Tuesday, September 4, 2007

First Impressions / Printing / Transferring Files

Ok, so I got the Mac out of the box and all setup on the desk. That doesn't take very much since all you need to do is plug in a power cord. NICE!

I've left my other monitor connected to my original PC as I work to transfer everything to the iMac and make it my primary machine. From the very first press of the power button I noticed how simple everything is. Unlike how in Windows the setup process is long and drawn out and always needing you to click on something, OS X just gets you going with the most basic information needed.

I was caught off guard at exactly how simple all the actions were. Wireless networking was extremely simple to setup and continues the trend of requiring very few selections as opposed to accomplishing the same task in Windows. Next up was the printer. I have an HP Photosmart 3310 all-in-one printer that has caused me nothing but problems in Vista. The printer is wi-fi enabled and I don't connect any cords to it except for the power cord. In Windows the software would repeatedly crash and I would have to reinstall the drivers and installation software on a weekly basis.

So, lets give printing a try on the Mac. I was expecting complications due to it being a newer printer with the wi-fi features. I opened up the "Printer & Fax" menu in OS X and then clicked to add a new printer. It immediately found the HP on the network and added it as my main printer. No other clicking or configuring was needed. 3 clicks total to add a new printer and it be ready to print? I was amazed. It's approximately 20 in Vista. In Vista you have to first tell it if you are looking for a wired or a network printer, blah blah blah. OS X just said "Hey....here's the only printer I found. Wanna use it?"

The next thing that I wanted to do was copy over all of my music/pictures/video/documents from my Vista desktop. I was getting ready to start digging for some serious How-to articles since I assumed connected to file sharing on a Vista box would not be easy. Well, I was wrong! It just works...

I just opened up Finder and went to "Networks". It then saw my Vista workgroup and my PCs on that network. I typed in a username/password for my Vista machine and there it was...my shared files. Heck, my Mac could browse Windows shares better then a Windows machine can! I dragged and drop the files to my new machines and I was in business.

Keep in mind, I am not a Mac fanboy. This is completely new territory for me and I am amazed at how simple the initial basics have just worked. If basic PC users can get past the myths surrounding Macs that they think are still true, I think they will find a much more enjoyable computing experience with less configuration and maintaining to do.

I will post tomorrow on some of the frustrations I have had and my experiences with Boot Camp / Parallels.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You should come back to mac-forums, don't let the initial reactions of some of the long timers scare you off. feel free to send me a private message there if you have any questions, my user name is babarnette.

Anonymous said...

Hey Aaron....are you having so much fun on your new iMac that you forgot to post more?!?!

Looking forward to hearing more about your experience.

Chris said...

No updates lately? I've been following your story and had hoped to see an update. I picked up a MacBook Pro last night and am going through the same things you have seen so was hoping to share some more experiences.