Want to switch but have software issues

[iPod Nano]

That is correct. We do have Disk Utility on the Mac platform, which will image a hard drive.

 

[floridaguy]

That is correct. We do have Disk Utility on the Mac platform, which will image a hard drive.

O.K. so here's a question for someone with experience on Macs.

When I am going to install a new program of any consequence on a PC I always make a disk image just before doing so. Then if something goes wrong I don't have to worry about cleaning out the registry or anything else. I just revert to where I started and try again with the experience of battle scars to help me do better. The image is absolute in every way. Makes me feel confident.

When you Time Machine back, how absolute is it. Would that be a situation where you'd use Disk Utility?

Or is the a PC phenomenom that the "just works" world of the Mac doesn't have to concern itself with?

 

[iPod Nano]

If you want to create actual images, then your best bet is Disk utility. Time Machine creates backups, but like you said earlier they aren't based on images.

 

[RickPrather]

Another way to make an "image" or clone is with a program such as Superduper. It will make a bootable clone that makes it extremely easy to go back.

Personally I use Time Machine for hourly archives and then Superduper to make a clone of the system before major changes or at least once a month.

You will find that you rarely, if ever, have to revert. Partially because of the dreaded Registry you mentioned. OSX doesn't have one to get messed up.

BTW, I don't know why you can't do the sorting you want in mail by using rules and/or smart folders in Mail.app.

 

[bobtomay]

My best guess is that everything you need to do, can more than likely be accomplished on a Mac and in OS X. But, if you are looking at this computer purchase for a business setting, have to say, I think your purchase of a Mac would be a mistake.

OS X is not Windows, Mail is not Outlook, Open Office is not MS Office and there is no program on the Mac that is going to be the same as Quicken.

Even Office 2007 is not Office 2003. A year and 1/2 later, I'm still aggravated at this change when I have to click 2 or 4 times where it only took 1 or 2 in Office 2003.

You're talking about receiving possibly hundreds of emails a day that you need to deal with? If your job is as fast paced as mine, when you're at work, you need to be as productive as possible and don't have the time to be re-learning all of your existing habits. The learning curve is not big with OS X, but it is still there. This type of business setting is not the place to be tossing in a new OS, new mail app, new office app and new financial app all at the same time while you're trying to get a job accomplished.

When you're on the job and need to get something done "now", if not the first time, certainly by the tenth or the 20th time you run across something that you use to know exactly where and how to do it, and now you're spending 1 minute or 15 minutes just to figure out how ... for what use to be one or two clicks away and now you have to go log into a forum and wait for someone to tell you how to do it on your Mac... you're going to be ready to dump the whole thing in the nearest lake, or worse.

 

[MYmacROX]

I briefly (3 months) worked for a VERY large insurance company in 2007/2008 and they used Lotus Notes (IBM) for email... not to mention the amazing web browsing capabilities and other fancy features.

I have absolutely NO IDEA how much this could cost you or if it is even reasonable for a single user, but it was by far the BEST email application/program I have ever used.

My 2 cents.

 

[floridaguy]

if you are looking at this computer purchase for a business setting, have to say, I think your purchase of a Mac would be a mistake.

...

Even Office 2007 is not Office 2003. A year and 1/2 later, I'm still aggravated at this change when I have to click 2 or 4 times where it only took 1 or 2 in Office 2003.

I am considering buying my first laptop for personal use, not business. A friend got tired of me telling her how much time as she put it "I spend working on, not working with" my computer and encouraged me to try a Macbook instead of a PC laptop.

Like you I am finding my recent move from Office 2003 to Office 2007 a challenging experience. Stuff that used to be right there you now have to dig to find.

 

[bobtomay]

If you're looking at this for personal use, I might still have a problem recommending a Mac for you. Of course, I can only go by the tone of what is on the written page here, so makes it difficult in this type of setting.

From what I'm reading above, you have pretty much everything set up in Windows exactly the way you want. You'll have to realize that OS X is not Windows. If so, you may find as I did, that OS X really is a great OS. It definitely is my OS of choice at this time for most of my personal computing.

You'll definitely save all of that time you've been spending with the need to run an anti-virus, a spyware app, your defragger, going in and blocking services you don't need running, stopping all those apps that think they need to load at startup on a windows machine, etc. There still is regular maintenance to do. I was big on tweaking my personal computers and find that OS X saves me a good 3-4 hours of maintenance time a week. It was a hard habit to break with my first Mac, which was also my first notebook.

If you're tired of the "same old" and ready for a change, think you'll like it. Possibly, a lot.

As to whether it is "better" or not, well, I have my own views on that. You might like this post I made just 3 weeks into my first Mac.

You have found a forum with a whole lot of helpful folks, with a great many that use Windows and OS X on a daily basis. If you come in with a question of "I want to do 'xyz', how do I do it?" instead of "I use to do 'xyz" this way in Windows, why can't I do it that way in OS X?", you'll find a whole heaping of good help.

 

[floridaguy]

Tonight I talked to the friend that got me going down this track and shared with her all of your thoughts. She had an interesting and useful perspective.

I am really thinking of the Macbook as a travel computer so maybe I have to stop being so worried about it doing everything. Just put what I need on the road on the Macbook. Use that as my travel computer and stick with the PC at home.

Most of my 10 email addresses I don't need on the road so maybe I don't need all of Outlook's functionality there. I would want to be able to keep up on my Quicken entries so I would need Parallels for that. Also the Mac version of my Garmin GPS mapping software is not good so I'd run that in Windows 7 as well.

