02-04-2007, 05:46 PM

Hi everybody,
I just ordered my first mac yesterday (a refurb 2.33ghz MBP) and i absolutely can not wait for it to complete its journey across the country to my doorstep. I've been lurking around on this forum the past week or so and it seems like an incredibly helpful place/group of people so i figured i might as well go ahead and join.

I am a graphic design/digital media student and have been using a 17" intel iMac at school the past couple of semesters and absolutely love it. Finally w/ the help of a good tax return and a few months of saving I was able to purchase one for myself! Up until the intel macs i havn't used one since the apple IIe days..stuck on windows machines for all those years. I'm not really a windows hater (at least not yet anyways..) but i definitely feel that OSX is the platform for me. While windows has gotten me through the past decade and ive never really had any major problems, i am very unimpressed w/ vista and it just seems logical for me to be working on a mac.

I do have a question about external hd's though... i'm looking to purchase one soon and i need one that will work seamlessly with my new mbp and my girlfriend's Vaio. We're looking for something around the 160gb range and the western digital MyBook's look like a good buy, does anyone have any experience with these? especially using it interchangeably w/ a windows machine?

Anyways, i'm glad i found this community and i am sure it will be extremely helpful in learning my new machine/os... now i just have to figure out how to be patient waiting for my new machine to get here!

02-04-2007, 05:49 PM

lostdog -- Welcome and enjoy your new MBP!!!

The only comment I'd make on the external HDD is to make sure it's formatted in FAT32 (as opposed to NTFS, which is what Windows will try to do; or "Mac OS Extended" which is what OS X will try to do). If you format it in FAT32, both the Windows and Mac machines will be able to read and write to the files on the HDD.

02-04-2007, 05:50 PM

Just make sure it's compatible with Mac (which most are) and has the little symbol on the corner of the box.

Also I believe the HDD should be formatted in Fat32 instead of NTFS when you get it for the Mac to be able to read/write to it also, and then you shouldn't have any problems

EDIT: One Todd beat the other Todd to the post :bomb:

02-04-2007, 06:06 PM

Congratulations on your purchase! I've been having a fantastic time with mine and can only hope the same for you!

02-04-2007, 06:09 PM

Don't worry either, if you knew your way around Windows pretty good, OSX will only take about a couple weeks to get the hang of.

We're always here to help too!

02-04-2007, 06:16 PM

Thanks everyone! I'm sure that i am going to love it. I'm very confident that i will quickly adapt to OS X...ive used it at school for a while and though i havn't really had the chance to explore it that much (usually just use CS2 apps) it makes plenty of sense. Also, i plan on buying both of Pogue's Missing Manuals (the regular one and the switcher one), so with the help of those books and this forum i'm sure my switch will go smoothly.

02-04-2007, 06:22 PM

Originally Posted by todd51

EDIT: One Todd beat the other Todd to the post :bomb:

Todds rule.

02-04-2007, 09:19 PM

Welcome- you'll love using the Mac.

02-04-2007, 11:31 PM

Originally Posted by ToddG

Todds rule.

MMmm....that they do!