Case Student Affairs

I have been a mac user for a really long time and I would never change back, but I do have a few questions about macs on campus. First I had some trouble in high school dealing with powerpoint presentations, whenever I burned the presentation on a disk or put it on a thumb drive and plugged it in on a PC the pictures on my presentations and fonts would never show up. Is there a way to get around this? Second I did not put the windows word, powerpoint, excel suite on my macbook pro. I feel like it is a waste of money since I already have and know how to use Pages, Keynote, and Numbers and that they can save as word docs. Do you think I need to put word, powerpoint, and excel on my macbook pro? Lastly I was wondering if there was any technical support, if needed, for mac users, or if there are any close apple stores to campus. -Lydia (Devoted Mac User)

Your PowerPoint issue could be caused by a number of things. It probably has to do with embedding the appropriate fonts and images in your presentation file. The Case Software Center (http://softwarecenter.case.edu - which is only accessible on-campus on the wired network or off-campus or on Case wireless via the VPN - instructions at http://help.case.edu) offers Office 2008 for OS X for free. It may be useful for one reason or another. I don't have iWork installed on my MacBook Pro, so I can't really speak authoritatively about using it full time in classes. As far as support, our Help Desk vendor, PerceptIS (216-368-HELP) employs some technicians who are adept at solving Mac problems. They also tell me they will be authorized (by Apple) to fix Mac hardware problems within the next two months or so. There is also an Apple store about 20 or 45 minutes away (if you drive or ride the RTA, respectively). Lastly, there is SIGMAC, the Apple users group on at Case: http://sigmac.case.edu