Moving to a Mac

[The Nr Fairy]

I've verbally accepted a job offer where people in my role are issued with Macbooks.

I'm well conversant with PCs and Unix/Linux, and want to get to the same level on Mac fairly quickly. Also, I've got questions about getting the same results from the Mac as I get with my PC (i.e. ripping/playing music, and transferring to my MP3 player, sync with mobile phone, all that sort of stuff).

Anyone got pointers to decent web sites ? I've scanned the Mac corner thread as well but need a bit more help . . .

[Background Noise]

There is a good series of 'Missing Manuals', one of which is a great book for transferring from PC to Mac. You can do almost everything on a Mac that you can on a PC (and more). There are easy ways to transfer (eg contacts etc) from outlook using pragrams like O2M from little machines and the 'missing sync' which allows you to sync from mac to win compatible phone.

However its just as easy to run windows on a modern mac. Leopard comes with a facility to boot into windows. You can also use virtual machine software like parallels which allows windows to run at the same time as the mac OS. (You will have to obtain a copy of windows). So you could continue to use your current windows based music and sync routines or switch totally to mac. If you already use itunes it should be much the same on the mac.

Missing Manuals (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596514129/?CMP=AFC-ak_book&ATT=Switching+to+the+Mac%3A+The+Missing+Manual%2c+Leopard+Ed ition)

Little Machines (http://www.littlemachines.com/)

[The Nr Fairy]

Well, job doesn't start till next Thursday, but we took the plunge and invested in an iMac (ex display from PC World - £30 off !) - "Yes darling, I think it should go on my desk for a bit so I can move everything across from the PC"

Nice - still working around how everything I take for granted on a PC works, how I can keep one copy of MP3 files, but share the library between peeps. Other than that, it's triffic.

[Background Noise]

You can get songs into the library without importing the actual files. I guess you would need the files in some shared drive and individuals imort the ones they want into their libraries. And have them set to rip files into the shared folder. More info maybe when I'm in front of my mac - till then here's the result of a quick search. (There's lots of mac help stuff on the web)

http://forums.macrumors.com/archive/index.php/t-50033.html

Editted to say - Yes there's a setting in preferences that allows you to import the tracks into your library but not actually import the files into your itunes folder. Incidentally, you can access the prefernecs for all mac progs the same way - click the program name in the bar at the top of the screen (it's only there if that window is the active one) and select preferences.

[The Nr Fairy]

Found it, thanks, it's in the "Advanced" piece of the prefs. Nice GUI, responsive system even with only 1Gb (soon to be 3), neat.

Can anyone point me in the direction of a cheap upgrade to Leopard ? It was what was installed when it was in the shop, but I blitzed it and used the Tiger disks in the box instead to reinstall from scratch.

[Background Noise]

I would get on to Apple - if it was sold with Leopard you should have Leopard discs. They supply machines with full discs (as you found) not just recovery discs like most PCs. They were fairly helpful with a friend in similar-ish circumstances. I suppose it was PCWorld who put Leopard on so you could try them - some hope!

What versions of iLife products do have? (iphoto, iDVD, iMovie). Your £30 discount may be outweighed by not getting it from Apple which I guess would have come with Leopard and iLife08. But you might not have wanted to hear that! I bought my iMac 3 weeks before they brought out the new model:*

[MacBoero]

If you buy a new Mac just before a new OS release, or it is supplied with a previous release of the OS, there should be some vouchers in there which allow you to freely upgrade to the newer version.

Any iLife programmes supplied free with the machine are unlikely to be upgraded the same way, and a new OS doesn't come with iLife included.

[Background Noise]

Yes, but - if he's bought an imac recently you would expect it to have leopard and ilife08 (which he may have). Unless it was (very) old item which had been in store for some considerable time. My friend got his new-style imac direct from Apple when it was advertised as shipping with Leopard, but it didn't. They said he could have Leopard but would have to pay shipping! Eventually, after some discussion, they sent it free.

Similarly, once iLife08 was out, new machines came with it included. I've upgraded to iLife08 but not Leopard yet.

[The Nr Fairy]

Warranty info on Apple's web site shows it was purchased/first used on 26th October 2008 - so, some time ago, but by faxing in the proof or purchase, I'll get that changed.

And while I'm here - the mouse supplied seems quite hard to click - is this usual, or should it be feather-light ?

[Background Noise]

I think I felt the same about my mouse but it is a wireless/bluetooth one so maybe slightly different.