I've Gone and Done it... (with couple questions)

[dansai]

I've been wrestling with the idea for a long time now, 5 years to be exact... I always had a thing for Mac computers, the design, the way their software 'flows' and the overall experience. The only thing stopping me was 1. The Price, and 2. Teething troubles.

You see, I do a lot of media production at home in my spare time for fun, and sometimes a little extra cash too. So I couldn't afford to buy something 'cheap' as it were, if I was going to get a mac, it'd have to be the dog's privates with no compromises.

After a good few years of watching OS X improve, and Windows XP stay it's same stale self, I have decided to take the plunge. So, on Monday at around 2pm I ordered a new Mac Pro with this config:

Two 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
2GB (2x1GB)
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB GDDR3
320GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
One 16x SuperDrive
Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse
Apple Wireless Keyboard & Mac OS

As you can see I kept it pretty much stock, this was so I could get the best prices on RAM, HDDs etc. But as a recent convert from Windows, I have a few questions.

While I have used OS X at work a fair bit, I would still consider myself to be a newbie to Apple's wonderful operating system. Are there any guides for 'Windows Pros who now want to migrate to a better system, and want to know the facts' out there? Any simple little tips that a Windows user may benefit from knowing? Keyboard Shortcuts? Etc.

Also, I will be editing uncompressed 1080p video fairly often so I will need a fast RAID... Will 3 new Seagate 1tb SATA drives in RAID 0 be sufficient? Or should I get a 4th & use that as a boot volume AND video drive? Or are there other options? I have a budget of around £500 max for this side of things, and I'd like to ideally have as much fast space as I can. Don't worry about the backup side of things, I have that sorted already.

And lastly, with 8-Cores I understand that after effects would benefit from having 16mb of RAM (2gb per core) Is the 800mhz Mac Pro RAM from macsales.com my best bet? Or will I have issues ordering from US to UK? What about the stock 2gb, can that be used alongside the 16gb from Macsales? Will it affect performance etc?

Anything Else I should probably know about? I don't like surprises too much, haha.

Thanks ever so much,
Dan (Mac Noob, Newly rescued from Windows)

 

[72930]

Most people are very happy switching without guides, but Macrumors has some great Guides

Some people like David Pogue's book.

 

[elppa]

You may have already seen this (and if you have used Mac OS X before, then it may be a bit basic). Nevertheless I thought I'd point it out.

The two things I would really recommend are:
[a] Experiment
Learn keyboard shortcuts.

Also be aware that you can type the name of any menu item like "add bookmark" in the help box and it will be located for you.

 

[student_trap]

great move, although without necessarily raining on your parade, why did you not go for the 8800 when your aiming to edit video?

 

[musicforme]

I hope you realized the wireless keyboard that ships with new Macs does not have a number pad on the right side.

I would LOVE a wireless keyboard, but the lack of that feature alone kept me from ordering one.

 

[yeroen]

I hope you realized the wireless keyboard that ships with new Macs does not have a number pad on the right side.

I would LOVE a wireless keyboard, but the lack of that feature alone kept me from ordering one.

I'd love to know why Apple decided to screw with the design of their wireless keyboard by omitting this feature.

It's kept me from buying one as well.