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- Dec 27, 2008
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- Location
- North Texas
- Your Mac's Specs
- MacBook Pro 15.4" 2.4 Hz 4GB RAM
I thought I would post my experiences leading up to and during my first month since converting to my first Mac. I have to say right up front, I really enjoy my MacBook Pro: the multi-touch interface and the brilliant screen make the laptop a pleasure to use.
A year ago, I bought an iPhone and set up an iTunes account (I had always used Windows Media previously). Browsing on Mac Forums and the Apple site led to using Safari on my Vista laptop. Clearly, I was being drawn into the world of Mac as a result of the halo effect of the iPhone!
Not really wanting to make the switch as my Vista laptop was only a year old at that point, I bought a 1TB Time Capsule and started using that as my wireless router (and wireless printer server). This Christmas, I made the jump to the new unibody MacBook Pro (2.4 GHz w/ 2 GB memory).
I purchased Parallels to run Windows XP (the memory management seemed more favorable for running XP over Vista) so I could run a few Windows only programs I have, not to mention I wanted to install my 2007 MS Office Suite to ease the transition efforts. With Parallels, I have been able to seamlessly run any and all Windows programs, including my Polar ProTrainer exercise program that I use to track my workouts.
The first widget I installed was iSTAT NANO so I could check memory, CPU use, temps, network transfers, etc. I recommend this to folks who are just switching over to a Mac. I quickly saw I needed to upgrade to 4 GB of RAM, so I ordered the upgrade kit from Other World Computing for about $85. I also had to purchase a tiny philips head screwdriver...OWC sells one but I didn't think to buy it at the same time. I actually found a nice one at Lowe's for under $10 that is pretty robust and did the job fine.
Installing the new RAM was really, really easy and worked the first time! It took maybe 15 minutes. Anyone could do it and it makes a big difference. I was getting down to about 250 MB of free RAM while running Parallels. Now I have 2.25 GB of free RAM under the same conditions...no worries about running out and having to write to disk.
I had some trouble converting my digital data to Mac iTunes. I am not sure I am satisfied and may reinstall some of it directly from the original CDs. It was a real bother bringing playlists over and a lot of my imbedded data was lost (number of plays, corrected cover art, etc). The solutions were as much trouble as just starting over in most cases, but I have a limited number of songs/playlists since I only had about a year of using iTunes on a Windows computer. I think I would have purchased a conversion program if I had a significant collection to move over.
I have started using Time Machine and it is pretty seamless and performance is not really affected in a noticeable manner. When I start editing video in iMovie, I will simply turn it off to gain a little more horsepower.
The wireless router is very quick and I have yet to plug the computer into the network except when I used Time Machine for the first time (I plugged it into the Time Capsule overnight).
I also purchased and read three books: Switching to a Mac for Dummies by Reinhold, MacBook Pro Portable Genius, and The Macintosh iLife '08 by Heid. Switching to a Mac for Dummies was actually very helpful, as is Heid's iLife text. I would recommend these two books to anyone considering a switch (although I might hold out for the iLife 09 update which will certainly come out soon).
After one month, I am completely satisfied with making the switch. I think the most important part has been taking the time to read the texts and jumping into upgrading the RAM...both of these took the mystery out of the Mac for me...now it is just a very fine tool to use and I'm not afraid of the differences from Windows.
A year ago, I bought an iPhone and set up an iTunes account (I had always used Windows Media previously). Browsing on Mac Forums and the Apple site led to using Safari on my Vista laptop. Clearly, I was being drawn into the world of Mac as a result of the halo effect of the iPhone!
Not really wanting to make the switch as my Vista laptop was only a year old at that point, I bought a 1TB Time Capsule and started using that as my wireless router (and wireless printer server). This Christmas, I made the jump to the new unibody MacBook Pro (2.4 GHz w/ 2 GB memory).
I purchased Parallels to run Windows XP (the memory management seemed more favorable for running XP over Vista) so I could run a few Windows only programs I have, not to mention I wanted to install my 2007 MS Office Suite to ease the transition efforts. With Parallels, I have been able to seamlessly run any and all Windows programs, including my Polar ProTrainer exercise program that I use to track my workouts.
The first widget I installed was iSTAT NANO so I could check memory, CPU use, temps, network transfers, etc. I recommend this to folks who are just switching over to a Mac. I quickly saw I needed to upgrade to 4 GB of RAM, so I ordered the upgrade kit from Other World Computing for about $85. I also had to purchase a tiny philips head screwdriver...OWC sells one but I didn't think to buy it at the same time. I actually found a nice one at Lowe's for under $10 that is pretty robust and did the job fine.
Installing the new RAM was really, really easy and worked the first time! It took maybe 15 minutes. Anyone could do it and it makes a big difference. I was getting down to about 250 MB of free RAM while running Parallels. Now I have 2.25 GB of free RAM under the same conditions...no worries about running out and having to write to disk.
I had some trouble converting my digital data to Mac iTunes. I am not sure I am satisfied and may reinstall some of it directly from the original CDs. It was a real bother bringing playlists over and a lot of my imbedded data was lost (number of plays, corrected cover art, etc). The solutions were as much trouble as just starting over in most cases, but I have a limited number of songs/playlists since I only had about a year of using iTunes on a Windows computer. I think I would have purchased a conversion program if I had a significant collection to move over.
I have started using Time Machine and it is pretty seamless and performance is not really affected in a noticeable manner. When I start editing video in iMovie, I will simply turn it off to gain a little more horsepower.
The wireless router is very quick and I have yet to plug the computer into the network except when I used Time Machine for the first time (I plugged it into the Time Capsule overnight).
I also purchased and read three books: Switching to a Mac for Dummies by Reinhold, MacBook Pro Portable Genius, and The Macintosh iLife '08 by Heid. Switching to a Mac for Dummies was actually very helpful, as is Heid's iLife text. I would recommend these two books to anyone considering a switch (although I might hold out for the iLife 09 update which will certainly come out soon).
After one month, I am completely satisfied with making the switch. I think the most important part has been taking the time to read the texts and jumping into upgrading the RAM...both of these took the mystery out of the Mac for me...now it is just a very fine tool to use and I'm not afraid of the differences from Windows.