[I go and design a nice new Apple Script header for Mr Harris and he puts in a different offering, writers eh! can't win - Darren]
Despite what the marketing types would have us believe, computing, and probably more so Mac computing, is still an expensive business. It’s unfortunate that the people who probably feel the greatest need to get kitted-out are parents of school children, the very people whose budgets can be the tightest.
Ridiculous though it may seem to those of us who though using a Casio calculator / abacus was a forbidden luxury, the fact is that more and more kids use computers for their school projects around which the UK curriculum is heavily based. Poorer parents just cannot keep up with the Joneses and although any good teacher should not allow the difference between the kind of presentation that computer-produced work can provide over that of the hand-written variety, who could argue that it doesn’t look better and that typed, spell-checked, CD-ROM based encyclopaedia or Internet–researched plagiarised content doesn’t have the upper hand?
It’s back to the haves and the have-nots. It ain’t fair.
So the purpose of the article is to provide some pointers on how to get into Mac computing cheaper, without sacrificing on functionality. And as we’re concentrating on the basics, this advice applies to any Mac user.
Hardware 
First–off, hardware. There are numerous places from
which you can buy a brand-new Mac or Mac peripherals
at a bargain price. A lot of the bigger mail-order
companies who regularly advertise in the usual Mac
magazines often have ex-warehouse stock, with damaged
packaging / missing manuals and the like going for a
song. They’re worth checking out.
CAPTION: Bargains galore can be picked up in
clearence sales.
Then there’s the ‘obsolete’ hardware category. The industry moves at such a pace that the cutting-edge products of a few months ago will appear at bargain prices in order to get rid of them. The original iMac at Computer Warehouse is one such example. When it was released it retailed at £999, but now it can be yours for £675 — a saving of about a third.
Shop around and you can find similar bargains. Bundles can be another good way of getting a good deal. Again CW will sell you a scanner (for non-USB Macs) for £57 and will bundle Photoshop 4 for a further £59. Photoshop 4!? It might be a version out of date, but it still blows the socks off rival image–editors and if you want you can upgrade to 5 for a lot less than buying the full version.
If you don’t require the latest and greatest of everything, yesterday’s must-have Macs, printers, scanners, and all manner of other curiosities are sitting on a shelf just waiting for a good home.
However if you’re prepared to forgo the protection that mail–order companies offer for your cash then the classified ads that most UK Mac magazines run are an ideal place to pick up kit.
On the flip-side if you’re a generous, handsome and wealthy Mac user, think of your poor computerless friends the next time you upgrade your Mac and flog them a computer for a token gesture. Not only will you get to offload your old kit easily, but you’ll also bring another Mac user into the fold. On the downside you’ll probably end-up supplying a twenty-four hour support service for the price of a cup of tea, but it could be worse… they could be using one of those other computers…
Software
Software is another issue. Most Macs come bundled with AppleWorks / ClarisWorks which is a brilliant piece of software that does most of the things you’ll ever need easily and intuitively in one package and you can usually pick it up for under £100. However, if you really do need something with that little extra power, there are other places to look.
Firstly, it’s worth mentioning that some software developers who’ve lost out to a certain Seattle-based giant now flog their high-quality wares for a pittance. Nisus is one such company. They’ll sell you the full version of the superb Nisus Writer 5 for about £25 plus postage, or you can download version 4 for free! There’s even a free Compact version for older Macs / laptops.
 
CAPTION: Nisus Writer 5.
A full-featured word processor for
under £50.
The cover CDs of Mac magazines can also be a
treasure trove of goodies. Magazines such as
Macworld and (more so) MacFormat often
supply older versions of really good fully
working software, usually with an offer to
upgrade to the latest version for a pittance.
Over the years I’ve accumulated numerous
‘edutainment’ titles, DTP, graphics and word
processing software in this way.
And then there’s the mountains of shareware on these disks. A lot of shareware tends to be utility stuff, so if you want real applications you may not find what you need, but you’d be surprised what is around and the quality of it.
GraphicConverter is one such surprise. The name is misleading but this superb program can not only convert from and to just about every graphics format imaginable, but is also a decent image editor in its own right. Also recently released is a shareware word processor called LightWayText. It’s got loads of features for £25, or you can use its free cut down relation, the novel iText editor, an iMac-themed word processor.
As always the moral is seek and ye shall find.
Consumables
So you’ve got your Mac, your printer, your software and the kitchen sink, but the costs don’t end there. If you’ve purchased a colour printer and have children then the chances are that they’ll want to print every scanned picture, home-drawn squiggle and page after page from Grolier’s Multimedia Encyclopaedia time after time in glorious Technicolour and have you seen the price of ink cartridges??!
It depends on your printer, but there are alternatives. Some printers can use ink refill kits (a little messy but economical all the same) and for other printers you can pick up ‘compatible’ cartridges for a third of the price. A third! Owl Associates http://www.owlassociates.com/ is one such place.
Ah, I hear you say, but my printer manufacturer advises against the use of such products. Well they would, wouldn’t they? The simple fact is printer manufacturers make most of their money on these consumables — a lot of money — so the cash you’ll save could very soon afford you a brand new printer. Most ink cartridges are little more than sealed boxes with some ink and a few sponges in (pull an old one apart and take a look), although some have the print-head built in, there’s usually a cheaper alternative.
Internet
Finally the Internet is becoming cheaper by the day. The only prohibitive cost now is the phone bill, but usually calls are at a low-rate and sensible, controlled usage shouldn’t amount to much more every quarter.
That coupled to the raft off free ISPs detailed in this issue of 1984 make Internet access about as affordable as it can be.
