I'm a confirmed Mac fan who has finally decided to break down and get
something real inexpensive for the four times a year that I really
need a PC. (If I had one I might use it 15 or 20 times a year,
actually.) Typically it's because of some small rinky-dink program
included with some consumer product and it's just not worth it to them
to do a Mac version (examples below). And I think I really need to use
Internet Explorer on a PC every now and then (ditto).
I'm more interested in a simple, authoritative answer (with maybe a
paragraph of explanation) than an exhaustive review suitable for a
computer magazine.
Here's the kind of program I need to be able to run:
(1)
The board game "Make Your Own -Opoly" lets you print out a customized
Monopoly-like game with your own streets, Chance cards, etc. It comes
with mostly preprinted cards which you run through your printer to add
your cusomization. And it comes with a simple PC program which makes
this easy (the names on certain cards have to match the text in other
places, etc.). I could just fire up a Mac graphics program and design
the cards myself, but it would take time to get the formatting right,
etc., and I might overlook something. Requirements are, basically,
"Windows anything" and a few K of RAM (grin) so compatibility of the
program with Windows is presumably not an issue.
(2)
The Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer
My only gripe with Google is that they don't provide even an
independent little tool to let us Mac users figure out our sites'
pageranks. (Yeah, I've heard about what you can see for a directory
listing for a site, but I want to find out what my sites' ranks are
before I submit to the directory.) Most of my surfing will be done on
my Mac for all the obvious reasons (viruses, spyware, etc.) but from
time to time I'll want to run that Toolbar.
(3)
To see -- REALLY see -- what my web pages look like on the PC
platform. I recently was shocked when I saw some of my photos on a PC
screen; they seemed much MUCH darker than my carefully adjusted images
on my Mac. This difference was not just a subtle one observable to
graphics professionals; it was an enormous, gross difference so large
that it would probably keep some PC surfers from signing up for my
site ("his photos are too mudddy", etc.). I have learned that this is
an issue called "gamma", and altho there are various workarounds (set
my Mac screen to a PC gamma, etc.), I'd still like to just be able to
see, simply and straightforwardly, how the average Windows surfer will
see my pages -- so that s/he doesn't have to adjust a thing to get a
good quality photo experience compared to how things look on my
screen. (I also found that IE versions and other browsers set default
type sizes to be different under different conditions, which I never
would have observed had I not fired up a friend's PC browser once
after a new version came out.)
My local PC-only expert says that many many people are still using
Windows 98 (yes, 98!), and he gave me reasons to stay away from all
except one of the more recent Windowses (I forget which one, natch).
Is he right? And I suspect that Windows 98 might even work for my
needs. The rinky-dink little programs will run on it, and so will
Internet Explorer to surf the net, and so on. (I'm not sure about how
recent IE has to be to use the Toolbar, however.) And my local
academic software store JUST HAPPENS to have a sealed, in the box copy
of Virtual PC with Windows 98 (!) for a mere $225 (not much different
in price, alas, from the up to date versions available through
Microsoft today).
That's about it. A couple of other items which might be important for
your answer. I do NOT have access to any plain old Windows OS software
or upgrades, so I can't just buy the Virtual PC part without an OS
included. I am a pretty darned good Mac consultant, so I can decide
for myself whether to install Virtual PC on my OS 9 system or my OS X
system (although if you have a one-sentence opinion on this I'd love
to hear it). And I absolutely positively completely want to avoid
worrying about PC viruses wiping out my Mac disks -- so I'd also like
to know if I have to additionally invest in Norton and other stuff
just to protect the PC parts of my system.
To me, an acceptable answer would be like one or more of the
following. (The content of the answers below is, obviously, incorrect
since that's why I'm asking the question...)
(1)
You should get Windows XP Professional. It'll handle all your current
needs and possibly some future ones and it's only $20 more expensive
than your $225 Windows 98. Just set the Internet Explorer prefs to
block blah blah blah and you won't have to worry about viruses.
(2)
You really should buy a cheap PC and monitor because Virtual PC
doesn't make your Mac monitor any different than your current setup.
Keep your PC off the network and if it gets virus infected then just
wipe it clean and reinstall.
(3)
What you want won't work in Virtual PC because Windows printing via
the Mac is a nightmare. Get a cheapo PC instead or borrow your
friend's. And there's this really great Mac program which lets you see
exactly how your pages will look on the PC.
(3a)
[or]... there's this really great website which shows you your pages
the way they will look on a PC.
Thanks, in advance, for your authoritative but short, to-the-point answer! |
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