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Switching to Mac

arthwollipot said:
Well, I has it. I'm posting this from my brand-new 13" MacBook Pro. It's sweeeeet.
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Congrats. Have fun with it.
I'm finding that there are a few keyboard peculiarities that are different. For example, there are no Home and End keys.
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Far left, bottom row, there is an "fn" key that lets you use the arrow keys as "page up", "page down", "home" and "end".

Most Mac applications will also let you use cmd+uparrow and cmd+downarrow for "home" and "end".

HTH
 
I'd steer well clear of Firefox on the Mac. It uses far more system resources than it should, and is generally fairly slow and cumbersome. I use Safari, but I also hear excellent things about Chrome, so I'd check that out if Safari isn't doing it for you.
 
elgarak said:
I have AdBlock and ClickToFlash, to name the two most important.
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Seconded. It's amazing how much faster browsing is after those are installed. Apparently a great deal of time is spent handling ads and Flash, more than the core content of the pages.
 
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ThatSoundAgain said:
Emet's link is good for the method and order of doing things. As for actually moving the files, you shouldn't need external storage as long as you can still run the old machine. Put the two on the same network, or just connect them with an ethernet cable, and you should be able to share a folder on the Mac via SMB. This means it should show up as a network share in Windows Explorer, and from there you can just drag and drop.
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arthwollipot said:
I'm finding that there are a few keyboard peculiarities that are different. For example, there are no Home and End keys. I need to use Control-arrow for those.
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It just occurred to me that there is a very significant difference between how Windows Explorer and Finder behave when it comes to drag and drop.

If you try to drag a file into a folder that already has a file with the same name, both will display a dialog asking you to confirm that you wish to replace the file. If you drag a folder into a folder that has an existing folder with the same name, both will display a similar dialog, but Windows Explorer will then give you the option to merge the contents of the two folders and Finder will not; IOW if you choose to replace the folder in Finder, the contents will also be replaced and not merged. To merge the contents of folders in Finder, open one of the folders, select all of the contents, and drag that selection into the second folder.

There are other minor differences between the two, but this is the one that causes the most wailing and gnashing of teeth.

arthwollipot said:
ETA: What's Firefox like on the Mac platform? I'm finding Safari a little unsatisfying.
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IMHO, Firefox 4 is working quite well. It still is more sensitive to how many add-ons one installs, but not nearly as noticeably as versions 3.6 or earlier were. YMMV.
 
leonAzul said:
It just occurred to me that there is a very significant difference between how Windows Explorer and Finder behave when it comes to drag and drop.

If you try to drag a file into a folder that already has a file with the same name, both will display a dialog asking you to confirm that you wish to replace the file. If you drag a folder into a folder that has an existing folder with the same name, both will display a similar dialog, but Windows Explorer will then give you the option to merge the contents of the two folders and Finder will not; IOW if you choose to replace the folder in Finder, the contents will also be replaced and not merged. To merge the contents of folders in Finder, open one of the folders, select all of the contents, and drag that selection into the second folder.

There are other minor differences between the two, but this is the one that causes the most wailing and gnashing of teeth.
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I think the reason for that are either the UNIX underpinnings of Mac OS X, or its file system. As in most *nix file systems, and as opposed to Windows' file system, there's no fundamental difference between folders and files. A folder is just like a file, and is handled as such. Since you cannot simply merge files by dragging and copying, you can't do it with folders. One has to use special programs/command line commands for that, which are not included in the Finder's function set. In Windows' NTFS, however, a folder is a different logical structure.

Long story short, there's nothing you can do about it.

The funky thing here is that if have learned to handle files with the Finder in Mac OS X, you can use the same work flow in Windows with the Explorer. But not the other way around...

Another weird thing: While leonAzul thinks this causes much wailing and gnashing, I simply shrug. I have never merged folders in this manner while I was still on Windows (before I had any experience with the Finder), and have it done always in the 'Mac' way. YMMV, I guess.
 
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elgarak said:
I think the reason for that are either the UNIX underpinnings of Mac OS X, or its file system. As in most *nix file systems, and as opposed to Windows' file system, there's no fundamental difference between folders and files. A folder is just like a file, and is handled as such. Since you cannot simply merge files by dragging and copying, you can't do it with folders. One has to use special programs/command line commands for that, which are not included in the Finder's function set. In Windows' NTFS, however, a folder is a different logical structure.

The funky thing here is that if have learned to handle files with the Finder in Mac OS X, you can use the same work flow in Windows with the Explorer. But not the other way around...
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FWIW, this behavior goes way back before OS X, at least as far back as System 7, when my experience with Mac OS began. You might be correct that the design was influenced by POSIX standards, even then. The Windows Explorer behavior was set at least since Windows 95 (still running on FAT 16), but I honestly can't say whether it was present in earlier versions of Windows -- I was still more comfortable with MS-DOS or DR-DOS than Windows back then.
 
elgarak said:
Another weird thing: While leonAzul thinks this causes much wailing and gnashing, I simply shrug.
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Please clarify. Which "this" do I think causes much wailing and gnashing?

