Might be switching to mac...help!

hello everyone, i just joined the discussions...i gotta say its awesome to see theres a big community of mac users that help each other...my congratulations for that, seriously.
i joined mainly because ive made up my mind in a 90% to buy an Mac Mini CoreSolo,80GB,512RAM,SuperDrive next week, that would be my first mac ever, after lots of years using pc's.
But i do have certain doubts about using a mini for some tasks, even though i already know multiple formats are compatible(phew!)
im not exactly an expert in computers, sorry if i ask silly stuff(or too many questions):
-does mac support torrent using/downloading?
-are there any mac-compatible p2p programs for downloading movies and music(such as eMule, morpheus, etc)?
-is mac compatible with any pc or emulated games? (winning eleven 9 is the one that im interested in)
-are there any mac based video players that support subtitles? if so, do they support .srt and .sub files?
-if i transfer my .doc files and .ppt files, will i be able to see them just like they were on windows? no strange symbols?
those are my questions... an answer for them would complete my decision of switching to MAC.
thanks everyone
V.

Does mac support torrent using/downloading?
Yes, of course. There are a few bit torrent clients for apple
Are there any mac-compatible p2p programs for downloading movies and music(such as eMule, morpheus, etc)?
Yup again, There is limewire and others.
Is mac compatible with any pc or emulated games? (winning eleven 9 is the one that im interested in)
Many games have mac version (World of warcraft, Doom 3, Quake 4 etc. although i'm not sure about winning eleven 9). But get this (Drumrolls...):
With the new technology "Bootcamp" (A beta program for mac) you can run Windows XP (Without any restrictions) on a intel mac (Such as the solo)! At very fast speeds too!
Check it out here:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/
Bootcamp allows you to create a Windows Partition so you can run windows XP exactly as you would on a PC without any set backs or speed decreases. All it takes is holding one key (once xp is installed) to boot of the windows section of your mac.
Are there any mac based video players that support subtitles? if so, do they support .srt and .sub files?
I'm not 100% about this one, but you can download realplayer, quicktime, divx player and windows media player all for mac. I'm nearly 100% sure you can find a mac program to open those file types. Plus, if you can't find any media players for OSX you can use bootcamp and run the files in XP.
If i transfer my .doc files and .ppt files, will i be able to see them just like they were on windows? no strange symbols?
Once again, I'm not sure about this one (I don't even own a mac yet-Used to have a G3 (old mac), planning to also get a solo and did all the research you can possibly do about them, and my freind has one- Why i know so much).
With that being said there is Windows Office for Mac which i'm pretty sure lets you open .doc files and .ppt files without any restrictions or weird symbols. In fact, the office version on a mac is much better then the one on PC (Freind has it).
Once again if there is a restriction (Which i'm pretty sure there isn't), you can always bootup in XP and open the files there.
With that being said Applworks and iWork (The mac versions of office) are soooo much better so i don't think you'll be using office much once you get a customed to them anyways.
Hope that helps,
Great to here your making the switch,
I have yet to hear someone be dissapointed by switching to mac,
Good luck- keep asking questions i had a bunch before- now i'm helping answer other's questions,
Wannabe.

Similar Messages

Switching to Mac - Helpful Tips & Suggestions Requested

Well, after my experience with the iPhone, I became interested in a Mac. After doing some research, I decided to make the switch. My new 15" MBP with iWork and MobileMe should be arriving Monday or Tuesday (I was really hoping it would arrive by this Friday to give me the weekend to play with my new toy, but no such luck).
Anyway, I was looking for tips and suggestions for a Mac newbie (and laptop newbie) as well.
The machine is purely for personal use: some light gaming (though I may just keep my XP box for this), email/internet, personal finance, iTunes, research/writing for informal presentations to small groups, and Bible study (Logos developing a Mac version of their software was the final deciding factor).
Any suggestions/tips/recommendations on helpful books, websites, software and accessories would be much appreciated. Specifically, I would appreciate some feedback on personal finance software, research/note-taking software, and docking stations/KVM switches. Also, anything I need to be aware of as I transfer my iTunes library to the laptop and setting it up as my primary iTunes machine.

