Slashdot Mirror
Windows to Mac Migration Guide/Advice?
Harpa wonders: "Having spent more years than I care to count living and working with various Windows machines, I'm about to get my first Apple (an iBook). While eagerly waiting for the machine to be shipped, I'm starting to realize that changes I'm going to have to deal with may involve more than getting used to one less mouse button!I'm wondering if any Slashdot folk can help. What does an old-time Windows user have to learn/unlearn? To what extent can my Apple live happily with my existing PC's, my printer, my network? Everything I've found so far seems to be either geared for people who've never used a computer before or for existing Mac users. Is there any info available that supports us 'converts'?"
Buy a multi-button usb mouse. It will work like you want. I made the switch in a single day. You can too.
Seriously. Apple is the only company that even comes close to getting drag and drop right. This tends to cause a problem with Windows users I've trained because they are used to having to have a specialized app or process for doing everything, so they do things like assume they need to go buy Roxio Toast because they don't have any CD burning software. It never occurs to them to try just dragging some files into the CD. A key idea in working with MacOS, especially the Finder, is that they try hard to maintain the illusion that something's representation in the GUI is in fact the thing itself. Hence, you add files to a CD by adding those files to the CD.
Need to e-mail someone's address book info to a co-worker, but you don't have your mail app open? Try dragging that person's name from your address book to the Mail app icon in the dock. Kinda cool how it automagically opens mail and starts a blank e-mail with a vcard containing the contact's info already in there as an attatchment. If your coworker has a Mac, he/she can just drag that attatchment's icon straight from Mail to the Address Book - no need to save it first. Similarly, you can IM an image you see on the Web to a friend by just dragging that image from your web browser to iChat.
Granted, a lot of this Drag and Drop coolness has become a bit bastardized on OS X, but it's still mostly there and I'd say it's the single largest difference between Windows and OS X.
(That one button mouse thing is mostly a cosmetic issue; you can buy a two (or 3) button mouse, and if you're on a laptop and don't have a mouse plugged in it's just as easly to hold down the Splat key and click to get your right clicks. Still, I agree that if they're going to do things like offering X11 bundled with the OS they should get a clue and at least make an option to get your laptop with 3 buttons underneath the touchpad.)