OT: PC to Mac, Transitioning Help Please

[neuroanatomist]

Like crosbyharrison, I have just one account. I see no need for an admin account, since you need to enter your admin password to run any installer or software update in any event. Note that you don't need to 'install' (in the PC sense) all software - most off-the-internet applications come as .dmg files (disk images), from which you just drag the app to your Applications folder. I'll add a second account once my daughter gets old enough to use the computer, so I can enable parental controls there.


Do choose your 'shortname' carefully when setting up your account. It's not something you'll use, per se, but you'll see it as the name on your Home folder.


Personally, I did customize the install to save a bit of HDD space (omitting non-relevant printers saves several GB, and since I personally will never use GarageBand, omitting that saved several more).


Agree that Terminal is not your friend, unless you're familiar with using a command line interface in Unix (which is the basis of Mac OS X). As a casual user, you should never have a need to tinker in the Terminal. One simple example from the 'don't try this at home' file - the Terminal command "sudo rm -rf /" will erase your HDD. Not very friendly at all. []


Apple Mail is excellent (in OS 10.6, it can directly access MS Exchange accounts).


Spotlight will use compute cycles initially, especially if you migrate files from a PC. After the first few hours of indexing, it's quite innocuous, and useful for finding files.


Adium is only 'better' than iChat if you need to use chat servers which iChat doesn't support. iChat supports AIM, MobileMe, Jabber, and GoogleTalk. If you need to IM with someone using MSN or Yahoo, Adium is a great choice (supports just about every IM platform out there), but no AV support.


I'd stay away from FileVault - encrypting your entire user folder as one large sparse disk image is not the best idea Apple came up with (a power failure during an HDD write can damage the file being written, and if that file is really your entire user folder...). Instead, for your financial information, etc., simply use Disk Utility to create a secure (encrypted) disk image. UNcheck the box to store the password in the Keychain when you create it (and don't forget the password!!). I keep my taxes, lists of CC numbers, etc., on an AES-256 encrypted image, which is 'theoretically' unbreakable.


Really, on the hardware side, the whole thing is basically plug-and-play.


On the software/shareware side, look at:

• Flip4Mac and Perian - allow other media types to play natively in your web browser (.avi, etc.)
• MPEG Streamclip - an excellent (and free) video format converter (but Canon cameras already shoot video in the Mac-native Quicktime format)
• SuperDuper (or the free Carbon Copy Cloner) - makes bootable backup clones (or, just use Time Machine!)

Also, I use a couple of menu bar add-ons:

• WeatherDock - weather.com conditions/forecast in your menu bar
• iStat Menus - RAM usage and CPU activity in your menu bar

Mark, you also asked about iWork. I have it, and I have MS Office for Mac. Pages and Numbers are just 'ok' - they do fine for standard word processing and'light'spreadsheets. Definitely a Mac OS user interface. Numbers' charting capabilities are a bit weak (but very pretty!). In terms of interoperability with MS Office, while it's true that you can open and re-save or export as MS Office files, there are frequently unexpected formatting changes, etc. It's not a perfect setup, ok for casual use (sending letters back and forth with a Word user for editing), but not optimal for laying out something like a newsletter in a cross-platform setting. Keynote, though, is a thing of beauty. Still not functionally mixable with PowerPoint for working on the same file, though. However, when I give seminars/presentations that I made in Keynote, the audience is always impressed - the slide transitions and builds are eye-popping but in a tasteful way. But, when I'm working on typical documents for work (where Windows is the norm), I use MS Office on my Mac to edit/create those files. So, on the whole, iWork is ok, but IMO if you're used to MS Office and use it frequently, get MS Office for Mac.


One final recommendation - if you have questions as you go through the switching process and beyond, a great place to go for answers is the Apple Discussions forum. There are subsections for the iMac, general Mac OS X questions, and many Apple applications.


Have fun!!


--John

[Mark Elberson]

Some advice:

You just scared the crap out of me!!!

[Mark Elberson]

Mark, you also asked about iWork...

Thanks John. I don't really use Office that frequently in my personal life. I do however like to be able to open a doc or xls file if I receive one in an email. Maybe OpenOffice.org would be a good enough supplement to iWork?

