I don't recall the last time I even had a firewall turned on my Mac.

WarDriverJ:

You really should turn your firewall on, especially if you are connected to a network or a have a persistent internet connection — but it's a good practice regardless and rarely interferes with any networking requirements. (In fact, I don't think I've ever had any difficulty with any networking protocols or devices with my firewall enabled.) While it's true that Macs are more secure by default (as they don't broadcast their existence over a network or the internet), it doesn't make them completely immune from someone who knows you're out there already. It's just a bit of insurance against network-based attacks. Another good practice, unless you really need it, is to disable AppleTalk and any service you aren't using.

chrish:

You're right about the price of Apple's RAM. They charge a premium — and they are usually high-quality sticks — but it's pretty easy to change the RAM and save a few bucks. Because the installed 1GB is divided into two 512MB sticks, to bring the MacBook up to 2GB requires a purchase of two 1GB sticks ($66 at datamem.com) or to max out the new model to 4GB requires a purchase of two 2GB sticks ($144 at datamem.com). So, for the price of the Apple memory for 2GB, one can purchase twice as much memory from another source. I've purchased memory from Data Memory Systems (datamem.com) on a few occasions, and they have outstanding customer support if you happen to have a problem. (I only ever had one problem regarding a purchase, and it turned out that it wasn't the RAM but a problem with the computer into which I was installing the memory. Even so, they provided me with an RMA label and rushed delivery of a new RAM set at no charge.)

bloodyrose:

Even with your graphic design interests, I think you can get excellent performance with the MacBook — just expand the RAM to 2GB (or 4GB with the newest models, and since the new OS uses more system resources that may not be a bad idea). The casing is durable and many people prefer it to the brushed aluminum. (The plastic is high-quality but can warp slightly over time from the heat output, while the metal casing is more prone to denting and marring in general — but if you treat your machine with the care that any $1100 – $2800 piece of equipment deserves, you'll be fine either way.)

Regarding software, pretty much anything you'll need you'll be able to find — from office suites to database systems to accounting software. As chrish pointed out, you can run Linux software (which is often ported to OS X, for the more popular software anyway). The only real drawback is in gaming, where developers remain reluctant to port their software to Mac OS X — despite that the hardware architecture is Intel-based now. There are several popular games for Mac, including World of Warcraft (and, no, I don't play), but if you're the sort of person who loves to keep on the cutting edge of gaming, you would likely need to run Windows on your Mac... excuse me, I nearly vomited a bit. Mac OS X includes BootCamp, a component that allows you to install Windows (for which you'll need to purchase a licensed copy from Microsoft) and run it natively (without running it through a virtual machine). Doing so on the MacBook Pro would be the best likelihood of being able to play the newest 3D games with the best performance (thanks to the better video card and dedicated, greater memory). Just boot into Windows to play your game, then restart and boot into OS X to do everything else. (Since you generally cannot do anything else while playing a game anyway, there is no real inconvenience in restarting.)

my company that i work for uses macs. always having problems wiht it.. i personally would stick to some type of ibm product

Mac is great if all you want to do with your computer is surf the 'net, word process, spreadsheet, music, etc.

Mac is not good for gaming and other nerdy ventures.

I'll agree with you, Wiltard, to a point.

As you stated, Macs are outstanding for anyone who does common computing — web, e-mail, instant messaging, video conferencing, music management, photo management, watching movies, use of office applications (word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, finance, etc.), graphic design & illustration, sound production/recording/editing, movie production & editing, 3D generation, web authoring/design/development, various networking tasks, and so forth.

You are also correct that Macs have fewer gaming opportunities, not because the system itself is incapable of accommodating intensive gameplay but because game developers have an aversion to porting their titles to the Mac platform (which they consider to be a wise business move, though I'm not so sure — with Mac market share having reached somewhere over 7% by mid-2007 that would translate into a significant number of software units sold). Because Macs can run Windows in various ways — including natively via Boot Camp — and because many Mac models have sufficiently high-quality graphics cards, gaming is not a serious limitation for most Mac users.

The point on which I disagree with you is that Macs are not good for other "nerdy" ventures. Because Macs have a full Unix core, computer users who consider themselves to be hardcore power users can perform pretty much any task they wish on any other *nix system. That gives Mac users (who are so inclined) much more control than Windows users have, though equal control to most Unix/Linux users, including the ability to build, install, configure, and tweak software packages for *nix systems (though perhaps requiring X11 or some other interface for such packages to be used effectively). Programmers for Windows would need to install Windows (probably a native install under Boot Camp) to do what they would need, but programmers for Mac, Unix, or Linux should be able to what they need pretty easily (though *nix programmers would probably need to install any OS versions for which they develop for effective development and testing, either through Boot Camp or a virtual machine like VMWare Fusion).