Yes folks, I hate to break any of you PCs hearts, but after thinking about it for the last couple of years and finally having a network setup and having to wait for Windows to wet it's self while I just want it to do what I've set it up to do, I think it's time to make a major change to a vital piece of my home's technology. I'm going Mac!

However as I make this scary and daunting leap, I have questions. A TONS of questions! Maybe some of you guys can help me out...

1) Lazarus on the Mac. Whats the deal? I assume it'll function just like it does on Windows and Linux, no? Does it take some extra special setup for doing applications that use the GUI?

2) Is the i7 all that worth getting over an i5? Dual vs Quad? What level is all the software at now? What's worth it and what's not? What will still feel seamless in a couple of years?

3) How many 'dumb dumb' features are there that I'll have to fight? Compared to say oh... Windows.

4) Memory. Geez, I remember when I only had 2MB of RAM on my old 386... I have 2 GB on my current system which is a Celeron M. (And that's as good as she'll get.) 4 - 16 GB are what I'm offered now. Whats a good happy standard for most things these days? How easy/hard/expensive is it to upgrade later?

5) BluRay. Ok call me a picky Peter, but why don't I see options to have this put into a new Mac? I mean common, it's a 27" screen.

6) What will SC2 work on? Ok, maybe that one is too soon, but I'm probably going to be playing it on the Mac primarily though.

MSN. I have an MSN account which I talk to some of you guys on. Whats the best alternative to this Windows-based app?

9) Bootcamp, VMWare, etc... Which is the best and most seamless for running a Windows instance? Though I'm moving to Mac, I still want to develop for Win32/64 + Linux as well. I really like the idea of the one where you can run BOTH at the same time. That's pretty sweet.

10) What types of apps, that don't come out of the box do you guys recommend? Considering I do video editing, play music (MP3), watch movies (divx/xvid, DVD, BluRay), photo editing and so on.

I may need to replace:

- Windows Media Player
- WinAmp
- Photoshop 7 (lol I know, probably will tell me to use GIMP)
- Windows Live Messenger
- WinRAR
- Azureus Vuze
- Nero Burning Rom

Really I think that's it for now, a lot of what I use for development and other tools is all open source and has a Mac port too. Well anyhow if you guys can answer these I guess all I need to know is how much this new monster will cost and when I'll get it.