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26 February 2008

Totally clueless computer question [More:] We bought a Mac Mini. What's the best way to transfer all of our music purchased from iTunes, and elsewhere, and all of our pictures from Windows Vista machine to the Mac? Husband says he knows how to do pics, and I trust that he does know, but I wanted to ask here as well.

Thanks!
If I were doing this, I'd connect them both to the router and see if either one can see the other on the network. If so, make a shared folder on the destination drive, and drag & drop!
posted by pieisexactlythree 26 February | 14:48
OT: Lori, I figured you wouldn't have any electricity right about now! Power has been out from Daytona to Miami, though apparently it's slowly coming back online.
posted by BoringPostcards 26 February | 14:53
We still have power at home. Just read this:

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hHI4Ql8XfZuPMktRM7fQxHjXbz1QD8V26AC81

This is very strange. We are experiencing massive power outages. Just an hour or so ago we drove down two of the main drags to pick our sons up from school. All traffic lights were out and businesses were without power.
posted by LoriFLA 26 February | 14:56
BTW, thanks so much pie.
posted by LoriFLA 26 February | 15:00
OK. A reactor was down. Like you said BP, power is being restored. I'm a little out of the loop. I'm watching The Simpson's video game instead of CNN. I just read four minutes ago about the reactor being down. Glad people are getting their power back. They say four million were without power. I feel some thunder storms brewing. Hopefully they will get it back on before the rain starts coming down. We were at a major intersection and the trucks were pulling up with generators.
posted by LoriFLA 26 February | 15:10
I recently did the same (purchased a mac mini to house all of our music and pictures). I happen to have an 80gb iPod which is enabled for disk use. I just dragged all the files on to the iPod, hooked it up to the mini, and dragged them off.

My fiancé uses his iPod as basically an external storage drive all the time to transfer files from computer to computer. Not sure if you have one, but if so it might work for you.
posted by misskaz 26 February | 15:12
I do have a couple iPods. The larger one is only 20gb and I'm pretty sure it won't store images.

I found this. It should be helpful, hopefully. We're going to try pi's advice. We do have a wireless multiport router.
posted by LoriFLA 26 February | 15:51
Router? Nonsense. Unless Apple has changed their hardware badly, they make the ethernet ports autosense the connection, so you should be able to connect the machines directly together with a network cable and see one machine from the other.
posted by plinth 26 February | 16:11
If you enable disk mode on the iPod (hidden somewhere in iTunes preferences), it'll show up in My Computer. Drag the files you want onto it there, hook it up to the Mac, and you should be done. You might have to get rid of the music on it temporarily to free up space.

(The only iPods that don't support this are the iPhone/iPod Touch)

If you're using the networking method, transferring any volume of data over wireless is painful. Hook a direct ethernet cable between the two computers - you definitely don't need a router a for this and it'll be 10-100x faster.
posted by cillit bang 26 February | 16:22
plinth and cillit bang, thanks for this information. We'll do the ethernet cable method and hope for the best. I'm really clueless in general when it comes to computers, more so with Macs, since I have never owned one. The Mini will be here in two days. I'm so excited. I want to smash my current PC into little bits.
posted by LoriFLA 26 February | 16:31
Even if the iPod won't display pictures, it can still function as a storage disk if disk mode is enabled. I've used it to hold excel files, word files, all kinds of things. You can't access them from the iPod obviously but it's just data being stored on the hard drive and you should be able to drag-drop.

The cable method probably sounds easier though. Good luck! I switched to mac a couple years ago (still use a PC at work) and won't go back.
posted by misskaz 26 February | 16:40
Thanks, miskaz. I never knew that iPod could store these kinds of things. I really am clueless. I'm going to enable disk mode now and do some experimenting.
posted by LoriFLA 26 February | 16:45
using the file-dump method, the music will transfer but the playlists and playcounts won't; if you want to do that then it's a little more complex:

I used this when I went from a Windows box to an MBP.
posted by heeeraldo 26 February | 16:53
Thanks, heeeraldo. I do let iTunes manage my music so hopefully the transfer will go smoothly. I'm not too worried about the playlists or counts. As long as all of my music and pics are transfered over things will be golden. Thanks for the tips guys. You've been very helpful.
posted by LoriFLA 26 February | 19:24
Bunny! OMG! || Can anyone else access their hotmail

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