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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'?"
I got myself a PowerMac a month or so ago. I've found that there were actually more things I had to temporarily unlearn going back to work, than I had to unlearn going to the Mac.
:) Aside from the eye candy (or iCandy?) aspect, that's a very useful feature - one keystroke, and you can see _every_ open window at once. A related question... anyone know of a free Expose clone for Windows XP?
One of the main things I had to unlearn on the Mac was pressing home/end to go to the beginning/end of a line - in OSX, they go to top and bottom of the document. Ctrl-left/right arrows are what are used instead.
But after only having had my Mac a few days, I started doing Mac things without thinking. I kept (and still do!) reaching for the F9 key. You'll see what I mean soon enough.
I think the biggest issue for me was switching my Windows iTunes library over to Mac iTunes, since even though my music is stored on a shared network drive, Apple's pathnames are different than Windows.
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
I've helped quite a few friends make the switch. They're pretty happy users as far as I can tell!
The best thing you can do is make friends with other Mac users, especially true Mac geeks. If they've been using Mac OS X for long enough and they're real geeks, they'll have a lot of great answers for you and be able to personally recommend solutions to your problems because they've run into those things and tried a few solutions themselves.
Don't get a book. No one actually reads them after they buy them.
Also, if there's something you're used to on your PC (like your two-button mouse), there's often times a good equivalent or an exact equivalent on the Mac. Using a Mac doesn't mean giving up absolutely everything that was nice about the PC (even though, as a good Zealot, I would claim that list is somewhat short).
I use this Logitech mouse on both of my Macs, and I love it. Very basic and cheap, but it never fails me and I get the two buttons and scroll wheel that Apple didn't automatically include.
If senility was a race, I would win.
Hi I use Macs and Windows machines all day, and I can safely say that the 1-button mouse is my biggest problem. Connecting a regular old 2 button scroll mouse goes a long way, but if you're used to a Windows trackpad with scroll functionality (i.e. run you finger against the right edge to scroll the active window) there's a little app you can use to get that back.
The other thing I miss every time I use a Mac is the standard windows two pane file navigation. To me nothing on the Mac even comes close. There must be something out there which is just as good, I just haven't bothered to look for it yet.
Office for Mac is better than for windows in many respects and I do use work and excel for mac often, but if you ever use powerpoint, apple makes a similar product called keynote that is much much better. I also prefer the simplicity iCal and "Mail" over the feature-creap madness of outlook anyday. Actually, simplicity is the real reason we switched to mac, isn't it?
As a new mac user, i see this simple user interface in front of me and I start worrying about all of the work i am going to have to do to maintain it: learning new things, customizing, installing, tweaking, defreaging, virus-scanning, re-installing, etc that I will have to do. Remember, this is a mac. just plug it in and go. it is there to get your work done faster, not a basement-built hobby machine that needs constant maintenance.
Just as a side question, does microsoft think we love performing neverending system maintenance? or is it an evil plan to suck away time that we could be suing them or writing competing software?
The largest problem for me was starting to trust that the machine would handle all my files correctly.... Seriously...
I've always been very 'file-centered', meaning that I wanted to have control of where my files would go on a hard drive. In DOS and later Windows you had to... or you lost track of everything. If I copied digital pictures to my Windows machine, I would copy them myself to the correct location, and then tell my photo editing program where they are located.
The drag and drop functions of iPhoto and iTunes take care of your files for you, so you work the other way around. You let the application handle the file copying and archiving. These programs are meant to be very easy for users. A lot of functions on the Mac work that way, and I really had to get used to this.
In the beginning I would try to copy pictures myself to the correct directory, only to find that when I imported them in iPhoto, not a link but the entire file was put into the iPhoto library. I really had to 'unlearn' wanting control these actions myself..
Just remember to make it logitech.... ;)
The windows drivers are slightly better than logitech ones IMHO, but the OS X native driver is all you will need, so go for the better mouse. (See my Journal...)
So I created a new folder and populated it with aliases of the apps I care about (but don't care about enough to let them live permanently in the Dock). I put this folder in the Dock, and voila!
Photography, technology, and my dog Scout - http://mattstratton.com
Just had to chime in with a quick observation. As a longtime Mac user, I can't help but notice how many comments there are about how nicely drag-n-drop works, how uninstalling apps are easy, and just general ease of use of the OS itself [ie, the Mac way of doing things]. These are all the things that us Mac users were trying to get people to notice a decade or so ago. Instead we were told how the OS was too "childish" and "not really easier to use than Windows." Yes, the true multitasking wasn't there, nor was the command-line. However, all of these "niceties" that people seem to talk about nowadays have been there forever. Like I said, just a little observation I've made.
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
Sounds like you're another one of these people who hasn't changed the way they use Windows since Windows 3.1 (or maybe Windows 95) - like all those people who immediately change the new XP Start Menu back to the Windows 95 style without ever trying to use it (it's much better once you get used to it). You are doing your 'students' a disservice by not encouraging them to use drag & drop throughout Windows - support for it is quite extensive.
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.
Like you've been able to do in Windows XP for the last few years, you mean (and earlier versions even longer with third-party software) ?
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.
This is not a matter of something being better, but something being different. Certainly with Outlook it's almost the same. Right click a Contact and hit forward to open a blank email with it attached and then drag the vcard attachment to Contacts at the other end.
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.
Yowza ! Just like dragging an image from IE (or even Firefox (!) ) to MSN Messenger.
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.
You should try dragging & dropping more in Windows. You might be surprised.
I have my mousewheel click as apple click so that it works to open a link as a new tab.
It was really tempting to make it apple-V, but I still wouldn't be able to copy via highlighting