The Big Switch (PC -> Mac)

[Mccree]

Originally Posted by octothorp

1: I've got a WD drive that I use with my Mac; however, if you've been backing up your PC through a specific software application, you may not be able to 'restore' your files to the Mac; it would depend on how the files are saved on the portable drive. When you look in the drive, can you see the actual folders and files? If so, just drag them to a folder in your Mac. If not, you may need to copy the files from your PC onto your drive by dragging them (not using the 'backup' functionality), and then dragging them off onto your Mac.

2: Senuti is a great program for music file management: it lets you get around all of the file protection issues that iTunes has.

3: Yes, you can share files between Macs and PCs; it would involve hooking both up to the same network, setting the folder on the PC to be shared (which involves giving it a name), and then from the Mac, Connect to Server and type the IP address of the PC, as well as the name you gave the folder. If you're going to be going back and forth between the machines a lot, I recommend this. If you're doing a one-time transfer, I recommend just doing it with your portable drive.

Thanks I will try these at home tonight.

[Canuck-Hater]

I just recently bought a macbook pro and its very nice. User friendly, quick, and efficient. The one problem I have, which Im sure I can work around, is that I cant install call of duty 4 on a mac. Is there a way I can use and install windows software? I tried installing virtual pc 7 but that didnt work because it wasnt compatible with OSX 10.5 So what gives?

[llama64]

http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/

This can run Windows in a VM with Direct X 9 acceleration. Not sure how it performs though.

Otherwise, you want to look into Bootcamp: http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/bootcamp.html

Basically dual boots your computer with OS X on one partition, Windows on the other.

[Canuck-Hater]

Since i have osx leopard, I also have bootcamp. Glad I found it because I almost thought I had to buy it.

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by fotze

I'm thinking of making the switch, this old piece of crap Acer is starting to piss me off, power cord barely works, the DVD drive doesn't eject the discs.

What MAc should I get. Pretty much the only thing it will be used for is browsing and photo stuff and I actually like iTunes. What price am I looking at? Should I wait for that cool looking flat thing?

Are you looking at a laptop or a desktop? If a laptop, definitely avoid the white macbooks; they're still available on the apple site and they're cheaper than the new aluminum design, but the casing is seriously flawed. Also, I'd discourage getting the Air. It's super-light and sleek, but the lack of a disk drive is annoying, as is the lack of external connections. Also, it's wireless signal is really weak compared with the Macbooks; my wife has one, and when we're travelling I'm always able to find wireless networks that her laptop can't find. From the sounds of it, the Macbook Pro would probably be more high-end than what you need. That leaves the aluminum unibody Macbooks.

If you're looking at a desktop and you already have good peripherals (screen, keyboard, etc.) from your PC, consider the Mini. Unless you're doing serious graphics or gaming, it should be able to handle everything you're looking at doing. I don't have any experience with the iMac's, so I can't comment on them.

[Russic]

Originally Posted by fotze

I'm thinking of making the switch, this old piece of crap Acer is starting to piss me off, power cord barely works, the DVD drive doesn't eject the discs.

What MAc should I get. Pretty much the only thing it will be used for is browsing and photo stuff and I actually like iTunes. What price am I looking at? Should I wait for that cool looking flat thing?

Hilarious. My Acer was the driving force behind me switching too!

If a laptop isn't a huge priority for you I'd recommend the base model iMac. The screens are really nice and photos look phenomenal on them.

http://store.apple.com/ca/browse/hom...ac?mco=MTE2NjM

If you go to University or College (or know somebody that does) you could probably get a little knocked off the price too.

The mac mini is also a legit option if you already have a nice monitor hanging around (or if you just want to plug into an hdtv).

As for the cool looking flat thing, I've been hearing rumours of the impending tablet for over a year now. Not that it isn't coming, but I would bet that it'd be more likely we see a little $999 netbook first. If that tickles your fancy, maybe wait for the next big Apple announcement. If not, I still recommend the 20 inch imac.

[Gallick]

If you have any questions whatsoever, the best place to go is The Apple Store in Market Mall. The staff there is phenomenal.

http://www.apple.com/ca/retail/marketmall/ If you are looking to pick anything up, or even if you just have a bunch of questions, book yourself a personal shopping appointment--it's free, and there is no obligation to buy anything, but they can answer all of your questions and spend as much time with you as you need.

The store also has free workshops you can sign up for, including a weekly PC-to-Mac switcher workshop.

[llama64]

Originally Posted by fotze

I'm thinking of making the switch, this old piece of crap Acer is starting to piss me off, power cord barely works, the DVD drive doesn't eject the discs.

