Having recently made the switch to a Mac, after more than 15 years on Windows-based PCs, I was keen on making sure the transition went off smoothly.  Here’s how I managed it all without a glitch:

Step 1 : Googled all my favourite programs and utilities to make sure Mac versions existed for all.  Except one (PhotoScape), all others passed this test.

Step 2 : Chose to get Office for Mac installed to make sure the entire family’s Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents work smoothly.

Step 3 : As a backup, I also chose to install Firefox on the new Mac, to ensure that the Web experience is the same as it was on my PC.  But, Safari is sooo much better and faster!

Step 4 : Copied all my data to a portable hard disk so that I can simply copy it off to the new Mac.  Also burned DVDs of critical folders, just in case.

Step 5 : Bought an Apple Keyboard to ensure that all Mac OS functionality is available at my fingertips.  (And, what a pleasure it is to use!)

With this setup, it was a breeze to get started on the Mac, once all my data files were copied onto respective folders of the new machine. All that was left was to research some essential software add-ons that would achieve most of what I need to get done as a power-user. 

Nifty Utilities for your Mac

When you buy a Mac, you already get a lot of useful software utilities pre-installed as apps.  However, there were a few things that I needed to do for which I looked elsewhere.  Here’s a list of my preferred freeware/opensource utilities that have made the beautiful Mac OS X experience even more of a pleasure to use…

Adium – Connect to multiple IM accounts with this one tool
VLC – Plays more video formats than most players (See also: Perian for Quicktime)
iBackup – Hassle-free, scheduled backups of your data and system files/settings
Picasa – Google’s easy-to-use image manager for thumbnails, quick edits and more!
Handbrake – Powerful, DVD ripping and MPEG-4 encoding (though, tricky to use)
Burn – Enhanced CD and DVD burner (still can’t burn a multisession DVD though!)
AppCleaner – Drag a program to its Trash Can to uninstall it “completely”

All of these are a joy to use and do exactly what they claim to do.  So, enjoy.

By the way, if there’s a Windows application that you simply cannot do without, and it doesn’t have a Mac version, you can actually install Windows on your Mac using the built-in BootCamp utility.  But, if you’re like me, and don’t want to see a trace of Windoze on your shiny new Mac, all you need to do is head to CrossOver.  It’s not freeware, but runs most Windows apps without a bother, and you don’t even need an official copy of the Windows OS to run your apps via CrossOver!

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