| Author | Message | ||
     Jimduncan69 |
From Pc to Mac.  i just got a new macbook pro with leopard. this thing is amazing. it is so fast it knows what i am going to do before i do it....lol not really but it is really fast. i still have no idea what i am doing on it since it is my first mac. so any of you out there that are mac friendly have any advise for me i would be very greatful for any help. | ||
| Coal400 |
Welcome to a true muti-user OS I never cared for Mac until OSX. We'll see what Mac's support for Intel, and the release of Vista, does for Apple. I think its good time to be a Mac user. | ||
| Hexangler |
Congratulations! I don't have Leopard yet, but if you have any questions, post them, I'm sure you will find help here. Hex PS. You will be able to run ECMspy on your mac in WINDOWS mode.  | ||
| Court |
Interesting post in that I am making the switch tomorrow. I'm "windowed out" having been trying to write the last couple months and waiting 10-15 minutes at a crack for a word document to open, finding out that Word 2007 is incompatible with prior versions and having to reboot a locked up machine several times a day. I work, two days a week, in the library at Columbia University. My first clue that the Mac was no longer "just a toy" was looking around the room of folk doing advanced study . . . I fully concede that if I were doing really intensive stuff requiring NASA level calcs that the PC may be the platform. I don't. I write, read e-mail and process photos. I'm sure there will be a learning curve, but I'm looking forward to it. I, like you, went the Pro and full boot with all processor, memory and hd upgrades since I get the student discount. | ||
| Thesmaz |
I made the switch back in April. Went from a Win laptop and PC to a macbook, a 20" iMac for the wife and a 24" iMac for me. The big imac is great for photo work and I'm learning to use Aperture, which a really nice program without the super steep learning curve of PS CS3. I really like the simplicity of OS X but I haven't made the jump to Leopard yet but I will soon. The macbook is OK for web surfing, e-mail and doing documents and such but the graphic capabilities are not good enough to do any photo work, so Court if you get a Mac get either the 15" or 17" MacBook Pro, which is what I wish I would've done. I too had gotten tired of the WinPC thing and wasn't impressed with Vista at all. | ||
| Steve_mackay |
I made the switch about 5 to 6 years ago. and bought a dual processor 1GHZ G4. The only problem is I *NEED* windows for the Cad/Cam software I use. The new Intel chip macs rock! I dual boot at home between XP and OSX. The only time I use Windows is for the Cad/Cam software, and gaming. | ||
| Ferris_von_bueller |
Apple did invent the graphical user interface, ya know  | ||
| Johnnylunchbox |
Ferris, not saying you're wrong, but Xerox may have done it before Apple. Any techno-historians out here? | ||
| Court |
>>>>Any techno-historians out here? Yes. Now you are in my area . . . world class entrepreneurial collaboration. For one of the better overviews of the entire Xerox PARC history read ORGANIZING GENIUS by Warren Bemis. | ||
| Gentleman_jon |
Jim and Court, Congratulations and welcome to Club Mac. Once you go Mac, you never go back! Sort of like a Buell, different and smarter. There are lot's of Maciticians on the site, post up with any problems: you probably won't have many. The only recommendation I would make to Laptop users is to purchase Applecare for your book. It gives you three years of warranty, and telephone support, which you shouldn't hesitate to use - most of the Apple tech support folks are very helpful. Cost $250 for the Mac Book, $350 for the Pro. Seriously, it is easier to transition to Mac OSX than to Vista. | ||
| Brucen |
If you still need to run windows you can get Parallels or VMWare to run a virtual machine inside the Mac OS. I do this and can run Windows XP in a Mac window. It is almost as fast as a native Windows machine, but I don't have to reboot. I guess it has problems running some games with accelerated graphics, but all my other Windows software (including Visual Studio) runs fine in it. | ||
| Diablobrian |
I'm on a Macbook Pro as I write this. We are a 2 OS household because I know I'll be needing the PCs for CAD/CAM work later in my schoolin' Around the MU campus things are fairly evenly split between Mac and PC. | ||
| Doon |
I just upgraded my 17" AL Powerbook to Leopard. So far so good. I been using Macs now since 99. Jump between Them and FreeBSD for my workstation needs. I still have an XP install somewhere that I use every once in a while to play some video games on. If you are switching. First thing I would say is get yourself a two button mouse (Or plug in your existing 2 button usb mouse). It will make the transition a bit easier. And I don't want to start a religious war between single and multi-button mice. (Message edited by doon on November 04, 2007) | ||
| Birdy |
Go Linux! 8 years of using Linux and I've never looked back. I do use XP because some of the stuff I run won't port to Linux. | ||
| Court |
I bought the support and all the processor, memory and hard drive I could . . . I am done W2. . . . "Window Waiting". | ||
| Court |
What are you guys running for e-mail management? I have all my contacts, all 4500 of them, in Outlook . . . they are synched to my Blackberry. I assume there is a version of Outlook or something I can run? The only other BIG thing . . . is all my music.  | ||
| Jlnance |
Ferris, not saying you're wrong, but Xerox may have done it before Apple. Xerox invented many of the things that make computers useful to us today including the graphical user interface. Xerox never really tried to market this stuff. Both Apple and Microsoft got the beginnings of their software from Xerox. I'm not sure if they paid for it or if Xerox just gave it to them. | ||
| Livnlo |
court sign up for i tunes and you should be able to import all your music files threw itunes install it on your pc first upload the files then swap it all to the mac | ||
| Gentleman_jon |
Lunch You are correct. The graphic interface and mouse first appeared on the Xerox Star system. Jobs saw it at Xerox and adopted it for Lisa. | ||
| Diablobrian |
there is always office for mac that can be used to manage all of your contacts in a familiar environment Court. I use Word:Mac all the time. Makes it easy to cross your files over since the format stays the same. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Court... Buy an Iphone, and manage them there.  (It is a seriously cool piece of technology, with a decent quality built in camera). | ||
