Thinking of converting to Mac - joining the darkside - how easy will it be?

[Skywatcher]

Ok the laptop is beginning to show signs of weakness the weakpoint from my experience anyway is the link to the screen and this is beginning to show signs of the dreaded flicker - also the hard drive is small and the USB ports are simply not up to what I need for my astro stuff - according to the boards I'm on there Acer USB's do drop out sometimes and I cant afford for that to happen even for a millisecond

Having spent a frustrating weeked to say the least trying to sort out something on my MILs laptop using Vista in anger for the frst time I was ready to throw the ****** thing against the wall - it is the single clunkiest most paranoid least user friendly piece of garbage I have ever used and finding a good laptop with XP on is getting increasingly hard

Which brings me onto MACs - I have been massively impressed not only with the ergonomics but the bulletproofness () of my iPhone and my ipod , and I am pretty late to owning one of them I can tell you.

I am , I'm afraid a microsoft boy through and through and used to have fun tinkering with windows 3.1 using my autoexec.bat and config.sys boot discs with confidence and have kind of 'grown' with them. I am comfortable with them and know where I stand, but I'm just not sure I could live with vista

How easy is it to be up and running with a macbook or macbook pro quickly - I'm afraid I love to tinker with all the settings on the computer and the Macs just look kind of alien to me ( daft I know) so for othersthat made the switch is it instinctive and easy?

[catrancher]

How easy is it to be up and running with a macbook or macbook pro quickly - I'm afraid I love to tinker with all the settings on the computer and the Macs just look kind of alien to me ( daft I know) so for othersthat made the switch is it instinctive and easy?

Trivial!

The good folks in the Apple stores will even help you by transferring your files from your Windows PC to your shiny, new Mac.

As far as the actual system setup is concerned, the first time you bring up your new Mac, there's a "wizard" kind of thing that runs that let's you setup the pertinent goodies (time zone, network, user accounts, etc). Subsequently, all these things are available to you via the "System Preferences" application. Kinda like the Windows Control Panel concept.

Here's the Apple web page with all the particulars about switching.

Beyond, that; once you've switched, you can still setup your machine with a Windows partition either through Bootcamp (supplied with the machine, dual boot) or one of the VM's like Parallels Desktop or VMWare. Assuming you still want to torture yourself with Windows!

Tom (... Hello.... I'm a Mac! )

[Skywatcher]

Ok thanks for that. Presumably it would be pretty easy to look at things like power managements of the USB ports? Also do macs use FireWire tech? Sorry for the stupid q's

[catrancher]

Certainly not stupid! Legitimate questions.

Power management of USB devices on a Mac has been, for me, a non-issue. When the Mac goes into sleep mode, it does the all the USB standards specified stuff. It notifies the devices that power is going to die, it gets back acknowledgements, then it terminates power. Any issues with USB power management that I've seen have always been device driver related and usually a rather poor implementation of the USB standards. Most USB things on a Mac just work. When the Mac wakes, it sends USB wakeup signals rather than just turning the power back on.

Regarding Firewire ports. If you're talking about the Macbook Pro, the answer is yes. They have a single Firewire 800 port. The 15" Macbook Pro has two USB 2.0 ports also. The 17" model has 3 USB 2.0 ports.

Tom (... trying to be helpful!)

[Dawn]

Dawn (fearing losing another to the dark side )

[Skywatcher]

So presumably you can set these things to never power off and go into sleep mode only for what I need it for I may leave the computer running for hours on end unattended - I'm sure there are ways to do it.

Only 2 usb ports that seems kind of stingy that only leaves one once the mouse is added

[catrancher]

Dawn (fearing losing another to the dark side )

Look into my eyes!
Look deep into my eyes!



Mwahahaha

[catrancher]

So presumably you can set these things to never power off and go into sleep mode only for what I need it for I may leave the computer running for hours on end unattended - I'm sure there are ways to do it.

Oh sure! The System Preferences that I mentioned earlier has an "Energy Saver" configuration application in it. Through that, you can tell the machine exactly what to do when it's either plugged in or on battery. Things like how long to wait to put the computer to sleep (if at all), or the displays, or specify things like wake on LAN. That kind of stuff.

Only 2 usb ports that seems kind of stingy that only leaves one once the mouse is added

That's on the 15" model. On the 17" there's 3. All a matter of real estate space around the edge of the machine.

Tom (... think )

[josh.p.]

Yay!! We have more recruits

Seriously- you will NOT miss windows! If you do, there is also parallels so that you can run windows in a seperate little 'window'.

Don't worry about the two USB ports. If you buy an apple keyboard and mouse, then the keyboard has two more USB ports for you to use so it acts like a 'hub'

The iLife suite is brilliant for your disney photos and videos etc.

I *promise* you will get used to the interface of a mac- the control panel is in some ways similar to Windows- only improved! You have all the options for different sections from the 'system preferences' panel.

Also..... if you have an external HD then you will be able to take advantage of 'time machine' which is just stunning!

If you go to your local apple store and speak to them they will be able to transfer EVERYTHING over to your new computer for you- at the genius bar!

[Skywatcher]

Hmm interesting there is one near my folks in Southampton.

Not sure why I would get a keyboard though if I was getting a laptop

Do the macbooks /pro have the same slot type thing I have on my current one for an additional card? Just looking for ways to increase the USB ports, I was kind of hoping to do away with my powered hub.