Suggestions Please, What hardware/software Options

[BobAdamson]

Hello musicmakers,

I have a few questions before I get into the meat of the subject. I am a long time Mac user (][e). My wife has a 17" Powerbook. My kids all have iMacs or Ibooks. The house is wireless. I purchased iLife to play around with GarageBand. Just as I was starting to get into it, my wife complains that she can no longer get on her Mac. See, I have my office at home and unfortunately, MY computer is a Dell. So, to keep the peace (and avoid buying another Mac for now), can anyone suggest something that might work well (I know that is redundant) on Windows?

I am a long time amatuer guitarist/keyboardist/singer/songwriter. My wife is a teacher. What I want is some kind of setup that allows me to record a few back up tracks to accompany live playing. It doesn't have to be elaborate, but I might want to do more than that, who knows? So, any suggestions?

[Jaysee]

re the mac vs PC argument....... I think one problem is that Joe Public has had it thrust down their throats that the only yardstick with which to judge the power of a computer is the fairly meaningless umpteen Mega/Gigahertz processor speed. I told a bigoted PC owning friend recently that my next computer would be a 1.8 GigaHertz dual mac, he came on with the "my Dads bigger than your Dad" routine and pointed out that his PC was twice as 'powerful'. Until the public are educated that this point of view is erroneous, they'll be prey to the silly adverts purporting to show the PC's superior 'power', and making mr Gates ever richer. Look at how outraged and irate the PC market became over Apples promotion of the G5 'fastest computer on the planet' claim. Maybe when G5s get up to the promised 3 Gigahertz mark by the end of the year there might be a few more converts. Another common reason I get all the time from pitying PC owners is the macs 'one button mouse'. It doest boither me but maybe that should be addressed by apple as standard issue, just to woo people to cross the PC to mac bridge.