Moving over

Half an hour after we got back online, my daughter and I sat at our new glass table in our new home, enjoying our first experience of using our brand new Macbooks on our brand new wireless home network. Note the packing case in the background

I'd not expected ever to switch to a Mac, but I was planning to get my daughter one for the start of her art degree course this October, and thought about getting  myself a subnotebook at the same. But the only ones I wanted were wildly expensive Sony Vaios.

Coincidentally, Apple opened a store in Brent Cross, our local mall. We found out my daughter could get a massive discount on Macs because the university she's going to used to have a major relationship with Apple. That made a Macbook, which can also be run as a Windows PC, as cheap as a Dell. So we both got one.

This is my first wireless machine, and I do love the Rolls-Royce feel  and the general stylishness of the Macbook keyboard.

There are weirdnesses though, and I can't work out whether they're because of the Mac, the new wireless environment or the fact that our (at last!) broadband connection still isn't up to speed.

Like my Macbook can see my large old PC, but the PC (on the same wireless network) can't see the Mac. And the Macs can't see each other. Which makes sharing files difficult.

When I upload digital pix onto the Mac, it automatically shows them turned the right way up for whichever way I took them. But loading them onto Typepad to put on the blog shows the portrait shots sideways on. Even loading up Photoshop on the Mac shows them the right way up. So I had to edit the shot of my daughter on the PC to get it the right way up on Typepad. I used Photoshop to do that, then tried switching to the Mac to see if I could copy over the edited version. Weird. The Mac showed all the original pix on the folder, plus the ones I'd edited on the Mac, but it couldn't see the ones which I'd edited on the PC, even though I'd saved them onto the same folder as the original.

I can set up the Mac to pretend it's a PC, but it'll take almost half the hard disk capacity to do that, plus buying copies of XP Pro and Windows Office. Is it worth it?

Then I suppose I'd have to buy Mac genealogy software, and possibly Mac Hebrew and Jewish calendar packages. If I set up the Mac as a dual platform machine, I get to use all my existing PC software.

Has anyone got experience of running a dual boot Mac/PC? Does running two versions of Office mess them up?

By the way, we really like the new home too. Especially that view.

Comments

[max]

I have no experience with Macs. However, you should try Open Office which runs on Macs as well. It is heartily recommended,free, better than Windows Office (IMO) and can save and open MS Office documents easily. It has a I have the Hebrew version that works fine (including the language tools). The rest of the Open Office programs are compatible with the standard MS equivalents and are easier to use. Did I mention it is free? It can save you a lot of trouble. Check it out here:
http://www.openoffice.org/

[max]

I realize the above comment looks like spam but it's a recommendation from a real person :)
Forgot to mention that you new home looks cosey. Love the terra cota tiles too.

[Imshin]

Lovely new table. Lovely view from window.

[Paul M]

I don't know exactly what your needs are, but for Hebrew and English writing on a Mac, especially academic writing, you ought to check into Mellel (made in Israel—www.redlers.com). For a simple luach, "Jewish Calendar" is free and tells you when all the necessary dates occur.

The places to look for software are the Mac OS X pages at www.versiontracker.com or www.macupdate.com.

OS X comes with several Hebrew fonts: Alefbet, Arial Hebrew, Corsiva Hebrew, New Peninim, Raanana, and the Mellel web site has pointers to others—the Ezra SIL fonts are reputed to be good, and are also free.

I don't have answers to your other problems, but perhaps you can find some by searching at www.macfixit.com. Whilst you are there, take a look at www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20060901083554131. It's about running windows programmes on a Mac without Windows. Sounds appropriate to your desires.

And congrats on your new digs, by the way.

[lisoosh]

Why would you want your Mac to pretend it's a PC when Macs are so much better? Max is right, plenty of free software out there which will recognize your old MS files, and the OS platform on a Mac is much more stable than anything Windows based. Plus you have all the nice goodies such as iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, Garageband, and the like, Safari is a great browser and the email on your control panel is seamless.

Like the window view too.

[Francis Sedgemore]

You should be able to see the Mac from the PC if you set up Windows Sharing in the former. That is, fire up the System Preferences application, click on Sharing in Internet and Network, enable Windows Sharing, choose which account/s to enable, and have the computer name of the Mac handy if you need to input it manually in the Windows network settings.

When you get it working, there may be some residual glitches. These are due to bugs in Windows, not OS X.

You've made a good decision to switch to a Mac. OS X is a solid and reliable operating system. Like Linux, OS X is Unix-based, but it's not as powerful as Linux. The advantage of OS X is in its user interface design and general ease of use for non-experts.

As for your applications, OpenOffice for Mac is OK, but development for Mac lags that for Windows and Linux, and the application is rather bloated. It is also not yet a true OS X application, and doesn't use the OS X font and graphics rendering susbsytems.

If money's a problem, go with OpenOffice, but if you can afford it, Microsoft Office for Mac is very good. I use an old version - Office X - and I find it better than the Windows version. It's certainly a lot more stable. If your daughter is a student, you can get the student edition of Office.

Thanks for the blog link.

[Max]

If you need to do Hebrew word processing on a Mac, you should be warned that the Mac version of Microsoft Office does not support Hebrew (or Arabic, Thai, and Indic languages) properly. OpenOffice.org will support these languages (and DOZENS more) properly, but it can't make use of your Mac fonts - it comes with its own set, which tend to look a bit less polished than the Apple fonts. (I'm not sure, but I think the Apple Hebrew fonts are not installed by default - you have to load them from the DVD).

May I suggest you try NeoOffice (http://www.neooffice.org/) This is a version of OpenOffice.org which has been modified to be much more 'native' on the Mac. It uses Mac menus, dialogs, and fonts and feels much less of a foreigner than OpenOffice.org. It is also a free download - you will need the Intel version. Although it is still a 'beta' release, I have always found it very stable and reliable.

Your file sharing issues I may be able to help with. It sounds as if you can connect from either Mac to the Windows PC, presumably by using the 'network' icon in the Finder sidebar. To allow a Windows PC to see the Mac, you need to go to the Mac's 'System Preferences' 'Sharing' 'Services' dialog, and enable the 'Windows Sharing' entry in the list. To allow the Macs to see each other, you should enable 'Personal File Sharing' in the same list, on each machine. The sharing needs to be enabled on the computer that holds the folders you want to share: you can connect to another computer without enabling sharing.

Max (not the same Max!)

[Aaron]

You wont regret getting the Mac's in fact, you would have regretted getting the Sony in comparison.

I'm forced to use both Macs and Windows. Here's a rare picture of the Windows system starting up at full speed.

Aaron