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'?"

Comments

simple

[RoadChris]

Buy a multi-button usb mouse. It will work like you want. I made the switch in a single day. You can too.

Re:simple

[Hes Nikke]

quobobo said To be fair, he's getting an iBook, not a Mac desktop. I use a Logitech 6-button mouse with my Powerbook whenever it's at a desk, but it's simply not an option on the road.

but what *is* an option is SideTrack.

i have that 6 button mouse built into my iBook thankyouverrymuch! (click, tap, +4 corner taps)

the only time i use the external mouse is when i'm using the 'book in bed, and using the track pad means contorting my arm (which hearts just thinking about it!)

To quobobo: what up? i haven't seen you around the 'net lately... shoot me an email!

Re:simple

[nine-times]

I agree getting a multi-button mouse is a good idea. However, if you don't, or if you're using a laptop and don't want to carry a mouse around with you, get used to keyboard shortcuts.

On windows, I've been more of a "right-click, copy, right-click, paste" sort of guy, whereas, on the mac, with no right click, I go for the command-c, command-v stuff.

I know, it sounds trivial, but there are a lot of useful key-combos on a mac. For all the complaints of a one-button mouse, I find with the key-combos, the lack of extra buttons doesn't slow me down. In fact, one benefit is that the key-combos are much more consistant in OS X than windows. Command-Q always quits. Always. Every program. Command-S always saves. Windows has this sort of thing, but there are quite a bit of programs that don't cohere to the convention in Windows.

Otherwise, this is the advice I can think to muster (yes, I'm thread-hijacking):

• OS X and Windows have a lot of the same applications. MS Office, Macromedia/Adobe suites, stuff like that. So, if you used these apps, get the OSX version of the same apps, and you'll feel at home. In many cases, there's little difference.
• Watch out for resource forks. If you aren't familiar with resource forks, it's some extra metadata that tells the OS what kind of file it is and how to deal with it. If you want to use unix commands, be careful when moving, copying, or compressing files, because you can lose the resource fork, which makes the file useless unless you can repair the resource fork. It's a pain. There are ways around this, but you may have to do some research and experiment (Helios Xtar comes to mind for tar).
• Some good sites for technical info: Mike's Mac OS X...Tips (home of Carbon Copy Cloner) and mac OS X hints (really helpful)
• A lot of things are similar. When you'd normally go looking for Winzip, use Stuffit. When looking for Firefox, adjust, and realize you want Camino. Explorer and Finder work similarly. If you're looking for Outlook, the Mail, Addressbook, iCal combo will probably meet your needs. The Control Panel in Windows is "System Preferences". It's not going to be hard to figure out, and the Mac alternatives are usually going to be at least as good as Windows.
• The dock may take some getting used to. Closing a window does not mean you've exited the application. If you want to know if an application is running, look at the dock. If the icon for the application has a little black triangle underneath it, it's running. To quit an application, make sure you have it running as the top-most application (it's name will be on the top bar, right next to the Apple icon) and press command-Q. (there are a couple of other ways to do this, but like I said, get used to keyboard shortcuts)
• Don't spend very long trying to quit out of that little blue smiley face at the end of your dock. That's the finder. It's always running.
• The "command" key is the one that has an apple on it (next to "alt" and the spacebar).
• When you look in menus for keyboard shortcuts, you'll see funny symbols. What I mean is, if you click on "File", one of the options will be "Save" and next to "Save" will be a funny clover-leaf symbol, and then an "S". This means "command S"The little clover-leaf is the command key. (usually, the command key has both a clover-leaf-looking symbol and the Apple logo on the keyboard, so this one shouldn't be too hard). An up arrow isn't up, it's shift. The third symbol, which I can't even figure out how to explain what it looks like, that means "alt".
• All data goes in your home folder. Your program preferences are in the Library folder, which goes in your home folder. It's kinda unix-like, easy to deal with, a lot better than Windows.
• In fact, as a user, you can pretty much ignore the Library and System Fold

Learning/Unlearning goes both ways!

[mh101]

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.

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. :) 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?

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.

Re:Learning/Unlearning goes both ways!

[mh101]

Found one! :) It's at http://www.oxygen-inc.com/premium/InsaniSoft/iEx.h tm. Not quite as cool as Expose, since it only shows thumbnails and not resized windows that are still being updated, only smaller... but it's a start, and it's free!

Try Apple's Switch Page

[finnatic]

http://www.apple.com/switch/ talks about switching from Mac to PC, and includes answers to FAQ's on pages like: http://www.apple.com/switch/questions/ and http://www.apple.com/switch/questions/index2.shtml

Just about any USB mouse will work on a Mac, so if you have an existing USB multi button mouse on a PC, try it and you may find it works fine (and the Mac will allow to set the right button to do contextual menus etc).

Re:Google

[Anonymous Coward]

it's easy enough to get used too. i took the plunge and bought an iBook about two months ago, and it's been smooth sailing so far.
dragging and dropping on the mac is cool - unlike windows, where for most everything but icons you have to copy paste, on the mac, you can actualy click and drag - and it works! the applications are mostly all integrated, and i've found myself doing things that would never work on windows.
another thing - the command key (the curly button with an apple on it) does most of the same functions as the ctrl butten on a pc keyboard - the ctrl button on the mac keyboard is what you use for right clicking. i'm sure it has some other purpose too, but oh well.

good luck!

Biggest thing that threw me for a loop.

[Alcimedes]

How to uninstall a program.

I looked everywhere. No friggin uninstallers for practically anything. There was the occasional one from the odd app., but most programs had nothing.

Then I asked someone. You throw the Application icon away. That's it. The vast majority of the apps. files are stored within a package which appears as the app. icon. aside from a few preference files, there's nothing else left.

No hidden DLL's, no registry to clean. It was freaky.

