Seeking Advice For A Potential Switcher

I just made this switch and had the same exact fear. Really very easy in the end. I had over 10 years of Outlook pst archives for myself and my wife -- about 25 Gb total (yeah, mostly useless, but who wants to sort through it all?). Per MacWorld, I went to www.littlemachines.com, and downloaded a program called O2M onto my windows machine. Cost is just $10. Run the program and it will port all your old Outlook Email, Contacts and Calendar items from all your Outlook .pst files into new folders of individual Mac Mail, Address Book and iCal formated files (the formats will also work with all versions of Entourage). I then moved those folders to a portable hard drive (could have done it via my network, but didn't think about it), and then copied them from the portable hard drive to my Mac by importing into each of the corresponding Mac programs. I didn't lose anything.

I bought a new copy of Office 2004 from Amazon (this was in February), because I wanted my Excel files with macros to work. I then downloaded a coupon from the Microsoft's Mactopia web site for the Office for Mac Technology Upgrade Program -- for $10 I was sent a full copy of Office 2008, so now I have both versions and can use the 2004 version for Excel files with macros (as well as "goal seek", data sifting, etc.). All the file formats work correctly. I think the upgrade program may have expired in April, but if your friend has Excel macro files it would probably behoove him to get a copy of Office 2004, if he can still find one. Otherwise, Office 2008 is much better (certainly more stable).

Unless your friend has an issue with cords, I suggest he stick with the wired keyboard (but go with the wireless mouse in any case). Most Windows users are very attached to the "foward delete" button, which does NOT appear on the wireless keyboard. I got the wireless keyboard and generally love it, but the lack of the "forward delete" key is still a frustration for me.

Also, if your friend has an iPod, tell him move his iTunes library directly from his PC to his Mac. Then tell him to reformat his iPod to work with the Mac (he would have had to format it for Windows previously). Once he does, he will be able to sync his iPod calendar and contacts with the Mac iCal and Address Book programs giving him new functionality for his iPod (can't tell you how cool that was to discover).

An unsolicited bit of advice -- as a Windows user, your friend will be used to right-clicking on his mouse. When I set up my Mac (having never used one before), I didn't realize that it even HAD a right-click. After two months of learning the various keyboard shortcuts corresponding to right-click, I discovered that although the Mac came pre-configured with the right and left mouse "buttons" both defaulted to "Primary", I could separately configure the right button as "Secondary" and, voila, I had right-click functionality on my Mac. Tell him now and save him the minor aggravation of having to find that out for himself.

One more thing -- after using Safari on my Mac, I never wanted to go back. I downloaded the Windows version on my office computer and have stopped using Explorer and Firefox entirely. I trust he will have the same experience.

Hey Arik,

I found a couple things that you may want to investigate. I've read that it's not quite straightforward, but I searched and found a couple items that may help:

http://www.techhit.com/outlook/export_import_outlook_mac.html

That was for the actual emails.

I know that an easy way for contacts is to export from Outlook as vCards, then import vCards into the new mail program.

This page probably can help a lot too....

http://www.entourage.mvps.org/cross_platform/win_mac.html

Specifically this: http://www.entourage.mvps.org/import_export/pst.html

As it happens this month's MacWorld Magazine had an article about this situation. See http://www.macworld.com/article/133118/2008/04/workingmac2506.html

It is also in the print edition of the magazine

Have a great weekend

This may be helpful....

http://www.davidalison.com/2008/05/outlook-pst-files-and-mac-conversion.html

Concerning converting old Outlook PST files to the Mac, see David Allison's recent blog article here:

http://www.davidalison.com/2008/05/outlook-pst-files-and-mac-conversion.html

David relates his experience, and readers report some of their own experiences including a variety of alternative techniques, in making the conversion.

Hope this helps!

P.S. David Allison's is a longtime, dyed-in-the-wool Windows developer who earlier this year made the move to Mac, and his quest for replacements for various Windows programs, tricks, etc. Basically, for anything on Windows, he's finding a Mac replacement that kicks Windows' butt! Back issues are worth perusing. There is an RSS feed to stay up with the latest.

Recommended!

Get David Pogue's "Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual (Leopard Edition)

http://www.amazon.com/Switching-Mac-Missing-Manual-Leopard/dp/0596514123

Buy O2M. It's a $10 utility to export your mail from Outlook. Totally worth it.
http://www.littlemachines.com/

MS-Office 2007 --> NeoOffice

If he takes in his notebook into an Apple Store and buys a Mac - they will transfer ALL of his media and other data for FREE. If he buys MS Office for OS X, all of his emails and settings will be transferred over into Entourage (or Apple's Mail), as well. It shouldn't get much smoother than that.

Drop it off, a couple of hours later, pick up your old laptop, and the new Mac, and it's ready to go as the next time he turns on his new Mac.

Call any Apple Store and you can verify this. It would be nice if Apple promoted this more!

DoubleCommand will let you turn backslash into forward delete. A must for any switcher using a Mac laptop.

"fn + delete" is the "forward delete" equivalent.

http://www.littlemachines.com/

Here they sell a 10$ utility that would make it very, very easy to move.

Else he could go the Entourage way, maybe he'd end up using that software anyway since he's used to Outlook's integration.

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