There are a ton of resources far better qualified than I, my primary primate friend. The Apple site has a wonderful, searchable datbase along with discussion boards covering everything from soup to nuts like me.

The best guidance I can offer those in the decision process of coming into the light is to determine exactly what your priorities are for using the computer.

From there, determine which of the horrid PC programs absolutely must come along, and contact those software providers directly about compatibility.

A Mac can be partitioned to act like both (only far more intelligently even for the PC apps), so you can literally have the two operating systems on one hard drive.

All Macs come installed with the fully integrated software to do anything a PC can do (better and easier) and you only build on that. I literally mean that you can turn it on, give it a name, and be using it in five minutes. In the following 5 minutes you can be checking your email, surfing a website, making a photo slideshow and checking the international weather all at the same time with no troubles. Might as well listen to some tunes while you're at it, no problem.

As far as networking goes, it is much too subjective a question for any responsible adult to try and answer without physical knowledge of the whole network scheme.

The short answer is, it can be done. The bad news is, not everyone is willing or able to make the needed accommodations if there are any. If it's just Wi-Fi, you're golden.