Windows to Mac.

zxxtonyxxz

I'm doing a course next year but they use macs for the course. I've been a windows guy all my life and have never even touched a Mac. I want to know is there any big differences and what I should be expecting.

Recurve360

It should only take a week or so to get used to the interface. I use PC/Mac?Linux all regularly and there not that hard to understand. Look at a few tutorial videos on youtube and youll be fine. Macs are pretty easy to use once you get your head around it.

zxxtonyxxz

Recurve360 wrote: »

It should only take a week or so to get used to the interface. I use PC/Mac?Linux all regularly and there not that hard to understand. Look at a few tutorial videos on youtube and youll be fine. Macs are pretty easy to use once you get your head around it.

Thanks man hopefully I will and I cetainly will watch some tutorials when I get the chance.

dubjay

macs are much easier to use than windows. using one at home years also have windows 7 running on a partition so if you dont like the mac you can always put windows on it which you cannot do with windows also the performance will be much better as the hardware apple use is top notch

Fysh

dubjay wrote: »

macs are much easier to use than windows. using one at home years also have windows 7 running on a partition so if you dont like the mac you can always put windows on it which you cannot do with windows also the performance will be much better as the hardware apple use is top notch

In my experience, the system you've been using for longest is the "easiest" to use. OS X has some lovely features and some bone-headed ones, just like Windows.

OP, you can always look into setting up a Hackintosh for yourself if you want to tinker with OS X without shelling out for a Mac, though it's one of those weird grey areas since Apple insist nobody should be running OS X on non-Apple hardware.

Apple tend not to do low-end configs which helps ensure a good end user experience, but they have also had a bad reputation for frequently charging over the odds for what you get (to the extent that numerous vendors used to advise buying RAM upgrades elsewhere rather than paying Apple ~£100 for an extra DIMM that would cost £40 anywhere else). Which I bet has nothing to do with Apple deciding to go for soldered-on RAM and proprietary SSD connectors in the last couple of years

As far as the day-to-day experience of using OS X is concerned, there are three things you might notice:
1) the security model is a bit different to the Windows security model - the closest you might get is running Windows with UAC enabled and all the corporate-type restrictions enabled i.e. password prompt whenever you're doing anything at admin level. It's not a big deal, just something you may notice.
2) The keyboard shortcuts are different. The "Command" key is the one in the equivalent location to the Windows key, and the "Option" key is where Alt would normally be. There's an Apple keyboard shortcut guide here, which may help.
3) Applications in OS X don't close just because you close the last open document/file within them. To close an application, you need to explicitly quit using its menu.

dubjay

just get a second hand mac it will still be miles better than any windows pc. OS are free unlike windows and they are stable. updates dont automatically install and keep you there while you pc is shutting down and they are a much stronger machine inside and out. you dont need anti virus on macs also the boot time is really quick compared to any windows OS.they might be expensive but they hold their re sale value really well.

mordeith

dubjay wrote: »

macs are much easier to use than windows. using one at home years also have windows 7 running on a partition so if you dont like the mac you can always put windows on it which you cannot do with windows also the performance will be much better as the hardware apple use is top notch

Better compared to lower spec windows machines yes. Premium windows machine just as good

Alanstrainor

dubjay wrote: »

just get a second hand mac it will still be miles better than any windows pc. OS are free unlike windows and they are stable. updates dont automatically install and keep you there while you pc is shutting down and they are a much stronger machine inside and out. you dont need anti virus on macs also the boot time is really quick compared to any windows OS.they might be expensive but they hold their re sale value really well.

It's always fun when the fan-boys show up.

OP you wont have any issues, the right click option that OSI mentioned is a good one. You'll have to persist with it to get comfortable with the OS, as there are a good number of differences coming from Windows. But by in large it should be handy.

Fysh

*sigh*

If you think that there's no malware targeting OS X, Apple's introduction of a default mode which only allows installation and execution of apps distributed via the Apple Store is probably a rude intrusion of reality.

Boot times of Macs are good compared to an under-spec'd Windows machine on a traditional spinning-rust drive - but a modern Windows install on an SSD will boot comparably fast to a Mac.

As for "just buying a second-hand Mac" - Apple hardware retains its value surprisingly well so a given hardware profile with an Apple logo on the back tends to cost more than equivalent-spec systems from other vendors. Which is worth considering if you're not sure you particularly need another system (though the flipside is that if you do buy it and then decide to sell it on you'll also benefit from the same phenomenon, so it's swings and roundabouts).

Edited to add:

As things stand today there are two drawbacks with Macs/OS X compared to Windows/other hardware vendors:
1) Hardware lockdown - Apple have been aggressively moving towards removing the ability to upgrade almost any aspect of their hardware in recent years, in order to frontload the profit from any given hardware sale. Time was you could buy a MacBook Pro and replace the hard drive with an SSD and double the RAM trivially - this is generally no longer the case, so if you want your machine to last you 5 years, you need to spend whatever it costs to get the spec you might want further down the line. It's not just Apple doing this, of course, but they are one of the most persistent about it. (From the company that gave the world portable electronics with non-removable batteries, this is perhaps not a surprise )
2) Software - there are loads of bits of software authored by individuals to do things that may not be done natively by OS X (just as there are for Windows). However, I've found that in the Mac world there seems (totally subjective and not statistically validated statement here) to be a much higher probability of said software being sold rather than distributed as donationware. Which is entirely fair for the authors to do, of course, but it does mean that if you end up repeatedly looking for software to do things that the OS doesn't handle natively, my gut feeling is you're more likely to either not find something suitable or end up paying for it. The flipside here is of course that if you're a developer, it's a platform whose users appear to be generally more willing to spend money on software from the get-go, which is no bad thing either

dubjay

funny windows fan boys never fail to amuse me. keep updating those ad ware pc,s. the boot time is recorded from my own mac with windows on a seperate partition. like i said if you want to buy something that will fail get a windows pc i have had 4 of them with in my years working with IT and all failed and yes even ones with SSD drives as windows updates normally kills them off.

