Switch advice

[Richocity]

Hey all! I've been deliberating long enough so now I plan on buying a new PM G5 as soon as the next rev is available (wish they'd hurry!).

Anyway, I have two question regarding moving my data from my PC to my new Mac:

1) Apple gives switchers advice on how to transferring their IE email accounts from a PC to a Mac. However, I use Mozilla (and always have). So, how do I move my Mozilla email folders etc. from my PC to a Mac?

2) I'd like to get a .mac account mainly for the iDisk feature. The Apple site says that a Mac is needed to initially set up a .mac account. Is this true? I'd like to be able to set up the account using my PC and have the data ready to download once I get my new Mac.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[matthew24]

I don's have any clue concerning your questions, but I do welcome you as a fellow Mac user.

Greetings.

 

[James_C]

2) I'd like to get a .mac account mainly for the iDisk feature. The Apple site says that a Mac is needed to initially set up a .mac account. Is this true? I'd like to be able to set up the account using my PC and have the data ready to download once I get my new Mac.

Thanks,
Rich

Yes you do need a Mac to set it up, however If your PC has an ethernet socket it would be quicker to use that, or even burn data to a CD if your PC has a CD burner.

 

[Westside guy]

1) Apple gives switchers advice on how to transferring their IE email accounts from a PC to a Mac. However, I use Mozilla (and always have). So, how do I move my Mozilla email folders etc. from my PC to a Mac?

Here's how I'd do it.

Open Mozilla once on your new Mac. This'll create the profile folders, which will either be in (oh, btw, when you see "~" think "my home folder" - it's standard Unix and OS X uses it) ~/Library/Mozilla or ~/Library/Application Support/Mozilla. Inside that you'll see "Profiles", and inside that you'll see "default". Under that you'll see an odd sequence of letters and numbers
- that's where all your user data exists for Mozilla.

Inside of that folder, the file organization and structure will be the same as it is inside the analogous folder on your Windows box. Just copy your existing files into there (not all of them; just the ones you want i.e. bookmarks.html etc.).

This is assuming you're fairly comfortable and familiar with the inside of your Mozilla profile on the Windows box. If that's not the case, feel free to say so and I and/or others will happily go into painful detail about what goes exactly where.

 

[Richocity]

Networking?

Yes you do need a Mac to set it up, however If your PC has an ethernet socket it would be quicker to use that, or even burn data to a CD if your PC has a CD burner.

Thanks for the advice, James. I'm hesitant to buy a CD burner (my PC doesn't have one) because I really don't want to spend any more money on something I'm going to be getting rid of. I really like your advice on connecting the PC with my new Mac and transferring files that way. So, my next question is how do I actually get them to communicate? Should I set up my PC as a Samba server? If I did then the Mac should recognized the PC automatically, right? I'm just wondering the best (and cheapest) way in which to set up this micro-network you implied in you posting. Thanks again, James.

Rich

 

[Grimace]

One ridiculously easy way to do it is to use AOL IM to transfer files. Open an account name on both, and hit "Send File" - you can do it by file or by folder. If they are on the same network, it is super fast.

Maybe not the absolute most efficient - but it's easy, and any beginner can use it.

 

[James_C]

I really like your advice on connecting the PC with my new Mac and transferring files that way. So, my next question is how do I actually get them to communicate? Should I set up my PC as a Samba server? If I did then the Mac should recognized the PC automatically, right? I'm just wondering the best (and cheapest) way in which to set up this micro-network you implied in you posting. Thanks again, James.

Rich

This is very easy. You just need to connect the Ethernet cable between the Mac and the PC. On the PC you need to share out a folder or the whole hard disk. To do this open explorer and right mouse click the folder that you want to share and choose share and security from the drop down menu (assuming you are using Windows XP) give the share point a name. In the finder window on the Mac click the network icon and the Windows PC will then appear and you should be able to connect to the share point that you defined on the PC. You should be able to move files back to the PC as well if you enable the windows sharing option in the sharing preference pane on the Mac.

The Mac makes everything so easy including connecting to Windows PC's.

 

[Richocity]

This is very easy. You just need to connect the Ethernet cable between the Mac and the PC. On the PC you need to share out a folder or the whole hard disk. To do this open explorer and right mouse click the folder that you want to share and choose share and security from the drop down menu (assuming you are using Windows XP) give the share point a name. In the finder window on the Mac click the network icon and the Windows PC will then appear and you should be able to connect to the share point that you defined on the PC. You should be able to move files back to the PC as well if you enable the windows sharing option in the sharing preference pane on the Mac.

