Buying a new computer can be an intimidating experience. Stepping into a Small Dog Electronics and viewing all of the shiny new bezeled aluminum MacBook Airs, MacBook Pros, and iMacs when you have used a PC for your entire computing life can be stressful, bordering on threatening. Customers are captivated by the sleek design of these machines, but know instinctively that they are different from what they are used to. But are they?
The operating systems of a Windows 7 PC and Mac OS X are different, but many of the common operations that customers carry out on their computers can be done on both with no extra software at all. Picture files (usually found in a common file format of .jpeg, .gif, or .pdf), a music file (such as an .mp3), or a text file can be read on a Mac with the software fresh out of the box. If something more is required, PC applications such as Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop make Mac versions of their software that can be installed easily. Even popular games such as Civilization V, Dirt 2 and World of Warcraft make Mac versions that can run on a Mac.
Getting the Mac home and transferring your files need not be a traumatic experience. The files can be easily transferred from an external hard drive via a USB, or an ethernet cable using Mac Migration Assistant. The Mac will use the same connection to the internet that your PC does, either hardwired (via ethernet) or wirelessly using Wi-Fi. And if there are applications that no Mac equivalent can be found, you can run Windows on your Mac (with the help of Boot Camp Assistant and Parallels Desktop 7) Plus, with our software installation services, Small Dog can make this even more painless for you.
For those users who have long and storied histories with their PCs (for geeks like me that means they know what the function keys do), many of the same quick keys and alternate commands work on the Mac keyboard, but with a slight caveat. Instead of a Windows button, there is a command button on the keyboard. For all of the other quick keys to shortcuts to learn, consider a cheat sheet. There is nothing wrong with getting a little help from time to time with your newest addition to your tech family.