Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

Dazed · Oct 29, 2006, 01:41 AM

Hi,

Am thinking about getting one of the new core 2 Mac Pros and since im coming from a pc background i have a few questions which hopefully you guys can answer.

My main concern is about cross platform upgrades for my pc applications like Dreamweaver, MS Office and photoshop cs2. I cant seem to find out the cost or if its even possible to do a cross platform upgrade on these products. Can anyone confirm cross platform is possible and if so how do i go about it ? do i have to send in my old discs ?

If I cant upgrade to dreamweaver is there a good cheaper apple alternative ?

thanks

lookmark · Oct 29, 2006, 02:36 AM

I believe Adobe offers cross-platform upgrades (i.e. crossgrades) for a nominal fee. It's hard to find online, so your best bet is to call Adobe Support and inquire directly.

The complication currently is that CS2 (and Dreamweaver, FWiW) doesn't run natively on Intel Macs yet. It'll run in Apple's very good, transparent emulation, at about 1/2 speed. Not at all bad, actually, but not great either.

CS3, which will be Intel-native, or "Universal" is expected to be released in early to mid '07.

I don't think MS offers any kind of crossgrade. You have to buy Mac Office, check out the free open-source alternative, NeoOffice, or -- depending on what you use Office for -- get Apple's nice, inexpensive Office-compatible suite, iWork for just $80. Tip: if you can, hold off until January, when iWork '07 is due, which will include a spruced-up Pages and a new spreadsheet program.

There's a bunch of alternatives to Dreamweaver out there, but it honestly depends what kind of site you're trying to build. Apple bundles a very basic and very easy program called iWeb with every Mac; more advanced alternatives include Rapidweaver, Sandvox, and Freeway. All are much less expensive then Dreamweaver... but also less powerful.

If you're planning to use iWeb... again, it's best to hold off for January if you can, as it's rumored to be getting a considerable upgrade in iLife '07.

Chuckit · Oct 29, 2006, 02:44 AM

If you use Dreamweaver mainly for HTML editing rather than WYSIWYG, there are some good Mac alternatives you might want to check out such as BBEdit and TextMate. They're specialized as code editors rather than drawing boxes like Dreamweaver.

Dazed · Oct 29, 2006, 03:52 AM

I use dreamweaver for html/javascript editing as well as managing websites (uploading files etc) and will look into the editors you suggested.

As far as MS Office goes, i mostly use word and excel so will look into neooffice and iworks.

I mostly use photoshop for photo editing so may give aperture a try.

Thanks for the feedback, I cant wait to order my new toy

analogika · Oct 29, 2006, 05:40 AM

Right now, coming from PC, your best bet on Photoshop is to run the Windows version within Parallels, or within Boot Camp if you don't mind restarting your machine.

There will be a cross-grade offer for Photoshop CS3, which will be released in the first half of next year. It makes no sense to purchase a cross-grade license before then.

lookmark · Oct 29, 2006, 10:27 AM

++ on TextMate or BBedit, btw. Personally, I've grown to really dislike Dreamweaver, and even as novice web designer, rely on TextWeaver (free "lite" version of BBEdit") + the excellent CSSEdit. So much better. Your wallet and sanity will thank you.

Aperture looks like an excellent program, but might be overkill unless you handle hundreds or thousands of photos (it also does not yet do masks or selective editing). iPhoto (included) will handle image adjustments, too, and another shareware alternative is Graphic Converter.

Enjoy the Mac when you get it! It will be great fun.

Dazed · Oct 29, 2006, 10:08 PM

lookmark, what do you use to manage your websites (ie up/download of files) ? I dont use most of dreamweaver's features but would miss the easy way it manages websites and automatically uploads all affected files.

On a side note what virus checker would people suggest? i know macs have few viruses but I am a bit paranoid about catching something on my shiny new toy

Thanks, and hopefully I will order my new toy in a few weeks (just trying to decide between the 17 or 15 inch versions)

Catfish_Man · Oct 29, 2006, 11:27 PM

Originally Posted by Dazed

lookmark, what do you use to manage your websites (ie up/download of files) ? I dont use most of dreamweaver's features but would miss the easy way it manages websites and automatically uploads all affected files.

skEdit has some cool site management stuff; I haven't really tried it much though, since I started using it after my last web design project.

On a side note what virus checker would people suggest? i know macs have few viruses but I am a bit paranoid about catching something on my shiny new toy

I have yet to run into a virus checker for the Mac that isn't a hundred times worse than any of the viruses released so far.

analogika · Oct 30, 2006, 07:05 AM

ClamXAV?

JKT · Oct 30, 2006, 08:03 AM

Originally Posted by lookmark

TextWeaver (free "lite" version of BBEdit") + the excellent CSSEdit. So much better. Your wallet and sanity will thank you.

You mean TextWrangler, not TextWeaver.

lookmark · 02:28 PM

Originally Posted by JKT

You mean TextWrangler, not TextWeaver.

Right-o. Thx.

Originally Posted by Dazed

lookmark, what do you use to manage your websites (ie up/download of files) ? I dont use most of dreamweaver's features but would miss the easy way it manages websites and automatically uploads all affected files.

I manually update using the free Fugu. But if I did web design more often, I'd upgrade to Transmit, which is just a pleasure to use and I believe offers synchronization.