I use Oracle VirtualBox, which runs Windows XP well enough for the odd task that requires Windows. I even tried Windows 7 on it, and that works, but is noticeably more sluggish as it is far more demanding on the virtual machine.
Whether or that is all worth it, depends on what Agaricus bisporus is going to use the machine for.
TextEdit is actually more useful than many people give credit for. I use Office 2010 on Windows at work, but I can prepare a lot of the text at home in TextEdit, because it can read and write MS Office .DOC and .DOCX files. It is certainly good enough for basic home correspondence and document writing. Compatibility is not perfect, so complex Office files imported into TextEdit may lose some formatting though.
As for transferring you iPad have a read of this :
https://discussions.apple.com/thread...art=0&tstart=0
PCs and Macs can file share over a network, but it can be difficult to set up. I have encountered Windows machines that refuse to mount Mac shares and vice versa, even when settings are identical to other working pairs. My preference is to use external drives, but make sure they are FAT32 formatted for maximum compatibility. NTFS is OK for a one way transfer from PC to Mac, as the Mac can read NTFS, but won't write to them. NTFS is preferred if you need to transfer very large files, i.e. over 4GB.