OT - Switching from PC to Mac

[Muon Quark 0]

Seriously thinking of switching from a PC to a mac tomorrow.....

 

Anyone ever done that and live to tell the tale? LOL

 

Seriously tho, how hard is it going to be to do that? I do have a couple of PC only programs that I'll to figure out something to do with them. I have Office 2003. I'll probably have to buy a new license for that... ::sigh:: Couple of games, some DOC files. Pictures won't be a problem I don't think....

 

Anywho, any advice on how to make the switch as painless as possible?

 

Thanks.

[Samantha_Kent 0]

I was a diehard PC user for most of my life -- my father and brother said that Macs were better and I did not believe them, saying that I would never get used to a new interface and all the other basic excuses...

 

And then I got my Macbook laptop. And I was converted in an instant to the One True Way.

 

I'll probably get stoned to death for this reply by all the PC users on board. ;) But I personally have had the experience that the Mac interface is a little bit more intuitive, a bit shinier and prettier, and has some pretty cool user features (those of you who already use Macs will I'm sure agree that going back to a PC toolbar after Mac's Expose feature is really kind of actively painful). If you're a heavy gamer (i.e. require an intense graphics card and such), you may have trouble -- I never did, since this is my only fix in that department really, but that's usually the argument I get from PC users.

 

I would recommend that you get OpenOffice or Office for Mac, since not having a program to read Word documents can be a pain; beyond that, most of your files shouldn't have a problem making the transition. Also, one of the great things that I've found for Macs over PCs is that if you want to do it, there's a freeware program for Mac that can do it somewhere on the internet, so keep an eye out in that department for cool things to download.

 

Feel free to poke me if you need help getting set up or anything. :wub: Congratulations!

[eagle 0]

I have been a PC user and an unfortunate constant being abused supporter/user of MSW since the very inception of windows...(still have the floppys,and cd's and printed mat'l to prove it if necessary)...each evolution of windows has an end ...and that end results in upgrades..all through public beta/final release products(ex...win95>win98/98 plus..all final "public release and total systems were in fact '" What we would call beta bed testing programs...through a truly masterful marketing promotion we(the public by large that paid for the new programs(os ), bought,took home and followed the loading instructions(that is taking into account you knew something of computers)..well...I digress...it Sums up in this. All windows applications/evolutions have been constructed to evolve,replace each and every earlier version of the earlier programs..(os)...do I agree/..hell no...hates bill as per say...but what ya gonna do...? especially when "Apple...Macs are intergrating Windows systems?. Well look out for an extreme hallowen trick...for there may lie the end of macks... ;)

[Nicolas Lepage 0]

I'm a PC user mainly because I'm into computer games and there are quite a few problems with Macs. If it wasn't for that I'd probably get a Mac. I'm so sick of Windows (especially Vista which I'm forced to use at school on occasion).

 

Anyway, my actual point is that I'd recommend Open Office. I've been using it for a while and after getting used to it I like it better than MS Office. Especially the more "advanced" functions are much more accessible. (Or maybe I'm just too stupid for MS Office.)

[Muon Quark 0]

Yea, I think Open Office is the way to go. I'll have to say buh bye to Office 2003. No worries, I got to go to school so it was like $129 and that was about a year and a half ago.

 

Well I'll be off to the computer store in a few hours so..... My brother thinks I'm crazy. heh heh

[Capt Muon Quark 0]

::cue dramatic music::

 

Back from the store and posting on my brand new iMac!!! Woo hoo. Just testing it out.....

 

I think I lost something tho.... ::looking around for the right click:: Anyone seen it?

 

:)

[Samantha_Kent 0]

I believe you should be able to just right click by leaning on the right side of the mouse as if the buttons were separate -- I haven't used my brother's iMac in a while but I think that's how it works on his. (On my Mac laptop, you right-click by Cntrl-clicking, but I'm not sure if that function is on iMacs as well).

[Brian T. Riley 0]

I was a diehard PC user for most of my life -- my father and brother said that Macs were better and I did not believe them, saying that I would never get used to a new interface and all the other basic excuses...

 

And then I got my Macbook laptop. And I was converted in an instant to the One True Way.

 

I'll probably get stoned to death for this reply by all the PC users on board. :) But I personally have had the experience that the Mac interface is a little bit more intuitive, a bit shinier and prettier, and has some pretty cool user features (those of you who already use Macs will I'm sure agree that going back to a PC toolbar after Mac's Expose feature is really kind of actively painful). If you're a heavy gamer (i.e. require an intense graphics card and such), you may have trouble -- I never did, since this is my only fix in that department really, but that's usually the argument I get from PC users.

 

::picks up a small stone and weighs it in his hand::

[Kansas_Jones 0]

Question - What exactly prompted the change from PC to Mac? General reasons, or something more specific?