Hi
Glad the link was useful, and I can completely understand with the books.
No I have not used anything else of this type, I stumbled on notebook first of all and did not feel the need to look for anything else.
Notebook is really good for keeping all the notes for a project in one place. You can keep various types of media (written notes, web page clippings, recordings, pictures etc...) in one notebook, and organise them in several different ways. You can have various different notebooks open at the same time.
The feature I like best is the ability to make an audio recording of say a lecture, interview, meeting, even TV programme and keep notes at the same time which are then linked to the point in the recording when they where made.
Then later you can look at your notes and jump into the recording to hear the relevant part of the recording to those particular notes.
So you can have an accurate record of what went on as well as a written record of your thoughts at the time and both are link chronologically.
You can also add in additional notes when you play back the recording later which is handy in case you miss something first time round.
Notebook uses the internal mic and does all this from inside the app, so you don't need anything else.
I find it is just a really handy app to have around.
Thanks for the star by the way.
Paul
Message was edited by: scalawag
Message was edited by: scalawag

1st used ipod with pc, now, want to switch to mac, help!

I first used my mini ipod with my windows desktop computer. I recently purchased an apple notebook and wish to use my ipod with it, and not with my PC. However, because my ipod is formatted for windows, I cannot use it for my mac.
I've been searching through the forums for help on how I can achieve this goal of switching to the mac, but with no luck. Is there any way that I can reformat my ipod to a mac? (easy explanations please!) Thanks!

The really easy way to do this is to plug your ipod into the new (mac) machine, and once you see your ipod show up on the desktop/ itunes dock, go look for the program called "ipod updater." This program will prompt you to reset your ipod and reformat it to mac, and you will follow the steps of setting up you ipod as when you first acquired it. The downside to this is that you will loose all the files on your ipod. There are two things you can do if you want to transfer the music onto your new machine. 1) Go get the CDs and upload them onto itunes on your new mac or 2) go consult google to find a third party program that will allow you to take the files off your ipod and put them onto your new mac. To my knowledge, apple doesn't provide a method of doing this so you have to download another program.
If you decide to recover your ipod, that is use a third party program to get the songs off of it, then wait until that process is complete and then use ipod updater to reset your pod to your new mac. With your ipod still plugged in, go into itunes, rename your ipod, and let itunes automatically update your ipod. After that you can set it to manual again (you may have to unplug it first). I do not reccomend using a third party program to maintain large music libraries on both computers, you should choose one that will be your home computer and stick with it.

Windows User Switching to Mac – System Install/Setup Help

Hi All,
I’m a (very) long time windows user switching to Mac. I know nothing about Mac’s as in zero zip (I’ve been messing with an iMac for 2 weeks.) Buying a MacBook Pro (spec’s at bottom). I do creative work audio/video/graphics and use a lot of nonstandard peripherals e.g. audio interfaces, RAID, drawing tablets etc. Getting a new system setup is a long and laborious process.
When I get a new computer here’s my normal process:
Step 1
I reinstall windows to get rid of the junk software that’s always added by third parties.
Update all hardware drivers & software (OS and Auxiliary app’s)
Tweak Windows OS for my needs
Make full system backup
Step 2
Install all my major app’s e.g. adobe creative suite, audio programs etc.
Install non-standard peripherals such as audio interfaces, RAIDs etc.
Make full system backup
Step 3
Open up all major app’s and customize e.g. set preferences etc.
Set-up and test app specific peripherals, tweak as necessary
Make full system backup
Step 4
Install virus software and unimportant apps/hardware. No backup.
Is this basically what I should do with the mac? What kind of issues might I expect? Are there steps or issues I’m worrying about that don’t apply to the Mac? Finally, is there an equivalent to the windows Blue Screen of Death? Does the system every get so jammed up that a complete wipe out and re-install of OS and software is required?
I know these are very open questions so I’m only looking for general information.
Thanks
Here’s the machine I’m going to buy:
15” MacBook Pro (Late 2013) | 2.3GHz i7 Quad | 512GB PCIe-Based SSD | 16GB Ram - GeForce GT 750M (2GB)

Just to clarify the Mac includes anti-virus software and updates with no additional software purchase required?
Yes. Unlike Windows OS X was designed from its inception to be a secure multiuser operating system incorporating many protections specifically intended to isolate one user's space from another. Each succeeding release has only added more protections, and Apple updates its virus / malware database regularly.
Third party "anti-virus" products abound, but none of them improve upon anything OS X already includes. Most of them are simply worthless junk. Some will only cause problems, while others are arguably malicious. No one knows more about Macs and how to protect them than the company that builds them.
Apple is the most famously secretive company since E-Systems, yet the vast majority of Mac related problems reported on this site are the direct result of using ill-conceived products from third party developers claiming unique knowledge of OS X's inner workings. The companies selling them are desperate to assert their continued relevance in a market that is seeing rapid contraction of Windows PCs in favor of iPads - and to a lesser extent, Macs - that have never had the need for their products. Many AV vendors have been reduced to sordid scare tactics as they see their market and revenue stream diminish. Unfortunately, scare tactics work, resulting in widespread misery among Mac users gullible enough to swallow them. That represents a threat all to itself.
If it were not for Windows' predilection for malicious alteration from viruses and malware we wouldn't be having this discussion.
Even though I’m doing some heavy lifting e.g. video editing, audio recording (full band), large folders of music files/video clips/animations etc. no system/drive maintenance is required by me or if it is the software to do so is already included?
Correct. As a professional you may not be satisfied with the bundled apps such as iMovie but Apple has professional video and audio recording apps as well. Even they are not very expensive. You can find out more about them in the Professional Applications forum.
A Mac needs no third party maintenance utilities. Like "anti-virus" products most of them are worthless also.
Time Capsule: I thought that was Apples hardware for backup, remote access, streaming etc.
Yes. The Time Capsule is Apple's combination wireless router and backup device. You can just as easily use any inexpensive hard disk to use in conjunction with Time Machine.
Time Machine is Apple's backup software and it's included with OS X. You can use either one, or both. You can also use inexpensive commercial "clone" software such as Carbon Copy Cloner. Each one has its advantages, as well as their limitations. In the interest of redundancy I use all of them.
B&H Photo is a highly reputable vendor, one of the few I recommend.

