Hello, Mccook,
Macs are gorgeous machines, both physically and in the way they
function, but it's true that mixing PCs and Macs can be a bit
complicated. The new Mac laptops (which will make you the envy of all
your friends, trust me) don't have floppy drives, only CD/DVD burners
(depends on the model), so you *could* just burn the files you want to
CD and put the CD in your Dell. That's certainly less than
convenient.
If the machines are going to be connected to a network you may be able
to transfer files via the network from one machine to another. The
details of this would depend entirely on what sort of network you
have, so you'd want to ask your network administrator about how you
could share folders between the two systems.
Another (not fantastic) method of transferring the files would be to
move them to a web-based storage area. Sites like XDrive at
http://www.xdrive.com/ offer you the ability to create a storage area,
upload files via a web browser from one computer, and then download
them from another, also via a web browser. This, of course, is for a
fee. StreamLoad is another company that offers this service at
http://www.streamload.com/HomePage/Home.asp
Before you get discouraged and decide that this is all too cumbersome,
the good news is that there's an easy way. A USB flash storage device
that works on both PC and Mac would work just like a floppy disk, but
faster and with more storage space. The drives are tiny, some smaller
than a keychain, and just plug in to your USB port. The flash drive
then shows up as a drive on your system, to which you can transfer
files in the regular way. They come in various storage capacities,
usually starting around 16MB and going up as high as 1GB (very
expensive for something that size though, and probably overkill). I
have been extremely impressed with the iStick drive. It's literally
no bigger than a quarter and no thicker than maybe two quarters on top
of each other. It requires no drivers on most systems (for Windows 98
it needs them, but they're available from a web site), and even has a
write protect switch to prevent you from accidentally deleting
anything.
Various suppliers carry the device:
MemorySuppliers.com has a 64 MB version for $25:
http://www.memorysuppliers.com/mib64usbflas.html
MemoryXFlash.com has 32, 64, 128, 256, and 512MB versions avaialable:
http://www.memoryxflash.com/pqiistick.html
You can also do a search on Froogle.com for the device and get these
results from a bunch of suppliers:
http://froogle.google.com/froogle?btnP=Go&q=istick+flash
And there's some good closeup pictures and comparisons to a floppy
disk here: http://home.comcast.net/~intro/istick.htm
Other flash drives should also work just as well, but I have
recommended this unit to a number of people and everyone has raved
about it. I keep mine in my wallet it's so small, and that way I've
always got in just in case I need to copy a file. I've never seen any
other device as small as this one.
I hope this fits your needs and lets you get your transfers done. For
any files that are too large for the iStick it's really best to burn a
CD anyway, since the USB flash drives are relatively slow (much faster
than a floppy, but not nearly as fast as a CD).
Enjoy the new machine. If you take it to a coffee shop be prepared to
have strangers come and ask to play with it. New Macs seem to elicit
that reaction somehow.
Hibiscus
Search strategy: iStick USB flash, online file storage, Froogle
search: istick flash |
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