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I suppose I'm wondering "how much would I need to run back to the PC for certain tasks". Silly things like TmpgEnc and MSN Messenger etc.

Adium will supper MSN messenger, I'm fairly sure. TmpgEnc I'm not so sure about, as I've never used it. I use ffmpeg on a linux server for my video encoding needs, but they're a specific, daily scripted kind of thing. FFmpeg would run on osx, along with just about any other command line unix program. If you're looking to transcode DVDs, I'm sure it's possible.

I havn't encountered a "normal computing need" that can't be done on a mac. If you insist that email has to be read in eudora, then you might have a problem. If your company insists you run lotus notes, then you might have a problem. If there aren't any specific applications you have to have, and you just want to accomplish tasks, the likelyhood that you can find a task that can't be accomplished is minimal.

Matthew