I'm still not sure if I can justify buying the Mac version of office for my travel needs or if I should just use the PC version in Parallels.

I am trying to decide which version of the Macbook I would want for this type of use.

My other uses such as showing pictures etc. to family and friends are obviously well suited to the Mac.

Thoughts on any of this?

 

[DarkestRitual]

I'm sorry I was a bit harsh in my assessment, but I agree, you don't need the machine to do everything. I also think it wil do more than you think it will. You could run openoffice on the Mac, too.

 

[floridaguy]

I'm sorry I was a bit harsh in my assessment, but I agree, you don't need the machine to do everything. I also think it wil do more than you think it will. You could run openoffice on the Mac, too.

Oh yeah! I keep forgetting about Open Office (even though several have mentioned it). That just leaves Quicken and Garmin Mapsource running on Parallells.

 

[dtravis7]

I have about 10 different email addresses; several that receive hundreds of messages a day. In Outlook these all get sorted into folders per my specifications so I can view them as my time permits. Without this functionality the volume of emails I receive would become unmanageable.

I use Mail and have MANY email accounts. I use the Rules in Mail to put the mail into folders for that account and even some folders with specific to a certain friend so I can easily find their messages later. The Rules in Mail are very powerful and do whatever I want it to do. With the volume of email I receive daily, I could no way have it all to one place. Too confusing.

 

[floridaguy]

I use Mail and have MANY email accounts. I use the Rules in Mail to put the mail into folders for that account and even some folders with specific to a certain friend so I can easily find their messages later. The Rules in Mail are very powerful and do whatever I want it to do. With the volume of email I receive daily, I could no way have it all to one place. Too confusing.

Thanks for this post. I am going to go to an Apple store to ask software questions. Good to hear your experience.

 

[DarkestRitual]

Oh yeah! I keep forgetting about Open Office (even though several have mentioned it). That just leaves Quicken and Garmin Mapsource running on Parallells.

You could also use VirtualBox (free) instead of parallels to run your VM.

 

[floridaguy]

The consensus of what I read is that 17" is to big to be portable but my friend has one and has no complaints. I like the bigger screen. I especially like that I'll be able to back up using the Esata port on my external hard drive.

 

[DarkestRitual]

Not sure what that has to do with running VirtualBox as your means to a VM, but yea... I would agree, I love my 13 inch unibody MacBook (the aluminum version right before they made the 13 inch macbook pro), and I even think a 15 inch MBP would be slightly uncomfortable in size, but it is probably what my next laptop will be. I'm definitely getting an i5 or i7 iMac as my next machine though, probably around this time next year, or mid next year. I'll probably hit the next refresh, and that will be a really nice computer for my fiancee and I to have. I'll probably give it the most use gaming and running audio software on it. When I have a 27 inch iMac (or maybe they'll have quad core 21 inchers, either way I'd like the bigger one), I'll have no excuse not to own Logic. Right now, the screen real-estate available to me on just my 13 inch screen is a bit small, but I plan on purchasing a mini DisplayPort to DVI adapter and a new 24 inch monitor. Macs are pretty sweet.

Also, you should definitely ask an Apple rep to demo some of what Mail can do for you. It's a very nice little app, and you can set up smart mailboxes with as many requirements and stipulations as you require across multiple email accounts or bound to one email account. I think you'll be a bit surprised at how simple mail appears while still offering a wonderfully deep feature set. That's pretty much what OS X is all about. Keeping things looking nice and easy, yet making available to you a well of resources.

 

[iPod Nano]

The consensus of what I read is that 17" is to big to be portable but my friend has one and has no complaints. I like the bigger screen. I especially like that I'll be able to back up using the Esata port on my external hard drive.

Any intel mac (running 10.4 or above) can run VirtualBox, regardless of screen size!

 

[didymus]

I can appreciate that if you have thousands of mail messages under Outlook, you'll need to think carefully about changing. However, I was in the same position a few years ago when I switched to Gmail. I find Gmail to be by far the best e-mail system I've used - it keeps messages on the same topic together as a 'conversation', it has, as you might expect, a very fast search facility and you can 'label' messages with filters, which performs the same role as folders in Outlook - only better, since a message can have multiple labels (think 'tags'). For some time I ran both systems, gradually switching my mail so that people responded to the Gmail address and then, after about six months, closing down the Outlook files altogether. The gradual transfer process worked entirely happily and I've never missed Outlook.

 

[floridaguy]

Not sure what that has to do with running VirtualBox as your means to a VM, but yea... I would agree, I love my 13 inch unibody MacBook (the aluminum version right before they made the 13 inch macbook pro), and I even think a 15 inch MBP would be slightly uncomfortable in size, but it is probably what my next laptop will be
....
Right now, the screen real-estate available to me on just my 13 inch screen is a bit small, but I plan on purchasing a mini DisplayPort to DVI adapter and a new 24 inch monitor. Macs are pretty sweet.

Also, you should definitely ask an Apple rep to demo some of what Mail can do for you.

Sorry about the confusion. I took the unrelated quote out of my message.

Thanks for the helpful post.

Why do you think 15 would be uncomfortable? It's still lighter than smaller PC laptops.

I am thinking of going to the Apple Store tomorrow to pepper them with software questions.

 

[floridaguy]

Any intel mac (running 10.4 or above) can run VirtualBox, regardless of screen size!

I wrote a confusing post. Sorry.


I'm just wondering why my relatively small female friend loves her 17" MacBook when many think it is too big to be portable. I'd love to have the screen real estate and I can afford it but if it means I won't have room on the plane or in a car or it's too cumbersome to have with me then that is no good.