Switching from Windows to Mac--Help

Hi Cindy,

I'm not quite clear about all your questions but I'll try.

Cindy Flood said:

I am a complete Apple newbie, so if someone would like to suggest a system that would work for editing on the road (with output to Epson printer when I get back home), please advise.

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Simple, just download the corresponding driver for your printer from the Epson site.

Cindy Flood said:

Also, what software will I need to run my Windows Office, Photoshop CS3, CaptureOne, NikonNX, etc.
Any help would be appreciated to avoid too many stumbles:banghead:.
Thanks.

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If you're changing to Apple then I recommend that you use Mac OS too so you see what the fuss is about. Call Adobe for a Mac license for your CS3, not sure about Cap 1 licensing policies, cross platform or not, anyway they have Mac version of their software too, the same is true for MS Office. NikonNX, you should already have the Mac version of that.

If you want to stick with Windows and use your existing software with Vista or whatever version, the Mac OS comes with BootCamp, you can use this software to either format part of your internal drive or an external drive to run windows on it, then everything will run like what you have now, just in an Apple made box.

You have to restart if you want to change between Apple or Windows OS.

Thanks David.
What Mac should I look at for a mobile/desktop replacement solution. Extra ram? Anything else I will need to buy or take into consideration?
What about my Lightroom library and 4 WD MyBooks full of photos? Is it easy to move all of that?

Cindy,
You will want a MacBook Pro. Either 15" or 17". The 17" is nice but a lot to travel with these days on airplanes. You can go up to 4gb of RAM and I would do that. You can go for a smaller faster hard drive or the larger 5400 drive. I went with smaller and faster and do not store my images on the laptop. I use a 100gb portable drive for travels and have a 1tb external at home that isn't full yet. There are a lot more technical forum members that will help you here. On the RAM upgrade, Apple used to be outrageous but have lowered their price premium. I went with all the RAM from Apple to avoid opening up the machine right away.
I ALWAYS buy Apple care. gives you good phone support and hardware warranty for 3 years.

There is a Mac version of Microsoft office. And as was said you can get adobe to switch you to mac.

All that being said, the MacBook Pros are due for an update very soon. You can always wait for upgrades and postpone but inthis case it really is said to be very soon

Cindy Flood said:

Thanks David.
What Mac should I look at for a mobile/desktop replacement solution. Extra ram? Anything else I will need to buy or take into consideration?

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If you need a laptop to travel with then you have to choose from one of the Macbook Pros, buy the most powerful one that you can afford and load it up, you never have to much processing power or memory and in case of image processing you never have enough. You can see all the options here just click on one and do a custom build, you'll see what's available;

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_pro?mco=MTE4NDY.

I don't know if you use tablets for your pp or not, I do, I usually travel with a Wacom Cintiq 12WX its a great second screen and calibrates better than any laptop lcd that I know of. Its light and compact about the same size of an equivalent tablet.

Cindy Flood said:

What about my Lightroom library and 4 WD MyBooks full of photos? Is it easy to move all of that?

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That's not a problems at all, LR/PS/ and all MS Office products will work with your current PC files.

Thanks, Terry. I have had my head in the sand about Apple for too long. This is the kind of user advice that is really good. I knew people on this forum would help me.
Do you think the update will come on the market before October (we leave for Arizona)? Would I be better served to buy the newest or buy a used system from someone upgrading or closeouts?

The apple outlet usually has good deals on refurb'd iMacs.
Amazon has rebates on most of the apple laptops/desktop they sell.

I think it's a very safe move now. I've been a MAC fan/user for many years but I have only recently felt comfortable advising friends to make the switch from PC. In fact, I helped my brother make the switch and he has been extremely pleased. He now "loves" his iMac. A sentiment he could never claim for his PCs.

The timing for a purchase is always tricky, especially in mid-life of a production cycle. MacRumors' site has a buying guide that factors in all the current intel about upcoming product developments and rates each of the Apple hardware products with a buy factor. Currently, the Mac Book Pro is neutral but there are rumors of a new version that will include some features found on the Mac Air as well as the possibility of quad-core processors. Time frame for the introductions are thought to be sometime in the 3rd quarter which might mean anything between now and September. However, in my opinion, those features may not be worth the wait if you have travel plans starting in October. Especially since you'll need some time to get familiar with the Apple way and to organize your software and workflow.

