Getting ready to switch

[eetu]

Hello everyone!

First post!

It is the time for me to leave Windows behind and switch to Mac. I ordered a 24-inch iMac. I read so many complains about the display problems that I went to the store and I tested it myself. I didn't like the 20-inch. I did the solid color test and the problem was very obvious. Even the guy at the store admit it, although still he said it's a great display.

Then I tried the 24-inch and I liked it. With the solid color background, I couldn't notice a big problem, although my girlfriend saw the left to right issue. We're not design professional or experts.

But anyway, I liked the displayed and I will not be looking at a solid background while working so I decided to go for it. It fulfills my needs: big hard drive, big display and leopard. Enough for some casual web design and photo editing. Overpriced? Probably, but well, it's a mac and way much better than my current Fujitsu notebook.

So, while I wait for my imac to arrive, I'm looking for some tips for the big switch. I'll post my concerns next. I'd appreciate any advices.

- Networking PC and Mac. Printer and file sharing. Easy?

- File transfer to Mac. I have an external hard drive. Will it work with the Mac or do I need to format it first?

- Hard drive partition? Needed? Recommended?

- How to transfer my Outlook email?

That's it for now.

 

[superleccy]

Welcome!!!

- Networking PC and Mac. Printer and file sharing. Easy?

Never tried it. I ejected every trace of PC from my life when I got a Mac. But check out the guides section of this site.

- File transfer to Mac. I have an external hard drive. Will it work with the Mac or do I need to format it first?

If you're using an external hard drive solely with a Mac, format it as HFS+ (aka Mac OS Extended). This is best because it correctly preserves file names and permissions the OS X way. But a PC can't handle this format without special software (MacDrive, I think).

If you want your Mac and PC to read and write to the drive, then the format has to be FAT32. It works fine, but you'll find that your Mac writes a bunch of hidden files to the disk to compensate for it not being HFS+.

If the drive is NTFS, then the Mac will read from it but not write to it.

- Hard drive partition? Needed? Recommended?

Not unless you want to install Windows.

I used to go partition-crazy in my PC days. A partition for the OS, a partition for my swap file, a partition for a backup OS etc etc. But with a Mac, it all just works.

- How to transfer my Outlook email?

Ugh. For me, this was the worst bit about switching. I had to buy a small program called outlook2mac. It ran on the PC and converted my .pst folders to something that Mac could cope with (ie, something that wasn't M$ proprietary). There might be a better way of doing it now... but it worked fine.

And overpriced, you say? Just factor in the cost of all the extra cr@p won't have to buy (AV software etc) becuse you got a Mac!

Enjoy!
SL

 

[ChrisA]

- Networking PC and Mac. Printer and file sharing. Easy?

- File transfer to Mac. I have an external hard drive. Will it work with the Mac or do I need to format it first?

- Hard drive partition? Needed? Recommended?

- How to transfer my Outlook email?

That's it for now.

Networking the PC and the Mac. If you can make the PC end work the Mac end is easy. External HD. Format it for HFS+ and use it as a Time machine backup drive.

Transferring email. Forward the entire collection to yourself Set up a google gmail account and send it all there. There are better ways to do this but this is easy.

 

[superleccy]

External HD. Format it for HFS+ and use it as a Time machine backup drive.

Good idea for when the OP is up & running, but not much use for transferring files.

Transferring email. Forward the entire collection to yourself Set up a google gmail account and send it all there. There are better ways to do this but this is easy.

Yuk. Then all your email looks like it's been sent from you on the same day. Fine if you're happy with that.

 

[eetu]

Thanks for your help!

If I understand correctly, the mac will read the contents of the hard drive, no matter what format it has. I'm planning to copy the contents to the mac and then format the hard drive and use it for time machine.

 

[superleccy]

If I understand correctly, the mac will read the contents of the hard drive, no matter what format it has.

In a nutshell... yes.