Mac Switch Questions

Posted on October 17th, 2007 | by Chris Nixon |

Macbook by mdoeffIn the next couple of weeks, I will buy my first Mac. My laptop has been playing up over the last few months, and I’m generally sick of Windows. I just want life to be easier. I thought I’d methodically look through what I actually do on my laptop, and what I want to do, and see if I can get some free advice (that’s a hint to you, dear reader) on what software I should use once the ’shiny thing’ arrives.

I spend most of my laptop time on the net. So I suppose I should think very strongly about what browser to use. There are two obvious choices in Safari and Firefox. I use Firefox just now, and one of the features I like most is the ability to sync my bookmarks across computers. From what I read, Safari is more stable than the current version of Firefox but I think I’ll stick with what I know (how very boring sounding) just now, and see how I get on.

I obviously do a fair bit of blogging. In the last couple of months I’ve really grown to like Microsoft’s Windows Live Writer, but what are the options on the Mac? Should I be going for free software, or should I fork out some dosh. I’m really stuck on this one. I use hosted WordPress.com blogs, so it’s important that whatever I use is compatible with that.

I want to be able to edit my photographs on my new laptop. I currently use Photoshop CS2 for Windows, but I’d like to use something different on the Mac. I find that the handling of RAW images in Photoshop is a bit clunky in CS2. Is this the same in CS3? I want to be able to edit my images, then export them as jpegs for sharing on Zooomr. What is the advice here? Should I stick with Photoshop, or should I be using something like Lightroom?

I currently use iTunes on the PC, so that is an obvious port across to the Mac. Is there an easy way to do this? I would like to retain my ratings and play counts as I have spent rather too much time getting these ‘just so’ and I don’t want to have to go through the process again.

Because my current laptop is an early Sony Vaio, it can’t play divx. Sony blame, and divx blame Sony. I get about 10 seconds into a divx video before I get a BSOD. I think it’s a video driver issue, and Sony refuse to update the driver, so I’m updating away from Sony. Do Mac users use divx video, or do they tend to use the newer H.264? What are the advantages? I’d like to do a bit of video editing on my Mac. Am I best to use the built-in software, or look elsewhere?

Well that’s enough questions for now. I’d really appreciate any advice that people have on these. I’m obviously going to do some research myself, but hearing real people’s real experiences much more valuable.

Viewing 3 Comments

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    MarsEdit. It is extremely simple to set up and super intuitive. It is the best blogging software made for the mac. Don't mind the $29.95 price, it's worth every penny. Just add it to the software you will be buying for your new Mac.

    I tried Photoshop CS3 a little bit when it came out, I didn't like it at all to be honest. It's so different from CS2, it's just ridiculous. I feel like it's Adobes way of being extremely pretentious. That's my humble opinion though, I'm sure others will swear by it. I, on the other hand edit all my photos with Adobe Lightroom. It's is much more intuitive, and so much straight forward then Photoshop. It's purely for editing and keeping your photos in one place. I would definitely use Lightroom over Apple's Aperture. You should try both of them, but I highly suggest Lightroom, it's just a much better platform and makes editing photos faster. You can tag all of your photos in Lightroom and they will stay when you upload to Zooomr. The only thing that you will have to change after uploading is the title of the photos. Which doesn't take long at all since Zooomr makes it so easy.

    When you get your Mac, download (free) a program called Senuti (iTunes backwards) and you can copy all your files off of your iPod to your iTunes library and keep all of the ratings and everything blah blah blah. Or you could just transfer them to your Mac from your PC. It doesn't really matter which way you do it, the ratings and everything is imbedded in the file through iTunes. So it doesn't really matter where you put the tracks, the files contain the ratings and all the information.

    My video player of choice is VLC. It's open source and works on all platforms. For the Mac, it's usually h.264 even though there is a divx player that is made for the Mac. I don't use it even though I have it. It cost money I somehow got it for free. Don't ask, I think they were giving free copies away or something. I haven't used it since.

    I hope this answers all your questions, if it doesn't, feel free to email me.

    Nathaniel Perales
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    I like Firefox better than Safari. I like syncing my bookmarks between my Mac and my tablet PC. Plus, I've found that Safari doesn't work as well for me on many things (although, I recently upgraded to Safari 3.0 beta and it seems better).

    I use CS3 and love it. I liked Lightroom, too (but haven't shelled out the $$$ for it). It works for my workflow.

    I just write straight to my blog so I can't help you with that. Sorry.

    I just imported my songs. However, I did have to authenticate my external hard drives on my Mac BEFORE I did them on my PC in order for them to work on both platforms. Not sure why. But once I did, I could import my music and photos easily.

    Dunno about the video question. I just pop a video in and it works. I have no clue about that.

    Oy. Not sure this was much help. :-)
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    Wow! Thanks guys for your comments. I really didn't expect such detailed responses.

    It's very much appreciated.

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