[will_marx 0]

Question - What exactly prompted the change from PC to Mac? General reasons, or something more specific?

 

*cough, cough*Vista*cough, cough*

[LoAmi 0]

*cough, cough*Vista*cough, cough*

Explains the switch from Windows to Mac. There are other PC operating systems besides Windows :-)

[will_marx 0]

Explains the switch from Windows to Mac. There are other PC operating systems besides Windows :-)

 

Ya. I'm probably going to rebuild an old tower I have into a decent Linux box.

[James Riley 0]

I will cherish my copy of XP for as long as it will load.

[TKAR 0]

Good luck on your Apple -thinking of getting a laptop too -enjoy

[Capt Muon Quark 0]

Actually Vista was just the latest in a long list of Microsoft woes. A mac is definitely different but I'm liking it.

 

Thanks!

[Sam_SemaJ 0]

I'm sorry I couldn't weigh in earlier. I would have toted the mac. I have used one for four years now. Getting used to the interface is all about time, just spend time doing lots of things, look up the keyboard shortcuts, maybe watch a Steve Jobs keynote or two where he's introduced the features in the past, the point is that you will get used to doing things quick and easy ways and remember them because they make sense. As for right click, I'm not sure if the new editions actually do have the integrated right click in the solid button, you can hold the control key and click for right functions, you can also enable two finger scrolling on the trackpad, so using one finger moves the cursor, using two scrolls left and right, when this is on, holding two fingers and clicking right clicks.

 

I'm not a gamer, so I can't speak to the video card issue, I am a musician and can speak to the superior integrated nature of software hardware and ultimately an ease of use of the top of the line equipment out there for almost all music related things. And Kent is right, it's shinier, prettier and works. It networks better, it's file structure is more solid. Its updates, unlike windows are full re-writes instead of building on old nasty broken code (i.e. Outlook, Word, etc). A lot of stuff is open source too which is nice. On doc files, there is openoffice.org, but I found that annoying with X11, on the rare occasion that I need an actual doc file or spreadsheet, I use a freeware/open source app called Neo Office, which works fine. I bought Pages for professional publications, and let me tell you, it's refreshing when the concept of things like word processors aren't changed for 15 years and then someone writes a nice intuitive one, it's a great program. For most things though, I just use textedit, which may sound weird, but it's just a nice, simple space to type and print something, no bells and whistles needed. Integration of Mail/Calendar/Address is awesome, especially now with my iPhone.

 

Basically I love using Apple products/software and would pretty much never ever choose to work on a Windows system unless I had to.

[LoAmi 0]

Its updates, unlike windows are full re-writes instead of building on old nasty broken code (i.e. Outlook, Word, etc). A lot of stuff is open source too which is nice.

OS X itself uses a surprising amount of non-original code (old code is not necessarily bad!). The microkernel it's based on is Mach. The Unix kernel is Darwin, which is based on FreeBSD. Don't confuse applications with the system. The Microsoft applications for Macs are no better (they're sometimes worse) than their Windows equivalents.

 

While they did release the Darwin kernel code as free software (which the didn't have to do, because FreeBSD is non-copyleft), and did release the development kit as free software (a lot of which they were required to do if they wanted to release it at all, because the GNU compilers are copyleft), the most original aspect of the Mac - the user interface - is closed source/proprietary. If you want to compare top-down, paternalistic attitudes towards users and developers, you can argue that Apple is far worse than Microsoft. The difference is that Apple makes a better product, so users don't often realize that they're in a gilded prison.

 

On doc files, there is openoffice.org, but I found that annoying with X11, on the rare occasion that I need an actual doc file or spreadsheet, I use a freeware/open source app called Neo Office, which works fine.

The official Openoffice.org 3.0 builds now support Mac OS X natively. I'm not sure how good it is. I can say good things about NeoOffice's port (they've only ported up to OOo v2.2, though).

 

I bought Pages for professional publications,

Never used it, but Pages looks a bit more like it's a bit closer to being simple "desktop publishing" software than a word processor.

 

I just use textedit, which may sound weird,

For reference, textedit is about the equivalent of Microsoft's Wordpad in functionality.

 

my iPhone.

Another gilded prison.

 

never ever choose to work on a Windows system unless I had to.

Me too.

[Aliana Lucindak 0]

Enjoy your new mac. I hope it will not suddenly stop working in three years and dump all of the novels and plays you have been writing, and you realize you never backed them up, so you end up trying to save up to get the applestore to fix it so you can retreave all your work, like mine did ::bitter::. Well, the good thing is, at least you won't expect the mac to fail, unlike the pc where you know it will eventually happen, that might not be a good thing though...