Where can I send an email to iTunes so that they can resend me my purchased items? I just got a new laptop (switched from a PC to a Mac) help would be appreciated.

Where can I send an email to iTunes so that they can resend me my purchased items? I just got a new laptop (switched from a PC to a Mac) help would be appreciated.

Email itunes support! Or you could just transfer your purchases. Either w/ external drive, or w/ you iphone/ipod/ipad!

Considering Switching to Mac - Data on File Server - HELP!

Hi-
I'm a Windows-on-the-desktop user with a whole bunch of iOS devices and I am thinking of switching to Mac as of Lion / Lion Server. I tried the Mac a few years ago and got frustrated pretty quickly because of the inability of multiple users to share data on a server. Can anyone please tell me if now is the time to try again!?
My needs:
iPhoto - Have a Photos share on a server (windows/mac/linux) which contains all of our family photos (raid6) as the source of 3 desktop Mac iPhoto Libraries. Automatic updating? Faces recgonition turned off? (server grinding at 400GB of photos), syncing libraries among desktop clients? Can Aperture do this? (last time I tried Aperture, it wanted to rebuild the library every week.... and that took days of grinding my server)
iTunes - Have a Music share on the server as the source of 3 different iTunes libraries. Automatic updating? I'm in Canada so iTunes Match will never come here.
iMovie - native editing of AVCHD yet ? (no desire to convert my whole library to massive uncompressed video files)
Video - Play AVIs / WMVs / MKVs full screen via a Mac Mini from a Video share on the server to a HD Television. Can Quicktime do this? FrontRow? Last time I tried I recall a lot of stutter.
Many thanks-
A Mac-Wanna-Be

So I've got a solution to iPhoto: Use Picasa. Not ideal, as I would really like to live the iLife, but it'll do for now. I've found a bunch of iPhoto library syncing utilities, but none of them deal with shared raw data on a network drive - they all expect you to carry all of your photos on your desktop / notebook Macs.

Switching to MAC from Windows: How to open files in Office 2007 VMFusion?

Dear all,
Intro:
I switched to MAC and now cannot find the solution to a simple problem.
First: I need an Office 2007 PowerPoint FULLY compatible solution.
What did not work: IWork, NeoOffice, Office 2008 (this is not fully compatible with Office 2007 Files)
I also had problems with: Parallels (not stable, too many hangups), codeweaver crossover (office files do not even open sometimes, good idea but not suitable for serious office jobs)
Now I have VMWare Fusion with WinXP and Office 2007 as this seems to be the only truly stable and best solution to run Office 2007 on Mac
Question:
How to open files in Office 2007 on MAC VMWare Fusion easily?
It would be nice to spotlight the file and click and it opens in powerpoint or excel or word 2007 in Virtual Machine.
The only known solution to me is to use the Windows explorer to navigate to the file and then open it from Fusion WinXP. This is very cumbersome and honestly makes me think of getting back to a windows machine as I work with office frequently.
Thank you for your help.

