Am considering getting one of these things...I've been on a PC machine for the past five years, and while I don't mind the Mac interface...I need to be sure there are no functionality conflicts -- meaning when I go to a website and there's only a download available for PCs, I want to be sure it will work.

Thoughts?

You really should be fine. I haven't used Windows in about 8 years, and the number of times there's something I can't access due to incompatibility is miniscule. Maybe a couple of times a year there's an .exe file somewhere that I can't immediately access.

Parallels would address the need to open any windows-proprietary files on the odd occasion where it would be necessary.

In this context, many of the .exe files I've needed to use on a Mac have been self-extracting compressed files where the executable part is the decompression code and the underlying file is Mac-compatible (like PowerPoint). Stuffit Extractor is quite happy to ignore the Windows-only executable self-extraction code and pull out the PowerPoint file; it just has to be told to do it, since the .exe extension keeps the system from figuring that out on its own.

This is not to deny that there are a zillion Windows-specific things out there, I have VirtualPC for those, but this is one not-too-rare case where something that looks Windows-specific on the surface really isn't.

I use Parallels Workstation to run Windows XP in a window / fullscreen instead of using Bootcamp.

Last week I got a virus or spyware and decided to reinstall. I trashed the hard drive file and recovered from my fresh backup. 10 minutes and I was back running. Of course that means having a good backup copy.

If I had that problem on a BootCamp or a real windows machine, it would have taken a while to wipe and reinstall XP.

The only disadvantage I can see is that Parallels doesn't support 3D acceleration yet, and it only uses 1 core. I don't play any Win games so I'm ok.

I've had very few problems on a Mac when used in a business environment. Office files work just fine. Web development is easier on a Mac, IMO, because the browsers tend to treat web standards better than Internet Explorer. One of the only issues I've had is that Safari doesn't prompt for a Sharepoint Portal server login for some reason. It's probably just the configuration of the server. In those instances, I boot up my copy of XP.

Otherwise, for home related activities, photos, video, iPod / iTunes, the mac is superior.

I just ordered a MacBook and will be using it extensively in a Windows-centric environment, so I'll keep ya abreast of any "gotchas" I come across, UNITED959.

Good stuff to know. My current PC is only 5 months old -- I have to admit from a "style" perspective, the MacBook looks nice...and there are some fun things with the Mac OS.

But I'm too inflexible to deal with issues resulting in compatibility...so wanna make sure this thing works as it's touted.