As a self-confessed geek I am often asked to help people with their computers. To avoid spending all my time dealing with such matters I have written some stock answers to the questions I get most frequently. I hope you find it useful.
I need a computer - where can I get a nice cheap one?
The answer is that you should go and buy a Macintosh. Don't even consider getting a PC - macs may appear to cost a little more, but getting one will save you a world of pain (see below). Macs are far more secure, they are less easy to break, both physically and mentally and are way easier to use. You still need to pay a bit of attention but nothing like as much. Also, considering they are a complete package with everything you might possibly need built-in, you won't be paying more than you would for an equivalent PC.
If you already have a PC, skip the next few questions and find out about the world of pain and what you can do about it.
Yes and no. Macs do not run normal PC software out of the box but there are mac versions of Word, Excel, Powerpoint and all that gumf. A word document made on a mac will open flawlessly on a PC and vice versa. They also come with a load of nice software for doing email, surfing the web and so forth.
Not really. They have lower "clock speeds" - the numbers measured in Megahertz or Gigahertz usually quoted to indicate how fast a computer is, but these numbers are not directly comparable to PCs because Macs use more efficient processors (G4 or G3 as opposed to Pentium 4 or AMD).
For more details see Apple's SWITCH campaign:
That's nice, but it doesn't look like there are many games. Are there?
If you want it for playing games you should get an Xbox or Playstation 2. Actually, the mac does have quite a few games these days, but the range is a little scant by comparison with dedicated gaming platforms.
Great, so where can I get one?
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You can get them from John Lewis, any number of specialist mac shops or directly from Apple themselves. You could get an eMac with a cd writer or "combo drive" for only