Thank you for the quick reply.
Yes, I have Office 2007 installed. The problem is that to open files in Fusion virtual machine I have to use the windows explorer and navigate to the file to open it. Now that I have the mac I want to use the good feature of spotlight. So when I search and find the file I want to open I cannot click on it on the mac (or in finder) but I have to switch back to the virtual machine, locate the file again and open it from windows.
You might think - ok, why not skip the first step of using spotlight, and look up the file in windows explorer before anything else?
Correct, but I know from parallels that there is a file association possible to directly access the file in office 2007.
This does not seem possible in Fusion - So the question is whether there is a possibility on the mac to associate the file and to click on it in finder/spotlight and the office 2007 application in fusion opens the file. So far I could not find anything.
Thanks

Considering switching to Mac

Hello everyone, i have been a PC/Windows user all of my life, and am now very seriously considering switching over to mac. However, i have some questions first that i cant seem to find a direct answer to, and apologize in advance for asking things that might seem like a stupid question... so, here goes:
1. If i were to switch over to the mac version of Microsoft Office, could i swap documents i created in Word with PC's and vice versa(all of the rest of my families computers are PCs as are my schools)without any problems? Would whatever that answer is be the same for any other Office apps like PowerPoint?
2. Am I correct that Safari is an internet browser?
3. Does iChat come with the Macs, or is it a seperate program you have to buy?
4. In iChat, can i still instant message all of my friends who use AIM on a PC and still use my old screen-name if i wanted to? What if i wanted to create a new AIM screen-name? do i just go to AIM.com, make a new one, and use it in iChat without actually downloading the AIM program?
5. I currently have AOL on my PC but, of course, it *****, and i hear it is even worse on a Mac, so i would just use Safari, but can i still keep my old @aol.com e-mail address and access my e-mail through aol.com? and if i wanted to, could i create a new @aol.com e-mail address using this same method?
6. Will i still be able to watch all the online videos that run using quicktime/real player/windows media player, on my mac?
7. Am i right in assuming that i can network my new mac and my old PC in order to move my iTunes library (in AAC format)
from the PC to the Mac? Just for the record, none of the music that i purchased from the iTunes store is "Protected" anymore because i burnt it to a cd and re-imported it, however the videos and tv shows that i bought from them im assuming are still protected, so how could i move THOSE to a my new mac?
Once again, i apologize that I have so many questions that probably seem pretty stupid, but i havent been able to find direct answers to these specific questions
I also want to say thank you in advance for any help anyone can give me, sorry im such a clueless PC user, but, hopefully, with these questions answered, i will be able to happily switch to mac.
Sony Windows XP
Sony Windows XP
Sony Windows XP

Hello,
switching over to mac. However, i have some
questions first that i cant seem to find a direct
I'll answer them as we go below:
1. If i were to switch over to the mac version of
Microsoft Office, could i swap documents i created in
Word with PC's and vice versa(all of the rest of my
families computers are PCs as are my schools)without
any problems? Would whatever that answer is be the
same for any other Office apps like PowerPoint?
Yes, all the documents will open and exchange between Microsoft Office for the Mac and Microsoft Office for the PC without trouble.
You can send and exchange them in either direction, and it will work fine.
My wife does just that with her computer. She uses Office for Windows at work and Office for Mac at home.
Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents move either direction without any trouble.
There is no Mac version of Access though.
Personally, I use the free NeoOffice program on my system:
http://www.neooffice.org/
It is also compatible with Microsoft Office. Everything exchanges back and forth in either direction without trouble.
I've exchanged a lot of documents with Office users who have PC's, and they've never had any trouble opening anything I've sent them, and I've never had any problems with anything they've sent me.
NeoOffice can also work with PowerPoint files as well. They've played just fine for me.
It exchanges / works with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files.
2. Am I correct that Safari is an internet browser?
Yes. It is the standard browser on the Mac. I personally prefer it. And, it works with every page I've tried it with. I use it full-time.
But, there are also versions of Opera, FireFox, Netscape, and many others, for the Mac if you want to use something different.
3. Does iChat come with the Macs, or is it a seperate
program you have to buy?
It comes standard on all Macs. It's part of OS X.
4. In iChat, can i still instant message all of my
friends who use AIM on a PC and still use my old
screen-name if i wanted to?
Yes. You just enter your AIM screen-name when you setup iChat. And, it works as expected from there.
iChat has been designed to work just fine with AIM accounts, and will allow you to talk to other AIM users without any hassle.
What if i wanted to
create a new AIM screen-name? do i just go to
AIM.com, make a new one, and use it in iChat without
actually downloading the AIM program?
Yes. Just do it at their website. That's how I did it.
5. I currently have AOL on my PC but, of course, it
*****, and i hear it is even worse on a Mac, so i
would just use Safari, but can i still keep my old
@aol.com e-mail address and access my e-mail through
aol.com? and if i wanted to, could i create a new
@aol.com e-mail address using this same method?
If you're talking about using Safari to go to the AOL site and use their webmail interface to check your e-mail, then yes that should work just fine.
6. Will i still be able to watch all the online
videos that run using quicktime/real player/windows
media player, on my mac?
Yes.
There are Mac versions of all of those programs. Quicktime comes with all Macs. But, you can download the others.
Windows Media Player has been discontinued, but it still works and can be downloaded from Microsoft's website.
There is also a plug-in to play Windows Media Players in Apple's Quicktime Player.
7. Am i right in assuming that i can network my new
mac and my old PC in order to move my iTunes library
(in AAC format)
from the PC to the Mac? Just for the record, none of
the music that i purchased from the iTunes store is
"Protected" anymore because i burnt it to a cd and
re-imported it, however the videos and tv shows that
i bought from them im assuming are still protected,
so how could i move THOSE to a my new mac?
You should be able to find all you need on that here:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300173
Those directions explain how to move them using your iPod. But, you could use the same basic method to move them over the network. Just substitute copying through the network for the part that addresses copying them into and from the iPod.
The rest should be about the same.
I also want to say thank you in advance for any help
anyone can give me,
You're quite welcome. Glad to help
Let us know if you have other questions.
P.S., if you'd like, go ahead and click the "Helpful" or "Solved" buttons on mine or any of the other posts / replies if you feel they were helpful or adequately answered your question.

