New to Mac...couple of questions

[jwade32]

Just wanted everyone to know I have joined the Mac family. My MacBook arrived yesterday and I messed around with it last night. I am fresh out of college and teaching high school and have used a PC all my life and my school also uses PC's. But I am looking forward to the "newness" of the Mac and hopefully our school will switch (which I've heard rumors) b/c I'm tired of PC's.

I debated switching because I do most of my notes on Word or PowerPoint but one of our computer techs said she just got a MacBook and everything should work fine. Also, I've been looking over this site and found numerous things like NeoOffice that I will download for home use. (I probably won't ever bring my MacBook to school though because of theft issues).

The few questions I have are these:
Can I transfer files from my PC to my MacBook? (saw some threads that mentioned external HD's, which I do not have)
How come all my windows say I have 55 GB free when I ordered an 80 GB HD? Where'd the other 25 GB go????

I'd appreciate the help and if there are any other teachers out there, I'll take some advice on programs to get. Thanks!

 

[robbieduncan]

How come all my windows say I have 55 GB free when I ordered an 80 GB HD? Where'd the other 25 GB go????

1) There is a mismatch between drive manufacturers and OS makers space counting (this is true of Windows as well, you should be used to it as it's been the case on all harddrives) so your drive is really around 75Gb.

2) The OS and all bundled apps are installed into this space. The OS has lots of languages installed. GarageBand + iMovie have at least 5Gb of content for the loops and themes.

 

[ErikAndre]

Welcome to the Mac and to MR.

Can I transfer files from my PC to my MacBook? (saw some threads that mentioned external HD's, which I do not have)

Yes, there are a few ways without an external HD.

1) Burn to CD. Of course, you're limited to just 700MB per disc, but this is a start.
2) Burn to DVD. Same as above, but with more space to move around (depending how big the DVD is).
3) HD to HD copy. This is what we do in IT where we plug in both drives and direct transfer the files.
4) External HD. Transfer all files to a flash drive or remote drive.

There are probably other ways, but those are the most common, as the Migration Assistant only works from one Mac to another.

How come all my windows say I have 55 GB free when I ordered an 80 GB HD? Where'd the other 25 GB go????

Well, an 80Gb drive usually has 78GB free (the other 2-4GB is reserved somewhere by the drive, the format, whatever...). Then MacOS X and all the files/applications take up space as well.

 

[skinnylegs]

Yep. You can transfer them via a thumb drive, external HD or removable media of your choice.

 

[MarkMS]

I debated switching because I do most of my notes on Word or PowerPoint but one of our computer techs said she just got a MacBook and everything should work fine. Also, I've been looking over this site and found numerous things like NeoOffice that I will download for home use.

If NeoOffice doesn't fit your needs, you can always get Office 2008 Student and Teacher Edition. It has Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Entourage for about $130 on Amazon.

 

[waterskier2007]

you can get a firewire cord and boot up the mac in hard drive mode. i cant remember how to do this but u can search the apple site. i think its hold option-t when u boot up. this puts it in firewire mode and the pc will see the mac as an external hd and u can drag and drop files. i personally think this is the best option

 

[jwade32]

Thanks for the responses. I have a flash drive and some cd's so I can try that. I'll search for the firewire cord and see what I can find on that and try it. I just have a lot of music from my college days I want to transfer over.

And I didn't know that the count for OS was different. Was just kinda shocked to turn it on and it say I had 55 GB free.

 

[ErikAndre]

And I didn't know that the count for OS was different. Was just kinda shocked to turn it on and it say I had 55 GB free.

XP/Vista is much worse.

 

[MarkMS]

Thanks for the responses. I have a flash drive and some cd's so I can try that. I'll search for the firewire cord and see what I can find on that and try it. I just have a lot of music from my college days I want to transfer over.

Instead of using numerous CDs, try looking into getting an external hard drive. You can transfer all your files from the PC and put them on the Mac. After transferring, just start using it for Time Machine. That way you always have a back-up of all your files in case something were to happen.

You can get a portable 80GB USB hard drive for about $80-100 depending on where you shop.

And I didn't know that the count for OS was different. Was just kinda shocked to turn it on and it say I had 55 GB free.

Whenever I get a new Mac, the first thing I do is reinstall OS X. Usually it's so I can make a partition, but it's also to get rid of unwanted items. I usually get rid of Garageband's sound effects and etc. I also get more disk space back by removing languages.

You may want to look into doing that if you want to more space. It might give you about 60-65GB instead of 55GB.