Alanstrainor wrote: »

dubjay wrote: »

just get a second hand mac it will still be miles better than any windows pc. OS are free unlike windows and they are stable. updates dont automatically install and keep you there while you pc is shutting down and they are a much stronger machine inside and out. you dont need anti virus on macs also the boot time is really quick compared to any windows OS.they might be expensive but they hold their re sale value really well.

It's always fun when the fan-boys show up.

OP you wont have any issues, the right click option that OSI mentioned is a good one. You'll have to persist with it to get comfortable with the OS, as there are a good number of differences coming from Windows. But by in large it should be handy.

dubjay

you say fan boy then go on to praise the OS. there is a gravy train outside you should get on

davo2001

dubjay wrote: »

funny windows fan boys never fail to amuse me. keep updating those ad ware pc,s. the boot time is recorded from my own mac with windows on a seperate partition. like i said if you want to buy something that will fail get a windows pc i have had 4 of them with in my years working with IT and all failed and yes even ones with SSD drives as windows updates normally kills them off.

MAC have some good points, Windows have some good points. No OS is prefect. No device will last forever, if you think your MAC will then you are in for a rude awakening.

Zascar

Be prepared to pull your hair out. I tried twice and they drove me nuts, ended up selling my macbook. I found that with windows there are many ways to do something, on mac there is only one - and often is makes little sense compared to how its done on windows. People talk about them being so easy to use an intuitive - I think thats for people who dont understand computers but like yourself as a windows man, I found them completely unintuitive.

moc moc a moc

dubjay wrote: »

if you want to buy something that will fail get a windows pc i have had 4 of them with in my years working with IT and all failed

That says more about your computer skills than anything about Windows.

ZENER

You could also download VirtualBox and create a Mac OS X VM ? I've created a couple that I use as part of a Windows AD Lab to learn how they interact. This would save you the cost of an actual Mac but still allow you to do the course. Plus you can create snapshots which you can roll back to if something goes wrong.

As for the whole Mac V Windows debate - it's horses for courses. The argument has been done to death and I doubt it has actually convinced anyone to switch sides and pledge allegiance.

Ken

dubjay

its mad the OP wanted info on a mac and of course we have people here trying to convince him to get a windows pc and convert it. it would take the same price to convert a windows PC to a hackintosh and the performance would be like chalk and cheese. as ZENER said the windows/mac debate is horses for courses. moc moc a dick that says more about you.

zxxtonyxxz

dubjay wrote: »

its mad the OP wanted info on a mac and of course we have people here trying to convince him to get a windows pc and convert it. it would take the same price to convert a windows PC to a hackintosh and the performance would be like chalk and cheese. as ZENER said the windows/mac debate is horses for courses. moc moc a dick that says more about you.

Ya this all escalated quickly I'm not buying a Mac or getting Mac OS at all at all. I was just asking as the course I'm doing I will be using macs and I've never handled one before but I certainly will not be investing in one.

TerrorFirmer

dubjay wrote: »

funny windows fan boys never fail to amuse me. keep updating those ad ware pc,s. the boot time is recorded from my own mac with windows on a seperate partition. like i said if you want to buy something that will fail get a windows pc i have had 4 of them with in my years working with IT and all failed and yes even ones with SSD drives as windows updates normally kills them off.

This actually makes no sense whatsoever. It's a bit like taking part in a debate about cars versus motorbikes and saying 'Don't get a car, I had 4 cars in my years driving and all 4 failed'.

To answer the OP, getting used to a mac isn't difficult. They're pretty user friendly and it's a nice interface. For casual use, no better or worse than Windows, just whatever you're used to normally defines your preference or opinion. The person who mentioned the right click nailed it - it's the one thing that irked me going to a mac!

zxxtonyxxz

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

This actually makes no sense whatsoever. It's a bit like taking part in a debate about cars versus motorbikes and saying 'Don't get a car, I had 4 cars in my years driving and all 4 failed'.

To answer the OP, getting used to a mac isn't difficult. They're pretty user friendly and it's a nice interface. For casual use, no better or worse than Windows, just whatever you're used to normally defines your preference or opinion. The person who mentioned the right click nailed it - it's the one thing that irked me going to a mac!

Thank You Terror!

yoyo

Mod: Enough of the fanboy this/fanboy that nonsense, please stick to the topic of the thread or don't post at all. Unhelpful or off topic responses from now will be removed and infractions may be handed out.

dubjay

yoyo wrote: »

Mod: Enough of the fanboy this/fanboy that nonsense, please stick to the topic of the thread or don't post at all. Unhelpful or off topic responses from now will be removed and infractions may be handed out.

thank you like i said the OP was looking for information on using a mac not a debate on windows/mac or it makes sense or not.<snip>

Mod: If you have a problem with a post/poster please report the post

paulfon

Hello! When you first boot up your new Mac, you configure your account username and set up or sign in with an Apple ID. With that out of the way, you have a desktop in front of you that looks simultaneously familiar and slightly alien.