Wanting to learn more on the Mac

So, I have a small computer business and have been somewhat established for the last 4 years. We generally work on PC's, however, we wanted to start learning Mac's. The majority of our calls nowadays are for Mac laptops, and unfortunately we end up having to turn away this business. There aren't really any mac stores in this city, nor anyone to really service their computers.

So what is the best way to learn about Mac's? The last time I used a Mac was in high school, so it's been about 13 or so years. Do you guys have any good recommendations as far as sites, tutorials, books, etc. I've generally been a hands-on person, so learning from a book or website may be a stretch for me; but since I can't afford an actual mac laptop, it'll have to do.

Any ideas or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

I think it would be a bit tricky to learn a mac without using one.
There's two flavours of the mac floating around nowadays.
The old powermac with Motorolla processors.

And the new Intel macs. Intel macs will take over completely in the future
and are what allow macs to run windows and linux.

I can't suggest any good books right now--however here are some links
that might help.

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MACOSX tips
http://www.macosxtips.co.uk/

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Command-Tab
http://www.command-tab.com/

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Freaky Staircase

http://freaky.staticusers.net/update.shtml

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EVERYMAC.COM
http://www.everymac.com/

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MACSLASH - FORUMS
http://macslash.org/

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MAC Troubles
http://www.mactroubles.com/

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MAC Fixit
http://www.macfixit.com/

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MACSkill
http://macskill.com/

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MAC Dev Centre
http://macdevcenter.com/

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MAC Daily News
http://macdailynews.com/
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MACInTouch
http://www.macintouch.com/

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MAC Minute
http://www.macminute.com/

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MACNN
http://www.macnn.com/
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MACOSX Hints
http://www.macosxhints.com/
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MACMOD
http://www.macmod.com/

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Icons - wallpapers
http://interfacelift.com/

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Automator World
http://www.automatorworld.com/

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Apple - Developer
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/index.html

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Resexcellence.com
http://www.resexcellence.com/

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DEVX
http://www.devx.com/

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MAC.ORG
http://www.mac.org/

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MAC ORCHARD
http://www.macorchard.com/

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HILLMANMIX SOFTWARE
http://www.hillmanminx.com/

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PURE MAC
http://www.eskimo.com/~pristine/
http://www.pure-mac.com/

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INFO-MAC HYPER ARCHIVE
http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/HyperArchive/

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TENON SOFTWARE
http://www.tenon.com/products/

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FUJIWARA SOFTWARE - Disk Catalog maker
http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA008942/library/index.html

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MLMAC - Edonkey
http://mlmac.org/

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MACWINDOWS
http://www.macwindows.com/index.html/

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DONELLESCHI - sticky windows
http://www.donelleschi.com/
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MENUMeter
http://www.ragingmenace.com/software/menumeters/index.html

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Danicsoft
http://danicsoft.com/projects/copernicus/

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pacifist

http://www.charlessoft.com/

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ColourMOD
http://colourmod.com/dashboard/

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http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/

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Darwin Ports
http://darwinports.opendarwin.org/getdp/

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MozoDojo - Photo Mosaic
http://ktd.club.fr/programmation/mozodojo_en.php

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Remote Control Mac
http://astroflowersoftware.com/

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FFMpeg
http://mac.softpedia.com/progDownload/ffmpegX-x-r-Download-4287.html

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EavesDrop
http://www.baurhome.net/software/

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Ebay Auction Seive
http://www.auctionsieve.com/download/

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Thanks for all the links... Here's another question then... You mentioned the new macs being able to run windows and linux. Is there a way to run the mac os on a windows machine through vmware or something similar? I have a win machine right now with vmware setup, and have various win os's installed in there. I even have a seperate machine that is a linux server, so I could run the mac os on that one if not on the windows one.

I figure this way I can at least get some familiarity with the mac os through usage as opposed to strictly reading and trying to understand.

Thanks.

It's possible to do it directly without a VM but it's not recommended. VMWare has a package that runs on Mac hardware, but Apple hasn't sanctioned running OS X on any other hardware. The sheer variety of PC hardware out there is in part what gives Windows and Linux users so much trouble at times, so Apple hasn't wanted (for that reason and probably others) to make that leap.

Thanks for the response. I understand that the hardware varies from mac to pc... and realize that mac os wouldn't have the drivers to support the hardware in a regular pc. But I guess the only thing I want to get out of this is to learn the mac os... be able to feel it out, see the options, and roam around trying to understand it so that I can, if needed, be able to assist users with the software portion of their macs.

I have been doing some research, and came across some sites showing how to install leopard on a windows machine... however, all these instructions seem to include some sort of a patch. Don't know what the pros/cons are for this patch, but really just wanted to see if it was possible, and if it would be worth doing to learn the OS.... as spending well over $1000 is not feasible for me, I can purchase the OS 10.5 leopard from Amazon for under $100. This is why I'm trying to see what all my options are.

Thanks...

You can get a Mac Mini for under $500. My wife has a PPC mini and it works very well. You can get a referb for even less. I have found that generally, they are of pretty good quality, especailly if they are bought through the Apple store. Even a model from 3 years ago would work with Leapard and be reasonably responsive.

Have a look at eBay (or another favourite auction site) and see what 2nd hand machines are on there. Even the old 400MHz G4's still run OS X 10.4 anda few apps with ease, so anything you want to do, you can do on those. It's a nice cheaper way out of it for a bit of a test.

I would get a Mac mini too, you will want an intel based machine anyways, you cal also try referb from apple if you need to save a bit, students and government employees also receive a discount (about 5-10%)

As for learning how to fix them, well i say get a Mac and go on the Mac forums (i like maclife, but benno32 listed plenty too), and try to help people there, that will give you an idea of what the common problems are. Since OSX has a UNIX base, its also helpful to know some BSD or Linux stuff and know your way around the command line

As for what the common problems, well its either hardware (if they say they have a kernel panic), then it needs either new RAM or a hard drive, for software problems run diskutility and repair permissions, get DiskWarrior to fix any filesystem corruption, most of the other crashing boils down to a corrupted file (often a .plist file somewhere) or some old piece of software somewhere thats incompatible, for everything else google and ask on the forums

@Catacaustic: Yeah.. I've already checked Ebay, but my concern is that I've found users not always saying what's wrong, and I'd rather not have to deal with the hassle of getting a used one that ends up not working and having it to send it back or whatnot. The new ones on ebay are still slightly out of my price range.

@edman:
Thanks... I looked through the refurbished products previously, but all they had in regards to the mac mini was the care plan. Didn't actually see any refurbished mac minis. But I'll keep checking back there periodically.

I have been learning Linux (Fedora) for several years now, so think I'm comfortable in that area. I'll also take a look at that forum as well.

Just not sure if I can afford one yet, but my birthday's coming up, so maybe I can try and convince someone to buy me one.... Any takers on here?

Thanks again.

Edit: The standard mac mini for $599 on the apple site is without keyboard/mouse/monitor/etc.... can I use a standard PC keyboard/mouse... as well as a regular CRT Monitor? Or are there different ports on the macs?

standard PC keyboard/mouse will work, you may need an adapter for VGA (check the specs, i don't know if it comes with the VGA adapter)