My first Mac - general questions

Hello, all.

First time post here - this forum was recommended to me by a friend of mine who is Mac user.

That being said, I just bought an iBook (14", 1.33). I've never used a Mac, I am coming from the world of Windows. I decided to make the switch for added security, ease of use, and the fact the OS X is built on Unix (which I know very well). My Mac is due to arrive in the next couple of days.

So, I've got some questions:

1> Do I need Antivirus software? I do plan on using my iBook on the internet, but behind a hardware firewall.

2> Office Applications - I've used the MS Office series for years - is there something similar for Mac? What sort of Email client would you recommend? I used POP3 - no exchange or anything.

3> Web Design software - I do some web design on the side - in the Windows world, I used Frontpage and Macromedia's Dreamweaver. I know that Dreamweaver is available for Mac, but does it come with something?

4> Books to learn OS X - any suggestions? I was suggested to me that I should pick up "Mac OS X: The Missing Manual" - any feedback on this?

5> Anything else I should know about?

Thanks in advance for any replies to this thread, once my iBook arrives, I am sure I'll have many more questions.

- Peter

Welcome to MF and congrats on the switch.

1) The OS (Tiger) has a built in Firewall and you don't really need to run anti-virus on it as they are very few out there and in all my 3 years as a mac 4 years as a mac user, I have never had one.

2) You can get office for Mac, which is Word,Excel,Powerpoint and Entourage (outlook). Have a look on ebay for it if you specifically want office. You can use Appleworks as a word processor and any work you do will be compatible with a PC and this comes free with your mac. You get an app called mail which will do your pop3 account just fine if you cant get entourage staright away.

3) Don't understad what you mean does it come with something? You can use dreamweaver if you pay foor the software - ebay might be a good place to find a cheaper version.

4)The missing manual has been mentioned before on the forum as being a worthwile read, however, I have never read it. Others on the Forum will probably be able to give you some better feedback on this.

5)Yes.. If you use the search forum facility or spend some time reading through the posts, you will pick up an awful lot and even more.

Once again, welcome to the forum and hope you enjoy your mac experience.

some answers

1) not necessary but I recommend it. I use Norton Antivirus Mac 9.0
2) Office X and Office 2004 for Mac, Mail and Firebird are good.
3) Adobe GoLive CS2 i like, not sure if Dreamweaver comes with anything.
4) I used OS X Panther for Dummies, and read how to guides online. Its not really that hard to pickup. Its alot easier to learn then a PC, IMO.
5) I would use macaroni to run daily, weekly, monthly unix maintenance.

Fantastic.

3) Don't understad what you mean does it come with something? You can use dreamweaver if you pay foor the software - ebay might be a good place to find a cheaper version.

Click to expand...

What I meant is - does OS X come with with a native HTML editor?

One other thing that just came to mind - I've got an iPod that I use with my XP system - is it easy to move my library from my PC to the iBook? I would imagine it is, because when my XP crashed a couple of weeks ago (which is what started me down the road to a Mac), I just added my library to my iTunes from backup - and it worked just fine - I am thinking the process would be much the same with iTunes on an iBook..

3) Adobe GoLive CS2 i like, not sure if Dreamweaver comes with anything.

Click to expand...

Never heard of GoLive, I'll look into that. Thanks!

I am not really hot on html but Its something I am trying to learn. I use a free download called TACO which seems ok.

Transferring Itunes library is fine , just dont forget to deauthorise your XP machine if you are getting rid as you can only have 5 machines authorise. Once you have these 5 taken up you will not be able to transfer/add your library to any other machines without deauthorising one of them first.

2> Office for Mac is available from MS, but it's different then the PC version. Should be mostly compatible though. There is also a bloated thing known as Open Office that will run on OS X with X11 installed. There is also something known as NeoOffice which is Open Office running naively in OS X, but I haven't messed with it. http://www.neooffice.org/ . The mail client that ships with OS X is fine, just use that, or if you buy MS Office 2004, entourage (replacement for outlook) is also good.

3> There is a new program called iWeb that will be included with iLife '06, but I don't know a thing about it, but it has some sort of website creation function. You should be getting it with your new system. Also, Nvu is an open source web development program you can grab for free. I don't have any experience with it though. http://www.nvu.com/

4> "Mac OS X: The Missing Manual" is good, go with that.

pferrigan said:

Hello, all.
3> Web Design software - I do some web design on the side - in the Windows world, I used Frontpage and Macromedia's Dreamweaver. I know that Dreamweaver is available for Mac, but does it come with something?
- Peter

Click to expand...

DreamWeaver is sold as an individual product or as part of Studio 8

if all of your songs are on your ipod use "iPodDisk" to copy them from your ipod to your mac. (it cant be done using itunes)

First of all, congarts on the pruchase! Nice to see another convert!

