I'm new to Mac too :-)

by marspike7 - 8/24/07 5:44 PM

In Reply to: One more question by ActorE

Hi AE,

I moved recently from PC to Mac to so maybe as one novice to another I may be able to share a couple of things.

I actually bought a 'mac mini' and converted my PC to a pure Home Entertainment PC free of the constraints of antivirus/spyware etc.

I bought the mac mini as I had all the peripherals and had read it was the perfect addendum to someone like myself who had a pretty up to date pc.

I love my mac, turning it on and off is a bit like using a light switch (well, maybe a fluoro but compared to windows...).

I did however install PARRALLELS DESKTOP for mac (version 3.0) and it is the most amazing thing and I really recommend it.It sells for around $144.00 AU and it allows you to run windows and mac at the same time and even drop and drag files between the 2.

I haven't discovered all its workings but I know there is a thing called 'transporter' which I think help transports files from your pc to mac - I haven't used it but I know parallels has the facility to do it.

My mini has a 60 gig hard drive so I bought a 500gig external and formatted it for mac (see disc utility).

That way you can read and write not just read.

The only other thing I can think of is to download flip for mac (free) so you can play your windows media files and if you don't want to splash out on mac office there is a free Open Office for mac (if you install parallels you can always just open all your windows files that way - its a truly amazing programme!)

The only glitch I've had is using my Bigpond Broadband Wireless Modem - an updated software package has been released by bigpond but it still needs work.

Hope something here helps happy