My intent was to skeptically observe that many people accustomed to the Windows Explorer behavior misunderstand how Finder works.

No more, no less.

The topic is "Switching to Mac", and quite on topic, I have offered a significant advisory concerning how to accomplish the transition without unnecessary pain.

It's a good thing I don't have to do this for a living.

Oh, wait…
 
arthwollipot said:
Something I didn't check before - what do all these keystrokes do?
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Heh, that must appear incomprehensible to a non-Mac-user, sorry. They're the basic shortcuts for managing application and window focus. Like I said, I see too many Mac users stick with using the dock and manually moving windows for too long. That's just very inefficient and straining.

elgarak said:
I think the reason for that are either the UNIX underpinnings of Mac OS X, or its file system. As in most *nix file systems, and as opposed to Windows' file system, there's no fundamental difference between folders and files. A folder is just like a file, and is handled as such. Since you cannot simply merge files by dragging and copying, you can't do it with folders. One has to use special programs/command line commands for that, which are not included in the Finder's function set. In Windows' NTFS, however, a folder is a different logical structure.
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That, and remnants of Apple's history of sticking to a "simplicity first" interface approach. By that I mean that for a long time, you couldn't copy and paste files via the Finder; everything was drag'n'drop (you still can't "cut" files). This is connected to the idea that invisible operations like these are inherently less user friendly. Also, that the ideal way to view a folder's contents is with "physical" icons that stay where you put them, and that a second mouse button would encourage bad interface design in third-party applications.

A lot of people disagree with these ideas, and OSX has been slowly growing out of them. But parts still remain.

Long story short, there's nothing you can do about it.
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Last I had the need (a while ago), there were numerous folder merging scripts around, so it can be done. I hear that people who work a lot this way sometimes prefer Path Finder which is an advanced Finder replacement.
 
leonAzul said:
Please clarify. Which "this" do I think causes much wailing and gnashing?
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Dragging and dropping a folder into a folder that already has a folder of the same name, and not giving you the option of merging them in Finder.

My intent was to skeptically observe that many people accustomed to the Windows Explorer behavior misunderstand how Finder works.

No more, no less.

The topic is "Switching to Mac", and quite on topic, I have offered a significant advisory concerning how to accomplish the transition without unnecessary pain.
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I was an exclusive Windows user until a switched cold turkey about 4 years ago. I did not observe any unnecessary pain. As I said, I never used this particular function, therefore did not miss it, or would even call it significant.

That's not a critique. YMMV.
 
ThatSoundAgain said:
Last I had the need (a while ago), there were numerous folder merging scripts around, so it can be done. I hear that people who work a lot this way sometimes prefer Path Finder which is an advanced Finder replacement.
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Your huckleberry is 'rsync'. ;)

ETA

"File Buddy" is not shabby either.
 
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Some external drives like some of the Seagate GoFlex drives are good for both Mac and PC -- they come with an NTFS driver for Mac, and it seems to work okay. It's ironic that the best cross-platform file system I've found so far is NTFS, even though I use Linux and Mac except for games. I wish there were good cross-platform drivers for something like ext4.
 
arthwollipot said:
My current laptop has a regular backup to the Buffalo (btw, I have no idea why it's called that, it's actually a LinkStation LS-CHL00A but we've always called it the Buffalo. It's very reliable.), and I expect that if I can work out how, I should be able to use it with Time Machine as well.
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You get to this part yet ? And find out it's not really supported ? :-O
 
arthwollipot said:
Yes, I'm connected to the Buffalo. I'm not using it for Time Machine though because with the laptop I got a 1Tb external drive for only $30. So I'm using a fraction of that as my TimeMachine.
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Sounds good.
If my point wasn't clear, it was that time machine still isn't technically supported to a NAS. You can do it ... but for some reason apple still isn't officially supporting this configuration, and that irritates me :-)
 
ThatSoundAgain said:
Ah, now I get what you were talking about with the sparseimage on an NTFS drive. Do you use this software yourself, and is it reliable?
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Sorry, I missed this when you asked it and just caught it while I was scanning the thread.

Yes, I have used it, and yes it is reliable -- anectdotally, I have not lost any data this way, standard caveat. Yet setting up an NFS share is much better documented and nearly bullet-proof. NFS is currently the closest thing to a lingua franca among computer systems. YMMV.
 
leonAzul said:
If you try to drag a file into a folder that already has a file with the same name, both will display a dialog asking you to confirm that you wish to replace the file. If you drag a folder into a folder that has an existing folder with the same name, both will display a similar dialog, but Windows Explorer will then give you the option to merge the contents of the two folders and Finder will not; IOW if you choose to replace the folder in Finder, the contents will also be replaced and not merged.
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This is slated to change with the next iteration of Mac OS X, aka "Lion". Finder shall offer the option to merge the contents of same-named folders.

Does anyone else who remembers all that talk about "convergence" in the late 1980s find this amusing?
 
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