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cheerio Dell ... Hello Apple

K

Kiscokid

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 19, 2005
57
0
I managed to get £300 for my 4-year old Dell Dimension today and have promptly ordered a new 24" Imac - boosting up the ram to 2gig and upgrading the graphics card to the max available. I left the hard drive and kept with the wired keyboard and mouse - I'm not overly particular about having these wireless. Buying through the edu store it clocked in at a very reasonable £1450 - I would very much doubt if I could buy a similar spec PC with the same 'quality' components. And anyway - I wouldnt want to.

I am a little concerned about switching all my files and folders over to the new mac but I've heard that it is fairly simple.

One query - I currently have an external drive - Maxtor 80gb usb - and wondered if transferring files would be as simple as pulling it out of the pc and plugging it into the mac?? Would the fact that it is formatted for XP make any difference?

Cheers - look forward to joining the revolution :cool:
 
Welcome aboard; you'll love your new Mac. (I'm so jealous ;))

I don't think you'll have any problems transferring your files over.

Post back when you've got your new baby.
 
Kiscokid said:
One query - I currently have an external drive - Maxtor 80gb usb - and wondered if transferring files would be as simple as pulling it out of the pc and plugging it into the mac?? Would the fact that it is formatted for XP make any difference?

Cheers - look forward to joining the revolution :cool:
Click to expand...

If it's FAT32 formatted you'll be fine. If it's NTFS you'll be able to drag your files off but not write to it - which I guess isn't really a problem. You'd be able to access all the files on it but not transfer anything over to the external drive.

Soooo, once you've got all the files off the external you'll want to format it (either HFS+ if you're going to be using Macs only OR partition it and format it in FAT32) so that you can read and write to it.
 
So long as the drive is FAT32 formatted then yes, it's that simple. If it's NTFS formatted I believe the data will be read only? Anyway, pretty simple, yes.

If you haven't used OS X much before, prepare yourself to be open minded and learn new ways of doing things. The absolute worst thing you can do is try and make OS X to those little things you've become used to in Windows in exactly the same way. The basics, web browsing, IM etc, are very straightforward and familiar, but there's going to be a learning curve!
 
Allotriophagy said:
That's odd - I got a similar 24" iMac for £1347. Did you get iWorks or something else?
Click to expand...

are you quoting VAT? Standard 24"iMac comes in at £1267.83 (inc).

Add on £112.80 for 1 Gig ram, then £75.20 for graphics upgrade.

Came to £1455.83 (vat inc) in total.

Seems odd doesn't it?
 
Blue Velvet said:
Could I ask what made you decide to buy a Mac?
Click to expand...

Design
Simplicity
Connectivity
Software
Logic Pro
Gaming
DVD
Operating system

Although not neccessarily in that order. Ever since buying my first ipod I have warmed to the whole brand.
 
miniConvert said:
So long as the drive is FAT32 formatted then yes, it's that simple. If it's NTFS formatted I believe the data will be read only? Anyway, pretty simple, yes.

If you haven't used OS X much before, prepare yourself to be open minded and learn new ways of doing things. The absolute worst thing you can do is try and make OS X to those little things you've become used to in Windows in exactly the same way. The basics, web browsing, IM etc, are very straightforward and familiar, but there's going to be a learning curve!
Click to expand...

Thanks both for the tips. I will check the current formatting system. I intend to use it on my mac once re-formatted - just as a back up for music files. Is it easy to format a drive on OS X? Is there any particular software I will need? My wife has been using a g4 powerbook for a few months now so I am familiar with the OS and find the interface so much more intuitive and appealing than XP. Cheers.
 
Kiscokid said:
Thanks both for the tips. I will check the current formatting system. I intend to use it on my mac once re-formatted - just as a back up for music files. Is it easy to format a drive on OS X? Is there any particular software I will need? My wife has been using a g4 powerbook for a few months now so I am familiar with the OS and find the interface so much more intuitive and appealing than XP. Cheers.
Click to expand...

It's a piece of cake, Disk Utility (part of OSX) will do it for you.
 
Kiscokid said:
are you quoting VAT? Standard 24"iMac comes in at £1267.83 (inc).

Add on £112.80 for 1 Gig ram, then £75.20 for graphics upgrade.

Came to £1455.83 (vat inc) in total.

Seems odd doesn't it?
Click to expand...

£1347 including VAT and HE/institution discount, not FE/individual discount.

Either way, it is still a good price. The 7600GT is amazing, but I am used to the 5200 in my old iMac and the Radeon 9000 in my laptop...
 
Chundles said:
It's a piece of cake, Disk Utility (part of OSX) will do it for you.
Click to expand...

Just checked the file system on the external disk is NTFS. So presumably I just connect - dump files then re-format? Sounds simple - lets hope so!
 
Kiscokid said:
Just checked the file system on the external disk is NTFS. So presumably I just connect - dump files then re-format? Sounds simple - lets hope so!
Click to expand...

Yup, plug it in, drag files across to your Mac and then reformat. Should work just fine. :)
 
miniConvert said:
If you haven't used OS X much before, prepare yourself to be open minded and learn new ways of doing things. The absolute worst thing you can do is try and make OS X to those little things you've become used to in Windows in exactly the same way. The basics, web browsing, IM etc, are very straightforward and familiar, but there's going to be a learning curve!
Click to expand...

Just recently bought a 20" iMac (after many years of Dell) for the family and am gradually getting up to speed and set up.

You're right about OSX - feels clumsy at first given ingrained Windows reflexes. Any suggestions on best way to quickly address the learning curve?
 
My first ever Mac arrived today - a nice 20" iMac. Will be unwrapping to after I get home from football tonight.
 
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