Making the switch

Hello all,
I have been working with and customizing my own PC's for over 12 years now and have finally had it. Although Im freaked out mainly from other (PC) users about making the switch..my 20inch imac G5 is on order.
I was wondering if you all could be so kind as to offer up the best information/troubleshooting/3rd party software/freeware sites for MAC items. Or to just generally make me feel ok for spending $1700 on a foreign object!
I have always loved the philosophy of Apple, just never could afford one. I hope the switch goes well and I dont see black smoke coming from it in a month or so. Also, considering I have good CPU skills (building, troubleshooting) would apple care be overkill? or a good idea?
Thanks in advance

www.versiontracker.com has a lot of good programs on there.
I don't use many freeware apps but I really find these two useful:
Adium (great im program)
mPlayer

For best troubleshooting, just stay here... the community is great. I just got my first mac in Feb and they pretty much helped me learn the OS from the ground up. Search for just about anything here and you will find it.

OS X loves RAM, so upgrade that whenever you can... just not from apple.

I'm sure others can add a lot more but this could give you a start.

EUPTech said:

Hello all,
I have been working with and customizing my own PC's for over 12 years now and have finally had it. Although Im freaked out mainly from other (PC) users about making the switch..my 20inch imac G5 is on order.
I was wondering if you all could be so kind as to offer up the best information/troubleshooting/3rd party software/freeware sites for MAC items. Or to just generally make me feel ok for spending $1700 on a foreign object!
I have always loved the philosophy of Apple, just never could afford one. I hope the switch goes well and I dont see black smoke coming from it in a month or so. Also, considering I have good CPU skills (building, troubleshooting) would apple care be overkill? or a good idea?
Thanks in advance

Click to expand...

I just made pretty much the same jump. Though it wasn't a full 12 years like yourself, I had been building my own PCs, and was gernerally a PC fanboy for about 5 years. About three months ago I 'made the switch' also to a fully loaded 20" iMac, and haven't looked back. Sure, I miss messing around with and building my own stuff, but that's all I miss. You are going to be blown away with the ease of use, the security of the UNIX core, and just the general asthetics and build quality of the product. Other than games, you will also be pleasantly shocked by how snappy these things are despite their relatively (compared to the PC world) **-hum specs. I am yet to find something that I could do on the PC that I can't do better and easier on the Mac, with the exception of games.

-Chris