Making the switch to Mac

[Amy DeStefanis]

I have been a loyal PC user for many years. I'm even a software engineer, so this is a very scarey step for me.... But after taking photo workshops using my Dell laptop with Vista (bleh), I have begun to have Mac envy.

I also have an older tower in the office - for which I have a great big flat-screen Dell monitor, which I love (21 inches?).

Recent strugles with processing RAW files using this machine (since it's the one with the dedicated internet connection) has proven to me that it's time to replace it. The poor thing's hard drive hasn't stopped thrashing all morning. I have to keep an external fan in the back of the cabinet to keep the hard drive from overheating (no kidding - if I turn off the fan, the drive will start whining in about 15 minutes).

So, I hope starting a thread about computers is acceptable, as I'd like to get advice about what is being used out there.

Thanks all!

[Steve Ashton]

We use a total MAC system in our business and have never had a problem. My best advice would be to try on of the 24" iMac's They are great come with 2GB ram and a 500GB hard drive.

These machines have almost taken over from the G5's we have and the screen is great to work on.

[Gyorgy Szimuly]

Since I have switched from PC to Mac 6 5 years ago I had any problem with any of my several machines. They are simply great!!! The softwares and the support is also so great. I will have any reason to skip back. No viruses, no crack but lovely speed at the time of buying. Sure it also requires update but that's the life. :)

Szimi

[Alfred Forns]

Amy the choice of iMac or big desktop is a personal one

I use the new Intel Desktop Went with that rather than the iMac for versatility Allows me to use a 30 inch monitor, four internal 750 HDs with hardware raid card plus all the RAM I would ever need

One thing to note with the Macs is support If you live near an Apple Superstore You can sing up for Apple Care (or similar name) You can make one apt a week for one year on any Mac program Will get you up to speed btw it is not a class but a one on one

You will like it and please ask any info you nee !!!

[Amy DeStefanis]

Thanks Al,

Yes, we do have a Superstore here in Tampa, and I was happy to see you can also make an appointment for a sales call. I'll go see what they have to say.

[Rocky Sharwell]

Amy,
I am a new Mac Pro user.

A new Vista laptop over Xmas--since returned to HP is what recently drove me over to a Mac Pro.

I have had the system less than a month but so far I love it. The Apple Store at the International Mall in Tampa is a good one--but I ordered my system from B&H as it was just easier for me.

Apple tends to gouge for memory and to a lesser extent hard disks. I ordered two 1TB disks from Newegg--and got memory from OWC AKA www.macsales.com--both (http://www.macsales.com--both) are reputable companies. I already had a 23 inch Apple Cinema Monitor. It was really easy to set up---In less than 45 minutes I had the whole thing up and running--using the built in RAID 1 (software). I did not get the hardware Raid card as it was about $750 as I recall.

I was missing Breezebrowser a bit and tried Photomechanic on the suggestion of Al Forns and others. It was not a bad program but I liked the slideshow portion of BB better. Last week I installed VMware Fusion and which allows other operating systems to be run as a virtual machine. I installed Windows XP with Fusion and can
now run Breezebrowser in an XP window on the Macpro. As far as I am concerned all is good.....


Let me know if I can help...

Rocky

[Amy DeStefanis]

Thanks a lot, Rocky. Great info. I'm afraid Vista pushed a lot of people over the edge.... If I hadn't needed the laptop for an upcoming UW photo workshop, I would have sent it back too, I think, but it served its purpose, I guess. But I would have sent it back and gotten XP on it. And I still would have had Mac envy.

[Don Kates]

We have 2 studios with 2 - 24" iMacs and 2 - 17" MacBook Pros in each studio. The iMacs all have LaCie external monitors as well. We switched to Mac about 2 years ago because we were tired of the PCs being literally taken over by all the anti virus and spam software that was necessary to protect them. My wife and I had been PC users for many many years and the switch was not difficult at all. I would caution you to get extended warranty on whatever you buy. Macs may be good but they are not perfect. One of our iMacs has been replaced 3 times and the mother board replaced twice in another. Without the extended warranty, it would have been very expensive.

[Richard Stern]

I made the switch 6 months ago, and now use a MacBook pro 17in. screen notebook. For photography I should really get a much larger external screen too, but that will have to wait. I don't like (or haven't taken the trouble to get used to) Aperture or iPhoto, but I was using Lightroom and PSE3 on my previous Win XP machine. I got the Mac version of Lightroom (no extra charge to licensed users), and I plan to get PSE6 for Mac as soon as it hits the shelves next month. I use Parallels to access 2 Windows XP programs that I use frequently that have no good Mac equivalents - a financial package, and a bird listing database program. The advantages of the Mac system overall - particularly being able to boot up quickly and not bother with anti-spyware etc., plus the overall style and feel of the software far outweighs any minor disadvantages, and I don't regret making the move. So far I'm still using Tiger, and have not yet upgraded to Leopard.