~Ali

[Samantha_Kent 0]

Enjoy your new mac. I hope it will not suddenly stop working in three years and dump all of the novels and plays you have been writing, and you realize you never backed them up, so you end up trying to save up to get the applestore to fix it so you can retreave all your work, like mine did ::bitter::. Well, the good thing is, at least you won't expect the mac to fail, unlike the pc where you know it will eventually happen, that might not be a good thing though...

~Ali

 

Just for the record, I have always gotten AMAZING customer service from the Apple Store people. They've been very helpful, comforting (on the occasion when my harddrive completely died), and tolerant (on the occasion when I got a quarter stuck in the DVD drive). So...I personally highly recommend Apple on that level as well.

[STSF Jumper 0]

(on the occasion when my harddrive completely died)

 

::will totally be a semi basket case when this inevitable dark day descends upon the personal PC hardware::

[Samantha_Kent 0]

::will totally be a semi basket case when this inevitable dark day descends upon the personal PC hardware::

 

Hehe...yeah...I pretty much was...luckily it happened three days before my warranty went out, so I got the new one free, and I only lost three weeks worth of work because I had backed up the harddrive on the occasion of the quarter getting stuck in the DVD drive. So the moral of the story:

 

BACK UP YOUR WORK! BACK UP YOUR WORK! BACK UP YOUR WORK!

[Grom 0]

Some of the Mac craze has to do with performance and realiability, but I'm also convinced some of it has to do with psychology and marketing. Most Mac users I know develop a sort of Mac-only snobbery, which really makes me laugh because it means they've totally ascented to the marketing scheme of the company. It is unfortunate that Mac is the only real alternative for the average user, both could use a little more friendly competition.

[LoAmi 0]

Some of the Mac craze has to do with performance and realiability, but I'm also convinced some of it has to do with psychology and marketing.

Yes!

 

Most Mac users I know develop a sort of Mac-only snobbery, which really makes me laugh because it means they've totally ascented to the marketing scheme of the company. It is unfortunate that Mac is the only real alternative for the average user, both could use a little more friendly competition. (emph added)

The bolded phrase is also a product of marketing. Marketing campaigns have made the expectation that the switch will result in something that is different (read: works differently), and have made the expectation that there will be a learning curve, and convinced switchers that after the learning curve, what they have will be better. And, it worked. People who "don't want to learn computers" successfully learn an entirely new user interface, just like they learned Windows when they first encountered it (and now assume that how Windows works = how computers work). Current versions of Ubuntu have about the same amount of transitional learning curve as the switch from Windows to Mac OS X. When people try Ubuntu, they may just expect "free Windows" and be disappointed when it also works differently. If the expectation is that it will work differently, the transition is smoother.

 

There are some technical issues that make the transition easier to Macs, but they're also related to Apple's marketing choices. Apple has always had the advantage over both Microsoft and their free software competitors that they control 100% of the hardware in Apple-branded machines. And, even though Apple-branded machines and PCs use the same types of hardware, OS X is only sold for Apple-branded hardware. That's why you won't see a driver conflict in OS X just after installation. That's not because OS X has great hardware support - it has far less hardware support than Windows, Linux, or other BSD variants. The hardware it has to support out of the box is very limited.

 

Again, we're talking about "average users" (web browsing, email, office-type applications). Gamers or people who need special software for their professions or hobbies are in a different category (A gamer might naturally favor Windows, a developer, Linux, a graphics or music producer, OS X).

[Samantha_Kent 0]

Most Mac users I know develop a sort of Mac-only snobbery.

 

The same could be said of a lot of PC users when you try to tell them about Macs, though. My roommate has a PC and this has turned into a running joke between us.

 

It is a shame that these are really the only two mainstream options though.

[Sam_SemaJ 0]

The Microsoft applications for Macs are no better (they're sometimes worse) than their Windows equivalents.

 

You got that right, why do you think I use a number of different apps for that stuff?

 

The difference is that Apple makes a better product, so users don't often realize that they're in a gilded prison.

 

Maybe...but it is a better product that makes my digital life easier and nicer, those gold walls are looking ok.

 

Never used it, but Pages looks a bit more like it's a bit closer to being simple "desktop publishing" software than a word processor.

 

It's quite nice.

 

 

iPhone, Another gilded prison.

 

I'm really getting into the guilding....really liking it.

 

 

For Lo, who can build and maintain his own well running Linux machine, that's great. But it's not for everybody, for the average person who wants a nice, reliable, enjoyable way to manage the information in their lives, I would still say the Mac is the good choice. Also for the slightly above average (in terms of use) person who needs to work in a digital arts environment, it's also a great choice.

 

Lo'Ami is right, non-mac isn't the problem, it's just the crappy OS released by the big company who's leading(ish) in sales right now.

 

Muon, I think you made the right choice.