Switchers thread

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Tips and tricks for those of us living in a dual mac/pc world, or those who made 'the switch' cold turkey

 

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Ok, here's one I discovered, If you use LogMeIn on a Mac it only works properly to connect to other computers if you use Safari.*

*as of last time I tried it using FF that is.

 

If like me you have got a mac and a PC and have been trying to get your massive address book from outlook/outlook express to apples Address book app, I have finally got it sussed

Basically outlook has a lot of limited export options (like single contact vCards only, omg!)

The cheap trick is, without buying software
Install Thunderbird
Import the contacts from Outlook/Outlook Express

THEN you can export all the contacts as a LDIF file, which Apple Address book can import

job done, that saved me a world of pain prepping for my iphone ;)

 

Im using FF for this with no problems, what problems are you having mate?

 

Not anymore, upgraded to latest version of ff and it works.

 

Want to sync calendars and contacts between your dual boot systems? Plaxo does the business ... I even have it hooked into my work XDA to pull my work contacts out as well now.

Like to sync notes and stuff between systems? Evernote is a good cross-platform and web-enabled app for this.

Want to confuse the hell out of a bunch of school IT Managers? Turn up to a meeting and have your MacBookPro running Vista! Those it doesn't confuse it annoys .. the Mac guys glare at you for running windows and the windows guys give you a hard time about the hardware being from Apple (in spite of it being the most stable thing I have run Vista on!)

MacDrive from MediaFour is another must to be able to read all your HFS+ drives when booted into Windows.

 

It's been a while since I last posted on here and in the mean time I made the switch to Mac and boy am I glad I did. I bought what must be one of the last black macbooks that had been sold (I got it the day before the keynote announcing the new unibody machines)

Here are some apps and sites I have found useful:

Firstly for when I am away from my desk and travelling and want to watch video (normally in a hotel room) without the screen diming I use Caffeine which stops the screen darking or the screen save kicking in. This app is free.

Second and on a similar theme is InsomniaX. Insomnia, like Caffeine, stops the screen from diming and the screen saver kicking in, but what it does extra is to disable the sleep function, so if you have your laptop set up on a desk with an additional monitor, time machine drive etc it allows you to close the lid like you would on a docking station. This app is free

Third is an app that does what it says on the tin: Alarm Clock 2 will wake you mac from sleep with a track of your choice from your iTunes library and is compatible with the Mac remote for telling it to sleep, however the genius part is that to stop the aarm you have to get up and close the app - great for the mornings with a heavy night before hand. This app is also free

Fourth is GimmeSomeTune which is an iTunes pluggin that will hunt for artwork, track information and lyrics for your iTunes tracks. As a warning i will overwrite artwork with the previous tracks some times as it gets confused, but on the whole is very good. This app is donation ware.

Fifth - VMware Fusion which simply but I would stuggle to do some of my everyday tasks without. For those of you that haven't looked into this its best feature as far as I am concerned is the "unity" mode which will allow you to punt a program, any program, down to your dock while minimising the rest of the vertual machine allowing you to run those windows apps you simply cannot live without (tm) natively but with all of the other apps on your mac, in OSX. Second notible feature is the fastest damn install of windows I have done with Xp clocking in at 6 minutes to be sat at the desk top. Best £50 I have spent on a program.

Sixth - Windows Remote Desktop Client for Mac the other app that allows me to do my day to day job from my mac. Install and then point at your network. A couple of tips for this app command + 1 will maxmise the window to fit your screen so you can view the server desktop withou scroll bars. To get the best connection results I have found using the FQDN -console ensures a nearly flawless connection. This app is free.

and lastly is the most friendly mac forum I have found which is at mac-Forums.com

I hope this helps some of you guys. I will add more when I discover them!