Macbook Help

[FVBrewerFan]

I am a PC guy lost in the Mac world. I purchased a Macbook for my daughter, and find myself somewhat lost. I kept hering about the "ease of use" and haven't found that to be the case. First problem, I am not able to get a connection to my wireless network. I have 2 PCs an Xbox, and yes even an Iphone that connected immediately and have no problems. However, no matter what Itry with the Macbook, I get an error message saying "invalid password." (Yes, I have triple checked to make sure I'm using the proper network password.) Any ideas?

 

My second problem is with the productivity suite. I have a student edition of MS Office, and should have known that won't work on a Mac. So now I need to either buy MS Office for Mac, Iwork, or Open Office (for free.) Open Office seems to be worth a try, given the price, but I'm not sure how compatible it will be with Office. Can any users of Open Office give me any tips? Can you easily read MS Word and PowerPoint docs? In reverse, if you create documents in Open Office and send them to MS Office users can they eaily read those docs?

 

Next, is it fairly easy to install RAM yourself? I got it with the stanard 2GB installed, but realize I may need to add another GB or two.

 

Finally, the whole OS, file structure, etc. is so different from what I'm used to. Is their a good source (other than Mac for Dummies which I'm embarrassed to say I will buy) that walks through how to navigate within Mac, get the most out of it, etc?

 

Bottom line, until I get this all figured out, it just seems like a "cooler looking" laptop that seems more complicated than a PC.

[nate82]

My second problem is with the productivity suite. I have a student edition of MS Office, and should have known that won't work on a Mac. So now I need to either buy MS Office for Mac, Iwork, or Open Office (for free.) Open Office seems to be worth a try, given the price, but I'm not sure how compatible it will be with Office. Can any users of Open Office give me any tips? Can you easily read MS Word and PowerPoint docs? In reverse, if you create documents in Open Office and send them to MS Office users can they eaily read those docs?

Yes with Open Office you can open up all of the MS Office stuff with it fairly easily. When creating documents you can even save them as a MS word, excel, powerpoint, etc. document.

[1992casey]

When logging into your WiFi and you're asked for a password, are you sure you're choosing the right type of password? As an example, mine's WPA Personal.

 

You should be able to flip a popup menu when you see the password prompt; trial and error might be enough. Otherwise, going into your router controls will show you which type of password you're using.

 

I assume you checked your password for proper case. I had trouble with mine the other night; it turns out that I had forgotten where I had used upper and lower case in the password.

 

If worse comes to worse, your Internet provider should be Mac savvy and able to help you resolve this.

[FVBrewerFan]

Thanks Nate, Casey. I have an older router (Wireless b) that only allows WEP. Not 100% certain, but I'm thinking that's whee the problem lies. Leopard may not support this type of "older" wirelss security. I've been looking for a reason to upgrade my router to wireless n anyhow, so I think that's my next step.

[1992casey]

Leopard will support WEP. I've connected that way before (against my wishes and better judgement. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif)

 

The problem occurs when situations occur the other way around. Some old OSs and wireless cards won't do WPA.

[sgtcluels]

We had a macbook problem with a wifi. Turns out it was the channel, another AP in the joint was turned on and the macbook wouldn't conncet. Try changing the channel to something else on the AP.

[DHonks]

FVBrewerfan,

I'm with you. I always was intrigued by Macs, but I'd always been a PC fan. I purchased a Dell with Vista on it when I was student teaching, and I fell in love with the ease of use with Vista. Much like people always say about Macs, I found that Vista simply worked.

 

Then I received a Macbook with my job, and I've now spent two years disappointed with Macs. Given their prices and my familiarity with Windows, I would never consider switching to Macs at home. I've had more computer faults and freezes, more internet connection droppages (is that a word?), and I find Office to be less user friendly with Macs.

 

As a teacher, I don't care about multimedia presentations (although I prefer powerpoint to keynote). I don't care about Garageband. I like firefox, Word, Excel, Windows Mail (my only knock with Vista has been that my Outlook crashes all the time, so I switched to Windows Mail), and powerpoint. Throw in that PC's are around 40-67% of the price of comparable Macs, and I can't justify buying from Apple. At the same time, an Ipod Touch might be an investment soon.

[FVBrewerFan]

Yes, biggest problem will be my daughter will be away at college, and I'll have no way to support her if she has any questions about the mac. (I've become very good at tech support for PC/Windows over the phone ; )

 

Anyhow, update on the wifi. I tried several different channels (good idea) but to no avail. I can't be dealing with this indefinitely, so I went out and got a new D Link n router...problem solved. I downloaded Open Office last night, and it looks very similar to MS Office, although I haven't had time to "play" with it yet.

 

Maybe I'm too old to learn new tricks, but like DHonks said, I won't be getting macs for myself in the future.