Hello biatches! My dad is considering getting himself either an eMac, iMac or PowerMac.

I quite a bit about the actual physical systems but absolutely bugger all about the software they run on. I have done some googling on the Mac OS's and applications but to no avail.

Do you guys know anything about Mac software or software for Macs?

E.g.

1) Does the Mac OS offer an "office-like" package?
2) What software can and can't i use with a Mac?
3) Anything else you might know?

Thanks guys, (and gals).

Youre loving buddy, Derf. (King).

lol i like mac's but not really used them enough. about all i know is there are a LOT of games out there that aren't mac compatible, though more and more are coming out with it. i think the mac os possibly comes with an office type thing, but it may just have the equivalent of paint and notepad. *shrugs* i could find out for you, we have a couple of apple macs in our comp lab at uni

Macs are like pc's for retards.

Well, for office products your looking at using open office. www.openoffice.org.

I know that OS 10 has unix code as its base and it "supposed" to run pretty solid.

What else does your dad really need to do beside get on the internet, do office stuff, and check email?

If your wanting to play games you can forget it. All mac ported games are games that have been out for at least 1 year already. For instance, they just recently ported Jedi Knight 2 for mac.

Think of useing a Mac like useing a Linux or Unix box. Its runs stable as hell but your limited on the applications you can run.

Open Office is quite good. It still misses some MS Office things but it's very good already.

I second Shiny. MacOS sucks. Mac sucks. You pay twice as much for the same hardware and, prior to OS-X, no real tweakage. OS-X runs off a BSD base, if I'm not mistaken, so you can fight your way to a command-line and have unix-like power (kinda cool, actually). But it's still Mac with stupidly expensive hardware.

I'd rather build a machine for 1/2 the price, install XP or something and just lock it down using security policies so morons can't break it. Alternately, since this person sounds like they don't mind running a new O/S, once again build a machine for little cost, then install Linux (which is free, of course).

What? You mean Xp isn't free?

Linux is a bit too gritty.

All thats its going to be used for is oldie games like 1-2 years old and internet, e-mail, wordprocessing, spreadsheet you know, the basics.

I will look at that Open office thing, how much is though?

btw, my dad doesnt need it for the latest games nor is he interested in having to upgrade it because after all, only gamers need PC's.

Open office is free. You can download it at their site www.openoffice.org

cool! well now there shouldnt be any problems.

There's only one issue with Open Office, I believe MS Word can't read the standard Open Office document type, so you have to set the standard to MS Word document.

When you save a document useing open office it gives you the option to save it was ms excel, word, etc.

Yes I know, but it's better to set that as default. I'm sure I would forgot a couple of times.

Is there a way to set it as defult?

Off course, go to options --> load/save --> general and the in the right bottom of the window you can set it.