Mac-ed, Finally
Quickly, for a busy Monday…
I found a solid citizen on Craigslist selling a Macbook, and I bought it last Wednesday. Required a couple more Benjamins than the first guy, but this one had his receipt, a licensed copy of Windows Vista, the Mac OS disks, etc, and two years left on the Applecare warranty. Needless to say, I’ve spent too many hours over the ensuing days porting programs & data over to the Macbook.
I got rid of the previous guy’s Windows partition and bought VMWare Fusion in order to create a Windows virtual machine and have the entire hard disk available to either operating system, rather than arbitrarily allocating the disk. The home run was supposed to be this gambit where I could create an image of my entire Windows XP installation from my Dell, copy it back to the Mac and run it under VMWare. Yes, that would have brought with it all the junk that has accumulated in my old installation, but it also would have obviated the grinding task of re-installing all my Windows programs.
Alas, that wasn’t to be. Turns out that the XP license on the Dell can only be activated on the Dell. I actually own an XP license that I bought at retail that’s not being used, but the onscreen activation wouldn’t accept it, and calling Microsoft for help got me nowhere (although it was an interesting update on the state of outsourced software support).
I took a run at iPhoto, since my Photoshop installation file from 2004 died in the sands of a hard disk 2 laptops back, and I’d have to purchase it again. I think it might be ok, but damned if I can figure out how to do the simplest things that were second nature in Photoshop. Might have to bite the bullet and buy it.
Momentous as the laptop purchase was, it was by no means the biggest bit of personal business I transacted last Wednesday. More on that as events progress.
Tell you what, though. The two-finger scrolling on the Mac trackpad is worth the purchase price in itself.
I LERVE the two finger scrolling - and when we took the cheap old Toshiba PC away with us recently got completely frustrated by the lack of it. It’s amazing how used to functionality you get. And the two finger tap for the right mouse click. Is that new too? I start to forget. Anyhow, I love that too.
Re iPhoto. I don’t use Photoshop, and only to basic editing in iPhoto. Len prefers some software (out of Germany I think) called Graphic Converter for other stuff - it did have something to do with not changing metadata during import but I think that problem has been fixed in iPhoto now. We are using Expression Media (wot was iView MediaPro) for managing our digital catalogue longterm. But my first function is to import and do some basic cropping (and the occasional straightening) and for that I use iPhoto.
Anyhow, enjoy your new life! (and look forward to hearing other momentous business)
I had a PC in the late 80s and early 90s, but then became a mac user and never looked back. I don’t know anything about migrating programs or running Windows, although I know these computers are quite capable. It’s really a shame that Photoshop is so damned expensive, but I’ve never found anything that does photo work quite like it. I’ve only explored iPhoto a bit, but I didn’t think it was versatile enough. I’m glad you love your mac already. It only gets better.
Good man. Welcome to the fresh green uplands.
Congratulations?
Sue - yeah, the two-finger tap for right-click rocks, too. And it works, mostly, within the Windows virtual machine as well as Mac apps.
Robin - I’ve been fooling around with iPhoto, but I knew my way around Photoshop, so I think I might buy it. Adobe has the download for $80, but I can get the cd version from Amazon for somewhere north of $40, so I think that’s where I’ll go.
Dick - I’m luxuriating in the aroma of fresh-mown Macfalfa.
Carroll - Yeah, I’ll accept ‘em - it’s gonna be a good thing.
Congrats–sounds like a winner. And you were so smart to pass on the first one.