I need a hand. My family and I decided to get my dad a computer for Christmas. He doesn't use it to do a lot of stuff, email, online poker, that sort of thing. He's not the most computer literate though so every time a pop up shows up he'll click ok to get rid of it and by the time my brother or I have a look at his computer its got more spyware I thought could be possible.

So we hemmed and hawed and decided to get him an iMac. What we didn't know is that he had bought a program that he wants to use for trading. It's worth quite a bit of money so if he can't use it on the Mac I'm gonna have to take it back and have a Desktop PC made for him.

I think this is the program he has. As far as I know there is no Mac support but I have heard that Macs can emulate PCs if you have a full version of Windows. So if its feasible then maybe we'll go this way... but I need to find out soon. If I'm going to return the iMac it has to be in a couple days time.

What can you guys tell me?

You can snag a copy of Parallels Desktop

http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/

That should get you around the whole PC vs Mac thing

You can do a few things. Both will require a full copy of Windows XP or Vista.

1) Since it's a new iMac, it can dual-boot into both Windows and OS X. So when you first turn on the computer, you pick which OS you want to use.

2) Get OS virtualization software. Parallels (http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/) or VMWare (http://www.vmware.com/). Then he can run OSX and Windows simultaneously. This is mostly what I do.

Upside of #1: Windows runs faster. It's cheaper than option 2.
Downside of #1: Changing OS requires a reboot.

Upside of #2: You don't have to keep rebooting your computer to change OS. Looks really damn awesome.
Downside of #2: Windows won't quite run at full speed. Some graphics-heavy games don't work.

You have three options:
1) http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/bootcamp.html -- Basically, all recent Mac can run Windows. This makes it easier to have Windows installed. You'll run OSX most of the time, then reboot into Windows to run the app.
2 and 3) Virtualization. You run Windows in a...window while running OSX. Your options here are http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/ or http://vmware.com/products/fusion/

Now be careful with option 1 and your father. It'll be pretty easy for him to get Windows infected as he'll likely just reboot into Windows, run his app, then also launch web browsers to play online poker.

With options 2 and 3, you have the concept of snapshots. You can 'freeze' the image in a point in time. So, you get the OS installed inside one of these, get all applications installed, get it configured so he DOES NOT RUN AS AN ADMINISTRATOR, and then take a snapshot. If he still manages to get infected, you can return to a known good state with the click of a button. Does this trading application store anything locally or does it just talk to a remote server? If it doesn't store anything locally, have it -always- revert to the snapshot, then once a month go to Windows Update and make a new snapshot.

I have never bothered with windows on my mac, but my understanding is that both options Gleja describes work well.

I was expecting to click this thread and see:

YOU SUCK! HAHAHA! or something. I'm really disappointed, fox.

It isn't a graphics intensive program... and he won't be running games (except for online poker)

But I need a full version of windows as well eh? OK thanks guys!

Online poker...I miss that...stupid prudish hypocritical Americans!

I've never played online poker, but I'm a pretty fair card player in person. What I dont understand is- poker is SO much about reading your opponents and the interaction at the table- Online is it really just reduced to a number crunching probability game?

Oh yeah, it's nowhere near as good online. Still, it's fun and a good way to at least get more of an intuitive feel for the probabilities. Playing online definitely helped me with my RL games.

However, since the USG cracked down on online poker about a year and a half ago, it's far too difficult to make the monetary transactions, so I gave up.

Good thing I live in Germany. Yeah, after I posted that and thought about what I said, it would seem that its a good tool to sharpen that number crunching. It kinda isolates that part of the game and I can see how that you could use that to your advantage in real games.

I gave the online poker thing a fair shot (before the "big brother" smack down) and I just can't do it. The point of view I came away with from my online experience was it's not unlike having sex online... at the end of the day you're really just jerking off.

I stick to rounding private games and casinos... live and in person is the only way to fly

Sadly my poker career has been suffering lately for a number of reason, however I'm trying to get back in the swing of things. Speaking of which I'm starting up my regular poker parties again. If anyone is interested and lives in/around the Memphis TN area give me a shout… the more the merrier :)