Apple Survival

I understand (from Apple advertisements, actually) that Apple is now the favorite college campus laptop. I think that's great. I have two Apples and love them, but if you have one, you need to be aware of some basic politics and/or technical issues.

Though Apple might be very popular among students, most campuses are run like big businesses, and have a very hard time ignoring Microsoft's clout. This means that many campus services are set up to work best with Windows and Internet Explorer (things like email, course download sites, etc.). To make things worse, apparently the newest Apple operating system (the one that's been out since October 2007) is different enough from the previous one that it simply doesn't work with some of these Microsoft sites. What to do?

• Until recently, I would have recommended Firefox as a web browser, but it has trouble with PDF files (screen shots of printed pages). You should try Safari, Apple's built-in browser, first (and ignore warning messages about unsupported browsers). If you have trouble, you can always get Firefox. It's a free, stable download.
• One of my college servers refuses to accept uploads from the newest Apple operating system, so I use a third-party uploader called Cyberduck.
• Many of your professors still think that DOC and DOCX files are some sort of universal file format. They aren't, but you probably shouldn't tell the prof that. Instead, you can open them using TextEdit, iWork or NeoOffice. If you have to send anything TO these professors, make sure it's either a DOC or an RTF file.
• Of course, if you're having trouble getting your Apple to talk to the University, you could simply go to a writing lab and use one of their machines.
• You could simply buy a copy of the Windows operating system and set up your Apple as a dual-boot machine. I'd call this a last-resort answer because it costs money—and you'll have to invest in an anti-virus program and download an anti-spyware program too (because Windows is so vulnerable to those problems).

BTW: If you ever do a website of your own, please make it standard HTML, not something that requires the rest of us to buy a specific piece of equipment.