Some tips

[UnknowingFool]

1. Menu Bar presence. It almost never goes away. Unlike Windows minimizing a window does not minimize the application. The application's menu bar almost always stays up at the top.

2. You will learn keystrokes. The GUI is clean and simple but to do things really quick you learn keystrokes.

3. Less icons. I think is due to the nature of executables but there are fewer icons. In Windows almost every file is an icon (unless hidden). In Mac, the only icons that you see with applications are the ones you need to click on to execute.

4. Adopt Unix user conventions. OS X is based on Unix. You need to have a root (admin) account and an everyday use account. If you need to do anything that requires admin privileges (installing software), OS X will ask you for your admin password seamlessly.

5. Be hands off when installing hardware. The operating system will recognize and install without much intervention. Although Windows has gotten better about this, I feel it asks me too many questions about what it needs to do. If it doesn't recognize it, check on whether it is properly installed.

6. If you really want to tinker, learn Unix and open a terminal window.

Learn to trust the Mac with your files

[wimbor]

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..

Unlearning

[commodoresloat]

The biggest thing you have to unlearn is the notion that most Windows users have that using your computer should be as much of a hassle as humanly possible. It will be difficult but you will have to actually get used to using the computer being a pleasant experience. Be careful -- programs may work as you expect them to rather than you having to figure out the most counterintuitive possible way of doing things in order to get it right. The icons are actually on the right side of the desktop, where they won't be covered up by every window you open! "Shut Down" is not under "Start"! Windows don't automatically fill the entire screen unless you want them to! Error messages, though not always very informative, do not come with a horrible blue screen and do not tell you cryptic things that don't make any sense at all. There are very few crashes for normal users of Macs, and the ones that do occur generally affect only the program crashing rather than bringing down the whole machine.

Another thing that will be difficult to get used to is the lack of viruses. I've always envied Windows folks who get to come to work on the day a big virus is going on and basically sit around and do nothing until the virus is cleaned up.... So you'll have to get used to not having as many days off; then again, you'll be more productive, so you'll be able to leave work early.

In short, be prepared to smile a lot when you're using your computer. A lot of users find it difficult at first, but it gets easier.

Re:Unlearning

[i wanted another nam]

You know those times in XP when your computer just spontaneously restarts out of nowhere right in the middle of that lovely document you were composing?

You can disable that. Start > Settings > Control Panel > System > Advanced > "Settings" under "Startup and Recovery"; Uncheck "Automatically Restart"

Of course, nobody knows about it because it takes a fuckin' 400-page novel to describe how to do it.

Make a "Start" menu

[PygmySurfer]

One of the things I haven't seen here that I like to do is drag the Applications folder to the right-hand side of the Dock (Between the Trash and the bar that separates open apps from the other dock items). Once you've done that, Ctrl-Click (or Right-click) on the Applications icon in the dock, and you'll get a nice pop-up menu of all the Applications available on your system. You can repeat this with any folder, so you can easily get to the contents, without having to drill-down through Finder windows.

Mouse Expose'

[Blankzoid]

One tip I have not seen here is this: Assuming that you go with an aftermarket mouse. And assuming that this mouse has the clickable wheel. I suggest you configure said clickable wheel to execute the F9 function of expose' (all windows). This has resulted in a HUGE increase in productivity for me. It makes the already wonderful Expose' twice as natural and speedy. I can find any of a dozens windows in less than a second. If you go with a mouse with even more buttons, the F11 feature is nice to have at your fingertips also.

Re:It is a fairly easy transition.

[raga]

Drdink's list of apps is a good start. I have a list of OS X software I made for two of my "switcher" friends, and now that you are in the same boat, here it is.

These are all the free (as in beer) applications I use all the time:

WireTap: Save an audio file of any sound being played on the Mac by any other application.

DVDBackup: Great for backing up DVDs (while removing region coding, CSS encryption, and Macrovision encryption.) You'll still need Toast to burn the DVDs though.

PixelNhance: A must-have to tinker with the color/brightness/contrast etc. of your digital pictures.

Pixen: The best pixel-level editor on any platform.

MorphX: Morphs one image into another.

SnapNDrag: For screen captures (Grab is another basic screen capture utility that comes bundled with OSX).

Galerie: Puts your photos in a nice album-type gallery of web pages for being served by a web server.

LaTex Equation Editor and Tex Fog: The equation editors I use. Requires Tex/LaTex to be installed..

And if you are into LaTex, you'll also want CPlot: A parametric equation plotter.

CyberDuck: Open source S/FTP client. (Other FTP clients for OSX include osXigen, Transmit, Fetch, Fugu...).

Onyx: A must-have system utility.

MenuMeter: Another must-have system info utility. Excellent.

Books: A library software (book database).

Xnippets: A decent information organiser.

Carbon Copy Cloner: Backup software. (Donationware)

A few apps I have gladly paid money to use:

ChartSmith: Wonderfull for making all kinds of charts you have ever thought of (and some you haven't).

EvoCAM: Great app to record/play (or otherwise control) a Firewire/USB camera hooked to your Mac. Well worth the shareware price. (Also checkout their other offerings - ImageDV and VideoScope)

Intaglio: The 2D vector drawing/CAD program of my choice for simple CAD/ technical drawings.

Keynote: A (much better than) PowerPoint replacement from Apple. I use this all the time. (When it came out originally, I paid $$ for it; I heard Apple is bundling it with iLife now?)

Little Snitch: Keeps tabs on any stealth connections being made to/from your Mac, Shareware.

Intuem: Nice MIDI app with a clean interface. (GarageBand, one of Apple's iLife apps, is great for Audio/MIDI as well, but I find it limiting for my purpose because it does not do MIDI-out to my keyboard/synth.)

cheers- raga