Thinking about switching to Mac from Windows, Good Idea?

I've always had a PC and I've never really used or work with a Mac. I'm a little questionable about buying one. What all do I need to know about Macs? I plan on using it for college and personal reasons. I hardly do anything outside of my house with my laptop. I've got an iPad and an iPhone which is what lead me to buying a Mac. I've done some research myself, but I don't know whether the Macbook Air or the Macbook Pro would be better for my uses. Is it better to go for the 512GB flash storage or should the 256GB work out fine? I've got a lot of questions, so sorry in advance.
Thanks for the help!
broken_mirror

Good article > http://thenextweb.com/apple/2013/11/10/switching-windows-mac-learned/
Storage size depends on use. If you store a huge photo and video library, go with the 256GB.
The comparison tool might be helpful for you > http://store.apple.com/us/mac/compare
Easy to migrate your Windows data to a Mac > Switch Basics: Migrate your Windows files to your Mac

I am a new mac user and I switch to mac due to the graphics that it brings. I do website in pc and I heard iweb is the best.NOW i heard that iweb will be discontinue. so what is the best application there for website using MAC OSX lion?

I am a new mac user and I switch to mac due to the graphics that it brings. I do website in pc and I heard iweb is the best.NOW i heard that iweb will be discontinue. so what is the best application there for website using MAC OSX lion?

It is now confirmed that iWeb, and iDVD, has been discontinued by Apple. This is evidenced by the fact that new Macs are shipping with iLife 11 installed but without iWeb and iDVD.
On June 30, 2012 MobileMe will be shutdown. However, iWeb will still continue to work but without the following:
Features No Longer Available Once MobileMe is Discontinued:
◼ Password protection
◼ Blog and photo comments
◼ Blog search
◼ Hit counter
◼ MobileMe Gallery
All of these features can be replaced with 3rd party options.
I found that if I published my site to a folder on my hard drive and then uploaded with a 3rd party FTP client subscriptions to slideshows and the RSS feed were broken. If I published directly from iWeb to the FPT server those two features continued to work correctly.
There's another problem and that's with iWeb's popup slideshows. Once the MMe servers are no longer online the popup slideshow buttons will not display their images.
Click to view full size
However, Roddy McKay and I have figured out a way to modify existing sites with those slideshows and iWeb itself so that those images will display as expected once MobileMe servers are gone. How to is described in this tutorial: #26 - How to Modify iWeb So Popup Slideshows Will Work After MobileMe is Discontinued.
It now appears that the iLife suite of applications offered on disc is now a discontinued product and the remaining supported iApps will only be available thru the App Store from now on. However, the iLife 11 boxed version that is still available at the online Apple Store (Store button at the top of the page) and those still on the shelves of retailers will include iWeb and iDVD. Those two apps were listed in small, gray text on the iLife 11 box that I bought.
Personally, if I didn't already have a copy I would purchase one to have it for reinstallation purposes if ever needed.
This might be of some interest to you at this time: Life After MobileMe.
OT

Looking for some assurances that I haven't made a mistake switching to Mac.