1> Do I need Antivirus software? I do plan on using my iBook on the internet, but behind a hardware firewall.

No need. OS X has no viruses, Spyware, Adware, etc.

Actually, there is one. But I don't really think you need to worry about a virus created in 1988.

2> Office Applications - I've used the MS Office series for years - is there something similar for Mac? What sort of Email client would you recommend? I used POP3 - no exchange or anything.

Microsoft Office for Mac is available, as well as the OpenOffice alternative, among many others.

Apple also has their own product, iWork. It was just updated at MacWorld, actually. Link to iWork '06 page.

3> Web Design software - I do some web design on the side - in the Windows world, I used Frontpage and Macromedia's Dreamweaver. I know that Dreamweaver is available for Mac, but does it come with something?

Not really my forte.

4> Books to learn OS X - any suggestions? I was suggested to me that I should pick up "Mac OS X: The Missing Manual" - any feedback on this?

OSX: The Missing Manual is an excellent book. However, the best way to get experienced is really just to jump in, if you have any questions, you can ask on the boards.

5> Anything else I should know about?

That depends, what do you want to know?

I'll just answer these in a bit looser format. Go ahead and throw in my vote with the "do not get anti-virus software" camp. Antivirus software for Mac just slows things down, from my experience. The only thing it's actually good for is preventing you from passing along e-mail viruses to your PC-using friends, which can just as easily be prevented by not being an idiot on your part, and recognizing a fishy e-mail that shouldn't be passed on. I'd definitely recommend Office for Mac. I actually like it better than Office for Windows. It's a great suite, mostly because they didn't port it, they just totally rewrote it for Mac, so it's totally native. iWork's great, too, honestly. It has a really nice interface, and Pages (the word processor) is very feature-rich, and has a lot more templates and such than Word does. However, it doesn't have the "notebook" layout that Word does, which I simply cannot live without. But that's a matter of taste. iWork also does not have a spreadsheet program, so be warned there. For web design, I'd imagine iWeb (comes with iLife 06 which comes with all new Macs) is a fairly entry-level program. iLife apps tend to be that way. If you're familiar with Dreamweaver on the PC, you'll probably like it just as well if not better on OS X. With a few exceptions (such as IE and Windows Media Player) it's a good idea to stick with what you know when making the switch. Books? Don't bother with tutorial books. If you're a power computer user, which I'm betting you are since you've used Unix, you'll learn OS X fairly quickly. Any questions you have, you could probably do a forum search and find a similar one here, and if not, you could simply ask. It'll save you money and a trip to Borders. As far as other stuff you should know, here's a little bit of miscellany: while .zip is still a popular archive for OS X just as it is for PC, the more common one is .sit or .sitx, which are extensions of a product called StuffIt Expander. If it doesn't already come on your Mac, it's a free download. Also, you'll see .dmg files a lot when downloading. You might think these are archive files, but what they actually are is disk images. They're basically imitations of small hard drives. When you open them, they mount onto your computer, just like your actual hard drive, and any portable media (flash drives, DVDs, et cetera), and eject just the same. You'll see a lot of them, and this little tidbit might save a little confusion, as some people tend to get confused with the fact that there's one file, and one "image." Another thing a lot of people don't know is that you can use pretty much all of your PC peripherals (mice, keyboards, et cetera) on Macs. I can't count the number of times I've heard people whining about "the mouse is one button, I hate that" only to have me tell them that they can use any eight-button, scrolling Logitech they want. Just a couple little things for you.

Many thanks for the replies - I am getting the hang of this thing at an alarming rate. So far, no issues at all.

I got all the programs I needed and installed them without issue - Office 2004, Dreamweaver, Stuff It, and Photoshop. I just popped the disk in and away it went. Simple, just simple.

I was going to move my iTunes over, but I realized I've got a problem - on my G5 iPod, I've got ~40GB of music - my HDD on my iBook is a 40GB, so I can't do that right now. When it comes to replacing the HDD, is it something I can do or should I take it the Apple store & have them do it? It's something I'd like to get done eventually - nothing critical right now, since I've still got my XP desktop.

replacing your HDD isn't that simple. It's perfectly doable, but not for the faint hearted, there are a LOT of screws to remove!! I don't have a link just now but there is one on here somewhere with pictures etc on how to do it

Plus it will void your warranty, and I'm pretty sure an Apple Store would only replace a drive like for like if it was faulty, they certainly wouldn't "upgrade" a drive for you.

What I always wondered was, how would Apple know? Basically you remove your old drive, keep it in a safe place, and put in your new one. If something goes wrong, put the old one back in and send it off to be repaired under warranty. Assuming of course you don't damage the case or remove anythng inside that's obvious.... I dunno.