I caved in to all the peer pressure and bought a Mac! No, not really, I really got it because I'm sick of trying to do simple tasks as I wait on PC to work right and restart 5 times before I can complete them.

So I have a question. The biggest thing I need to know right now will my mac read the externals that I'm currently using on my PC? I know I can network them, but can the Mac see into externals on my PC?

YES.

You should pay Damon because he's going to be an amazing source of help for you. Seriously. I LOVE Damon! Damon, however much money you make, it isn't enough.

Haha. I read somewhere that if the HD is FAT32 it can be read by the mac. Is this accurate? I'm so excited about getting it!

Congrats, Jason! I got my MacBook Pro on Friday and I love it! You won't regret it. What kind did you get?

And I've moved all of my music and pics off of my PC desktop which is formatted NTFS, so you should be good!

Now I can't wait for Leopard!

You know, while I certainly agree my employers would probably disagree with you about that whole salary thing

My wife did just spring for an Aeron chair for me, though I suspect it's so I'll do my work without complaining about how the IKEA chair is putting my butt to sleep.

Jason: I'd be glad to help as I suspect most of the more advanced Mac users here will. It's my contribution to the forum since I'm a mediocre photographer at best.

I bought one of the new imacs. I'm gonna set it up as a second workstation.

Get this book...

It explains soooooo much that you'll wonder about.

Also, other than Adobe Products -- like PhotoShop -- what other photo & Album & business software do you use? Perhaps we can recommend similar Mac based software that does the same thing.

From someone that turned from a hardcore PC guy into a hardcore Apple fan boy, you'll love it!! And be warned, buy one Mac usually leads to buying a second, and a third, and needing to buy this, and that =) hehehe. I figure Steve jobs owes me lunch or something!

Enjoy it!

I use PS, LR, Microsoft Office, and acdsee. I really don't use much. The mac will take care of my slideshows, video editing, DVD and CD burning without much effort. I don't know yet if I will get Microsoft Office for the mac yet or not. I might just run it on boot camp.

Thanks for your help. It will a several days before my mac gets here. I ordered it yesterday.

Ok- so I did it too....bought my macbook pro about 1 weekd ago. So far, I haven't done much with it- becasue it is so foriegn. Will this book be easy to understand or over a lay persons head?????
I am taking some one on one classes at the Mac Store and I am hoping it will make me fall in love with my Mac- at this stage, it is all frustration....but I know the potential to fall in love is there

Here is another thing for switchers -

The mac help system is awesome and actually works when you search for things. For example if you search for something like it "changing wall paper" it will tell switchers from the PC how to do it. The other great thing when it comes to settings and what not, is they are generally in places that make sense in the system prefrences.

Play around thats all I can suggest. Also learn your short cut keys for closing windows, quitting aps, making new tabs in Safari, your useage and speed using the system will increase!

Isn't that the truth... I've had my Mac Pro less than a month and already am saving for a Macbook Pro. (Though I'm guessing that one of those new Nikons is going to take priority on the list. )

Congrats Jason... sign me up for some hand holding as well.

HAHA. When are you getting yours?

I got my 24 incher last week, and it rocks. I hate using my pc server downstairs. Your going to have a fun time color calibrating it...but you'll get it done. Make sure to turn the brightness all the way down. Good Luck.

Congratulations on a very wise decision! I doubt you'll need too much hand-holding ... it's pretty intuitive and easy.

Awesome! I can see my avatar on your screen

I played with one of those new iMacs at the Apple store and that screen really makes photographs look rich and beautiful.

What sucks is that everything is so nice on the mac...when you see it on another computer your totally bummed. That is why the color calibration is a pain. You almost have to dum down the mac to make it match other computers.BTW The glossy screen is awesome, and it doesn't bother me at all.

I've had my MacBook Pro for less than a week and I already feel smarter!

When MS copied the mac interface, they made it upside-down and backwards to avoid lawsuits. Therefore there is a bit of a learning curve coming from Windows. The mac is really the more logical and intuitive computing experience and that will become clear in time. You need to unlearn some stupid Windows conventions. Once you do that, you will kick yourself for not switching long ago and you will see a great increase in productivity.

I got the 20 inch version. The glossy doesn't bother me either. I like how sharp and crisp images look on glossy screens. I use a spyder 2 express to calibrate with. I'm hoping it will work just fine!

This is so right! I started out with a 20" iMac and I just purchased a 17" Macbook Pro two weeks ago. I'm such an apple fan!

You'll love your new computer and will wonder why you didn't do it sooner

I fully intend on going completely mac. It will probably take me 6-12 months to do so though. With the specs of the new imacs, I thought it would work fine as workstation. I will get a MBP at some point. My windows laptop is just a little over 6 months old, and my windows workstation is 4 weeks old. So I actually have 2 fast windows machines now. I don't expect to even convert totally over to mac until the winter. I'm way too busy now with weddings to spend the amount of time that would take. Right now the imac will be used for making/burning DVD's and DVD slideshows, using ical, and maybe some light video editing.

Congrats on the switch. I made the switch to a 20" iMac back in May. I'll never go back to a PC.