Bought an intel-powered IMac 9 days ago and love everything about it's look, functionality, etc.. Only problem: I've had a bout of "Application has closed unexpectedly" occcurrances while using Safari (while at AOL.com deleting emails from aol account) and while editing pics in iPhoto. As this happened time and again, I got a sad, sinking feeling that I'm headed for the same frustrations that I've had w/ every Windows machine I've ever owned. Ugh!..I switched to Apple for the specific purpose of avoiding crashes!!! Apple support walked me through steps to fix (removed/updated Quicktime, and check a few other things..). They were very helpful, but... I absolutely detest having to do this. Other than Office:Mac, i've added nothing to this machine! I'm really stressed about this. I paid far more for this than I would have for a Windows machine simply because I had heard that Apple machines don't do this sort of thing!!
Please tell me that this is normal and expected with a new machine and not a harbinger of more complicated problems to come!! I'm hoping that once resolved, I won't much more of this.. On the other hand, if many of you feel that this issue is a bad omen, I'll take the machine back while I still can. ..What a pity though, it's truly been a joy to use so far.
IMAC (early 2006) Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Hi syd123! And Welcome to Discussions!
No you haven't made a mistake! You will love your Mac!
Deleting AOL Mail, crashes Safari (Consolidation)
It seems the most recent Safari, and or 10.4.4, update has created this problem.
Apple & AOL are both aware of this, but, as far as I know, no correction has been implemented.
Here are some of the work arounds, that I have been able to discern from the various posts regarding this issue.
Use the FIREFOX BROWSER.
Use your AOL Mail program.
Use this utility AOL SERVICES ASSISTANT, to set up Apple Mail, to access AOL Mail.
Access the AOL Mail thru Classic AOL Webmail.
And here are links, to the various threads, discussing this issue.
<a href="http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=314479&start=0&tstart=0 "Safari and AOL</a>
AOL/ Delete/ Safari crash
safari crashing with aol.com mail deletion
AOL Webmail and Safari on 10.4.2 crashes on delete mail
Update 10.4.4 causes crash
Safari crashes when deleting email on AOL
Safari Update
Safari Crashes AOL mail
Safari Crashes when Deleting or Reporting E-Mail as SPAM on AOL Web Mail
Looking for some assurances that I haven't made a mistake switching to Mac. This Thread
Good Luck!
ali b

Switching to Mac

I am switching to Mac :-D and now I have a few questions that someone can help me out with a few iPod/iTune questions.
1) Will I need to restore my iPod so that it will be able to talk to the Mac. I believe I will but I want to make sure.
2) I have saved/export my library. However, I am left wondering will I be able to still use that library? Since it's going to have reference to a P:\ drive and following path?
Would it be possible to edit the XML file to reflect the new path? If this is the case I will have a follow up question.
3) Is there any thing else I should know?
Thank you

*1) Will I need to restore my iPod so that it will be able to talk to the Mac. I believe I will but I want to make sure.*
Macs can read Windows formatting so you should have no problem connecting your iPod to your Mac. One proviso is that up until now Apple has only fully supported using the iPod shuffle in FAT32 format on Mac (unless the range has been expanded to include the iPhone and the iPod Touch which I've no experience of). What this means effectively is that if you need to apply a firmware update for your iPod and you wanted to maintain the Windows format you would have to do it on a PC. If you were to try and update a Windows based iPod on a Mac it would be restored and reformatted to the Mac file system and have the Mac firmware installed.
*2) I have saved/export my library. However, I am left wondering will I be able to still use that library? Since it's going to have reference to a P:\ drive and following path?*
These pages may be of some help:
How to move an iTunes library from a PC to Mac
Networking with a Windows PC
Don't forget by the way if you have purchased any tracks from the iTunes Music Store to deauthorise your old PC if you are disposing of it so you don't use up your 5 allowances: About iTunes Music Store Authorisation and Deauthorisation

