Mac Forums

For someone to start learning web design with the intention of becoming an expert, is it better to use a Mac computer or to use a PC? I'm now using a Mac Powerbook with OS X, but I noticed Microsoft's website states no Mac versions of IE are planned. Thanks.

You can purchase a decent Intel-based Mac and it will run Windows either natively (using Boot Camp) or via emulator (Virtual PC).

Which computer you use depends on your comfort level. Most graphic designers prefer Mac for a number of reasons. I have found that if you're going to work with design houses, such as those that produce printed collateral, it makes sense to at least own a Mac to work with their materials.

So, I guess I'm saying, as a practical matter, Mac makes the most sense if you don't intend to write executable programs (DLLs, etc), which it sounds like you have no interest in doing.

you can stick with your mac, but you'll want to test your sites in safari, opera, firefox. The problem browsers are IE 6 and 7 on windows (even tho I design in a windows environment I have a mac for testing)

You can run windows on your mac using Parallels Desktop (http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop). I use that to browser test on Windows.

Honestly Rerite,

I would say that you could use either. I learned in college on a MAC, and it really does a good job of catering to the creative web-techie type crowd. However, much of the business world is run by PC users. I currently own a Dell and I love it. If you get either, you'd just want to make sure that you have the right amount of storage and media tools that you need to develop websites. I'd say, if you planned on developing websites for a living, you'll definitely need Dreamweaver, Photoshop, a decent statistic tracker (Statcounter.com) and have a fair amount of knowledge about hosting, javascript and some sort of programming language (Coldfusion,ASP,etc.), regardless of which type of computer you go with.

Good Luck!