Richard

[Amy DeStefanis]

Thanks everyone - yes this evening I waited while my drive churned, and Norton went out to find updates, and even though the actual boot was quick, I couldn't do anything until the drive finished its business.... Sigh.

Thanks for mentioning about the warranty, Don. I don't usually go for those, because I can usually replace what I need to myself (well, not a motherboard), but I'm allowing myself to be a complete blank slate where the Mac is concerned. It will be kind of nice NOT to be able to troubleshoot my own issues.....

[Larry Daniel]

Thanks everyone - yes this evening I waited while my drive churned, and Norton went out to find updates, and even though the actual boot was quick, I couldn't do anything until the drive finished its business.... Sigh.

Thanks for mentioning about the warranty, Don. I don't usually go for those, because I can usually replace what I need to myself (well, not a motherboard), but I'm allowing myself to be a complete blank slate where the Mac is concerned. It will be kind of nice NOT to be able to troubleshoot my own issues.....

One can often find lower prices on AppleCare at Amazon or on some of the auction sites. You do not have to buy it until close to the end of the one year factory warranty. I often wait until Black Friday to see if Apple has a special on it. They did not last year so I ordered from Amazon.

[Amy DeStefanis]

Whoo hoo! Writing from my new 15" Mac Book Pro. That was easy!

I also have ordered the Time Capsule. I was looking at the AirPort wireless router, and also another backup drive (I have a 500GB Free Agent now), and the guy said that instead of spending $$ on the Airport, and more on the drive, wait till the end of Feb, when the Time Capsule comes out which is essentially both together for something like 299. So, I thought that was cool. I was ready to buy them separately.

I almost chickened out, but I might actually wind up being one of those annoying converts. We'll see how easy it is to use the router.... So far, nothing's crashed, I could browse my .nef files from within the "file browser" - which, for some reason, on Vista, I can't do (can on XP). Office for Mac was only about $150, and includes XLS, Word and PowerPoint, so I got that. Seems that with PC, Power Point is only packaged in the Professional version (?). I also got .mac so that I can put a website up which, I have been needing to do.

Just one problem.... How do you cut-and-paste? (no Ctl-C / Ctl-V) No right-click?

I'm sure there's a tutorial here somewhere.....

[Alfred Forns]

Big Time Congrats Amy !!!!


There is right and left click !!! Just click to either side :) cut and paste Just drag things around

btw for tutorial go to the store for one on one sessions Will be up to speed in no time !!!! I have to check out the Time Capsule From what I've read is amazing

[Fabs Forns]

Just one problem.... How do you cut-and-paste? (no Ctl-C / Ctl-V) No right-click?

I'm sure there's a tutorial here somewhere.....

Highlight.
Command C for Copy
Command V for Paste

Enjoy your new toy!!!!!

A Mac user :)

[Jim Poor]

Just one problem.... How do you cut-and-paste? (no Ctl-C / Ctl-V) No right-click?

I'm sure there's a tutorial here somewhere.....

Most PC key combinations that used CTNRL use Command (little butterfly button next to the space bar) on a MAC.

For right click, you have two options ctrl (really ctrl) click gives the same menu, or get a mighty mouse and program the right side to right click in system prefs.

[Larry Daniel]

Amy,
Check out www.macosg.com , a forum for Mac users that is very friendly and helpful. They also have a weekly podcast. It also has a search facility so one can find answers to all those questions that have likely been asked before.

[Amy DeStefanis]

Thanks everyone! Yes - I have to get used to the new command buttons. I've gotten so used to typing with a pc-oriented keyboard. So far, I'm verry happy with it.

Now I've really run out of excuses for not scanning all my old negatives and slides.... My hubby got me a Nikon Coolscan for Valentines day (romantic, right?). I think he wants the boxes out of the guest-room closet.... (he thinks I'm going to throw away the negs after I've scanned them.... Isn't that cute?)

[Johnny Bravo]

Thanks everyone - yes this evening I waited while my drive churned, and Norton went out to find updates, and even though the actual boot was quick, I couldn't do anything until the drive finished its business.... Sigh.

Thanks for mentioning about the warranty, Don. I don't usually go for those, because I can usually replace what I need to myself (well, not a motherboard), but I'm allowing myself to be a complete blank slate where the Mac is concerned. It will be kind of nice NOT to be able to troubleshoot my own issues.....

Norton? No WONDER you're having problems. Ditch that and use Msoft OneCare and you'll be amazed at the difference in your pc's performance.

