[CalgaryPix]

Lori, are you a PC PowerUser? (ie do you edit your registry, know all the cool terminal tricks, like to swap motherboards every few years, etc?)

If not, then you'll probably get along with Mac's pretty well - there's lots of info on the apple.com site about making the switch. If you can get the hard drive out of your old PC and put it in an external case you should be able to get a lot of your old files and info right off it and into the Mac using the supplied software (although I've never done that from a PC so I can't guarantee how well that'll work.)

A few years ago I helped my son build a pretty high end PC for gaming. Its now pretty useless (3 years later) because all the games and even the OS don't like that "old" hardware. Meanwhile I'm plugging away on a four year old iMac and a six year old iBook using Photoshop and Lightroom. Yes I'm lusting for a new MacBookPro but the fact is I can still do all that work, inlcuding opening up some might big multi-layer files in photoshop and only have 2GB of ram on the iMac. The new iMac will be so much better.

The resale value of used macs is still quite high. Why? Because they're still usable even as they get older. That's something that people don't figure on when pricing their computers. Nor is the amount of cost of getting a computer serviced. I was told by a PC tech that the store he worked at didn't make any money selling computers - but in fixing them.

I would never say Macs are "perfect" and "infallible." But they are closer to it.

But, if you like doing all the PowerUser stuff, then stick with PC's. PowerUsers rarely seem to get how Macs work.