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EthoX · Jan 1, 2003, 12:20 PM

Hi, I have a good friend of mine, who is actually my boss, who is a co-director at local YMCA; she is also a teacher of Aerobics & Speed Biking. She approached me with interest about switching over. These are her basic needs: she wants to be able to burn MP3's for her classes(as well as fade one song to the next song, no mixing of music), and since I don't do any down loading of MP3's, where does she go to to find all types of music that she may want to down load(?), she need to have a basic Word Processor (I'm sure AppleWorks- Suite will work nicely, thought the Y uses MS-Office internally, for wp/mail/graphic stuff; should she consider getting MS Office/Mac as well. She is considering going portable, but she may go destop too.

Any and all suggestions will be greatful. Thanks.

chris v · Jan 1, 2003, 12:27 PM

iTunes will handle the mp3 burning thing quite nicely. It will crossfade, too. If she wants to steal mp3's online, I'd suggest Limewire, which is nagware, but it works.

As far as basic word processors go, I've got AppleWorks, and it's okay, but lately I find myself just uising the built in TextEdit app. If she needs something more powerful than that, there's a shareware app called Tex Edit which has a really nice feature set, and it's pretty cheap.

Good luck with the conversion!

CV

EthoX · Jan 1, 2003, 12:36 PM

Originally posted by chris v:
iTunes will handle the mp3 burning thing quite nicely. It will crossfade, too. If she wants to steal mp3's online, I'd suggest Limewire, which is nagware, but it works.

As far as basic word processors go, I've got AppleWorks, and it's okay, but lately I find myself just uising the built in TextEdit app. If she needs something more powerful than that, there's a shareware app called Tex Edit which has a really nice feature set, and it's pretty cheap.

Good luck with the conversion!

CV

Thanks Chris V.

Adam Betts · Jan 1, 2003, 01:16 PM

If you don't like LimeWire, you can try these:

Acquisition
Neo

http://www.versiontracker.com or http://www.macupdate.com is the best place to download latest software

AppleWorks is okay but I'd recommend MS Word over it at this time. If she want a nice, simple word processor with a nice GUI, she could try a program called Mellel.

If your friend are looking to buy a new computer, I think she should wait till after Jan 7th to see if there is any new or speed-bumped computer at MacWorld SF

namannik · Jan 2, 2003, 12:01 AM

For downloading music, I use XNap.

TheIceMan · Jan 2, 2003, 01:18 AM

EthoX: I would recommend Office v.X or Word since I'm not so sure AppleWorks can be used interchangeably with PCs (again, I don't know). I've been using MS Word & Excel and exchanging documents & spreadsheets with my coworkers and professors (who use PC's) and everything works fine. So if or when she "switches" I would get Office v.X or at least MS Word.

Jan Van Boghout · Jan 2, 2003, 05:32 AM

Originally posted by chris v:
iTunes will handle the mp3 burning thing quite nicely. It will crossfade, too.

Will it? I thought the cross-fading was only on the Mac, not on the burned CD.

As for word processing and mp3 downloading, I second Mellel (http://www.redlers.com/) and Xnap (http://xnap.sourceforge.net).

awaspaas · Jan 2, 2003, 05:38 AM

Roxio Jam will burn crossfaded CD's - comes with Toast.

http://www.roxio.com

voth · Jan 2, 2003, 07:47 AM

I can't help with the mp3/crossfade/burn issue, but I would suggest she uses OpenOffice its free and compatible with both PC/MAC versions of Office.

Millennium · Jan 2, 2003, 09:07 AM

As others here have said, Toast will handle a crossfaded burn. I don't know if iTunes will or not, but if it can't, then go with Audion instead. Audion integrates better with Toast, so if you have to use Toast than Audion will provide a better experience for burning.

As for word processors, I'd suggest AppleWorks for now, although Office v.X isn't bad either. I'd recommend Okito/Nisus except that she'll need good Word interoperability and I'm unsure of how well Okito can handle that.

kcmac · Jan 2, 2003, 09:58 AM

Why doesn't she get an iBook and use it as her jukebox? She can make new libraries of music in iTunes for whatever class she needs it for. Or she could still burn a CD.

She would have to get a pair of speakers to hook into.

She could also get an iPod....

Person Man · Jan 2, 2003, 04:03 PM

Originally posted by EthoX:
(I'm sure AppleWorks- Suite will work nicely, thought the Y uses MS-Office internally, for wp/mail/graphic stuff; should she consider getting MS Office/Mac as well.

AppleWorks should work fine for her personal stuff, but if the Y uses Office, then she should DEFINITELY get Office, especially if she is planning on using the computer for work-related issues.