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Questions to answer before I take the plunge

S

se7eren

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 12, 2007
24
0
I have been patiently waiting to by my first MAC, and the time is almost here. New iMac and now days away from a new O/S. But, there is still this little niggle that is giving me sleepless nights about giving up on the windows world forever, and that is......... software.

I would like to know before buying an iMac that all the software that I use everyday in windows can be used, or alternates used on the Mac.

If you could possibly advise of MAC alternatives for the following list, then I can buy with confidence......

uTorrent
peer Gaurdian
Microsoft Office (Without buying office for mac)
GOM player
Picasa


I will not be using parallells or boot camp because of the extra cost, and will be selling my windows laptop to fund the purchase of the MAC.

Thanks in advance.
 
I can't help with all, but I can suggest alternatives for these;

uTorrent - BitRocket
Microsoft Office (Without buying office for mac) - iWork
Picasa - iPhoto?
 
MS Office without paying for it: If you're student, the student/teacher edition really isn't that expensive. Also, if you can hang on for the new version of MS Office, then I think there'll be a "home/student" edition, so you can buy i at the student price even if you're not a student. Otherwise, iWork. But you have to pay for that too. Any anyway, you had to pay for MS Office on you PC, didn't you?

Picasa: iPhoto. Learn to love it, then you won't want to go back.

GOM player: I use QuickTime Pro and the Apple MPEG2 plugin (neither are free, unfortunately), plus Flip4Mac for Windows Media files, plus whatever other codecs I need to add (all free so far). It's all seamless and versatile, it really is, and you can convert anything to anything. Although, I know there are (sometimes free) alternatives that other forum members support. Really, you'll be spoilt for choice.

Peer Guradian: Not sure about this one. Little Snitch?

uTorrent: Don't know, sorry.

HTH
SL

PS: Don't capitalise "Mac".
 
Picasa apparently has an iPhoto plugin (you get iPhoto with your Mac).

MS Office: NeoOffice/J. Not a complete replacement, or an ideal office suite but it works well enough for me.

GOM Player: I've never used it, so I don't know for sure, but MPlayer and VLC work great. Quicktime also comes with Mac, although it's missing many of the codecs.

Peer Guardian: Apparently has a Mac version.

I also recommend Handbrake and Mac the Ripper for DVD ripping.

Cheers.
 
There are plenty of alternatives for everything you asked about:

MSOffice: NeoOffice
Picasa: iPhoto (does an alright job in comparison)
GOM Player: VLC (its the best I've found)
Peer Guardian: Peer Guardian (It has some flaws such as closing port 80, even when trying to use the internet, so you have to turn it off to surf)
uTorrent: Way too many to choose from, I've always used Azureus, but I really don't like its GUI any more. BitRocket I've heard is good.

There's always an OS X equivalent (except for games:eek:) -buy without fear.
 
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Thanks for the quick replies guys. Will iWork open MS Office docs and files??

Anyway, i think my fears have been put to rest. iMac here I come (as soon as lepoard is released that is) :)
 
Sounds like you're already sure, but I'll throw out another vote for iPhoto and VLC, and will suggest you check out Transmission as your uTorrent alternative (at least until the Mac version of uTorrent is done.

Also, don't think of it as a plunge into the Mac world, but more like coming out into the sun after being locked up for awhile. The OS X experience is just better that way.
 
There are some usefull software i have found.

- VLC: Best video player around, bothon mac and pc.
- Transmission: 2nd best torrent client after uTorrent.
- AppZapper: The missing deleting software in OS X.
- SUperDuper: Best back up software around.
- LaCie Backup : 2nd best backing up software.
- MacTheriper : Best ripping software.
- Handbreak : Best encouding software after you rip a DVD.
- WhatSize : Tells you everything about what programs taking how much space.
- Seashore : A nice little program like MS Paint.
- Toast (not free) : Best burning software ever made.
- Safari 3.0 Best browser.
- Adium : Best messenger client ever made and none will be better.

Enjoy your new mac.
 
Again, thanks for the information guys. There was one more thing that I forgot to mention in my original post and that was Logmein. I use this to access my home PC from work.

Logmein are currently trialing a beta version for Mac and I was wondering if anyone has used this and could give some feed back on its useability, or if there are any Mac alternatives for remote access.

Also while I come to think of it, will I be able to transfer all my archived mail from Outlook Express to Apple mail?????

Thanks again.
 
well i dont know about remote access. but you could just simply get outlook express for mac if you have trouble transferring your mail
 
se7eren said:
Logmein are currently trialing a beta version for Mac and I was wondering if anyone has used this and could give some feed back on its useability, or if there are any Mac alternatives for remote access.

Also while I come to think of it, will I be able to transfer all my archived mail from Outlook Express to Apple mail?????

Thanks again.
Click to expand...

The logmein beta works very well. There are a couple of minor bugs... but it's a beta! Take a look at the current release notes which tell you about them. Logmein tends to work better when being controled from Firefox on Windows rather than IE6, which freezes a lot (on our office computers).

The easiest way to move your mail from OE to Mail.app is to go via Thunderbird. Download and install Mozilla Thunderbird on windows and import all your mail from OE. Thunderbird stores its mailboxes in mail.app compatible MBOX format. Now just copy the files it creates to your Mac and import them into Mail.

You wont be able to use OE for Mac as it's only available for OS9 and incompatible with Intel Macs.
 
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