New to Mac: help me adjust my Windows workflow to iPhoto

I recently switched to Mac, mostly in the hopes of spending less time thinking about how the computer works and more time doing what I want to do.
In fact, what made me finally start seriously thinking about a Mac is when I heard about the iPhoto '08 events feature, where it automatically split the photos based on the dates. I thought that was genius in how simple, yet effective it was.
I take quite a few photos. I take a lot of random photos of my car (I'm a car guy), but I also take some photos at parties, friend visits and family visits, etc. I often take several of photos of the same thing, because, heck, there's plenty of space on the memory card, and maybe one of the subsequent photos will be better than the first.
One common scenario for me is going to a social gathering of some kind and then posting the photos of that event online.
My Windows XP workflow used to be as follows:
1. Connect camera
2. Import photos into a folder named after the event using Windows Photo import. If several different events, select several sets and import them separately into separate folders. E.g. "My Pictures\Spring Cleaning Day Apr 2008"
3. Browse the photos using Windows File Viewer and delete any obviously poor photos and select the least blurry of several duplicates.
So that above is fairly straighforward. Now, I need to get these photos up online. A while back, I set up for myself a website that runs Gallery 1.x software, so I could just upload photos via a web interface and have them viewable with automatic thumbnails.
The thing is: I don't want to upload ALL images online. Just most of them (the best).
4. Open the photos I'm interested in a photo editor, one by one.
5. Crop, adjust levels, shadows, colors, etc.
6. Resize photo to a "large but not too large" web size, usually either 1200 or 1400 pixels wide.
7. Adjust sharpness on the resized photo to make sure it looks good when viewed at actual pixel size.
8. Save photo in a subfolder called "forweb", e.g. My Pictures\Spring Cleaning Day Apr 2008\forweb. This way, I get to keep all the originals from the camera and my resized web-ready photos separate.
9. Upload all photos from the "forweb" folder using a web interface, typing up descriptions for each.
When I'm done, I have a gallery that has thumbnails, mid-size versions of the photos (800 pixels wide, for easy viewing) and a "full-size" version for a detailed view (but not as huge as the one that came out of the camera... so it's not original size). In fact, the original size photos are huge (as I take them at 7.1MP resolution with the lowest compression), about 2-3MB each, and so I'd never want to upload a 100 3MB photos. A waste of space.
Overall, the result is pretty good: most people view the midsize photos and save full-size (1200 or 1400 pix wide) photos of things they particularly like.
However, the process is too time consuming. In particular, it takes forever to go through each photo and resize it and crop it. The process of resizing and saving each individual photo in the separate "forweb" is quite a bit of overhead. Sometimes I kind of dread having to post photos up online after events, and it should totally not be that way!
I bought a .Mac subscription after seeing the fancy web galleries. I am hoping that the combination of iPhoto and .Mac can help me get my photos up on the web quicker.
So now, the iPhoto workflow. What should it be?
Here's my guess:
1. Connect camera.
2. Import all photos, naming each event after importing.
3. Delete poor photos or blurry duplicates.
4. Identify photos I want to display on the gallery (those worth keeping) and hide all others.
5. Crop and adjust shadows/colors/etc.
6. Select "Web gallery" to share the event.
And then I'm done.
So that sounds pretty good right there. Except, I have several reservations and questions:
1. Is it better to mark photos I don't want in the web gallery as hidden (so I can just upload the entire gallery) or should I just select the photos I want to upload online into the web gallery? It seems to work either way. On one hand, it seems better to hide the photos, because then when they get synced to my iPhone, I have the most relevant photos and not the "extras." Also, if I'm showing photos from my laptop, I'm also showing the cream of the crop and not everything. On the other hand, the concept of hiding photos is kind of unusual to me. Feels strange to "hide" photos.
2. What to do for a web gallery full size that's not as huge as the original camera size? When uploading to .Mac, I only have an option of Optimized or Actual Size. Optimized size is 1024 pixels wide. That's too small for a detailed views or for wallpaper purposes. The problem is that the "Actual Size" from my camera is huge (~3000 pixels wide). I don't really want to burden people with the downloading of the 2-3MB "Actual Size."
However, it seems that it's tricky to implement such a 1200-1400-pixel-wide "full size" with iPhoto. There is no resize option within iPhoto that I could find. The best I could find was a crop with a constrain size option. I guess I would have to constrain-size crop to something like 1400x1000 first? And then crop again to get the shape I want?
Also, sharpness adjustment seems useless when adjusting 7MP photos. In my Windows workflow, I found sharpness much more useful when tweaking photos after they have been resized to this "full-size" 1200-1400 wide resolution. This again means that I'd have to do the crop "trick". It feels strange though that everything else is so straighforward, but resizing photos within iPhoto isn't.
I guess that's where the whole workflow question is. The iPhoto workflow is to keep your originals intact and maintain adjusted duplicates. But resizing is not a suggested part of this workflow--instead, it is expected that any resizing is done on the way "out" of the library (e.g. File->Export or web gallery publishing).
I wish I could introduce an intermediate "optimized" setting for Web Gallery upload (although then I don't have that precise control of sharpness after resizing).
Maybe I am overthinking this and, given that I have 10GB of storage space with .Mac, I should just give up and let it upload my 3000-pix wide 2-3MB JPG originals (i.e. use the "actual size" setting)?
3. Can anyone provide some practical uses for the "albums" setting and contrast their use vs events? I just want to get a better insight into the practical difference. It seems that albums are not very useful or rather would be rarely used, given the main categorization of all photos into events. It seems that the only use for albums would be to bring together photos across different events. For example, I could make an album of all of the photos of my car's odometer or put together my best random city shots. Maybe I just answered my own question? Still, interested into your use of albums.

