Past experience

The two types of computer available to non-techies now are:

	IBM-style personal computers (PCs), made by many brand name and local vendors
	Apple Macintoshes, made by Apple

If you have used a Macintosh, liked it, and are comfortable with it, buy a Mac. If you have used an IBM-style PC, liked it, and are comfortable with it, buy a PC. It's (almost always) as simple as that. I'll cover some special considerations in a moment.

Personal resources

A local guru or techie is a great thing to have. If you know someone who rebuilds Macintoshes or PCs, nurses them through their troubles, loves adding new hardware, and provides expert help on just the programs you need—well, consider making use of this resource! Of course, find out if helping you is agreeable to this person. And don't make a pest of yourself.

Just be sure that this resource is not a spouse, or one of your children. I'm sure that there are exceptional members of these groups, but generally:

	They won't have time to help.
	They will assume that showing you something quickly, once, is enough, because they know how smart you are.
	They will just do it themselves (whatever it is)—so fast that you will remain in the dark.

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Special considerations

Going with the flow

If all the computers in your office or department are PCs, that may be a powerful argument for familiarizing yourself with a PC at home. You may be able to share information and resources with co-workers, and you'll add hours of experience on your chosen platform.

On the other hand, you may not have problems working on both a Mac and a PC with programs from major companies like Microsoft (Office, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) and Adobe (Photoshop and PageMaker). Many programs, like these, are cross-platform. This means that there are few differences for the user on a Mac or a PC, and that, with occasional complications, you can share documents or data files on both kinds of computers.

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Sharing data

Disks

Macs can now read disks that were formatted by and for a PC. PCs, however, can't read Mac disks. So, if you buy only PC-formatted disks, you can use them on both platforms.

Documents

As I mentioned, most major programs can now deal with data files created on the other platform. The complications: conflicts arise between different releases or versions of the same program. The most glaring example is files created on a Mac by Microsoft Office98 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access). A PC running Office97 can't read them in their native formats. And a Mac running Office98 can't read the new PC Office2000 files in their native formats. Yes, you can work around these limitations, but they are irritating.

Newer versions (Office 2001 for the Mac and Office XP for the PC) don't seem to have these problems.

Will Apple survive?

This was a big question a while ago, when Apple's share of the personal computer market had dropped to 2% and its stock price was in the single digits. Then came the return of Steve Jobs, and the iMac. No one seems to be asking any more.

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