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February 02, 2005
Making the Switch (at home, anyway)
For my birthday, my husband bought me a G5 iMac (that's geek love, people!). I was raised on Macs, but switched to PCs in the early '90s because that's what was used in the offices I worked in. I've pretty much been on Windows ever since, and fairly happy. I know how to use it, and overall it has served me well.
But, now that I have the new iMac, I'll be switching from my Sony Vaio laptop and thought the process might be interesting to document here. I am, as we speak, attempting to transfer all my files from the PC to the Mac.
Getting the two hooked up via our home wireless network proved to be impossible (for unknown reasons the PC would not detect the Mac even though I had sharing turned on and was entering the IP address correctly). We resorted to hooking the two machines up with an ethernet cable.
To move from Outlook to Entourage or Address Book/iCal (haven't decided yet), I downloaded a program for $10 called Outlook2Mac which converts Outlook Contacts, Calendars and Email folders into files that can be imported into a number of Mac programs. My alternative would have been messing with a million different CSV files. Gross.
As far as usability on the new machine goes, change is hard. I've already lost half this post once already by using incorrect shortcuts. Retraining my fingers will be a challenge. And there's no right-clicking on a Mac mouse. So much to learn! iChat is easy, though - and I already tried audio chat with Nancy. Who needs phones?!
I'll continue to use a PC at work; my next challenge will be keeping myself fully synced between work (Dell PC laptop) and home (iMac) using Bluetooth and my Nokia 3650. Wish me luck. (Bluetooth on the PC has been a bitch for me in the past. But that's a whole 'nother post.)
All in all, I'm looking forward to my new bi-platform lifestyle. I hope you enjoy coming along for the ride.
Posted by Meghan at February 2, 2005 10:24 PM
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» Interoperability from TechEvangelists
(This started out as a comment to Meghan's post about her new Mac but it got too long...) Regardless of OS/platform wars, the goal to me is total interoperability. Good examples of awesome interoperability are email and the web. It... [Read More]
Tracked on February 4, 2005 12:01 PM
Comments
Who says there's no right-click on a mac!? Get rid of that stupid one-button mac mouse ASAP! (I know, I know, you can hang it on the wall if you think it's that pretty.)
Macs can handle two-button mice, and it's a good thing too, or they'd have lost me as a customer a long time ago. The only thing I hate about my iBook is that I have no second mouse button. (But you can CTRL-click for the same effect in the finder and most applications.)
Posted by: databl1p ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.techevangelists.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at February 3, 2005 02:18 AM