[neuroanatomist]

Some advice:

You just scared the crap out of me!!!

Relax, Mark. It's not a PC. []


I've owned Macs for 23 years now...in that entire time, I've never had to reinstall the OS to fix a problem (I've done my share on installs, but those are all OS upgrades - and even those are seamless and simple). I've never had a hardware failure on a Mac - all I've had to do is replace worn-out batteries on portables.


I've also never purchased AppleCare. Since I've never had a hardware failure, not purchasing AppleCare on each of my family's Macs over the years has saved me a significant amount of $. But, the 3 years of phone support might make it worthwhile, if you're the kind of person who calls in for support. On the other hand, I'm not categorically against AppleCare - I bought it for my and my wife's iPhones, which have been replaced 3 times between them for various reasons.


How about this fun fact - I bought my first Mac in 1987 - an SE, and it cost a bundle, especially since I opted for the enormous 20 MB hard drive instead of just a pair of floppy drives. As of a couple of years ago (which was the last time I asked about it), it was still sitting in a lab I used to work in, still running a spectrophotometer in the lab after 20+ years of operation!

[neuroanatomist]

Maybe OpenOffice.org would be a good enough supplement to iWork?

If you just want to open and read the occasional .doc or .xls file you get via email, iWork will be fine. In fact (unless you've already ordered it preinstalled), you might not even need iWork if you'll only open the occasional file.


One note on OpenOffice - running it requires installation of X11 (one of the custom installation options, primarily intended for software developers or others who need to run X-Windows based apps). For a different freeware alternative, you might look at NeoOffice - that's based on OpenOffice, but is a Mac-native app (since OpenOffice is open-source, the folks at NeoOffice took the source code and ported it to Mac OS X).

[Mark Elberson]

How about a Microsoft Money replacement for Mac? I have become dependent on Money to manage my bills, budget and most imortantly my cash flow. I don't utilize more than 10% what money offers. Essentially all I need is an electronic checkbook that tracks my budget and can give me a rolling cash flow analysis. I don't track my investments or tax info with MS Money. Will iBank fit the bill?

[peety3]

I've never had more than one account, spotlight works fine for me, I have plenty of disk space I don't see the point in wasting my time reinstalling to save 5 gigs, terminal is not 'your friend' especially if you just switched to mac; plenty of things to mess up, i personally hate hot corners and instead trust the people I live with, I don't think adium is better than ichat, I don't use time machine I just clone my external backups, I think apple mail is fine, I avoid suffit and instead usehttp://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/unarchiver.html, for browsing I use chrome, and finally unless your stealing software littlesnitch is useless.

Dude, breathe, and use a few periods.


From the perspective of helping a new user get started, TimeMachine is the way to go. It does backups, and that's the important part: getting the backups done. I use the backup functionality to take snapshots while I work, then archive my jobs to another drive. I can delete the job folder, and either retrieve it from backup or download it from archive.


Hot corners are useful, regardless of who you do or don't trust. They're not just for locking your screen - they can be useful for delaying the screen saver while staring at something, etc.

[Mark Elberson]

Any problems exporting a Photshop action from a PC to a Mac?

[cfnz]

How about a Microsoft Money replacement for Mac?

After much searching I've been using iCompta for a while now. It's free for the current version (v4 will be charged for) and suits me fine for basic cash flow monitoring, it's not perfect but I don't argue when it's free. I haven't been able to find a Mac equivalent of Microsoft Money. I tried iBank but can't remember much about it.



I also favour OpenOffice over iWork, for me the weak link in iWork is Numbers, after years of using Excel I find it overly simplistic at this stage.



In general terms there were three things that bothered me when I switched to Mac three years ago.

1. The startup noise. I dislike computer sound effects and this one cannot be disabled without a third party solution.
   
2. Mouse movement sensitivity (acceleration curve). Different (more sensitive) to Windows and I found it hard to adapt to while still using Windows every day at work.
3. Files left behind after trashing programs. Dragging a program to the trash doesn't always remove everything from your HDD, once you know when things are (e.g. ~/library/preferences) you can remove them manually. I also use a preference pane tool called AppTrap (there are others).