| Danger_dave |
I'm not a platform snob - If there is a gig and it's on a windows machine I'm fine with that, but I have been working on macs professionally for 22 years. Have worked at an Apple Center, run art rooms in big publishing houses, and geeked the machines big time. They have rarely let me down. One of the best things about them now is the goodies you get with the OS. All my videos and music are made with iLife. It comes with some of the machines - worth the $ if it doesn't. The system email software is rudimentary - and Outlook works - all the MS office stuff works fine. But it is one of those few things that has let me down. I lost everything to a corrupt Outlook mail box. Spiked the lot. If you do convert to Outlook Court - BACK EVERYTHING UP - religiously. Fonts are now one of the few day to day things that don't transfer. Use arial and times and you can't go wrong. I also find the .mac thing great. Well worth the $100pa - Drag and drop publishing. Don't use iPhoto for the size RAW files you deal with. No good for pro work. Happy for snappy. | ||
| Danger_dave |
Googled gui: MACINTOSH AND THE FIRST GUI When the Macintosh was introduced in 1984, it represented something altogether new to the public – an affordable Graphical User Interface (GUI) on a computer with a mouse. Suddenly, while others were typing commands like “del index.com,” Mac users were dragging and dropping the image of a file into the image of a trash can. Users had a computer with an interface that made sense (intuitive). But although Apple was the first to successfully mass-produce a GUI, they were not its inventors, nor were they the first to market it. The honor for producing the first working GUI goes to Doug Englebart – at the time an employee of Stanford Research Institute. Englebart and colleagues created a program called the oNLine System in 1965-‘68. This program used the first mouse, a windowing system, and hypertext, and was based on a description of a system called “memex” proposed by Vannevar Bush in 1945. The name “mouse” comes from this period. The mouse used in oNLine had three buttons on one end and the line coming out the other end. Apparently, the buttons for eyes and nose, plus a cord for a tail, reminded the users of a mouse and the name stuck. Years later, still in a time when nobody knew what the future of computers was to be, Xerox put together a team of researchers who did nothing more than put ideas together to see what they produced. The team, located at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, was convinced that Englebart’s model would work on computers available for individual work stations, and they produced two working models, the Alto and the Star. The Star was made available to the public, mouse and all, in 1981. But it was very expensive, and they sold only 25 thousand of them. But this was the first GUI-based OS available to the public. The Star had many limitations. The name is for the OS, which was very powerful, and not the computer, which was not very powerful. The computer was unable to handle the demands of the OS with predictable results. Steve Jobs, one of the founders of Apple, saw some of the potential in a GUI during tours of the Xerox facility. Some say that is where Jobs got his ideas for the GUI found on the Mac. Jobs did see some programming that contained GUI concepts, but the development team for the Lisa (and Bill Gates, by the way) saw the release of the Star. Both the development team and Bill Gates left with new visions for the future of the PC. The Lisa was retrofitted with a GUI OS before it was released and Microsoft began working on Windows. Like the Star, Lisa was a very expensive computer and few sold. The Macintosh was released in 1984 as a relatively inexpensive alternative to Line Command Operating Systems, and the rest (as they say) is history. Next | ||
| Court |
The chapter in Organizing Genius will lay rest to a lot of this speculation and explain the sex drive of folks on highly dynamic teams . . you all do know that Apple had to start requiring 3 to a room on business travel? Jobs is responsible for one of my favorite quotes that anyone who'd been around Buell l for a number of years has doubtless heard until they are sick of it . . . "REAL GENIUSES SHIP". PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) had it ALL and blew it . . . . the rest is history. I did the iMac, iLife and Aperture. I am eager to see if Aperture is better than Capture NX. I have the feeling a lot of what I blame on Nikon is actually, in fact, a windows problem. With the new D3 coming . . . I can't wait 20 min (although it has dual cards and the ability to write .NEF to one and .JPEG to the other) for windows. | ||
| Danger_dave |
>>I am eager to see if Aperture is better than Capture NX. << Haven't tried it sorry. Nothing will shift me from photoshop - based on the variety of files I have to output. I will look forward to some results. Enjoyed the noowyawk stuff. | ||
| Jimduncan69 |
wow thanx for all the responses! so far i really like it a lot. i will be using it for recording. i also bought logic studio. i hope it will live up to the hype. i have been recording on pc's for years and i think they might be a major reason for some hair loss..... i am just plain ol tired of dealing with a pc that crashes on me left and right. the nail in the coffin for me was i was editing some video in movie maker, and it crashed on me 17 time's in 30 minutes. now that is frustrating ..lol i am having one problem so far. i have a samsung digital sports cam that writes avi files and the mac wont recognize them. "livnlo" it is the same cam that you have. | ||
| Gentleman_jon |
Jim, Download VLC for mac. It will play .avi's and just about anything else. Here is the URL: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-macosx.html | ||
| Jimduncan69 |
thanx Jon. is there anyway for avi files to work in iMovie? | ||
| Danger_dave |
Quicktime reads AVIs - I just drag them onto an imovie window. If it won't - Have you updated everything? | ||
| Doon |
I think that camera uses an odd CODEC. AVI is container format, just like quicktime, so if you don't have the codec installed you won't get the video. VLC is a cool program, but I don't think it can be used to transcode from one CODEC to another, which is what you would need if there isn't one available. Which model it is? I think most of them use variant of MPEG-4. |