I have never used anything but native applications on the Macs I've owned so can't speak for the use of windows OS via boot camp, etc. Based strictly on my experience, my vote would be to either purchase native mac versions of your apps or transfer the license. MS Office runs flawlessly in MAC native. I use it extensively with clients who are all on PCs and there's no issue.

Buy the Mac Book Pro and stuff it with the full 4 gig of RAM. Buy the Apple care. And then enjoy it. I take mine on the road and its performance rivals my desktop (Mac Pro w/16 gigs of RAM). It's solid and easy. Finds and connects to wireless networks everywhere, and basically does exactly what you want it to.

But do allow a little time to make the adjustment to a new system. While helping my brother I realized how simple things can often be different and while I take them for granted, he was trying to do them based on his long Windows experience.

Also, go to the Apple site > Support > Discussions > Switchers, where you can read questions and answers from others who've taken the plunge.

Best of luck!
Tim

Good luck switching

I gave up Windows back in 1995. I switched to Linux way back. I do use mac OSX on my iBook and a previous G3 I had around. I just ordered a 15" macbook pro from amazon.

Intel is getting ready to release their next generation processors (codenamed "Nehalem") which incorporate many new features (on-die memory controller, DDR3/4, more cores, less power consumption, etc). Apple is a close partner with Intel, but always lags a bit refreshing their product lines with the latest tech. However, they are in the habit of announcing products when they ship. So when Steve Jobs says "it's here", it's already in the Apple Stores. iPhones may be the only exception.

I switched in March of this year. Been very happy with the experience. Which Epson printer do you have? Epson's Mac support is focused on their newer units as well as the Pro units. They rely on Apple for supporting the older models. I had an R800 that would not print photos to save it's life and the Mac drivers on the Epson site hadn't been updated in years. Ended up swapping it out for an HP B9180 which is actively supported.

Adobe Lightroom's license number can be used on Mac or Windows versions. If you are migrating to Mac, download the Mac version and use the same key. Adobe Creative Suite is a different story. You will need to call Adobe and tell them you are switching to Mac and they will send you a new key and you may have to pay for media (a nominal cost at best).

If you have Windows apps that you cannot live without, I suggest getting VMware Fusion or Parallels to run Windows as a virtual machine. This way you can run Windows without having to reboot/repartition the machine.

If you are moving to Mac because of crashes, reliability etc I can only tell you that my experiences with my desktop Mac has been pretty awful.

The system crashes (as in "freezes") on a regular basis (two to three times per day) and of course always happens when in the middle of processing images and you forgot to save for the last fifteen minutes (Damn!!!)

I have now scheduled a visit to see a "genius" (Apples words, not mine) to have a close look taken of my system. I am hopeful because my experience with Apple has always been that they hire and train guys and girls who really "get it." If I could stop the crashing (the very thing that drove me from the PC to the MAC in the first place) I would be a totally happy camper. The MAC experience is great, the workflows for their products make sense, and I am sure they will bust their collective butts to get me up and reliable, which in the end is all you can ask.

I'll report back when the system has been troubleshot and hopefully back totally in service.

Thanks for listening

Woody

Woody,
I'm sorry to hear of your problems. Crashes are what I am hoping to avoid. I will be waiting to hear how your problems are resolved.

Thanks again Terry, David, David, Tim and Carlos. I appreciate what everyone has added. If you think of anything else, I'd appreciate any advice.

Cindy:

I switched my laptop back in November to a macbookpro. It has been "updated" once since then with a newer processor and larger battery, though the net performance gain was just an incremental one. The newest processor being alluded to is quad-core and uses more power, so not sure it's going to be an ideal solution unless you are a power user and don't want/need to run on battery for extended periods. (My older MBP runs close to 3 hours on a single charge.)

