Migration Assistant. It’s a wonderful thing! Being able to fire up a new computer and, with the help of a FireWire cable and good ol’ Apple know-how, your new computer can look JUST like the old one! Files all over the desktop, long unused apps in the Applications folder, and teeny tiny url clippings, files, and images from days gone by...

Hmmmm, maybe this ISN’T the best idea.

If you’ve kept your system in pristine shape, then good for you! If I had the technology available to me I’d even give you a browser cookie! However, for others of us you, the thought of bringing old computer stuff over to a new one would be analogous to moving into a new apartment and immediately planting socks, dishes and old magazines in the same places they were in the old place. Sure, that’ll make it comfy and homey, but wouldn’t you like to enjoy that cool blue background for at least a week or two before never seeing it again? Who knows, you may even decide you like it so much that you keep it spic and span for all time... yes, this could be a life changing moment!

But that dadblasted assistant makes it SOOO easy! Well, you know the old adage, nothing worth doing is worth while. No, if it’s worth while, then do it. Wait. OK, how about doing it right is a pain? Might not be as poetic as what I was looking for, but it certainly gets the point across. Easy is great but life changing moments are hardly ever easy to deal with (well, the lottery...I think I could deal with that). There ARE manual ways to bring things over from your old laptop/desktop to your new one, there’s just a few gotchas to be wary of. On this page, I’ll start posting some of the ones I’ve ran into so that when you get YOUR MBP (in grmbl 7-10 days as of this writing) you can start off fresh! After, of course, dropping the Google widget in dashboard 30 times in rapid succession. I NEVER tire of that.

And the beat goes on!

I keep my iTunes music on an external HD so bringing that over to the new ShinyBook was no problem. Just fire up the new iTunes, go into Preferences and point it to the external drive’s iTunes directory. While I could then have iTunes add all the music in those directories, the problem lies in not having access to my playlists, my play counts, my ratings, you know all that EXTRA stuff. PLUS, I’d have to resynch my iPod (since it would think this is a new computer) and you know how fun THAT can be. Well, thanks to someone else that likes to start anew, I found that all I needed to do is shut down iTunes, remove the iTunes Library, iTunes Music Library.xml and iTunes Music folder and replace them with the ones from the old computer handily sent over via Bonjour iChat. You’ll still have to adjust some of your preferences, but for the most part, painless!

Don’t Nix Pix

I have about 800 megs of images so I thought I’d try the ol’ Ethernet to Ethernet mambo with those. Considering how easy the iTunes transfer was, I simply set up file sharing on the ol’ boy, logged into it from the new fella, dragged over the iPhoto Library folder (since all the goodies appeared to be in there) and fired up iPhoto. Everything was fine until the after a few seconds when iPhoto complained about not being able to update the library. Ods Bodkins!

This also ended up being a simple fix. Apparently, when bringing over a folder from another system, it’s added in as read only. I used the Get Info window under Ownership & Permissions to change the iPhoto Library directory to Read & Write and, under detail, clicked Apply to enclosed items. Open up iPhoto again and it’s pleased as punch!

Friendly neighborhood iWeb-thinger

That’s most of what concerned me immediately. The only other thing I needed to do was bring over my iWeb site from the old computer. This was even easier than Sunday Mornin’

. By default, the Finder opens a new window showing your local user area. Starting at this window, the iWeb Domain file is located inside the Library folder, inside the Application Support folder and inside, strangely enough, the iWeb folder. Testing yet another way of getting files from one computer to the next, I inserted a blank CD copied the Domain file PLUS a few other files I used to create this site (reusable content, don’t cha know) and brought ‘em over to the new kid. This time there were no permission problems at all and I had an up an working computer. I still need to bring over and re-install some applications, but that gives me a perfect opportunity to get all my serial numbers in one place!

The font of Fonty fontness

All was well, but not quite perfect because I’ve used fonts in iWeb on my old computer that didn’t exist on my new computer. That also got me thinking about bringing over all my old faves as well, but how would I separate ‘em? How would I be able to group everything I’ve installed and keep it separate from the old system’s fonts? Luckily, OSX does this FOR you by default. Whenever you install a font, OSX installs it into your personal font reserve. On the downside, only the user that installed the font can use it, but on the upside, if you’re having a problem after adding fonts, then it’s got to be in your Library/Fonts folder.

THIS time, I opted to email the fonts to myself (they sure are tiny!) and then iWeb opened with no complaints. All of my other apps were happy to see their old friends as well. So far, so good. If I find any other things I think you might want to know, I’ll be sure to post them somewhere hereabouts.

And yes, that MacBookPro in the image above has the DVD drive on the wrong side. What can I say, I couldn’t find one with the angle I wanted! Call it “artistic license!”