I ran a Q&A with Mark Robins, CEO of Lawyer Locate in Canada, about his company’s migration to Mac from Windows. Using Apple Care, his migration was easy peazy lemon squeezy. Heh; have always wanted to use that in a blog post.
As for me, let me set up a back story and see if you agree with how I’m transitioning:
- PR/marketing professional with a Business-to-Business Social Media Marketing virtual firm.
- Operating Windows XP work station, about three years old with two external hard drives, home to a near-daily blog with lots of photos, client files, accounting, and gosh knows what else.
- Outlook in box filled with 10,000 emails and an out box of 5,000. Outlook folders of archives from 2009 and beyond for clients.
I bought the iMac, now affectionately called Big Mac, with a Time Capsule, track pad, keypad with numerals, and Windows for Mac without Outlook. Set up was a breeze, except I thought the Time Capsule was a modem; in fact it was an external hard drive. I think it can be a modem, though, and that’s what had me confused with the set up.
Before I took Big Mac out of the box, I called Geek Squad twice and spoke with others who had already migrated. I decided to run two operating systems in order not to miss anyone or any file. Problem was, my PC was infected with a Trojan virus, 257 threats and registry issues. Geek Squad fixed it in four hours one night while I watched, took a nap and got back up to work again at 1:30 a.m.
With the PC fixed, I could set up Big Mac with three email accounts (easy) and as needed, began to email files from the PC to myself on Big Mac. On day two of using both computers, I was typing emails on one screen while on the phone, hunting for files on the PC, and turning to Big Mac to work and send the file.
My thought is not to migrate all my files over to Big Mac, but to keep a PC so as to be able to access files from the external hard drive as needed. And, if kidlet needs Windows at school instead of Mac, well, then she can be compatible. I decided not to use Outlook; it was one of the main reasons I needed a new computer — too many bugs and issues and so frustrating. I’m using iMail synchronized with Gmail, and the calendar is working fine with Outlook invites hitting the timeline no problem.
I’m so excited about the potential of Mac with movies, photo editing, Power Point and more. If I can ever get the font resolution to rectify that will be wonderful, but I have to remember, it’s only day two.
And, one final thing — I anticipate many more professionals and individuals and families migrating to Mac prompted by iPhone and iPad synchronization with the primary computer. That’s another solid reason I made the switch.
Thanks to @Geoff Reiner for sharing his resource about Mac here via Dan Rodney. Thanks, too, to Greig Sutherland of Arb-Aid in Denmark for his book recco, Mac At Work. I’m all ears!
