for computer geeks
Jeff,
There is another option available, if you want to try installing Linux on your computer. You can put it on a seperate partition, without affecting the existing install of Mac OS assuming you have enough disk space (3 or more gigabytes).
There are at least 3 different Windows emulators available for Linux, with one (Wine) you can run Windows programs within Linux and with others (Qemu and VmWare) you can boot a Windows system inside of Linux just like VirtualPC.
I recommend Ubuntu Linux as the most user-friendly system.
It may even be possible to run one or all of these 3 programs in Mac OSX, I'm not sure. I know Qemu can, you might want to look into that first. These are all open-source programs, and free.