Bought new MacBook Pro, need some guidance please

Hi guys

Bought a MacBook Pro yesterday, non retina, got a great deal (and a MacBook Air for the wife). Going to use the migration assistant today hoping my windows 7 machine info will come across.

Need to transfer contents of outlook 10, plus the standard iTunes info, and make the mac the centre of universe for iPad and iPhone. Once done, will I be able (assuming I need to keep the windows machine, a Sony vaio, for emergencies), to update outlook on that old machine, and have it sync over to the mac etc?

I bought office mac 2011, and installed it already. Is there any issue with the MacBook with certain websites etc (ala iPad), as made the move because all I hear is good things, but that some websites won't necessarily work, and as a mortgage broker, need to input online forms for clients mortgage applications, hence should I keep the windows machine

I seem to remember hearing that you don't need anti virus software on macs, is this true, or should I install norton/MacAfee as I have a spare licence hanging around

Thanks in anticipation of some great advice as always!

 

Just spent all day setting this thing up - Outlook calendar and Contacts doesnt migrate, as the file is a pre 2002 .pst file, and apple tell me to go to microsoft at £89 per half hour to find out how to convert it to the later file version (although it runs with my Outlook 2010 official copy - so god knows why its not unicode).

Any ideas on how to convert/create a corrected version?

I may have to give this back to the shop, as some of the web based applications I use daily for work (and advised to apple where i bought it) dont work with safari, and need IE6 or greater to work - any workarounds?

What started an exciting day just got so frustrating I almost stuck it in the firegrate and hit it real hard

 

Thanks Ian, I will try to persevere. Will start looking for that software today to run the virtual machine and get IE that way. It's just so annoying, I'm a financial adviser, you wouldn't think we should be so technical, but it's seems most lenders and insurers websites, and their secure application sections, need IE to run them, nothing else, so of course, I. Have to be able to use it or I simply won't be able to earn a living!

With regards outlook, Microsoft apparently changed from one type of file to Unicode in 2003, so .pst files that hold the information which were created before the change ( such as for me, who started with outlook 2000) won't work with mac versions of outlook. Apple say a new file has to be created and saved, then migrated over to mac which will then work. I have tried to duplicate the file and save as a new type, but I can't get it right and ended up with half a dozen useless files. The help screens and google gives plenty of ways to do things, but none seem to work the way I am expecting, and none seem to be exactly the thing I am being asked to do (none say duplicate and update to new format, for example)

As I said, I'm a financial adviser, and my computer abilities are very much reserved to the basic word processing etc (I don't even know how to use exel properly with equations, I just type stuff in which when it prints looks great!), so while I'm trying to do this file, half my mind is frightened of destroying the file that works so well on my windows machine, so undoubtedly that isn't helping.

 

Hi

Just looked into Parallels, and can buy it for £65, so no problem, do I also have to buy a licence for Windows 7?

 

Hi Ian

No, not yet, spent nearly three hours on call with apple, and all I got was that they managed to corrupt my iPad data trying to do the job, so I had to put that right. They said they would come back with an answer, but as yet, nada

 

They decided that if they synced my iPad to the mac, imported the calendars and contacts into the mac standard system, then imported these into the outlook application, this might work. We tried, and it duplicated the calendars, created about 30 sets of new calendars, all then duplicated, and contacts wise a corrupted set came across

Then the iPad showed this rubbish version, and it took me a further hour to get rid of it all and put almost back to normal (still have duplicated calendars I can get rid of)

They haven't called me yet with a solution to any of the issues, but they have sent me a customer satisfaction survey that a more harsh me might have already completed, but I'm staying calm and working thru.

Installed Firefox like you suggested, and some of the websites work thru that one, but the lions share are still not working.

On the lighter side, I have been playing with the mac, and it's such a nice machine, so quick and easy, it will be a shame not to get it working right, I'm even in my mind trying to justify having it as a playboy, and leave the windows machine alone!

 

Friend of mine worked with vm for a long time, so managed to get hold of him yesterday, and he has agreed to install vm fusion and migrate my windows machine into the mac for me. He was one of the techs with vm so fingers crossed on Monday evening we might get the case cracked.

 

It took such a lot of work last time to get windows to talk to my iPad etc that I thought to have one platform would be better, as sooner than later, I will need a new laptop and windows 8 looks like a handful, so I took the plunge and went for looks and what I thought would be easy iPad/iPhone syncing

 

Got the migration done, so far, so good. Printers stopped working and needed a reinstall, but aside from that, it's just the speed of the virtual machine that really takes getting used too, it's a bit tedious. Hopefully at the weekend will rationalise things, reinstall what can go mac onto the mac and remove from the vm, will help reduce the amount of time needed to use it and make life a little easier

Outlook still screwed, but since I can use the vm to sync, will just continue with outlook on that and not use the mac version

 

Well, I'm going to try to get my exel and word docs etc over into the mac environment now, so that all I have is the actual odd application to run in vm, then once that's done I don't have to keep duplicating work. Then I will download chrome, and await your advices on how to make it look like IE and give it a try

The only thing I then have is certain software packages from lenders here that seem to be available only as windows, but since those are only. Used when I am writing a mortgage with the particular lender, the vm will only be needed sporadically, so would be a win win for me

Managed to get my video camera to talk directly to iMovie this week, so another one down, sling player today if I can as I imagine the memory for streaming would be painful on the vm!

 

Okay, so I have the virtual machine installed. It runs real slow mostly, and early after booting up, takes ages to get into program's, but works, so hey.

What I really want to set up is a backup. If I buy a backup drive, which do I go for. I'm thinking time capsule by apple, as its for the mac, but can I back up the virtual machine too? I have to run outlook on the vm as the apple version is rubbish and won't sync with my existing data properly, and as I work through the word and exel for windows, as I'm on the vm most of the day at the moment, my documents are all on th vm. Tried to copy them from one to the other the other day, some came, some didn't, and mac created a whole batch of duplicates, so deleted them and left alone.

So, backups, how do I?

Next up, transfer files easily, can I simply save the whole directory to a drive, open on the mac, and import into the documents file?