[stace]

I'm sure there have been a thousand messages about windows to mac switching, but i wanted to clear this one up for myself.

I'm going to the university of toronto for fall 2003 session - life science. Courses like biology and chemistry have important cd roms which supplement course material. Its my understanding that there are many courses where lectures are available for download in powerpoint format.

As a windows user, I wouldn't be worried about compatibility issues,
but as a potential apple user, I'm worried about making the switch to a shiny new ibook

I have many more switching questions which i'll post later.

-stace

[CrazedVW]

If you have Office v.X, it shouldn't be a problem. Student version can be had for like $70 US.

[stace]

So after digging around a bit with the university book store, as i expected, they don't know.
which would generally mean, cd roms that come with the texts are not compatible. I just assume that becuse a multiformat cd seems very unlikely.
not a big deal, i could always use computers around campus for little things like that. minor inconvenience.
-i don't want to focus my reasons for buying a computer on fixing a minor inconvenience.

office x, yes i can buy that i guess. I've never actually "bought" microsoft software, so thats a 99$ CAN fee that i don't really want to pay. becuse it goes against my principles and 99$ CAN = alot of missed drinking

if i hypothetically wanted to get around paying, are there possible sites or downloads that i can make of file ex. programs?

and also, the apple music store, yes, sounds cool, but, again, if i hypothetically wanted to get music from a cheaper, ie. free, source, how would i go about doing that?

-stace

[CrazedVW]

Well, of course there are ways of going about it. lol. Check Limewire. It seems I recall seeing Office on there.

[james_squared]

Hello,

Most of the university textbooks that have CDs are Windows only format. All this typically means is that the CDs have some sort of installer program for setting up the powerpoint files or a powerpoint viewer. I have found that the powerpoint presentations themselves are on the CD and if you just find the files, they'll work fine. Also, many of the texts' sites have the same powerpoint files, so if you cannot get the disc to work for you, you might be able to download the files by themselves.

However, I have one CD where the powerpoint files are on it, but the formatting isn't quite Mac compatible. There appeared to be some problem when converting metafile, which caused the font size to not look quite right. It did not affect the content in any way, however. This was a CD for "Statistics for Business and Economics" by Anderson, Sweeney, and Williams.

Good luck at U of T.

James

[Person Man]

Originally posted by james_squared:
However, I have one CD where the powerpoint files are on it, but the formatting isn't quite Mac compatible. There appeared to be some problem when converting metafile, which caused the font size to not look quite right. It did not affect the content in any way, however. This was a CD for "Statistics for Business and Economics" by Anderson, Sweeney, and Williams.

Usually that just means they used a font that's not available on the Macintosh.

[jeepskank]

i attend college in the united states, but i doubt u of t would be any different.

most of the cd roms that come with my textbooks are just a bunch of quicktime movies on CD and every one i've ever come across is for both mac and PC.

also, as far as powerpoint goes, as long as you have office X, you're fine. my teachers sometimes post their powerpoint files from lecture and they open just fine on my iBook.

hope this helps.

[radarbob]

1. Many universities in the USofA have MS office at steep discounts. I paid 10 bucks at our university bookstore for Office Mac:X. Is Canada different?

2. Some packaged CDs have a "front end" program that typcially launches when the CD is put into the tray - but it's typically a PC only thing. I just open the CD just like the hard drive to see the contents. Then, typcially the files are in formats readable by Macintosh programs: gif, txt, doc (if you have Appleworks or MS Word), pdf, etc. Only when there is an actual PC application do I have a problem. Oh, and quicktime can handle many different video formats. Does one need Quicktime Pro to see AVI format? Yes, Appleworks will translate word documents.

3. Remember that MS Office compatability IS NOT a Macintosh issue. When creating files in newer versions of Excel, Word, Powerpoint they are unreadable by earlier verions, even on PCs. Too many folks distribute files using the latest MS Word format not realizing the problems they are creating. Frankly most folks are too dumb to save as plain text or even better, Rich Text Format (RTF). But of course Micro$oft likes it this way; forcing us to upgrade.

4. When exporting a text file / document / word file FROM macintosh you can be everyone's friend by making a PDF document. In OS X, any program that can print can save a file in PDF format. What PC or Mac user doesn't have Acrobat reader? PDF avoids virtually all the "my computer doesn't have that font" or "can't handle those fancy graphics" issues.

[Cipher13]

Originally posted by stace:
So after digging around a bit with the university book store, as i expected, they don't know.
which would generally mean, cd roms that come with the texts are not compatible. I just assume that becuse a multiformat cd seems very unlikely.
not a big deal, i could always use computers around campus for little things like that. minor inconvenience.
-i don't want to focus my reasons for buying a computer on fixing a minor inconvenience.

office x, yes i can buy that i guess. I've never actually "bought" microsoft software, so thats a 99$ CAN fee that i don't really want to pay. becuse it goes against my principles and 99$ CAN = alot of missed drinking

if i hypothetically wanted to get around paying, are there possible sites or downloads that i can make of file ex. programs?

and also, the apple music store, yes, sounds cool, but, again, if i hypothetically wanted to get music from a cheaper, ie. free, source, how would i go about doing that?

-stace

Well, if buying Office is "against your principles", don't use it. Ditch the piracy talk, or go elsewhere.

The CDs will be perfectly compatible... one way or another.

[rytc]

Originally posted by stace:
So after digging around a bit with the university book store, as i expected, they don't know.
which would generally mean, cd roms that come with the texts are not compatible. I just assume that becuse a multiformat cd seems very unlikely.
not a big deal, i could always use computers around campus for little things like that. minor inconvenience.

and also, the apple music store, yes, sounds cool, but, again, if i hypothetically wanted to get music from a cheaper, ie. free, source, how would i go about doing that?

-stace

I studied Biological Sciences for my undergraduate degree and didn't come across any CDs that didn't work on my Mac. The front end programme on all the CDs that came with books I bought had a mac version as well as a PC version. As far a music is concerned filesharing apps that are on the PC typically have equivalents on the Mac, Soulseek is particularly good for less mainstream music. But all the crap available on Kazaa and Gift etc can be accessed using apps such as Poisoned.
cheers R