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PC Migration to Mac Mini

skp574 said:
I guess I'll go for the Mac Office suite then from the feedback.
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My local PC World currently has the education edition of Office: Mac for £99.95, and apparently PC World don't check if you actually are a student, or are employed in education, so it may be worth a trip to your nearest branch.
 
VPC works ok with Windows2000, but since you're getting the bundle, I think they make you go with XP. Just turn off all uneccessary services. It will be slower than your PC, but for basic stuff, it isn't that bad. Since you're keeping the PC around anyway, you can run Remote Desktop from your Mac to it, and it will be faster. If you can afford the 1GB from Apple, go ahead and get it. OS X doesn't eat RAM, but it will use as much as you give it. The more you do, the better it will be to have as much RAM as possible. The Mini is no speed demon, but it's no slouch either.

The only killer might be the slower hard drive. But if you don't mind notebooks, it will be about the same. You might have been better off with an iBook, or PowerBook though.
 
What will you use Office for and how often. I don't like using Virtual PC as it takes a lot of time to start up or if you leave it on then it steals a lot of resources from Mac OS X. On top of that, it is very slow.

Remote desktop will have a faster startup and will consume less resources on the Mac. There will be lag between input and response, though. It's cheaper than Virtual PC.

Office for Mac seems best if you're going to use Office a lot. The other two solutions are good if you'll just need to use it occasionally.

A fourth, and the cheapest, solution would be to try out NeoOffice/J or OpenOffice.org. Free, quite powerful and with MS Office compatible file options.
 
Since you already have Office on your PC perhaps your best option would be to download Microsoft's RDC as it's free and highly useable, you will need XP Pro or 2000 to take advantage of RDC.

If you need Office on your laptop then you will need to use Office 2004:mac. I would regard VirtualPC as a last resort as it's incredibly slow in comparison to using proper AMD/Intel hardware.

Definately get as much memory as you can afford. Ram and Screen real estate are both much more important things to have instead of a jet-fast processor. If money if no option then Awesome!!! Go for it! 🙂
 
MemphisSoulStew said:
My local PC World currently has the education edition of Office: Mac for £99.95, and apparently PC World don't check if you actually are a student, or are employed in education, so it may be worth a trip to your nearest branch.
Click to expand...

Do M$ now supply the media in the box for education software? When I was at University back in '97 I have to have a certificate stamped by my faculty to prove I was in full time education. Once M$ received it, they then send out the media. Has it now changed.

Symantec don't supply media in the box either after picking up the wrong box in a PC World once. I didn't realise until I opened the box and then it's too late to return it. I thought I'd purchased an upgrade version as the price was so low. Silly me. I don't want to make that mistake again.
 
skp574 said:
Do M$ now supply the media in the box for education software? When I was at University back in '97 I have to have a certificate stamped by my faculty to prove I was in full time education. Once M$ received it, they then send out the media. Has it now changed.
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There is a rather large difference between Mac Office 2004 for Students & Teachers (OST) and regular academic-licensed software (even other titles from MS). OST is primarily a marketing gimmick to get people who are most likely to download Office instead of buying to actually buy it at a reduced rate, under the guise of being a teacher or student (or living with a student or teacher). In reality, it is widely sold with absolutely no identity verification and is the cheapest way to buy Office, especially as it comes with three licenses (similar in idea to the iLife Family Pack).
 
skp574 said:
What do you guy think about AV/Firewall software? I know it is running Unix under the lid, but is it succeptible to viruses? Considering I will be handling PC files.
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As long as those file are not executed under VPC you are safe otherwise it would be like running anything on a PC
 
Another question regarding software

I've got another question about software migration.

When I get the machine I'll probably use RDC and/or VPC to get access to my PC software at the beginning. But eventually I'd want to run everything natively on the Mac if possible. I will use my PC as a file server for all my music which will be hidden away in a cupboard or loft, so there won't be any easy physical access to it.

However, I've got some software that I am sure there are Mac counterparts. If anyone would like to suggest suitable sw I'd be grateful.