What MAc should I get. Pretty much the only thing it will be used for is browsing and photo stuff and I actually like iTunes. What price am I looking at? Should I wait for that cool looking flat thing?

If you don't care about looks or top of the line performance, the $1100 white Macbook is a great machine. Mine is over 2 years old, still ticking away with only a minor case crack demonstrating it's age. Otherwise, looks and performs as if new.

You can probably find a used one in the neighborhood of 500-600$.

I upgraded to a new Macbook Pro a week ago as I needed more power then my old one. Spent ~$2200 on it (base line, no upgrades) and so far I'm pretty dang happy with it.

There are a few rumors out there that Apple will be revamping their Macbook line a bit to accomodate the surge in popularity of Netbooks. Wouldn't be too surprised to see a laptop priced in the vicinity of a Mac Mini before the end of the year. Apple focusses on the high end market mostly, but I think they are realizing they are missing out on a rather lucrative netbook market.

[Mccree]

Ok so I made the switch about a week ago. Transfered everything over and now I am using "time machine" to back up. Question is. How do I know it is working? How do i ensure everything is getting back up?

Also does anyone know how to make the "faces" feature work better. On some photos of my kids it detects a shoe. On photos of my buddy it detects a dog and some photos it does not detect anything.

One more question.. Any tricks? I have 20" desktop.

[HotHotHeat]

The face recognition feature gets better. Make sure the face you use to tell the computer it's a certain person is clear and head on...A passport photoish looking shot.

You can go into time machine and look at it while it's still uploading. It works though, don't worry.

[Igottago]

If you are in the market for a mac check out the refurbished products on apple's website. I got a macbook from there (and an Ipod before too) at a pretty significant discount, and it pretty much seems brand new, works fine, and comes with the exact same warranty as new ones.

[Russic]

Originally Posted by Mccree

Ok so I made the switch about a week ago. Transfered everything over and now I am using "time machine" to back up. Question is. How do I know it is working? How do i ensure everything is getting back up?

Also does anyone know how to make the "faces" feature work better. On some photos of my kids it detects a shoe. On photos of my buddy it detects a dog and some photos it does not detect anything.

One more question.. Any tricks? I have 20" desktop.

Just click on the time machine icon in your dock (icon looks like this)



and it should take you into time machine. You'll know when you're in because you'll get motion sick! Just use the slider on the left side of the screen and you'll be able to see your system at different dates.

Currently my backup drive is full, so if things aren't working you would be getting hourly notices that something isn't right.

As mentioned before, faces needs to see a bunch of photos to "learn" the face. It gets confused by things such as sunglasses, tilted heads or side shots.

If you're looking for tricks I always recommend Quicksilver. The learning curve is not particularly gentle, but if you use it consistently for a couple weeks it can become a very powerful part of your arsenal.

Here is a beginners guide: http://foxyurl.com/2Eo

Here is a handy list: http://foxyurl.com/2Eq

[RougeUnderoos]

For Sale: a collection of ties and a 10 pack of combs from Zellers (9 combs remaining). Willing to trade for hip sneakers.

I made the switch and it was pretty simple. I've got one question. I'm using firefox (that Safari thing stinks) but it won't give me the nifty little logos in the "bookmarks bar" (below the address but above the tabs) that I get on my PC.

I want those little logos instead of the word.

[Mccree]

More questions

My wife wants to "edit" our movies. We have a Sony DVD camcorder that uses those mini DVD disks. Can we use those on the imac? Will the format work in imovie or idvd? If not how do we make them work?

How do I rip my movie DVD's to th imac and stream it to my PS3? We would like to be able to stream the DVD's created above as well as actual movie DVD's that we purchased.

Thanks.

[RougeUnderoos]

I've finally come across the dreaded "mac stuff costs a lot" phenomenon and I'm not happy.

I want to buy an adapter cord that will let my mac plug into my Samsung monitor, so I went to the Mac dealer and the damn thing was 30 bucks. It's like a 3 inch cord and (besides being white) doesn't look any different, substantial or more expensive to produce than those seemingly random wires and plugsthat you get in a plastic bag with a new PC and never open.

Much ike the power cord, the thing looks pretty damn flimsy and maybe even designed to be bought again in a year or so if there is the slightest rough use.

A 10 foot long PC monitor cable at memoryexpress is 13 bucks. Not an option obviously, but still.

[Winsor_Pilates]

I made the switch about 4 years ago with the 12" ibook G4.
Today, my next 2nd MAC finally arrived which is the 2.4ghz aluminum macbook. It's in Van, and I'm in Kelowna so I won't get to see it until tomorrow night; I'm very excited.

