How much of a ballache will it be for me, the anointed one, IT guru and scapegoat for failure of provider of seamless networking/software installation/maintenance/upgrading and performance of any moderately difficult tasks such as, say, reformatting a document 🙄 🙁

All other computers (bar phones) in the house are windows and I’ve never used a mac

She has an iphone – presumably that interface will work correctly ?

(we already have the network and a NAS, so no other Applestuff will be coming)

Dead simple. It’s UNIX underneath.

Don’t bother with the apple office apps though, microsoft office for Mac is pretty good these days.

😳 what’s unix ?

If she’s just using it for a bit internet and the occasional documents then it shouldn’t be an issue. Of course then I would question the need for an expensive laptop but that’s another matter. If she needs to use some specialist Windows programs then it could get a bit trickier.

She I may have to set up a VPN but that’s about as specialist as we’re likely to get

Don’t you go questioning the need for an expensive laptop, matey – that’s my next bike upgrade, that is !

How much of a ballache will it be for me, the anointed one, IT guru

I forbade Mrs S from getting one, as I refused to support it.

She, quite rightly, ignored me, and got one from the company (since they were primarily designers, everything was done on Apples).

I quite rightly was perfectly right. She hated it, couldnt get used to it, it would fall over and I cant even work out how to min/max a window consistently, so there was no way I was going to put any effort into getting it working properly. She was on her own. So gave up, handed the apple back and got a PC.

I HATE apple OS and products. So the rool is, if you want it you look after it in this house. I havent got the emotional spare capacity to give more than a fig about them myself.

Sorry, got ranty there. She’s learnt her lesson 😉

I needed an apple airbook thing for work. My need for it has passed so the wife is the only user. Works fine for her. No issues. She only uses chrome though.

Stoner,mix my 80 Yr old mum can set up a wireless network, wireless printer and vpn with her Apple stuff ….

If you have kids, could they sort it for you instead …. ?

I don’t think there’s any doubt that it’s possible

Stoner has the same rule that I suggested in our house about a year ago when she needed a new machine. It’s a Dell, running XP still and with a broken hinge. She’s still merrily doing her internet banking on it despite potential security problems, though to be fair she’s quite low on goatpron usage.

My concern is that she’s just buggering about and failing to replace it. It’s the waiting that’s killing me so I’m considering “making” her get a mac, which is what she thought she wanted before I said I wouldn’t support it.

I’m weak, see ? 🙁

(might buy her a MS surface of some sort and see what she says)

Forget paying for MS Office. Libre is free and will work with MS documents and visa versa. Hardest part is the Gesttures thingy that you have to get used to and no right click and freakishly weird shortcuts (one involves a human sacrifice).

It’s not that much of a deal after the first day or so and you work out where all your bits and bobs have gone to.

Do it, your wife will think you are a IT god and bath you in fine oils and peel grapes for you.

https://www.libreoffice.org/

I forbade Mrs S from getting one, as I refused to support it.

She, quite rightly, ignored me, and got one from the company (since they were primarily designers, everything was done on Apples).

I quite rightly was perfectly right. She hated it, couldnt get used to it, it would fall over and I cant even work out how to min/max a window consistently, so there was no way I was going to put any effort into getting it working properly. She was on her own. So gave up, handed the apple back and got a PC.

I HATE apple OS and products. So the rool is, if you want it you look after it in this house. I havent got the emotional spare capacity to give more than a fig about them myself.

Sorry, got ranty there. She’s learnt her lesson

All that and no use of the CB word 😯

Right click is an option now. Has been for a long time.

They work great unless you hate them of course so refuse to learn how to use their simple interface.

The windows computer in this house has become redundant to the point I’m looking at replacing it with an iMac.

mrsfry, our work removed Office and installed Libreoffice the other week – we think somebody at microsoft may have asked what proportion of our site licences we were actually using 😀 (I had 500% in the sweepstake but only because the bigger numbers had all gone)

I’m sure you could get used to it but having been dropped with zero forewarning into a very large working environment, it’s a bit shit. Several people found that documents had things like tables with sections coming out upside down

If my wife gets an Apple laptop, …

…..you’ll by yourself one 6 months later

be wary with the NAS, apple decided to drop support for some NAS protocols a while back… which can mean some older NAS are left in the bin.

