Going from a PC to Mac, school me.

[Lost Canadian]

So I've jumped ship, officially, and now have a new iMac enroute to my house via fedex. I'm sure once it gets here I'll have a lot more questions, but for now I'm looking for setup advice. Is there anything I need to be aware of as far as moving files from a PC to the mac? Compatibility issues with external hard drives that kind of stuff? Sorry, I'm not much a computer wizard, so any tips that will make moving from one system to the other easier will be of help.
Thank a ton in advance. Oh and for you spec junkies:

27-inch iMac
2.8GHz*Quad-Core*Intel*Core*i7
8GB*1066MHz*DDR3*SDRAM*-*4x2GB
1TB*Serial*ATA*Drive
ATI*Radeon*HD*4850*512MB
8x*double-layer*SuperDrive
Apple*Magic*Mouse
Apple*Wireless*Keyboard*(English)*and*User's*Guide

 

[AveryS]

I dont have much advise to offer but I will tell you that I made the switch about 3 years ago and haven't looked back.

If you are close to an Apple store I would recommend paying the 100 bucks for the personalized training. I didn't take advantage of it and was talking with a friend who did, apparently I missed a lot of Mac nuance's that make working on the computer even better.

Making the change was a definite game changer for me, you'll love it.

 

[Scotsmanspride]

Reformat you hard drive to FAT32 which will help with switching files and will allow you to take files to a pc later if need be. I made the jump 5 years ago and have had ZERO issues since. using a mac is so much more straightforward than with a PC. once you get it you can use preferences to learn hotkeys and such. Also with tutorials go to apple.com and they list just about anything you would ever need to know. For backing up my dvd's to digital media i am using handbrake which is a pretty straightforward program. I have not had a single freeze up, restart or any other problems. I have not been running any virus software and as of yet after 5 years no problems. Also they hold their value very well. My macbook was purchased for 1100 and after 4 years i sold it for $500 which you will NEVER be able to do with a PC.

 

[haven]

The application-specific file formats can be difficult to translate. What programs do you use for email, word processing, photo editing, and so on?

Apple places the menu bar for the active window at the top of the screen, rather than in the window itself like Windows does. This can be a problem when you're using an extra-large monitor, like your 27 inch iMac. Many common commands will be more convenient if you use the keyboard equivalents.

 

[d0ubledown]

welcome to the macworld! for your photography use, im sure you'll find it a much better platform to work with..espcially with color management.

not much advice to offer, but theres alot of FAQ stuff on the apple site itself, to answer many questions for those transitioning. get used to the keyboard shortcuts...they're very easy to get used to with the command & options replacing control & alt respectively.

for moving your files, you could go with an external HD, thats formatted to FAT32 as mentioned. i dont know if id format the main HD to fat 32 though. then its just plug n play once the usb is plugged into the mac. drag n drop. i use a mac @ home (with dual cinema displays..an absolute joy for photo editing) and use a PC at work. no issues with jpgs, xmp files, and raw file transporting. i also run MS office for mac, and no issues with those files between the 2 platforms.

get ready for a world of computing with out malware, adware, spyware, tupperware, crashes, BSOD's...just a rock solid platform...

forgot to mention should you still need a windows box, you can either use a VM like parallels and run windows/mac side by side with drag n drop capabilities, or use bootcamp and run windows as its own OS on the apple box (no switching to & from in real time like parallels does). you may even be surprised that it runs windows better than a windows machine does!

 

[Lost Canadian]

Thanks guys.

The application-specific file formats can be difficult to translate. What programs do you use for email, word processing, photo editing, and so on?

Most of my personal email and word processing I now do through gmail and google docs, although I do use Lotus Notes for work. Most docs at work are word, pdf, excel,and dfx, but I'm not overly concerned with using my home computer to do work functions, at least not at this point in time. For photo editing I use LR2 and Capture NX2. I keep all the raw files, and have a mix of TIFF and JPG. Music and movies are all mp3 and mp4,...I think. I'm sure I'm missing something but that covers most of it I think. I have 3 external drives full of stuff that I should look through.

 

[nebep]

iWork does a real good job - I dig it...

I've checked out, and use some times OpenOffice also.

The MAC I'm typing this on has been on for about a year and a half....still runs like a champ...hmm....maybe a power blip at some point, but, either way, they take a lickin' and keep on tickin'!!

Welcome to "the other side"!!!

 

[haven]

Re: Lotus Notes, I see online that the Mac version doesn't have the same version of Java as the Windows version. So there may be some custom apps your company has developed using Notes that won't work the same on Mac as PC. You might check with the IT folks at work for guidance.

I'm not sure what application is called "dfx."

Otherwise, the applications you list have well-supported Mac versions as well as versions for PC. IF you haven't upgraded your Microsoft applications for a while, you'll find that the new version for Mac and PC are quite a bit different from the old versions.