That said, my next pc is going to be one of the new 8 core intel Mac Pro's. If you compare it to the top of the line PC's (like HPs new Blackbird) it suddenly becomes reasonably priced, rather than expensive!!

[Amy DeStefanis]

Well, my new Mac and I are getting along fine.

Alfred, I received the Time Capsule. You had expressed an interest in it. Now have 2 500G hard drives on my gigabit ethernet wireless network at home, so I can get to my files and back everything up....

It only took one trip to the Apple store for help. It's so nice to just be able to drag everything in and have an appointment with someone to help with the problem. , They were very helpful. They even noticed that in the 14-day return period the same machine with a faster processor, and larger drive for the same price had come out. Since I was within the return period, he asked if I wanted to just swap mine out.... I was in shock! Since I hadn't really done anything with the original Mac, I said SURE!

So, now I'm even more impressed with the customer service. They had originally mis-diagnosed the problem I was having (couldn't see my Seagate drive through the Time Capsule), but it all got worked out in the end. That was the beauty of being able to take everything in with me and show them.

I feel like I have been to Networking school as I now have my XP (not wireless), Vista (wireless) and Mac machines all talking to each other and a common printer and the hard drives. I'm a software developer, but networking is just one of those things that we don't have to do usually. I have a new respect for the Lan/Wan guys. What a pain!

Now maybe I can concentrate on photos again!!!

Amy D.... Proud new Mac Mommy :)

[Roger Clark]

I'm a unix/linux user tolerating window$ XP and just bought a Mac Pro with 23-inch cinema display (received it on Monday). It's actually my wife's machine so we've been moving her stuff to it. It took us 20 minutes to figure out how to open the DVD drive (nothing on the screen, it's a key on the keyboard ;-)). The interface is so different from windows, Unix or Linux that it is going to take a while to get used to. I've spent the whole weekend pretty much just trying to migrate the itunes songs over. I found the Finder program (equivalent to windows explorer program) was clobbering directories instead of adding to the files in a directory (e.g. I needed to copy the contents from multiple directories into one on the mac; Finder over-wrote the directory blowing them away and replaced it with the contents of the new copy). I resorted to unix tar commands from the command line). So bottom line is be prepared for a learning curve, but in the end I think it will be worth it. All my future machines will be macs or linux with star office (no windows 2007 office) and no vista. Some things, though, I wish mac developers will borrow from linux/windows, like right click. After all, we have 5 fingers, why should mouse clicks be one finger? (The mac I got has a 5-button mouse, but applications only seem to use left click.)

Now if photoshop would only come out on Linux, along with Linux color management.....

Roger
http://www.clarkvision.com

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Amy Glad to hear !!!!!

The Apple people are good about in store service They do go out of their way

I can't run Time Capsule since I'm not in the new operating system There are some programs which will not run Shouldn't be long.

btw when you were at the store did you take a look at the notebook air !!! That is one amazing little computer Never seen something
that small Does give me tempting thoughts !!!!

[Amy DeStefanis]

Hi MClark. I had some hiccups with the Mac Finder, too - for instance, the reason I couldn't see my USB card reader was because I didn't have the FInder Preferences set to see Network drives.... Who knew? That was one of the valuable things about going to the Apple store. When I first purchased the machine, and they mentioned free training classes I thought "Pffft, why do I need that..???" But they walked me through some really useful things I never would have thought of while I was talking to them at the store. Also, there is a page on their site for those of us switching from PC to Mac: http://www.apple.com/support/switch101/

So, if you have an Apple store nearby, I do recommend taking advantage of the free assistance you get (I think it's 90 days unless you buy a year of Apple Care), and just pick their brains...

I found out that on a laptop, right-click is: two fingers on the trackpad, and then click the button.... scroll sliding 2 fingers down the trackpad.... how cool!

As for the Seagate drive, I plugged it straight into the Mac, moved all the files off, the used Mac's Disk Utility to reformat the drive (FAT), and voila.....

Alfred, I did look at the notebook air. I can't believe how thin they are! I think soon all our computing power will be about the size of a PDA, and we'll just plug it into a docking station, but otherwise carry it with us. I did just get a warning from a friend about how Apple sometimes orphans its applications on old operating systems, but I have some old Office 2000 Premium disks around here that are pretty useless....

[Scott White]

EDIT: sorry I didn't read the rest of the thread before replying - you've already made the switch :)


I have been a loyal PC user for many years. I'm even a software engineer, so this is a very scarey step for me.... But after taking photo workshops using my Dell laptop with Vista (bleh), I have begun to have Mac envy.

Having just come from exactly what you are considering, I'm happy to run through my thoughts on the switch if you would like more information or have specific questions. I'm also a software engineer by profession (everything from windows GUI's to real-time signal processing) so I put many months into researching the switch.