(apple user since 2009).

Fifteen – twenty years ago, it was the case that our PowerPC desktop Macs at work could open pretty much any document that came our way, the opposite was most definitely not the case with the PC we had. I’m pretty sure that it’s much the same now.

Personally I can’t stand MacOS, but I accept that could just be unfamiliarity with it – I only ever use it at my parents’ house, and that’s not often. But regardless of the OS, get a proper MS Office licence. Libre/Open Office is a big steaming pile of poo in comparison.

Congrats to the Mrs, I predict you will be lusting after one after a while 🙂

Converting documents. Wha sort of docs ? The Apple word processor called Pages can read and write MS word doc (and PDFs) and I much prefer it. Likewise the spreadsheet programme called Number although this isn’t as good for complex spreadsheets. So just copy them and all the other files onto the Mac. Unless she is a major s Office user DO NOT spend a penny on Office either subscription or software

You should login into the iCloud with her existing password and also iTunes on the Mac with her account ID and then Sync to the phone and I suggest you make a phone backup to the Mac – all done on iTunes, photos will get uploaded to the Mac and her photostream will update automatically.

Email – your wife can setup her email,accounts within the apple Mail programme (best option) or just access through safari

Any other questions ask here

I have to admit I’m finding it hard work supporting our Macbooks (as you predicted), though treating it as a learning experience at the moment. Even our Apple fanboi head was being less than complimentary about the ease of setting stuff up last week though – if you’re doing anything beyond the most basic, involving stuff outside the Apple eco-system they don’t “just work”.

I quite rightly was perfectly right. She hated it, couldnt get used to it, it would fall over and I cant even work out how to min/max a window consistently

Haha, they’re an absolute nightmare when you’re used to Windows. Mostly just a familiarity thing though, they do have some nice features. I keep trying to scroll left and right on the mouse when I get home from work. That said, I can’t help but feel the Mac OS feels a little….old. Apple produce some class leading products, but I’m not sure their computers are any longer one of them.

Jambalaya Stated

Email – your wife can setup her email,accounts within the apple Mail programme (best option) or just access through safari

Nope it’s done through System Preferences now and then Internet Accounts for POP/IMAP Accounts. Using EL Capitan the set up is really easy, password and email address of the account will do for most mainstream email providers. iCloud has its own preference pane.

VPN you will need some settings from the provider (if there is a Mac at work this will come in the form of a small profile file which you double click and install completing her work network login details as necessary.

To the RT Hn Mr Pants:

Blooming eck! you are right! all this time i have been cursing the lack of ‘right click’ and i tried and somthing wonderful happend 🙂

May your muffins never get cold, you wonderful bundle of knowledge 🙂

Before I went over to Mac I had developed quite advanced skills at fixing PC’s and making them work quicker. It was a constant task for me and I supported several friends and families with their PC issues and gained a bit of a reputation for myself. However after about 6 years of Mac ownership I have to say i’ve had to do zero maintenance or had to fix it at all, managed to get all my friends and family converted over to Apple and have now lost the prestige of being the ‘computer thingermajigary fixer’ person, which I quite miss. Apart from mods to improve performance of my mac (newer, larger HDD and more RAM), which were not that tricky, it’s been pretty faultless. Yeah, yeah, yeah, i’m sure Windows has improved immensely over the last 6 years, but I don’t care – it was so crap back then it was barely fit for purpose and I really don’t see why I should go back unless driven to through dissatisfaction with Apple, and since I have to put up with Windows at work, nothing in the later Windows versions has made me consider switching back.

Getting used to the OS after windows is a challenge, but once you’ve got your head into it and, in the immortal words of Master Yoda: “Unlearn what you have learned” its a much simpler OS than Windows.

