From Windows to Mac

Keith asks:

My Windows XP PC kicked the bucket, but its hard drive is fine. I bought an iMac; how do I get my documents from my PC's hard drive to my new Mac?

You could network your PC and iMac, but your PC is fried. I recommend buying a 3.5 inch hard drive enclosure that has a USB or FireWire interface on it. Take the hard drive out of your PC, install it in the enclosure and attach it to your iMac. Voila! There's your hard drive! You can copy whatever important documents you have to your Mac.

This process is extremely easy; don't get intimidated by the task of doing surgery on your old PC. Look on the bright side: you don't have to put anything back together!

Once you're done, format the hard drive using Disk Utility (it hides in Applications>Utilities) and you can use it as extra storage on your Mac.

*Note: Make sure your hard drive is compatible with the enclosure! Most desktops manufactured in the last year and a half use SATA interface while older ones use the IDE (or PATA) interface. Take a quick peek at the cable and compare it with the aforementioned articles.
**One last thing: You can do this with a laptop hard drive as well; just buy a 2.5 inch enclosure.

Time Machine Drive Size (Mac)

Curtis asks:

I bought a new drive and am partitioning it to limit how much Time Machine uses. How big should I make the partition?

Short Answer: I'd say around 25% larger than what your computer's hard drive size.

Backing up is SO important, and Apple's new operating system includes a very powerful and easy to use application called Time Machine. All you need is an external drive to backup to, and you're good to go!

To understand how much space you need, you should know how Time Machine works. The first time you backup, it backs up your whole hard drive. From then on when it backs up your computer, it only backs up what you've changed. Once your backup drive is full, you can set Time Machine to delete old backups.

My lappie's drive is 120GB and my 160GB backup drive is EASILY big enough!

If you aren't deleting/adding tons of files on a daily, or even weekly basis, a backup drive that's slightly bigger than your hard drive, like 25%, is more than enough. That being said, hard drive space is CHEAP, and you'll never wish you bought something smaller -- A 500GB USB 2.0 drive from Future Shop is only $119!

Control + Alt + Delete for Mac

Cas asks:

What is the shortcut key to force quit an application on a Mac?

Short answer: ⌘ + option + escape

Long answer: Although many Mac zealots would say otherwise, Apple Mac computers are not perfect. Occasionally, applications will quit working and you're stuck staring at what I like to call, "the Rainbow wheel Of Death", or ROD for short. You'll know him when you see him!

The "Force Quit" Dialog Box

Often, a little patience will pay off and the application will resume, but if you know it's crashed, or you're impatient, force quit the application. Hit the key combo above, and the ensuing dialog will list your applications AND tell you if one is not responding. You can even force quit (or relaunch) the finder through the force quit dialog.

Alternatively, you can also find "Force Quit" under the apple in the title bar, or by holding the left mouse button on the guilty application's icon in the dock.