Off topic (a little)...My wife spilled her water bottle on my iMac keyboard last week and killed it. So, I made a trip to the Apple store and bought a new keyboard. I was pleasantly surprised with the new keyboard. I did not realize that Apple redesigned the keyboards for the new iMacs. I still can't get over how thin the keyboard is!

Welcome to the wonderful Mac world! (Where all the kool kids hang out)

We noticed that in the store. It looks like it's just a thin piece of aluminum. I actually like the old ones more though. Oh well, it's not that important. This thing is shipping from China so it will probably take forever to get here.

So, I'm assuming that you canNOT put an apple keyboard in the dishwasher!


Heheh... I put free shipping on mine that would have taken 7-10 business days. The next day (Thursday) I realized that in 7-10 days, I'd have gone out of my mind with anticipation, so I went back on Amazon and changed the shipping to next day air and just paid the extra $30 for my sanity. It got to me the very next day (Friday). I haven't regretted that decision.

No, I would not recommend doing that. I have heard of other people doing that with other keyboards. Too funny! I kept mine just incase it decides to start working down the road.

Hey congratulations on your new purchase. Please keep us informed on how you like the glossy screen once you get your Mac. I am interested because I want to know what kind of results you get when sending images to print to WHCC or other labs.

Anywho, what I use for Office is called Neooffice, you can find it at this link. It reads and writes both Office 2003 and Office 2007 documents, it's free, and it's very intuitive. I like better than OpenOffice because with OO you need to run X-11 first to run OO. NeoOffice run with the Aqua interface.

As far as the Mac reading your PC formatted drives, it can read both, FAT32 and NTFS formatted drives, however, it can only write to the FAT32 formatted drives. From what I have read, that will change with Leopard, but the way I see it, once I get another hard drive, since I am no longer using Windows much, I will trasfer everything to the new drive, format a 32Gb partition as FAT32 for the rare time I may need Windows, and then the rest will formatted with the OSX file format.

I edit on a glossy screen now and love it. My prints look just fine. I wish I had paid the 30 bucks to have it shipped quicker. It's too late now because it's waiting to clear customs in China.

LOL!

Yeah, me to. I few of my pc friends feel like characters from the ant movie.

me and my bud on the MacBook Pro

Thanks for that Neooffice link. That may end up being very helpful to me! I found out that my mac should be here on Friday!

ACDSee will be the only major piece of software that you don't have.

I upgraded to CS3 -- and the new version of Bridge does almost everything ACDsee did. Just start telling yourself you don't need it anymore.

BTW: CS2 PS and Bridge run waaaaay slow, compared to CS3 -- so if you want to see the speed - go 3!

I just tracked my package, it is on the truck on the way to my house! It amazes me that I ordered this just 72 hours ago and it is already here in Greenville from Shanghai! I think I love mac already!

It just came!!! WOOHOO!

Yea, Congrats!!!!! Let us know what all you run into, we are thinking about switching too!

This thing is amazing ya'll! It read my drives on my other computer so easily!

I wish I had luck with my new iMac reading my Lacie drive. Oh well, the thing still kicks ass.

i can't resist...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CrQjfgvqJQ

Congrats on the new gear, Jason! Where's the obligatory new-Mac-wacky-Photo-Booth-picture?

Are you married? If so...remember not to ignore your wife!

So how do I make the icons on the bottom zoom in when i scroll over them like they do on other peoples macs?

Congrats Jason!!! Woohooo!!!

You can just go right on up to the little apple in the top left of your screen and click on it....then click on dock....and then click on "Turn Magnification On". HTH!

Yes, def let us know how u like the screen because I've heard its very hard to calibrate which is what is keeping me from getting one.

Misty missed a step: Ciick the blue apple, click system prefs, click dock. Change settings to suit.

Congrats, you'll love it!

~Bill

So far I have downloaded pocketmac to sync our Blackberrys. It actually works better than the Blackberry software. HAHA! I have already synched our calenders to ical. I have installed LR. It took my registration key, YEAH! I got the 1 gig RAM that came with it. I will definately be adding another gig of RAM though. That makes a big difference running LR. Thank you so much for your help everyone!

Oh also I can read and write to my externals that are connected to my windows desktop! Does it get any better than this?

Congratulations Jason,
I have always been a mac girl, I started with a G3 way too long ago, I'm on a Powerbook G4 now and buying a 20 inch IMAC tomorrow! I'm soooo excited! I'm thinking of changing my business name to
ICANDY Photography... lol
Candy

OK, so photo booth is fun! Hee hee. Does everyone like my new avi?

What an AVI !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nothing like playing with new toys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mark,
I was in an Apple Store last night, trying to decide whether or not to get the 24" iMac. Images look fantastic, but I'm concerned with the reflections in the glossy screen. Do you get over it quickly or is it annoying?
Thanks!

LOL...Jas that's hilarious!!! Ok..so for the record...I'm switching to Mac at the end of the month. Some new imac salesperson from SC convinced me Haha...Chris..I love your desk setup...lol. With the KK mug. (that's not why my initials are KK btw!!!!)