So if you have the patience and desire to make the transition from Windows to Mac OS then it is worth it. But at the end of the day haters are going to hate, so if you are an Apple hater, don’t bother, you’ll never get to like it and you can buy many Windows machines for the price of one Mac (and you’ll probably need to over the lifetime of a Mac).

I’ve had a couple of NASs over the years and not had any serious issues, some of the NAS flashy user interface software doesn’t work too well, but I could always access via the file explorer or via iTunes, so always had access, and my current Synology NAS works flawlessly.

The old PC / Mac debate rages on!

To the RT Hn Mr Pants:

That’d be Mr Bo (- I’m the thick one)

Question for the Mac experts – how do you set it up so that it automatically changes the proxy settings according to which Wifi network it’s connected to? Currently I’ve set up multiple locations, but the user has to manually select the location to change the settings – on my Windows laptop I can specify different proxy settings for each Wifi network I set up so it automatically switches.

Yes I’ve searched – was amused to find the comment “On a Mac, it is really easy to make a profile for a specific network rather than input the settings manually every time (Windows eh..)” on the article I found which explained how to do what I’ve already done…

I could do it with a pac file (I’ve done similar before), but wondered if there was a better way.

I like the hardware, but will admit to booting into bootcamp/windows when I need to get anything serious (excel) done.

I love OSX, despite initial reservations and frustration. Now I find the opposite, where going back to Windows feels weird. If I ever have to give back my work Macbooks I’d definitely buy my own.

I’m tempted to go to iMac for my next puter. Aside from the price of the damn things, any reason why not?

Primary use will be music DAW (Cubase) and video editing, both of which I understand Mac does better at a given price point than Wintel

Browsing is mostly done on iPad these days and I’ve just switched from Android to iPhone so I’m not s total novice.

Business computing will be done on the old PC which I’ve just upgraded from Vista to W10

@aracer, that’s beyond my pay grade, how about posting the question on the Apple support forums (did you search macrumours btw ?)

Full Mac household here. Mrs still curses at stuff occasionally but I suspect she would similarly curse at a windows machine.

That said, we use Win7 at work and I quite like it.

Not something which just works then? 😕

Well the machine isn’t going to guess the proxies on its own is it 😉

what’s unix ?

It’s like Intel Inside. But underneath.

My wife has an MBP. I use it occasionally but usually get so annoyed with the lack of minimise / maximise and alt/tabbing that I give up.

I’m reasonably good with IT and therefore can google (and more importantly understand the results) when there are any issues. We have iPhones and iPads (and a Hudl) but the big computer, laptop and small home ‘server’ are all Windows. Setting up print sharing and the Homegroup was a pain in the arse but nothing more that an hour’s fiddling.

I wouldn’t waste money on a Mac computer, but if that’s what your wife wants, keeping it running isn’t too tricky.

Lack of alt/tabbing?

switching between windows.

Aerosnap is another feature I miss when working with a one-screen computer (laptop)

Switching between apps is command+tab on a mac, it’s one key over from alt. Same functionality.

Window snapping, to some degree, is in El Capitan, but has been available for a while via BetterTouchTool.

Might not be ideal, but should make using your wife’s MBP easier.

makecoldplayhistory – Member
switching between windows.

Aerosnap is another feature I miss when working with a one-screen computer (laptop)

Cmd+Tab does window switching. I prefer using the gestures to swap windows though (four fingers up for all maximised apps, four fingers down for all windows of the active app).

For window snapping (assuming I understand what you mean), check out ‘Spectacle’ (it’s free I think). It provides a bunch of keyboard shortcuts (and an icon in the toolbar) for arranging and snapping windows. I’d be lost without it.

alt/tab – I don’t bother either use the “open windows” function key (two clicks, one to press the button and one to select the window I want whuch is usually faster than multiple cmd-tab) and/or left and right swipe between various desktops to find what I need.