Re: advice sought
- From: Bill <bbcollins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 02 Aug 2005 12:39:02 GMT
In article <imjue1lfupc9tj3bh05bg1st06apu9fs17@xxxxxxx>,
Frank Thompson <gnx52@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> In 1992 my job forced me to go the PC route (had AppleIIgs then.
> Never liked PCs; now retired with WIN2000 OS PC. Have Win XP on
> laptops & despise it. #1 prob with win os is I sopend more time in
> maintenance than with actually using machines. Long to return to
> Apples with iMacG5 as 1st purchase. Logistics of converting is
> frightening to me. Is this group a good group for me to subscribe
> during the planning and actual conversion phase. Also what is best
> magazione for me to subscribe. For PC I have been a long time
> subscriber Smart Computing which has been great...just the right
> level.
> Frank
> Georgia
Take the plunge. The water is fine. You will love it.
This group is one of several Mac newsgroups, each devoted to specific
topics. They are of the family comp.sys.mac*
The Apple web site has a section for Switchers from Windows. The section
is called simply "Switch". It has a link near the top of the main Apple
web page, www.apple.com
The Apple web site also has a section called Made4mac, which gives
information about all kinds of third-party hardware and software that
will work with the Mac.
The Support section o the Apple web site also gives all kinds of helpful
technical info.
There are some good books. I suggest OS X, the Missing Manual, by David
Pogue. You can pick up a copy at various bookstores or online.
I subscribe to MacWorld and MacAddict. They often have useful
information.
If you live near an Apple Store, a visit and discussion with the staff
is likely to be helpful. The people who work at Apple stores are usually
pretty knowledgeable.
You are probably concerned about transferring important user files from
the Windows machine to the Mac. That can certainly be done, and in
general is pretty easy.
The simplest physical setup for the file transfer is via Ethernet and
file sharing. You can also use a CD or USB flash drive. The physical
method you use depends on how your Windows machine is equipped; any
current mac can handle all those methods just fine.
You need to have application programs on the Mac that can open and
manipulate the files after they are transferred, or else take a little
time on the PC to get the files in a form that your Mac applications can
use. Word processing, spreadsheet, picture and sound files can generally
be handled without much difficulty by the software that comes installed
with the iMac, which include Appleworks, TextEdit, iPhoto and iTunes. To
give added assurance of being able to deal with files in a variety of
formats, you may wish to purchase GraphicConverter, which is a kind of
Swiss Army Knife of graphics (Shareware, about $35), and MacLink, which
can convert a wide variety of word processing spreadsheet and database
files. MacLink is a commercial program. For a Swiss Army Knife of sound
files, which is also an excellent sound editing program, I suggest
Amadeus II, which is shareware.
If you will need to make a lot of use of MS Word or Excel of PowerPoint,
you may want to purchase MS Office for the Mac, although that is not
really needed for personal use. AppleWorks, which comes installed on the
iMac G5, handles all those needs for personal use very well, and can
also open and save documents in Word and Excel file format.
You should be able to import emails, email addresses, etc from the
Windows programs to the Mac programs, depending on just what Windows
programs you are using for these. The same goes for bookmarks.
If you need a relational database, several programs are available. I use
FileMaker, which is superb, easy to learn and use. It is also
cross-platform. If you use MS Access, you must first export the data in
some common format, and then import it into your Mac database. MS Access
does not run directly on the Mac.
There is a program called Virtual PC, which emulates a Pentium computer
on the Mac and has some version of Windows installed on it. This can be
useful if you need to occasionally run a windows-only program. However,
since you already have at least one Windows PC, you probably would not
need Virtual PC. Microsoft sells Virtual PC. I own VPC, and never use it.
The Mac OS Help file on screen on a Mac has a section devoted to
switching from Windows, including how to transfer files from a Windows
machine to the Mac.
As to hardware, most (but not all) printers have Mac drivers, many of
which come installed with OS X. USB is the usual way to connect a
printer to a Mac. The same goes for scanners. Before you buy a new
printer or scanner, you should verify that it has a Mac driver
available. As I said most do, but there are a few that do not.
Essentially all digital cameras can connect via USB, or else you can
read the memory card in a USB card reader. Digital video cameras can
connect via Firewire or USB 2. The same goes for external hard drives.
The Mac treats external storage devices (cameras, hard drives, memory
cards, etc) connected via USB or Firewire simply as additional drives,
which automatically mount on the Desktop, and which you can use in the
Finder to transfer files by drag and drop. Generally no special software
is needed; the Mac operating system just takes care of this.
Post some more regarding what frightens you about the logistics of
converting, and we can probably help.
Bill Collins
--
For email, remove invalid.
.
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