The Mac makes everything so easy including connecting to Windows PC's.

Yes, it certainly does sound easy, but I'm running Windows 98. I checked and 98 doesn't seem to have the feature you mentioned. Anything else I can do, or am I missing something? Thanks again.

Rich

 

[Fukui]

Yes, it certainly does sound easy, but I'm running Windows 98. I checked and 98 doesn't seem to have the feature you mentioned. Anything else I can do, or am I missing something? Thanks again.

Rich

There are USB adapters you can also use to transfer files and is independent of the version of windows your using. I think Move to Mac (software) uses one...you might try that.

 

[Rincewind42]

Yes, it certainly does sound easy, but I'm running Windows 98. I checked and 98 doesn't seem to have the feature you mentioned. Anything else I can do, or am I missing something? Thanks again.

If you can't get sharing to work and your comfortable with it, you can always try FTP. Just turn on the server on Mac OS X (System Preferences => Sharing => FTP Access) and grab any free/trial FTP client on the windows side (I think CuteFTP is the windows standard, but it's been a loooong time since I've needed to look ). Most recent clients should allow you to just drag a folder to upload all of it, so that should have you transfered in no time.

 

[Richocity]

If you can't get sharing to work and your comfortable with it, you can always try FTP. Just turn on the server on Mac OS X (System Preferences => Sharing => FTP Access) and grab any free/trial FTP client on the windows side (I think CuteFTP is the windows standard, but it's been a loooong time since I've needed to look ). Most recent clients should allow you to just drag a folder to upload all of it, so that should have you transfered in no time.

Yes! I'm quite comforable with ftp. That sounds like the way to go. Thanks, Rincewind! Now come on Apple, let's see those new PMs!!!

Rich

 

[Richocity]

Sorry to resurect this old thread but I just got my brand new G5 and monitor (and they rock!) but I'm having trouble transferring files from my old PC running Windows98.

I tried turning my Mac into a ftp server, as suggested, and then accessing it over an ethernet cable (attaching both machines) from my PC using CuteFTP. OSX made it really easy on the Mac side, supplying me with the name to identify the Mac, etc. When I tried accessing the Mac from the PC though, CuteFTP said that the Mac could not be located.

So, I was wondering if there was anything I'm missing. Any ideas?

I thought about using iDisk, but it turns out that the Windows utility only works on XP and not 98.

Thanks!

Rich

 

[Fukui]

Sorry to resurect this old thread but I just got my brand new G5 and monitor (and they rock!) but I'm having trouble transferring files from my old PC running Windows98.

I tried turning my Mac into a ftp server, as suggested, and then accessing it over an ethernet cable (attaching both machines) from my PC using CuteFTP. OSX made it really easy on the Mac side, supplying me with the name to identify the Mac, etc. When I tried accessing the Mac from the PC though, CuteFTP said that the Mac could not be located.

So, I was wondering if there was anything I'm missing. Any ideas?

I thought about using iDisk, but it turns out that the Windows utility only works on XP and not 98.

Thanks!

Rich

Try using a hub, or sharing internet through your ethernet cable to the PC, the mac might set an IP address to the PC, and a subnet. The subnet needs to be the same on both computers without a router. You can access iDisk without the utility, just add a web folder in 98 (in explorer) and type you idisk address i.e http://idisk.mac.com/yourusername . It should work.

 

[Rincewind42]

I tried turning my Mac into a ftp server, as suggested, and then accessing it over an ethernet cable (attaching both machines) from my PC using CuteFTP. OSX made it really easy on the Mac side, supplying me with the name to identify the Mac, etc. When I tried accessing the Mac from the PC though, CuteFTP said that the Mac could not be located.

Are you sure that both machines have IP addresses assigned properly? Given your direct connected they should both use self-assigned IP addresses (169.x.x.x) but if either is set to a static IP this won't happen. If your trying to reach the Mac through the network name (xyz.local) this may not work under Windows (it doesn't understand zeroconf names).

The dirt simplest method is to just set both machines to a 10.0.0.x address, subnet mask 255.255.255.0, and the rest of the settings don't matter. Then use the IP address you gave the Mac to access it from the PC.