Yes, they are expensive but considering the one I'm typing on now has lasted me 4 years with almost no problems, it's worth the $$. I'm hopefull the next one will last me like this too.

The only major issue I have found since being a Mac, is that MLS does not run on anything buy Internet Explorer. As a realtor, this is a major pain. This is the main reason I just bought a new mac which will allow me to run windows and IE when I need to. My old Mac was pre-this ability.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

I made the switch about 4 years ago with the 12" ibook G4.
Today, my next 2nd MAC finally arrived which is the 2.4ghz aluminum macbook. It's in Van, and I'm in Kelowna so I won't get to see it until tomorrow night; I'm very excited.

Yes, they are expensive but considering the one I'm typing on now has lasted me 4 years with almost no problems, it's worth the $$. I'm hopefull the next one will last me like this too.

The only major issue I have found since being a Mac, is that MLS does not run on anything buy Internet Explorer. As a realtor, this is a major pain. This is the main reason I just bought a new mac which will allow me to run windows and IE when I need to. My old Mac was pre-this ability.

I'm not really griping about the price of the computer or the quality, but the price of the accessories. This monitor adapter is practically nothing and it costs 30 dollars. It just seems ridiculous to me. They damn near give this kind of thing away with PCs and it is a lot more robust than the Mac trinkets.

I've got a Dell laptop for work and I could run the power cord over with a bus and I think it would still work. I nearly ran over the end of my Mac power cord with my chair today and probably would have had to replace the thing for a hundred bucks.

Bla bla bla -- doesn't anyone make knockoffs of this Mac stuff?

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

I made the switch about 4 years ago with the 12" ibook G4.
Today, my next 2nd MAC finally arrived which is the 2.4ghz aluminum macbook. It's in Van, and I'm in Kelowna so I won't get to see it until tomorrow night; I'm very excited.

Yes, they are expensive but considering the one I'm typing on now has lasted me 4 years with almost no problems, it's worth the $$. I'm hopefull the next one will last me like this too.

The only major issue I have found since being a Mac, is that MLS does not run on anything buy Internet Explorer. As a realtor, this is a major pain. This is the main reason I just bought a new mac which will allow me to run windows and IE when I need to. My old Mac was pre-this ability.

VMWare Fusion didn't work on the old Macs?

[McG]

this is a great thread and i never thought that i would post in it...but here goes.

I am a die hard PC guy...and that isn't going to change any time soon. it is just the way that it is. however...given this approach, i have generally not spent any time following affaires d'apple. and now i am looking for a little cp wisdom. truthfully, i'm embarrassed to be asking such ridiculous apple questions because i live and breathe on the pc platform. in fact...i have been a "friends and family" helpdesk for years and years which i am hoping to move away from.

My 17 year old is starting university in the fall. We all know about apples on campus and the "cool thing" but this is about functionality. she doesn't need to be a star on the computer...she just needs the darn thing to work. so, for her...assuming portability, what does she really need? if i said 15" laptop to start...i see quite a few options. what would a student need? i can see that i need to buy mac office it looks like...but what other software does a guy need out of the gate? any recommendations?

also, can this laptop coexist on my home network? i have a windows home server that is awesome...and of course the other computers connect to that. but will the apple? will it play xvid/.avi files?

now the tricky part. i have about 3 seniors all waiting for what i find out about the apple for my daughter. i get the fact that apples are super duper easy to work with especially if you don't need all of the funky stuff that gives folk grief on windows. so, would the same specs apply for the seniors as the student's gear? secondly, am i about to relinquish my role as friends and family helpdesk support? i am quite reluctant to help acquire a platform that i can't support over the phone. if anyone has any seniors stories that they are able to share...i am most interested. the seniors in particular are limited in what they want to do...its the usual basic stuff...email, pictures, browsing, the occasional computer game, and banking...the usual stuff. my gut tells me that the apple is right in that niche spot. am i right?

thanks to everyone...and very sorry for jumping in.

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

I'm not really griping about the price of the computer or the quality, but the price of the accessories. This monitor adapter is practically nothing and it costs 30 dollars. It just seems ridiculous to me. They damn near give this kind of thing away with PCs and it is a lot more robust than the Mac trinkets.

I've got a Dell laptop for work and I could run the power cord over with a bus and I think it would still work. I nearly ran over the end of my Mac power cord with my chair today and probably would have had to replace the thing for a hundred bucks.

Bla bla bla -- doesn't anyone make knockoffs of this Mac stuff?

You can buy mini dvi or display port adapters on monoprice.com. I have mini dvi to HDMI from them.

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

VMWare Fusion didn't work on the old Macs?

Not Power PC based ones.