Questions from A New Switcher

[powermac]

OK after two months of visiting this site, drooling over stats and photos, playing around at the Apple store, getting over the sticker shock, and giving a lot of thought to it, I'm becoming...

A switcher.

I've been a PC user for over a decade, but it's time to abandon the sinking ship that is Windows, and Linux doesn't appeal to me the way OS X does. I've decided on a Powermac G5, DP 2.0. I opted for the stock 512mb of memory and I'll add some more later. I'll primarily be using this machine for music and video production. I don't really care if they come out with a newer model right after I buy it. I'm pretty sure I'll be happy with it for years to come.

However, I have a few things I need to know. The whole Mac community seems to be pretty nice, so hopefully you won't mind some seriously newbie questions.

1.) iPod & iTunes: I have a 40g iPod with about 10g of music on it, synced with my Windows laptop. Since my iPod is formatted for PC, what do you think is the easiest and *cheapest* approach to moving my music onto my new Mac and reformatting my iPod for Mac, aside from re-ripping my CDs?

2.) Move2Mac: worthwhile or should I just use my CD burner? Would this be a good approach to the iPod transfer?

3.) Apple Wireless Keyboard & Mouse: Are the Bluetooth Apple devices a good choice as far as wireless sets go? I'm a little sqeamish about only having one mouse button, but theirs seems to be the best rated, and they have that slick Apple look.

4.) Why isn't Radiohead on iTunes?

5.) Are there any accessories that don't come with the standard G5 that I should look into? When I got the iPod I had to buy an extra cable to sync to USB, and when I bought an extra dock I had to buy an extra power adapter if I wanted it to charge with the 2nd dock. (I'm picturing having to drive to the Apple store to get the Apple Power Cable or Apple Power-On Button that didn't come standard with my new G5 )

6.) Any suggestions you might have for a Mac newbie and PC refugee would be much appreciated.

 

[masterjedi73]

Re: Questions from A New Switcher

Congrats. I just switched about a month ago and had many of the same questions you did.

Your iPod should still work on your Mac. Mine did, and so does my wife's. I had already moved all of my music though through a network I set up to my PC, so I just reformatted my iPod anyway. The easiest way to get all of your music onto your mac is by setting up that network, and there's advice on how to do that on this site.

As for extra accessories, get a new mouse. Any USB mouse should work fine, but www.macmice.com has just released a new mouse that looks like apple's. I haven't tried it, but it sure looks nice.

I don't know why Radiohead isn't on iTunes, but Led Zeppelin and The Beatles aren't either....probably some licensing problem.

Other than that, just get the software you need right away. It's a great machine....I've had a blast with it.

Have fun.

matt

 

[MongoTheGeek]

Re: Questions from A New Switcher

Originally posted by powermac
However, I have a few things I need to know. The whole Mac community seems to be pretty nice, so hopefully you won't mind some seriously newbie questions.

1.) iPod & iTunes: I have a 40g iPod with about 10g of music on it, synced with my Windows laptop. Since my iPod is formatted for PC, what do you think is the easiest and *cheapest* approach to moving my music onto my new Mac and reformatting my iPod for Mac, aside from re-ripping my CDs?

2.) Move2Mac: worthwhile or should I just use my CD burner? Would this be a good approach to the iPod transfer?

3.) Apple Wireless Keyboard & Mouse: Are the Bluetooth Apple devices a good choice as far as wireless sets go? I'm a little sqeamish about only having one mouse button, but theirs seems to be the best rated, and they have that slick Apple look.

4.) Why isn't Radiohead on iTunes?

5.) Are there any accessories that don't come with the standard G5 that I should look into? When I got the iPod I had to buy an extra cable to sync to USB, and when I bought an extra dock I had to buy an extra power adapter if I wanted it to charge with the 2nd dock. (I'm picturing having to drive to the Apple store to get the Apple Power Cable or Apple Power-On Button that didn't come standard with my new G5 )

6.) Any suggestions you might have for a Mac newbie and PC refugee would be much appreciated.

1) I think the iPod should just work and you can pull the music off of it onto the mac. I don't have an iPod but I think its just plug and go. Go to an AppleStore and try it.

2)Dunno how much you have to move. Depending on circumstances the best thing might be to run a cross-over ethernet cable and set up a microlan. Unfortunately I don't think you can copy files to the iPod from the PC because that would be another valid option.

3)I love my 5 button microsoft mouse but it has a cable so...

4) Licensing. Either that or Apple hasn't gotten around to Ripping them yet.

5) Hell I got stuff in the box I've never unwrapped. I got a PC from radioshack a while ago that didn't come with cables. (I had them all lying around except the monitor one.)

 

[powermac]

Thanks! For some reason I was under the impression that when you first set up the iPod, if you set it up with a PC it would format the drive for PC. That takes care of my biggest set of files.

I didn't even think about networking the two computers, jeez. I think I need coffee.