I'd been using PC's for 15 odd years (DOS/Windows) exclusively and back then would never have entertained the thought of purchasing a Mac. But having caught the first Leopard (Mac OS X) Keynote presentation a few years back, it really got my thinking...

Anyway, I've had my Mac for just under two months now, and I would have to say I am VERY happy. I have so far not encountered anything that I can't do on it that I would usually do under Windows. Aspects of daily use seem quicker and more efficient (launching programs - dock or spotlight, finding documents - spotlight, etc).

All in all it was a quick, painless transition.

[Roger Clark]

Also, there is a page on their site for those of us switching from PC to Mac: http://www.apple.com/support/switch101/

So, if you have an Apple store nearby, ....


Thanks for the link. Unfortunately, the closest apple store I know of is about 12 miles
away in busy downtown Denver.

So if I make the switch later from my other windows PC (a high end Alienware Area 51 XP box),
does anyone know if I can migrate my photoshop windows license to the mac without paying big bucks? It won't be for a while--I have the disk space, 30-inch monitor. and compute power for
everything I need right now.

Roger

[Amy DeStefanis]

HI Scott - thanks for the confirmation that I made a good decision. I agree that things that SHOULD be seamless, actually appear to be on the Mac. I've noticed because my husband is using the "old" Vista machine, and the time it take either of us to just boot / shut down is amazingly different.

Roger, if you get into the big city, try to plan a trip to the Apple store (12 miles isn't THAT far). They take reservations for the "genius bar". Like Scott said, you really can do anything with it that you can do with a PC, it's just a matter of finding out how. I have PSElements, and learned that it's possible to get a discounted price updating to the full version of PS.... I don't know about PC -> Mac. Lightroom evidently can be switched over without getting a new license. My Capture NX software disks show that they are good for the Mac as well as PC. I haven't installed yet - still gearing up to get my brain back into pictures....

Frankly, the edit tools in iPhoto have been astonishingly easy to use. Just playing, I threw some photos together into a slide show, and edited the histogram, horizon, etc., right in the tool. These were 10mp RAW files. I was amazed. So, I just haven't put Capture NX on yet.

[Steve Ashton]

Roger contact Adobe and they will issue a MAC licence foc at least they do in the UK

[Mary Stamper]

(The mac I got has a 5-button mouse, but applications only seem to use left click.)

Now if photoshop would only come out on Linux, along with Linux color management.....

Roger
http://www.clarkvision.com[/quote]

Totally not true Roger. Just plug in a 2/3/4/5/100 button mouse and the context menu will be on button 2.

Apple has always had the equivalent of the context menu (or mouse button 2). With a 1 button mouse you access is via ctrl-click. With a 2 button mouse ctrl-click is automatically mapped to button 2.

(I'm a unix geek too, so the first thing I did when I switched was get an N-button mouse. ;)

[Roger Clark]

> Just plug in a 2/3/4/5/100 button mouse and the context menu will be on button 2.

Is button 2 the middle button? On the mac pro running leopard I just got, which has a 5-button mouse, the middle button (a scroll button) brings up other stuff, like time, and weather. No button brings up any other menu besides the normal left button.

Roger

[Mary Stamper]

Well, on standard 2 button mice, it's button 2 (right-most). On my 5 button Contour mouse it's button 3 (again the right-most one). On a standard unix 3 button mouse, it is button 3 (right-most again). I have a new mac pro running leopard as well. I have never plugged in the standard apple mouse that came with it, as I use the above plus a pen and tablet.

If you can wait until I get home from work tonight, I'll plug in the apple mouse and see how it behaves. I'd suggest checking the mouse configuration because almost all mouse drivers, especially ones for mice with more than 2 buttons, provide a configuring utility so you can change the behavior of the buttons yourself. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the default Apple configuration does silly stuff like bring up dashboard or other things which already have dedicated keyboard keys (also programmable).

You just have to make sure that a button is programmed to ctrl-click. By the way, if you ctrl-click the left mouse button, does it bring up the context menu? It should (and has done so since the beginning of Apple time )?

I'll get back to you about this later tonight. Gotta find the Apple mouse first. :)

[Mary Stamper]

I just plugged in the Apple-supplied mouse that came with my mac pro.

For whatever only-apple-knows-for-sure reason, the default configuration is to map the right side button to be the same as the left side button.

To fix this, go to system preferences ->keyboard & mouse->mouse

Now change change the button on the right to be Secondary Button (as opposed to the default Primary Button). It will now bring up the context menu (or the same as ctrl-click when you press the right-most button.

[Roger Clark]

Mary,
Thanks for the info. I'm on travel now and will test it out when I get home.

Roger