Buying And Converting To An Apple Mac

[femi fan]

Hoping to tap into some personal experiences from others who have made the transition...

I'm finally about to part with my cash, convert from pcs, and buy an imac. It's taken me about two years to get to this point!

I'm getting the 21 inch 1TB model.

Photography and writing have been hobbies for a long time, now i wish to make them earn me money.

Is there anything thaivisa posters can suggest to me from their first-hand experiences that will help my transition?

Two things for example that i will need to do will be to transfer all my photos over (using ACDsee on my pc, with all my favourites and so on), and to transfer all my music which i have organised on itunes on my pc. Another thing i'd like to do is get my internet favourites moved over, but have been unable to see how to do this. I will also have all my documents from word to copy onto the mac.

I do want to get aperture 3, but my costs are mounting up. Am i okay going with iphoto for a while? One thing that seems to be lacking in iphoto is that i can't categorise a photo into an album i create without it doubling file space on the computer.

Any tips and experiences of any kind most welcome. Thanks in advance.

[nikster]

- You won't be happy with iPhoto - get Aperture. Borrow it for a while if you can't buy it...

iPhoto is very basic, and generally the weakest of the iApps - I still use it because it's convenient but frankly, it's never been a great program and it still isn't.

- Exporting your bookmarks: If you don't use Firefox yet, install Firefox - it will ask you to import all your IE bookmarks. Then go to "organize bookmarks -> export bookmarks" - Firefox will export them as a simple HTML file. You can then import that in Safari on the Mac.

- Google for how to move from iTunes on the PC to iTunes on the Mac - should be very simple, I imagine.

- Google for ACDsee as well... I don't know that program and its capabilities. You can get all the photos for sure, but don't now about favorites and so on.

[mistakurtz]

- You won't be happy with iPhoto - get Aperture. Borrow it for a while if you can't buy it...

iPhoto is very basic, and generally the weakest of the iApps - I still use it because it's convenient but frankly, it's never been a great program and it still isn't.

- Exporting your bookmarks: If you don't use Firefox yet, install Firefox - it will ask you to import all your IE bookmarks. Then go to "organize bookmarks -> export bookmarks" - Firefox will export them as a simple HTML file. You can then import that in Safari on the Mac.

- Google for how to move from iTunes on the PC to iTunes on the Mac - should be very simple, I imagine.

- Google for ACDsee as well... I don't know that program and its capabilities. You can get all the photos for sure, but don't now about favorites and so on.

Apertture was very cheap quite recently on new App site.

[nullx8]

iPhotos IS not the brightest app that is absolutly true,

but it does the job .. it handles well almost 40.000 Images in my DB ... since the places and faces feature it become alittle bit slow .. but well the course of more gadgets i guess.

however iPhoto does NOT generate duplicate images, the handling is very much improved since quite a few versions already.

the convert of the data itself will go very smooth for sure since you still have the old machine ... you can give it try's as well ..

the main things to "convert" will be yourself ... since the GUI handeling is quite different. (for my taste, there are still too many operations requires the mouse)

and some things you may see are actually really there .. which is totally different to windows

also regarding setings and diaongs the OS will present to you .. most of them are final .. and the OS really means it ... no more M$ guessing.

as i switched almost 10 years ago ... i found myself many times searching some setting for hours until i finally found out "its al the time right in front of me"

[samuijimmy]

I run both Mac & PC, doing very much the same sort of stuff the OP is doing, but generally find ACDsee Pro, (easier than Aperture, although that could be that I have not spent the time to use it /learn it correctly....)

ACDsee has a Beta Mac version out for testing : ACDsee Mac Beta, I have not tried it yet, mostly because I cannot increase the memory or Ram on my Mac & therefore tend to stick with the PC... (running W7 Ultimate for a year now, & very little problem).

Your biggest problem is you will lose your ACDsee data base info by switching (that is very annoying!) ...although, I am not sure if that would be the case switching from ACDsee for PC to the Mac version... But an email to ACDsee, should clear that up, or check their Forums, they are generally good at responding. I did initial Beta testing for them for years...

The same will happen if you switch to Adobe Lightroom, which a friend suggested I switch to last year, but when you have thousands of pictures, it becomes very tedious to convert & you'll probably regret trying it!... although it does have some good features too.

It's sort of like switching cameras, from say, Canon, if you have lenses, to Nikon or ? You have to go all the way!

[SoloFlyer]

Whats a good webboard/forum for apple beginners?

[webfact]

regarding Bookmarks -

Install http://www.xmarks.com/

Free version works like a charm

[petertucker48]

Whats a good webboard/forum for apple beginners?

I used/use: www.macworld,co.uk

Always been very useful especially when I changed from Microsoft to Apple.

Check out on: www.apple.com/uk

and http://www.apple.com/uk/why-mac/its-compatible/

[femi fan]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

[femi fan]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

[femi fan]

- Exporting your bookmarks: If you don't use Firefox yet, install Firefox - it will ask you to import all your IE bookmarks. Then go to "organize bookmarks -> export bookmarks" - Firefox will export them as a simple HTML file. You can then import that in Safari on the Mac.

All my favourites are in firefox. Once i buy the mac, i'll be wanting to import the favourites from firefox on my pc to safari on the mac. Does your advice change more specifically? I can't get my head around how i actually get them all from one computer to the other physically.

[femi fan]

Your biggest problem is you will lose your ACDsee data base info by switching (that is very annoying!) ...although, I am not sure if that would be the case switching from ACDsee for PC to the Mac version... But an email to ACDsee, should clear that up, or check their Forums, they are generally good at responding. I did initial Beta testing for them for years...

This a problem i've not enjoyed anticipating! I've just done a quick count, and i have a bit over 10,000 photos, which i have quite extensively put many of into various albums and categories on ACDSee. I can't see any way round it unless of course i get acdsee for the mac and it's able to be done. But then that will mean presumably continuing to use acdsee, and therefore not getting anything out of the mac's default photo software. Not sure i want to go that way.

One thing of course is that i do my whole categorising again and this time with a more discerning eye. I will also be able to perhaps delete more photos. Repeated workload, but second time around being better may be the way to think!

[samuijimmy]

Your biggest problem is you will lose your ACDsee data base info by switching (that is very annoying!) ...although, I am not sure if that would be the case switching from ACDsee for PC to the Mac version... But an email to ACDsee, should clear that up, or check their Forums, they are generally good at responding. I did initial Beta testing for them for years...

This a problem i've not enjoyed anticipating! I've just done a quick count, and i have a bit over 10,000 photos, which i have quite extensively put many of into various albums and categories on ACDSee. I can't see any way round it unless of course i get acdsee for the mac and it's able to be done. But then that will mean presumably continuing to use acdsee, and therefore not getting anything out of the mac's default photo software. Not sure i want to go that way.

One thing of course is that i do my whole categorising again and this time with a more discerning eye. I will also be able to perhaps delete more photos. Repeated workload, but second time around being better may be the way to think!

Yes, a discerning eye would be good, only 10.000? ...... my eye needs be far more discerning with 10 times that over 12 years! It's a tedious & time consuming job, especially if re-categorizing & time spent hesitating.... shall I delete or not.....

I downloaded the ACDsee Beta Mac Version, today, just to see what it was all about... It says good until February 18 th as a trial.... I did not delve into what it is going to cost after that.

It struck me as being a little more basic than the Pro version for Windows... might try to have another go at it tomorrow & see...