1. Security
2. Numbers is nicer for producing charts and graphs.
3. Keynote is better for presentations.

The last two are particularly good for sociologists I would think.

I’m a mac user. I got one in a fit of technolust a couple of years ago and ended up noticing all the things that xp did that osx wasn’t doing quite as well (at least it wasn’t fitting the workflow that I’d become accustomed to. A workflow that had been defined in part by what windows had permitted). I won’t go into a lot of details in order to avoid a flamewar (I’ll mention 2 examples at the end just for fun). However, recently I became tired of using Parallels because it’s such a resource hog (not it’s fault, just the fact of running 2 OS’s side by side) and decided to make a concerted effort to go All Mac. And then I was able to understand why the Mac is a better platform.

The Mac has a different philosophy to it. One of unification. All tasks and s/w can connect naturally to others.

Applescript and Automator are the epitome of this. If you want proof of platform productivity these tools are it. These things are impossible on Windows. It’s actually been quite eye opening for me to begin to have a whole new relationship with my laptop. And I should add that I’ve been a developer for 6 years so I’m not computer illiterate.

That said, there’s no browser for OSX that is half as good as Firefox on xp. The extensions for FF are fantastic. Also, there’s still some s/w that has better tools for windows than osx (Salesforce for one).

Good Luck. Get the MacBookAir and make us all jealous. Overpriced but gorgeous!

How to justify the purchase of a more-expensive Mac? Just put it in terms the higher-ups understand. They are worried about the cost of the computer; if they weren’t they wouldn’t be pushing their contract with IBM. So, what is the potential loss to the university in terms of time, productivity, and effectiveness if your friend were forced to use the IBM, which she is obviously less accustomed to using? My guess is that the Mac pays for itself.

Most universities are pretty open with faculties computer requests, so long as you make purchasing go though the IT department and you stay within the budget.

It might be the case that she’ll only be able to get the money for whatever the windows laptop was going to cost, which given what group rates can do, is probably less than the cost of the mac. So she should be prepared to shell out a few hundred dollars at least. More if she’s going for something big.

I think you say “it’s what I’m most comfortable, and I have important work to do, so by god, do your job so I can do mine” to ornery IT folks, particularly if you have tenure.

If you need to cite applications that you’re currently using. Easy things to mention: it’s easier to run LaTeX under OS X/unix (she should insist that if they don’t get OSX for her, that they should have to get freeBSD working and provide her with support…) heh. There are good qualitative data analysis programs, plus integration with R (an open source stats program) in textmate which might be helpful. If she can say “for x/y/z apps,” that might be helpful.

I’m sorry to report that not all university IT departments are quite so flexible. I currently teach at a university where Windows is all but crammed down the throats of faculty and staff.

To make matters worse, the IT department sends out scare messages about the danger of worms and viruses—which it then uses as justification to bar Macs running Leopard from the university network, because Leopard and the MacOS in general, according to the IT folks here, is known to have so many security problems?!?! (Do I smell kickbacks from Microsoft?)

I called a couple of IT support people to make a case for a Mac, citing LaTeX and a variety of Unix tools. The two people I spoke to had never heard of Unix. So I avoid the horrid XP by running Linux from an external hard drive on the sly.

Sorry to be a doomsayer here. I wish your friend better luck. But watch out for universities where administrations that don’t know better think it will save money and time to force the entire university to run a single platform.