Switching to Mac OS

UPDATE:  Welcome, TUAW visitors!  Thanks for stopping by.

As noted before, I've made the transition from M$ Windoze to the Mac world, on a 12-inch PowerBook.

The switch continues to go well.  Today, I began what had been the most intimidating part of the process for me, e-mail transfer.  I've got 6 years' worth of e-mail in Outlook.  And from what I had read, it was going to be an arduous task to get it moved over.

Then, I tried Googling around, and discovered Outlook2Mac.  Ten bucks yields switcher bliss!  Easy to use, and although the web documentation makes it sound like it's glacially slow, I was quite pleased with the speed.  I'm not doing all my folders at once, but what I've done so far has been a cake walk.  I haven't tried its features to transfer calendar or contact info (I'll do that when I set up my Treo 90 to sync with the PowerBook).  I'm using Entourage, which isn't anywhere near as annoying as I thought it would be.  After I use it for a bit, I may end up ditching it for Thunderbird, which I use for personal e-mail.  According to the documentation, Outlook2Mac should work with pretty much any Mac e-mail client.

Firefox is, of course, my browser of choice.  I'm rather underwhelmed by Apple's word processor "Pages," but haven't played with Keynote, its iWork companion, yet.  A 1GB USB flash drive has been indespensible for moving files.  I've read all sorts of stuff about Quicksilver, but I'm not sure I "get" it, nor am I sure one can "get" it without trying it.  I'll give it a whirl eventually. 

Both The Unofficial Mac Weblog and MacOSXHints have been very helpful, so please consider this a "plug" for them and check them out.

Comments

[Rudi]

Well, thank the stars that you finally came back to the Mac!

I remember when you bought your Power Mac 7100 back at Conn - that was a kick-butt machine in its day. And now you're back.

I've stayed with the Mac all these years, and I'm totally happy with it.

Anywho, I'll drop you a "what the heck is that Rudi doing?" message this week.

Cheers!

[Rudi]

More on your musings:

- Pages is more of a DTP application than a word processor. It's more akin to Adobe FrameMaker, meant for long-form documents that will appear in multiple formats (e.g. print, PDF, web). The interface of Pages is deceptively simple, and there's a lot of good stuff under the hood. But it's quite a jarring experience if you're used to the menu-overloaded M$ Word and Corel WordPerfect interface.

If you need a word processor, M$ Word 2004 is the best thing around right now, despite its bloat. The M$ Bay development group in San Jose, CA, does an admirable job on the Mac - I guess that the distance from Redmond is a big plus for them.

- Keynote is quite nice for presentations, but if you're used to PowerPoint there's no huge point in changing ships. But Keynote can do far sexier things than PowerPoint (so long as you present from your PowerBook).

- The iLife apps are very, very cool - and I can imagine you having a ton (or "tonne," if you wanna go Olde English) of fun with GarageBand.

- Other fun things (besides Quicksiler): Konfabulator (the proto-Dashboard, now free for anybody to use), ShapeShifter (theming *rules*), WindowShade (a feature that OS X lacks, easily rectified), Adium (the *best* IM client, bar none - and free, to boot), TextWrangler (the latest free plain text editor from the makers of BB Edit), Audio Hijack (wanna record a streaming BBC show? use this app!).

[Evers]

Oh dear, how could I have failed to mentioned the PowerMac 7100!

Them was the days...

Look forward to hearing back from you, Rudi!

[Zack]

I'm trying to make the switch but I can't decide between a 12" iBook and a 12" Powerbook. I mainly need it for taking notes in class, surfing the web, etc. So what made you go with the Powerbook over the iBook?

[Evers]

Zack,

Thanks for stopping by! I'll be honest; the iBook probably would have been sufficient for my current needs (word processing, e-mail, web surfing, music). But I've found that buying for a little bit above one's current level of use is generally wise when it comes to technology purchases. You never know what new ideas you'll come up with, and it's a lousy feeling to think "I could really use an upgrade" just a few months after plunking down the bucks. It meant saving up a little longer, but I was willing to do that. Your mileage may vary, of course.

Peace, and happy Mac-ing!