OW22,
I've had my MacBook for a month now (after I had to send the first one back and get a replacement
). It's my first experience with Mac too, and I have to say, I'm very impressed.
I have downloaded Parallels, but not installed it yet. I may have to though as the networked Laser Jet printer I normally connect to at work will only work with Windows XP Pro (unbelievable, but that's what our IT people tell me). Our server at work will also not allow me to connect to Mac Mail, but hopefully when the company puts an internet system in our houses (I live and work in Nigeria, so internet is always a problem) it won't have so many sites blocked.
I have a student copy of Office 2004 for Mac (my wife's a registered student, but I wasn't asked to provide any proof) and I find it excellent - better than Office 2003. The only thing I haven't been able to find yet is anything as good as ACDSee for image viewing and editing. I take quite a lot of videos with my digital camera and the nice thing about ACDSee is its ability to rotate a video through 90 degrees if you've filmed it with the camera at a different angle. Maybe there's something I can do with iMovie, but haven't had the time to find out yet.
One of our IT guys at work asked why I had bought a Mac when they were all set up for Windows!! But with more and more of us getting Macs, he's just going to learn how to cope with either system on our intranet.