I appreciate all the information that has been provided on this topic, but
noting that some responses are based on the idea that Mac software is often
better than PC software, a note of warning may be necessary - some
conferences require that submissions be in MS Word, and while I strongly
object to this policy, it can be a real pain. MS Office for the Mac is
expensive (I don't get the student rate) and there are still compatibility
problems with Open Office. Even worse is the situation with uisng
PowerPoint, which doesn't always come out right if you have a complicated
presentation developed on a Mac and then you have to use the conference PC.
If you opt for a Mac, it is a good idea to check your files on a PC before
you get to the conference!
Although I really like Unix and am planning to run Linux on an old PC of
mine, compatibility problems can be even worse there. I'm struggling with a
co-author who uses TeX, and while it is really a nice package (I used to use
it in my Unix days) it is really hard to collaborate.
Of course even with different PCs running the same software you can have
problems. I wrote a paper on a Canadian computer with colleagues in Germany
and Israel and even though we had nominally identical versions of MS Word,
the files did not appear the same, especially where math symbols were used.
I find that when sending manuscripts around I pretty much have to rely on
PDFs.
Bill Silvert
----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott D Lapoint" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, August 17, 2008 3:20 AM
Subject: [ECOLOG-L] Mac or PC? A Summary of reponses
About a week ago I posted a message asking for input on whether I
should move from a PC to a Mac. I was particularly concerned with the
higher costs of a Mac and if one can run Windows programs such as ArcGIS
and some statistics packages. I received ~200 e-mailed responses from
Ecolog alone, not to mention the dozens that I received from my
additional efforts...
