My transition to the MacBook is going really well.  I expected it to be a lot bigger hassle than it has been.

Music – I had put all of our cd’s on our pc’s when we moved, but unfortunately I used windows media player, so they all had the .wmv file extension.  I should have used software that brought them into the pc in .mp3 format, but I know that now…not then.  So I converted all the music to .mp3, added in all the recent music already in .mp3 format, and imported them into iTunes.  Then I imported the artwork for each album and went to the web for art for the ones missing it.  All in all quite a project, but all 7,500 songs are in there and we are having a blast playing music 24/7 it seems!

Word Processing/Spreadsheets – I downloaded a free 30 days trial of iWork, a Mac product that costs about $80 but have decided that I´m going to go with the open-source NeoOffice for this function.  It is a really nice and familiar interface, quick, and for a small donation I am able to do anything I will ever need to with spreadsheets or word processing.

Picture Management -  As a longtime Photoshop user I was a bit anxious about changing to Gimp but it seems excellent so far.  It is also open-source, and although I haven´t donated yet to support it, I will. (Martha and Consuelo, below)

Even if you’re not planning a change to a Mac, these programs are worth a look for their ease of use and moderate cost.  Check them out!

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