Has anyone switched from a PC notebook to a MacBook Pro?

I've had mine for two months, and I really don't ever want to work on a PC again!

I have to run Parallels for a few apps, and I swear, Windows runs faster than it ever did on any of my PCs, except at the moment I have an issue on stratup. I also run Photoshop natively (actually full CS2), and once you get used to the glitches it's easy. (I personally haven't had PS issues at all, runs fine & fast, but Illustrator is a bear about half the time). Adobe plans to release Intel-Mac-friendly software early next year, if you can hold off until then I would recommend it. But I haven't tried using Elements or ACDSee on my MBP.

Good luck, I love this machine. Other than I'm one of the unlukcy who gets shocked occasionally!

I sometimes miss the picure viewer thing you have in windows XP. When you select picures and open them, they open in a window with nice back/forward controls,...

OS X has a similar feature. Select the photos you want to view, right-click and select Slideshow.

Once the slideshow starts, just move your mouse and back/forward/stop/start controls will appear as well as some other buttons.

Power Mac G4 (AGP) 500MHz Mac OS X (10.4.7)

I'm trying to make the transition. I bought a new 2.33ghz 15" MBP. It is back at Apple however getting repairs done, as it was faulty out of the box.

While playing with it I had issues with programs such as Aim crashing and various others. I've not found a software depot though yet, which I hope to discover soon. Something like freshmeat for Linux.

I also have not understood the whole "eject" issue. When I download a program to install it and try to put it in the trashcan, it will not delete unless I eject it. If someone cares to elaborate, I am all ears.

MBP 2.33 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

I switched about a year ago to a Powerbook, and recently upgraded to a MacBook Pro. I've been using PC's for 15 years and never messed with Macs until last year. I absolutely LOVE it. I work on Windows based PC's and Servers for a living, but don't touch anything but my Mac when I get home. For those few apps that I need on Windows, I use Parallels, with no problems. I've found everything to be easier and friendlier on the Mac. There are VERY few apps that I use on a daily basis that I haven't found a compliment for in the Mac world.

As for your reasons, they are fairly valid. Everything is fairly easy. However, with your photo stuff, Photoshop Elements on the Mac is definitely recommended, unless you find another that is comprable (there are some open source ones out there that are pretty good).

I highly suggest switching. If there's a Mac store in your area, or you have a friend with one, I'd suggest playing around with them at the store or have your friend show you some stuff. You won't be dissapointed!

I don't know anything about freshmeat, but if you are looking for shareware/freeware for OS X, I'd recommend versiontracker.com.

Regarding installing software on OS X, most downloaded packages come the form of what is known in the Mac world as a "Disk Image" (.dmg suffix). It's packaging and compression method that's useful for delivering files and applications.

If you download an application with Safari, the system will automatically mount this disk image which will appear in the Finder just like an actual hard disk drive. Typically you would then just drag the application icon on the disk image into your Applications folder. Sometimes the disk image contains an installer that your run.

Once the application is copied to the main drive, you eject the disk image just as you would with any physical removable drive. You will still have the unmounted .dmg file on your desktop or wherever your downloads are located. At that point, you can put the .dmg file in the trash and empty it.

Most of the time, I keep the .dmg file around just in case I have to reinstall or consult the documentation that some of them contain.

Hope this explanation helps.

I forgot to address your issue with AIM. AOL has not and probably will not ever upgrade or fix any issues with AIM. Apple's iChat application is an AIM client, so AOL is unmotivated to upgrade or maintain their client. I would recommend using iChat instead.

I also switched from PC to mac earlier this year and have to
say I like Mac much better. I have bootcamp with Windows XP on a partition but haven't used it much.
I've had my MBP since April and haven't had any problems with it.

I have been a windows user forever... and to be fair XP is really the best to come out of microsoft so far - it rarely crashes these days and as long as you keep on top of things is relatively secure for day to day stuff.

I decided to get a mac book pro when the screen literally fell off my acer laptop, after about 3 years or so of daily use. I've always wanted a mac, but couldn't really justify the price tag. When this happened it seemed like the excuse I was looking for... :o)

I'm extremely happy with the mac overall, and touch wood so far I've not experienced any of the problems that seem to plague other mac owners - I've only had it for 2-3 weeks so I hope I'm not tempting fate. Apart from the left speaker does seem to be only outputting mid and treble but I don't really use the crap little speakers you get on (most) portable computers so that's not bothered me.

I use parallels with an XP install rather than boot camp, don't get me wrong I tried boot camp and it worked perfectly well but I only use windows to test .asp pages for my website, so dont need the isight, bluetooth etc working - and setting up .asp support on apache is WAY beyond me having looked into it a bit, and I don't want to reboot every time I want to check out a change or whatever so this seemed the best option for me.

To be honest there's advantages to both, and depending on what you are going to use it for might help you decide. I don't do movie editing or anything, just my website, a bit of graphic design and mess around with music which is all pretty straight forward stuff. For me both the mac and the pc perform these tasks perfectly.

I still use my XP desktop, as it's dual head and set-up the way I like it, I use an external bus powered USB drive (FAT32) so can plug it into either as I need/want to to share files etc.

I am really enjoying os x, learning an operating system all over again has really sparked my enthusiasm in computing but that's just me.. a bit of a geek :o)






MPB C2D 2.16 2GB 120GB 128MB
Mac OS X (10.4.8)

I didn't miss anything. iPhoto is useful for browsing thru photos after you've imported them to your library. But it doesn't make up for Photoshop's image editing capabilities or ACDSee's browsing ability to easy look at folders full of pictures without having to import them.