her. I’m just at the point with my 3 year old model where I’m starting to hit a thing here and there that I need a newer Mac to do. Still, I will hold out for as long as possible, to maximize the new bells & whistles.
Damn I want a mac. I have been a devout PC user for several years (I’m A+ certified), but I have realized that I hate them. I always use the macs in the library, when I can.
Also, they’re pretty.
I just have no money at all, especially since I just bought a flute. 
Dale:
Congrats. I highly recommend the following website, whose interface looks much like our beloved forum. The people are very helpful and generally not snotty to newbies.
Whenever I get in a jam, I almost always get a quick answer there.
Thanks for the tip-I’m forwarding the site to a MUG that I belong to.
Emm- I’m in the same boat (sigh) although my son allowed me to have the computer I gave him when he went off to college. He went and bought himself a G5 tower. Its amazingly quick. [/u]
My friend Josie’s little girl, Alicia, was given a MacBook just a couple of days ago. It’s a gift from the Nuns. Alicia has Lupus, and other things.
As a family friend with apparent computer skills I am elected to sort it out.
I did my best to explain the difference between Macs and PCs - MACs are scarce in the UK, and people are scared of them because they find them unfamiliar - but it was uphill work.
I managed to install the printer - not too difficult. Printed a test page. Great.
But the wretched machine is INVESTED with shareware. It has Mac Office (MS Office cloned for Mac) but it will not print unless you put your hand in your pocket and pay money. I think this is INIQUITOUS!
There is a native MAC text editor, which I found eventually. But the printer still does nothing. Grrrr!
And her number one son, who I think is a selfish little **** is not prepared to share his broadband connection. So much of the stuff on the MacBook is internet associated. My Question: “Who is paying for this internet connection anyway?” - Yes, It’s Mum (Josie). Haven’t you heard of wireless connections? No they hadn’t! That’s going to be the New Year Job(s)…
I was gonna throw the osx forum up here but Lance beat me to it.
I use both a PC and a Mac at home (tho my Mac is a few years old). My wizening Mac gives me FAR fewer headaches than my newish PC. Next time I buy another computer, it’s definately going to be another Mac, hopefully a G5 quad if I can squirrel away enough dough for one.
This has always been the case at our house. Let’s see…counting from 1988, and including my daughters’ college machines, we’ve had (in the Mac column,) an SE, Performa, iMac (pink!,) iBook (orange!,) eMac, white iBook (the one I’m using,) and a MacBook.
In the PC column, and only starting from a few years ago, we’ve had an eMachine–died within 2 years, my daughter’s school eMachine–ok so far, and a Gateway. I use my iMac to research how to resolve all the problems that occur on the PC.
I know other people have better luck with PCs and are great supporters of the platform. Maybe its just my early Mac bias.
(I’m very aware of how the smallness of the mac user community is, in itself, a protective factor where viruses are concerned.)
I started with a Performa in 1995, got a Mac clone after that, an iBook and now a MacBook Pro. I had a PC in the interim and i thought it was a POS… Mac is it for me.
Emm
I can finally use “I remember when…” I started with 128K Mac, did the 512 upgrade by hand and migrated to Power Computing for a while and then got kids iBooks/Power towers/Ti Books for school.
I have 2 Mac Classic II’s that I got at a garage sale a few years ago. I guess they work. 
I think I paid $5 for the both of them.
The thing that grabs me is Parallel booting. Now that’s a
good use for the Duo core! That’s what will get me into a
Mac when my current machine finally lags behind.
I can’t count how many Macs I’ve had since about 1989, both work and home, but it’s at least 15, and they are used hard at work. I had to re-install the operating system on a Performa once, I had trouble updating to OSX 10.4 (required at work) on a 4-year-old laptop a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve had to replace two clock batteries. My wife has some PC-only software, so she was forced over to the darkside a couple of years ago. As is the case with Em, she spends lots of time on the Mac surfing to troubleshoot the PC. She’s had to reinstall the system twice on a computer that’s six months old.
I have no idea how software that’s so fraught with peril has become the standard.
Re: mac service
My kid comes home from college with the click button on her track pad not working. Must plug in an external mouse to do anything.
Tuesday: Call Apple warranty service to convey problem. (I bought the warranty. yes.)
Wednesday: DHL delivers a prepaid shipping box.
Thursday: I load it up and take it to Parcel Plus.
Today (Saturday): Fed Ex delivers it all repaired.
Without getting into the whole try-n-help-you-then-get in over my head thing, I don’t understand why you would have to pay money to print??? Could you explain that? And text-edit should print without incident or shareware. I am missing something here.
MS Word and such prints fine on all Macs. And a significant plus is that only Mac versions of Word make pdfs in the print dialog box , which PC’
s don’t.. It’s my understanding that for PC versions , you have to buy shareware to make them.
The other Weekender got an iBook from her school district, brought it home, plugged in the USB to my epson C80 and the damn thing started printing WITHOUT having to install printer drivers and such… I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t even have to use Print Utility, it just grabbed it and went. It’s aggressive about finding Wi-fis too. The same iBook grabbed a neighbors signal and went online without having to be told anything. That impressed me, as I am a novice at Airport and such. We didn’t plan on piggy-backing a signal, but my teenager sure loved the option (we have a hard-wired DSL workstation already). I even get to use my computer again now. We are going to get our own Airport thing, fwiw.
I love the machines, but they remain pricey and software-obsolescence-prone…You can stretch 'em out for a long time but you do reach a point where you’re out of it…Upgrading has its turmoils.