Anyway, I was happy so bought the newest MacPro in January and have not regretted the move once. The ONLY issue I have is that for whatever reason, Quicken Mac has an AWFUL UI and is not really anything like Quicken for Win. Had I known better at the time, I would have loaded Fusion right off the bat and continued to run Quicken Win through Fusion. (I honesly didn't think a program could run Win virtually in an efficient manner, but Fusion does.) So now I do run one piece of Win software through Fusion and it works perfectly -- just launches XP in it's own window on my Mac desktop, then I can launch any Win program just as I did on my PC.

Cheers,

woodyspedden said:

If you are moving to Mac because of crashes, reliability etc I can only tell you that my experiences with my desktop Mac has been pretty awful.

The system crashes (as in "freezes") on a regular basis (two to three times per day) and of course always happens when in the middle of processing images and you forgot to save for the last fifteen minutes (Damn!!!)

I have now scheduled a visit to see a "genius" (Apples words, not mine) to have a close look taken of my system. I am hopeful because my experience with Apple has always been that they hire and train guys and girls who really "get it." If I could stop the crashing (the very thing that drove me from the PC to the MAC in the first place) I would be a totally happy camper. The MAC experience is great, the workflows for their products make sense, and I am sure they will bust their collective butts to get me up and reliable, which in the end is all you can ask.

I'll report back when the system has been troubleshot and hopefully back totally in service.

Thanks for listening

Woody

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Woody, you may want to have the memory tested on your system. Is the memory all the same spec? They can be from different brands as long as the specs are the same. I run 8Gb composed of 2GB Apple stock RAM, 2GB OWC RAM, and 4GB SuperTalent RAM.

Is there a downside to buying refurbished if you buy an Applecare 3 year warranty?
I guess you can only get the high-res display with a 17-inch. I really prefer my 15 inch display to the 17 inch display laptop that I had before. Any thoughts on glossy or not? I have a Dell now with glossy.
2 extra GB of Ram is $200. Is it cheaper to buy it somewhere else? I've put ram chips in other laptops before.

Apple RAM is notoriously expensive. Try CDW or Crucial for approved RAM at better prices. The install is easy.

I'm very happy with my 15 inch screen on the MAC Pro. It's portability was the key factor for me and the resolution etc. is fine. I don't like the glossy screen because of the glare/reflection from other light sources but many have it and like it. The regular non-glossy screen is closer to my regular monitor.

I can't comment on a refurb since I've never bought one.

Love my 15" too and prefer the glossy screen for laptop imaging, but you should really look at both before deciding for yourself...

etrigan63 said:

Woody, you may want to have the memory tested on your system. Is the memory all the same spec? They can be from different brands as long as the specs are the same. I run 8Gb composed of 2GB Apple stock RAM, 2GB OWC RAM, and 4GB SuperTalent RAM.

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Woody,

I'll go even further than that--sometimes memory tests don't reveal faulty memory--simplest test is to take all the stick of memory out of your computer and replace them with other sticks, and run it for a day, two or three and see if you're still getting the freezes.

If, by swapping out the memory, the freezes go away (and I suspect they will), you can figure out what stick (or sticks) of memory were bad by carefully swapping some in and checking again. A good Genius might be able to help you with the extra sticks of RAM, or even offer to do the swap testing themselves if you can show them how to make the desktop freeze up pretty reliably.

Hope that helps,
-Brad

TRSmith said:

Apple RAM is notoriously expensive. Try CDW or Crucial for approved RAM at better prices. The install is easy.

I'm very happy with my 15 inch screen on the MAC Pro. It's portability was the key factor for me and the resolution etc. is fine. I don't like the glossy screen because of the glare/reflection from other light sources but many have it and like it. The regular non-glossy screen is closer to my regular monitor.

I can't comment on a refurb since I've never bought one.

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OtherWorld Computing (http://www.macsales.com) has the best prices for Mac RAM bar none. Be sure to check them out as well.

TRSmith, I think you meant to say MacBook Pro. Mac Pro is the big silver workstation.

Hi Cindy - still havent processed my first few rolls - re Mac laptop - I have teh 17 inch but I think it is too large for easy packing and travel. get as much ram as you can, the fastest internal hardrive you can and have a nice external drive along for your files. Fusion is worth every cent as it allows you to run a PC and mac OS at the same time. Oh yeah one final tip - get nice usb mouse to connect to teh laptop the scroll pads are hopeless for photographers.

pete