 

[kuyu]

I'm pretty sure (someone correct me if I'm wrong) that pc formatting works fine on a mac, whereas mac formatting doesn't work on a pc.

Thus, the mac supports 2 formats of drives, and the pc only supports 1.

 

[Horrortaxi]

1.) what do you think is the easiest and *cheapest* approach to moving my music onto my new Mac and reformatting my iPod for Mac, aside from re-ripping my CDs?

-->If you have the original files on your PC, move them to iTunes on the Mac and just sync the iPod normally. If you only have the songs on the iPod, search versiontracker.com for removal utilities like xPod. Then you can drag them off the iPod.

2.) Move2Mac: worthwhile or should I just use my CD burner? Would this be a good approach to the iPod transfer?

-->Don't waste your money. Network the 2 computers with ethernet or firewire. Use a CD burner. On Windows can you use an iPod as a hard drive? That would be the easiest and fastest solution.

3.) I'm a little sqeamish about only having one mouse button,

-->So was I. I kept my 3 button mouse for a couple months when I switched. I ended up using the Apple mouse and I like it. You get used to it.

4.) Why isn't Radiohead on iTunes?

-->They don't want to be?

5.) Are there any accessories that don't come with the standard G5 that I should look into?

-->You should be all set.

6.) Any suggestions you might have for a Mac newbie and PC refugee would be much appreciated.

-->You have to learn to stop thinking in Windows terms. That comes with experience. When you can let your Mac be a Mac you'll both be very happy.

 

[flyfish29]

Re: Questions from A New Switcher

There are several bands not on the iTunes music Store as of now. I think it will take a little time to convince these bands (dave matthews, red hots {except for greatest hits, they have nothing on there either}, foo fighters, etc.)

As far as wireless go, Logitech gets some of the best ratings out there. I love my corded MX500, but the exact same mouse is available in a cordless and now bluetooth if you prefer. It is so programmable and has 7 buttons (all but one of those is easy to use without moving your hand) You can program any of the buttons with the software to do almost any keystroke or command that you can do with a keyboard. There was a thread a few weeks ago about mice. Do a search on the message board for one including info about the MX500 MX700 Logitech mouse and you will find out much more info about it and other mac mice out there.

Good luck

 

[flyfish29]

Re: Re: Questions from A New Switcher

Originally posted by MongoTheGeek
1)4) Licensing. Either that or Apple hasn't gotten around to Ripping them yet.

It had to do with the bands not wanting fans to be able to buy single songs instead of entire Cd's.

As far as I am concerned, put out 10 songs every CD that is good enough and you will sell 10 songs every time. Statistically over half the customers are buying entire Cd's anyway off of iTunes MS so they should get over it and get into the digital age before their fans spend all their money on other groups.

$.02

 

[26139]

Re: Questions from A New Switcher

(I'm picturing having to drive to the Apple store to get the Apple Power Cable or Apple Power-On Button that didn't come standard with my new G5 )[/B]

Tell me you are joking....It's PCs that usually need all the extra cables...

 

[powermac]

I was poking fun at having to go back and buy some cables instead of being able to enjoy my new Mac.

 

[adamjay]

you picked the best computer on the market for music production mate.

Protools and/or VSTs on that thing will, for the first time, seem like there is no realistic ceiling of potential. That is to say you will be able to do everything you want and then some.

also CoreAudio smokes any DirectX drivers and is right on par with ASIO. ultra low latency.

just adding an ASIO card to a windows machine would be at least $300.

so you've made the right choice and welcome to the dark side.

 

[James_C]

Congratulations on your purchase.

As others have said, don't waste money on move2mac, it does not do anything you can't do manually (but slower). You should be able to use your iPod to move all your files over from PC to Mac (quicker than burning CD's).

If you have not already found it Apple has a nice web page on transferring data from PC to Mac. http://www.apple.com/switch/howto/

The majority of Mac users do use a multi-button mouse and most mice will work out of the box with your Mac. I have a standard wired MS intellimouse. Some people prefer the one button mouse, but as a switcher myself I have never got use to it. Microsoft does a nice Bluetooth wireless mouse that works with the Mac.

I presume that you have some Peripherals that you have with the PC. It may be worth checking if there are Mac drivers available for them. I had to replace my scanner as there are no native OS X drivers available for it, although I believe I could have used a third party utility to provide most of the functionality.

 

[powermac]

This is really helpful info guys. Thanks again. I'm REALLY looking forward to getting my hands on Protools, but that'll have to wait due to budget concerns. Baby steps, baby steps...

 

[fartheststar]

Hmmm, I would get more memory, so your total is at least a gig (but I hear you have to install the memory in pairs for the G5, so you may want to get 2 x 512 sticks instead of 2x256.), don't want 2x256 eating up 2 precious slots.

Especially for video / audio. 512 is bare minimum (perhaps not enough).

Since I'm not in the market for a new mac, I don't know how much the "discount" on memory is right now from the apple store. Usually it's better to buy it from www.crucial.com or somewhere else... cheaper, and just as good.