I’ve enjoyed the simple pleasures of multi-media editing with my powerbook G4 since 2003, but it came time to upgrade to a Mac Book Pro. I got a pretty sweet deal on a refurb 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo MBPro because the new Core 2 Duos just came out. I was sold with the included one-year (same as new) warranty.

Here are my two babies, hybernating together, dreaming of pure 1s and 0s, neither of their flowers plucked by the depraved viruses and worms that plague the PC world.

I personally am a PC vs. Mac pacifist, although if I am ever faced with a computer buying decision I will almost invariably choose mac. One example of how macs facilitate our lives is the old-mac-to-new-mac settings/data carry-over when you get a new mac… which leads me to the beef of the post which is a simple “How to turn your mac into a firewire drive” or more simply “How to transfer files from one mac to another.”

You see, as soon as you start your new mac for the first time, it asks you if you’d like to transfer all your files and settings (even firefox, garageband, and all other apps settings) to your new mac. With one 6-pin to 6-pin firewire cable, you’re in business.


It took these two guys about an hour and 45 minutes to make my new mac have all my old mac’s settings and files, which was roughly 30 gigs of data.

Anyway, a couple years ago I remember it was almost impossible to find a simple online guide to transfer files from a mac to another mac (even on mac’s support site), so here’s a simple how-to:

1. Connect both computers with a firewire cable.
2. Restart the host mac (the mac with the files you are about to transfer) and hold down the “T” button until a gigantic firewire symbol appears on the screen.
3. Your host mac is now functioning as a firewire external drive. You can now browse it using your other mac’s finder.

So… if you have a mac, then bring it on over and mac-off with us.