It's expensive to purchase new copies of everything, even if the software vendors will give you the upgrade price.

You might check to see if your printer manufacturer has a software driver for the Mac. Some of the print settings and print maintenance choices (clearing injet nozzles, for example) may not show up on the generic Mac print drivers.

 

[taco2go]

A few of my impressions,
I have a pre-Intel Mac Pro, and recently added an extra 500 GB Hard disk bay, and increased RAM. It just keeps working too well to upgrade.

1. I recommend contiuing to use external HDDs for raw/picture files.
For Nikon NEF files, Capture NX2 on Mac works just fine, as do any Niksoftware plugins. - the interface, (control points etc) look and work even better, IMO. I use LR2 to catalog.

2. A big limitation is is that NX2 does not even offer basic cataloging. Using their windows based 'folder' system on a Mac....well it defeats the purpose. Another difference- any of the NikSoftware stuff (including Viveza etc) is very, very slow if used through LR2 on a Mac. Something their customer service admits, and something they are still working on. So I gave up on that, keep it simple, and just process in NX2.

If I was primarily a Canon user, I would probably only use Lightroom- it does everything.


4. For all my music files ( I use Logic Express for some basic recording ) I again, use an external HDD. All analog mixing done on a 15 year old 16 ch. Mackie board and entering through a Mackie Onyx interface. Zero crashes in the past 7 years, since switching from a Cubase/PC set up. Even Garageband, bundled free with the imac is extremely capable and robust.

5. Get Apple care- and yes, it will still be Vijay in Hyderabad. , but it's all good.

 

[Lost Canadian]

Joash, does Nikon Transfer not work on Macs? Not that it matters much, as I use LR for import and catalogue, but it would be nice to know. As for Niksoft stuff, how about with NX2? Have you tried Color Efex in NX, if so, how does it run?

 

[taco2go]

Yup, Nikon transfer works exactly the same as on a PC; should've mentioned that. You can chose to enable or disable it to launch whenever a card is inserted. So for me, the order of importing is: card -> Nikon transfer -> process in NX2. (I add a transfer to LR step)

Within NX2, any of the Niksoft stuff works seamlessly. Like butter. Some people feel there is a little more latency than on PCs. I have not seen any difference. They just show up as additional steps on the right. Great company BTW, nice and small. I had the chance to talk to a couple of the programmers, right here in the good ol US of A, when I was having trouble with getting plugins to work in LR and they were very patient, and understanding.Even commended me on using an older mac. (yes, I am the only non computer literate Indian-American )
Turns out Nikon is extremely guarded about revealing data in their raw files, which is why Adobe et al.(LR, Camera Raw, CS4 etc.) have a hard time guessing how to properly render NEF files. Anyway that's a whole other topic to vent about....

 

[spressomon]

We converted all home PCs to Mac (iMac + 2 Macbooks) a little over two years ago. We vacillated for too many years. Zero regrets. Ditto another post about paying the $99 for unlimited "One on One" training time.

You will be floored how many utilities and programs come standard with Mac whereas were upgrades or 3rd party purchases for PC.

The first month, I remember, was frustrating for me as I had zero Mac experience. I tend to get a little impatient when I have to stop and figure out new equipment with a deadline looming especially. But no biggy if you create a list of your questions for your "One on Ones".

You will be quite surprised by the power and features within iPhoto. Ditto for Pages (Apple's version of MS Word), Numbers (Apple's version of MS Excel), Keynote (Apple's VERY SUPERIOR version of MS PowerPoint), built in PDF writer including the ability to annotate, create secure PDF's, etc without the bulk and expense of Acrobat. And IMO .mac/.me is worth the first year price of $69. The ability to quickly and easily drag photos from your iPhoto library right into your e-mail, with instant resizing ability, is worth it to me...plus all the other benefits.

The complete absence of crash's, blue screen of death, etc. over the past 27-months has been cause for celebration in and of itself.

Prepare to be enamored!

 

[Lost Canadian]

I just spent the last couple hours setting everything up and going through the machine in fine detail. For the first hour and a bit I thought I was missing something, everything seemed too easy, then I realized that this is it, this is what everyone goes ga ga over. I get it now guys, I get it!

 

[Kilroy]

I just bought my MacBook Pro 13" last week to compliment my desktop MAC. One thing I didn't take of advantage of is Apple care for any problems I was having changing over, or anything else. I've been using these guys this time and they are very helpful. It's never taken over 5 minutes from calling to talking to a tech.:victory: Try that with any PC manufacturer!

I was planning on buying this for at least a year and having second thoughts when looking at the price of PC laptops. Glad I bought the Mac.:coffeedrink:

Enjoy.