CD cataloging software (currently use Music Collector Pro on PC). I have a very large catalogue and don't want to rescan it all. It does all the usual stuff, CDDB lookup along with Amazon for cover art. Batch scanning (just feed the discs into the drive and it spits them out when read. MCP can export to HTML/XML. A piece of software than can import this would be good.

An AutoCAD viewer. I need to view AutoCAD files and annotate them. I currently use Volo View Express (free download) on the PC. I don't need necessarily to edit them, I will continue to do that at my office (which uses PCs!).

A Mac equivalent to MS Money. I only use if for personal finances, so I don't really need business tools such as invoicing etc.


Is PDF creation built into OS X or would I need a 3rd party program, like I do under XP? All I will need to do is convert Excel/Word documents to PDFs for email.

I'm sure such software is available, but don't want to get the wrong stuff and waste money. It took me years to get my PC the way I want it. Hopefully with a Mac I can do it much quicker.

Cheers.
 
skp574 said:
Is PDF creation built into OS X or would I need a 3rd party program, like I do under XP? All I will need to do is convert Excel/Word documents to PDFs for email.
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It's built in. You can export to PDF from any application that can print.
 
skp574 said:
I will use my PC as a file server for all my music which will be hidden away in a cupboard or loft, so there won't be any easy physical access to it.

CD cataloging software (currently use Music Collector Pro on PC). I have a very large catalogue and don't want to rescan it all. It does all the usual stuff, CDDB lookup along with Amazon for cover art. Batch scanning (just feed the discs into the drive and it spits them out when read. MCP can export to HTML/XML. A piece of software than can import this would be good.
Click to expand...
iTunes would work for the CDDB look up and cover art. And if you have it on the PC (iTunes must be running, of course), you can stream to iTunes on your Mac. It's under Share Music. The more advanced stuff may need to be done by a third party product. Do a VersionTracker search to see if come up with anything.

An AutoCAD viewer. I need to view AutoCAD files and annotate them. I currently use Volo View Express (free download) on the PC. I don't need necessarily to edit them, I will continue to do that at my office (which uses PCs!).
Click to expand...
Again, not sure, but check VT. I know there are CAD programs for the Mac, but I don't know if there are any free viewers.

A Mac equivalent to MS Money. I only use if for personal finances, so I don't really need business tools such as invoicing etc.
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Should come with Quicken. If not, it is available for Macs. Money is not.

Is PDF creation built into OS X or would I need a 3rd party program, like I do under XP? All I will need to do is convert Excel/Word documents to PDFs for email.
Click to expand...
Built in. And Mail is great, but you can also use Entourage if you're getting Office anyway.
 
skp574 said:
CD cataloging software (currently use Music Collector Pro on PC). I have a very large catalogue and don't want to rescan it all. It does all the usual stuff, CDDB lookup along with Amazon for cover art. Batch scanning (just feed the discs into the drive and it spits them out when read. MCP can export to HTML/XML. A piece of software than can import this would be good.
Click to expand...
Say hello to Delicious Library, one of the coolest apps I have seen in a long time. 😀 Can MCP export to a tab-delimited text file? If so, Delicious can import it. (You may also be able to find a piece of software that will convert an XML file to a tab delimited text file.) It doesn't look up through CDDB, it goes through Amazon. Instead of feeding the discs in, all you have to do is swipe the UPC in front of an iSight camera and it will automatically add it to your library. A lot faster than taking the disc out, inserting it, waiting, putting it back in the case, etc.

An AutoCAD viewer. I need to view AutoCAD files and annotate them. I currently use Volo View Express (free download) on the PC. I don't need necessarily to edit them, I will continue to do that at my office (which uses PCs!).
Click to expand...
It's nowhere near free but Dr. DWG is supposed to be good.

A Mac equivalent to MS Money. I only use if for personal finances, so I don't really need business tools such as invoicing etc.
Click to expand...
The mini comes with Intuit's Quicken.
 
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