My College (West Virginia Wesleyan College) just invested in a whole lab full of new PowerMac G5 desktops for our Art Department....What I have found, is that a Mac is excellent for Art/Vis Art work, and our professors agree, since they nearly all own or use Macs on a daily basis, and we're a Dell sponored school, so that should say something in itself....Once your daughter gets to school, it does get rediculous with virii off school networks from other students, to the point of losing all work and having problems due to that...as you said, this first year is crucial...Personally, if I was doing it again, I would have bought my PB a little sooner and saved myself a "English 102-missing term paper from crashed HD" incident, and now will consider safety BEFORE any computer purchase...I'd advise you to look into the Powerbook line, as any current machine will hold its performance and value over time (If she wants to upgrade later, the powerbook line holds its financial value VERY well...much better than PCs.....after 3 years, you can most likely still get at least half of the original purchase price, whereas PCs lose much, much more than that)
There is a reason that most professional musicians, photographers, and movie producers use Macs...they are simply KNOWN for their excellent stability with crucial and demanding work! The incident cited by a member above was a secondary testimonial...we have no idea whether the machines his wife worked with were newer/better equiped to handle that demanding software, or, in the most likely case, had more than 256/512mb of memory, which is an absolute must w/o even considering the computer platform....
You may take this testimonial for what it is...
Thanks,
Justin
WVWC Sophomore