Since the wife has no patience trying to learn XP, file structure, etc. an me trying to teach her, well, can you imagine a French lady and an Irishman having a civil conversation after the tempers have flared?

I thought she would do better with a Mac, to let her do her hobbies, and help save our marriage.

She does most of her work with graphics, photos, and the like.

As far as Internet, I only allow FireFox, will FF work on Mac?

And I know absolutely nothing about Mac's. Thou, being a calm cool collective male, I am sure I can learn, quickly.

Will a Mac connect with a network with other IBM Pc's running XP?

Any suggestions, comments, or opinions on Mac will be appreciated also.

Many thanks in advance, I cringe every time she needs to download pictures from her camera. Please save me from anymore, shall we say, colorful discussions!

FF on Mac NO WORRIES.
Now when it comes to networking it really depends on what you are thinking of doing.
Simple internet access will be easy, especially if you already run an internet router setup. TCP/IP is the networking standard and is happy on both machines. Otherwise you are in for a fun time... NOT

In my opinion, MAC Nooooooooooooooo Avoid avoid avoid, but that's me.
Too sucked in by Micro$oft, but slowly escaping to linux ;)

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Originally Posted by tkrussell

As far as Internet, I only allow FireFox, will FF work on Mac?

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Absolutely it does. I have a Mac PowerBook and I only use FF on it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tkrussell

Will a Mac connect with a network with other IBM Pc's running XP?

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Definitely. The MAC has built-in support for accessing Windows Shares provided you share the filesystem from your XP.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tkrussell

Any suggestions, comments, or opinions on Mac will be appreciated also.

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I use a MAC, Windows XP, and Linux and I interconnect them at home and work without much of a headache. If you also have wireless at home the MAC will work just find as well. You'll find that the MAC's wireless setup is way easier to configure than under XP (at least that is my experience).

Casey

The only issue you may encounter is sharing files. If you want to use a file created on the MAC from XP or vice versa, you need to have software that recognize the file type.

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Originally Posted by Curlyben

Curlyben agrees: TK, listen to this guy as he's THE MAN ;)

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Hehe... Thanks Curlyben

Gentlemen three, thank you all.

Seems I am on the right track to preserving my sanity.

All makes good sense now.

Thanks again , feels good to have someplace to go when I will have the inevitable problems. I can do anything for anyone else have everything fall into place... do it for myself, and disaster.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ScottGem

The only issue you may encounter is sharing files. If you want to use a file created on the MAC from XP or vice versa, you need to have software that recognize the file type.

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There are definitely some things to look out for. But from personal experience about the only common type of files I use back and forth are Microsoft Office, ZIP files, and PDFs. I have no problems with the ZIP/PDF files. I have Office for the Mac and I've been pretty impressed with the compatibilities of files between the two. I've moved/opened/modified Office documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) on the both systems without a hitch. I'm sure some features might not work but I haven't come across them in my normal day to day use. However, as ScotGem mentioned, if you don't have MS Office on the Mac and you modify a word document on the Mac then there is a good chance you'll ruin the file.

In terms of copying files back and forth I haven't had any problems with doing that. The only really annoying thing that I've seen so far is that the Mac will leave a trace of itself in each folder you visit on the XP machine. I think it maintains "view" preferences for every folder it visits on the XP machine. It doesn't harm anything but if you see those popping up everywhere you'll know where they came from.