ilp
Welcome to the Apple Discussions.
So now, the iPhoto workflow. What should it be?
This is pretty good:
1. Connect camera.
2. Import all photos, naming each event after importing.
3. Delete poor photos or blurry duplicates.
4. Identify photos I want to display on the gallery (those worth keeping) and hide all others.
Well I would make a small change here. There are reports of folks getting hidden photos turning up in their web galleries. So, instead I would flag the photos I want to upload and then create an ALBUM from them. (or you can just drag and drop them to an album) Also, you can add to your gallery simply by adding to the album. Or use Ratings and/or keywords, see below
5. Crop and adjust shadows/colors/etc.
6. Select "Web gallery" to share the event.
(or Album)
You cannot change the size of images that are in the Gallery. It's a flash based "movie". Those size options refer to the file size of images that you allow folks to download from the gallery.
Events are a really limited way of organising your pics. Events in the iPhoto Window correspond exactly with the Folders in the Originals Folder in the iPhoto Library package file (Right click on it in the Pictures Folder -> Show Package Contents).
You can move photos between Events, you can rename Events, edit them, create them, as long as you do it via the iPhoto Window. Check out the Info Pane (wee 'i', lower left) the name and date fields are editable. Edit a Event Name using the Info Pane, the Event Folder in iPhoto Library/Originals will also have the new name.
That's it.
Albums can be based on any criteria you can think of - and with Smart Albums this can be done automatically.
For instance, back in your work flow above, you sort the pic and hide the one's you don't want to upload. Here's another way of doing it. Rate the pics, from 1 - 5, and then
File -> New Smart Album
Rating -> Is -> 5 stars
will find your favourites. Best yet, it will update that album every time you rate new pics. You can base Smart Albums on a lot of criteria - date, rating, keyword, camera model... have a look and see the full list, and these can be combined together...
The other great plus with Albums is that, because they are virtual, a pic can be in 1, 10 or 100 albums with no wasted disk space. But if a pic is in more than one Event you're dealing with a duplicate file.
Frankly, a Event is a bucket of Pics, and Album is a coherent organisation based on any criteria you can think of.
Regards
TD

Serialnumber disabled after switching to Mac from Win and back to Win.

Hello,
i first bought CS6 for Windows, than i switched to Mac.
I bought a new notebook today and wanted to install CS6 on Windows again, but the serialnumber is disabled.
Unfortunately, i didnt deactivate the serialnumber on my old PC and Mac. I just deleted it.
There is no chance to reinstall, because i sold them.
I was looking for some contact mail or whatever but there is only the chat, which is offline now.
Is there any contact mail or number for germany?
What is the problem with this company? I payed money for this and there is no chance to activate this in time?!

You could contact Adobe thru chat (it does work and is not offline) and ask them to reset your activations.
Chat support - For the link below click the Still Need Help? option in the blue area at the bottom and choose the chat option...
Make sure you are logged in to the Adobe site, have cookies enabled, clear your cookie cache. If it fails to connect try using a different browser.
Serial number and activation chat support (non-CC)
http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/global/service1.html ( http://adobe.ly/1aYjbSC )

Switching to Mac: MBPr Questions!

Hey all,
So I've been a Windows user my whole life, but I've finally decided to switch to Mac after witnessing the beauty and grace of the 13" mac book pro retina that my friend just bought. It's astonishing. Plus, there's no better time to switch than when you have a 3 year old HP laptop and are in university.
Since switching to Apple is bloody expensive (nearly double the budget of what I usually spend on laptops), I want to carefully calculate my decision.
I know that the most recent MBP to be released was in October 2013, and it updated to Intel Haswell processors. BUT I also happen to know that Intel Broadwell processors are coming out within the next couple of months, and are said to be around 30% more efficient. Do any of you know if Apple has the tendency to regularly update their MBPs?
The reason I ask is because if there won't be an update to the MBP until October 2014, then I might as well invest in one now, but if there is a chance that a newer model will be released in the coming months, I'll definitely hold out until then!
Also, another couple of questions:
Without tweaking the MBP (by adding extra ram, processing power, etc...), how well will it run software like Ableton Live, as well as various games such as call of duty?
Thanks a bunch everyone,
Hopefully I'll also be part of the Mac family soon!

There will always be some kind of upgrade to the macbook pros every year. You shouldn't stress about trying to keep up with technology I have a 13" retina late 2013 and am very happy with it.
I did do some research and found out that Apple will not release the Broadwell processors until late 2014.
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/broadwell-to-launch-2h-2014,24765.html
A $300 PS3 can run Call of Duty so of course a $1,000 +Mac will run it just fine. Ableton Live will run great.
If you are going to have lots of apps open, then the 4GB ram on the base model of the 13 inch might not be enough and I would recommend upgrading to 8GB ram or get the mid model 13 inch as it has more storage anyway.
I do not recommend getting the 15 inch as it would cost you over $2,000!

Might be switching to mac...help!

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