Buying my first mac, could really use some answers.

[Spankenrear]

Well after building a $3000 PC 5 months ago I had a "hindsight is 20/20" moment, now I've sold my PC (for $1200, what great resale! haha) so this week I'm ordering a macbook dual 2.0 with a gig of RAM (I'll upgrade to the 2Gb later). So now I have many questions as a total mac newbie, I'd really appreciate any answers that I can get.
1. I have moved all my files to my portable hard drive that's in 3 partitions, will my mac be able to read all these files? Does mac use a different file format?
2. How do you partition a drive in a mac? Is it worth doing on a laptop?
3. Is there anyone here that has used a macbook to multitrack record? how were the results?
4. What's the battery life like on the 2.0 13" macbook?

That's all I can think of right now, I'm sure I'll have many more when I get the laptop in hand.

 

[72930]

4. What's the battery life like on the 2.0 13" macbook?

Full brightness, and just surfing the web/ music playing etc: 4 hours. Mid-brightness and light stuff: 5 hours. Full brightness and heavy stuff (photoshop etc): 2hrs45.

 

[Chundles]

Well after building a $3000 PC 5 months ago I had a "hindsight is 20/20" moment, now I've sold my PC (for $1200, what great resale! haha) so this week I'm ordering a macbook dual 2.0 with a gig of RAM (I'll upgrade to the 2Gb later). So now I have many questions as a total mac newbie, I'd really appreciate any answers that I can get.
1. I have moved all my files to my portable hard drive that's in 3 partitions, will my mac be able to read all these files? Does mac use a different file format?
2. How do you partition a drive in a mac? Is it worth doing on a laptop?
3. Is there anyone here that has used a macbook to multitrack record? how were the results?
4. What's the battery life like on the 2.0 13" macbook?

That's all I can think of right now, I'm sure I'll have many more when I get the laptop in hand.

1. A Mac can read/write to FAT32 formatted disks and read only from NTFS formatted disks. It should have no problem reading and copying files from your external drive, if it's NTFS though don't try to add anything to it from the Mac because it will ask you to format and if you inadvertently click "Yes" it will wipe your HDD. Mac OSX uses a format for its boot drive called HFS+ (Hierarchical File System +), Windows PCs cannot read or write to HFS+ but Mac OSX can only be installed on a HFS+ drive. For portability of your external drive, use FAT32 formatting on the external drive.

2. Partitioning is done via Disk Utility, it's easy to do but not really necessary, especially on a laptop. There's no need to partition.

3. No experience so not sure.

4. Don't know, would imagine somewhere between 3 or 4 hours. More if you drop the brightness of the screen and turn off the wireless stuff.

 

[Markleshark]

1. I have moved all my files to my portable hard drive that's in 3 partitions, will my mac be able to read all these files? Does mac use a different file format?
2. How do you partition a drive in a mac? Is it worth doing on a laptop?

1. It depends how you formatted the portable drive. Hows that formatted?

2. In Utilities there is something called 'Disk Utility' you can do all your HDD stuff in there. If it is worth doing on a laptop it is up to you... Depends what you need it for.

Only ones I can answer.

Bah, better answers upstairs...

 

[Spankenrear]

Thanks for the answers, it's good to know about the NTFS, that info will help, I'll convert them to FAT32 before I dump my PC (my GF will still be using a PC until I get her a mac mini)

 

[FFTT]

If you plan to dual boot, make sure you get a large enough HD (100GB )
to handle the basic install of both operating systems with some left over room for storage.

 

[dpaanlka]

Thanks for the answers, it's good to know about the NTFS, that info will help, I'll convert them to FAT32 before I dump my PC (my GF will still be using a PC until I get her a mac mini)

Does anyone know if FAT32 drives maintain Mac OS files correctly? I have never used a FAT32 disk with my Mac but would imagine there is some level of risk there... would it not be better to copy all his files and format it to a Mac-specific format?

 

[Spankenrear]

Ordered my macbook today

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

Cool ! if your a non gamer the Macbook is perfect.

 

[excetara2]

I have a macbook and love it. It doesn't run games very well. I will agree with that.

 

[whooleytoo]

2. How do you partition a drive in a mac? Is it worth doing on a laptop?

If you're partitioning the drive so as to install Windows, you should do this with the Boot Camp Assistant.

Otherwise, you'd use Disk Utility. It's very straightforward, select the drive on the left hand view, choose the number of desired partitions from the drop-down menu; use the sliders to set the size of each partition, then click on each and select the desired format.

You may need to boot from the accompanying OSX disc to repartition though.

 

[lmalave]

Well after building a $3000 PC 5 months ago I had a "hindsight is 20/20" moment, now I've sold my PC (for $1200, what great resale! haha) so this week I'm ordering a macbook dual 2.0 with a gig of RAM (I'll upgrade to the 2Gb later). So now I have many questions as a total mac newbie, I'd really appreciate any answers that I can get.
1. I have moved all my files to my portable hard drive that's in 3 partitions, will my mac be able to read all these files? Does mac use a different file format?
2. How do you partition a drive in a mac? Is it worth doing on a laptop?
3. Is there anyone here that has used a macbook to multitrack record? how were the results?
4. What's the battery life like on the 2.0 13" macbook?

That's all I can think of right now, I'm sure I'll have many more when I get the laptop in hand.

1) Don't know
2) Disk Utility - it's super simple. Don't need to partition just for OS X, though. But if you're running Bootcamp then you'll need a Windows partition.
3) Don't know
4) About 4.5 hours with screen at full brightness and with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth antennas both turned on. So you could probably extend it even more with brightness turned down, Bluetooth turned off, etc.