I am moving from my 5 year old PowerPC G5 Mac to my new Intel Core i7 MacBook Pro.
Since I did not find a definitive guide on how to move your data, applications and preferences for my specific case, I am documenting here what I did for so that it might benefit someone else.
Start
I got the point of starting up the laptop and going through Apple’s basic setup process. Simple.
However, in that process the computer asks you if you are moving from another computer. It wants to use the migration assistant. I strongly urge you NOT to use the migration assistant. It will bring over what you need BUT it will also bring over alot of junk that you dont need from apps that were installed and removed from your old computer.
My Custom Applications
Besides its better to start with a a clean install of every application. The best explanation I’ve heard on this comes from my friend Chris Foley (Hat tip to @foleypod).
He prescribes that a clean install is best. Moving applications over from your older system setup, in most cases, will require you to upgrade the software after you move it over.
You will be upgrading code that most likely was installed on a previous version of OS X (10.4, 10.3) and subsequently upgraded by you over time. DON’T DO IT. Clean install ensures that you’re getting code that is optimized to run on an Intel chip with oS X 10.6
And that is just what I did.
The strategy was pretty simple. Open you Applications folder on your old computer, review each application and decide what you want on the new machine. Google the ones you want on the new machine and you will get the latest installers that are correct for you machine (as many websites these days read in browser/platform information and can pass along the correct installer).
So I did that for all my Applications large and small.
What about application registrations?
BUT you may be asking yourself, what about registration data? Will I have to type in all that information again?
I did. I basically have all the applications on my laptop right now and as I need them I launch them and get the right data in place. It takes a few minutes more, but its less headaches.
What about preferences?
On some applications, SOME I will bring over preferences. On Adobe’s fat install, no. I will make new prefs, too much baggage there. On smaller apps, yes. Apps like Typinator, or CSSEdit. Those I will bring over because they are not bloated apps.
Moving Email
I followed this simple guide from eHow. How to Move Apple Mail Settings and Email on a Mac.
It has you move the Mail folder located here: ~/Library/Mail.
It also has you move ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist
I also use MailTags and MailActOn. So I had to deal with their particular preference files.
iTunes.
Fortunately for me I can use the iTunes Home Sharing function to use most of what I need. I will copy over any specific artists as I need them. I also have a large library of music on my iPhone too.
Then move files.
The last bit for me it to move over my working files (current projects) and my web development files (all my custom programming). That is taking place right now while I am writing this post.
Looking forward to working on this new machine.
Now I have to realize I can getup and take it with me.
Ever since I started to focus on Berchman.com I realized that my former “company” website, HamiltonBerchman Design Group, Inc., was no longer maintained, correct, or relevant. However, at the time I was fortunately too busy to even think about doing anything to the site.
Then one day I was doing research on a project and stumbled across a free portfolio template that stood out to me in more than one way. The template is called medifolio, by Dirk Leys who generously posted it online. I was particularly drawn to the “sliding” action when you click on a portfolio thumbnail image, and the return to the main page. There was a simple elegance to the whole thing. I looked at it and thought, “how can I do this type of page in WordPress and Thesis?” The original medifolio is a single, flat html page. How could I generate all the content, in the right order, with the right tags and syntax? I thought about it a while. A long while.
In the time since I first saw medifolio I was working on a client project requiring the listing of individual portfolio pieces, complete with images and text. It required a complete custom solution. By creatively using categories as parents I created blog posts that then occupied specific categories. I could then create custom loops to not only create a listing of the portfolio pieces at the top of the page, but I could have them link to the actual full description and image display further down the page (by using custom generated anchor links). You can see the work in action here on the website ckwrites.com. There are four custom lists generated across the top of the page after introductory text. All done within WordPress and Thesis with categories and custom page templates, and custom loops.
Since I had completed design and development of ckwrites.com I looked back at medifolio and the previous experience lent itself directly to making medifolio a reality. After some long nights tinkering with custom php and css solutions I got the basic page to work as the original static medifolio page. All the content was being dynamically generated from individual posts for each and every portfolio piece. All the tags, divs, etc. were being dynamically generated as well.
Once I had a basic working model the next thing to do was to implement. I’ve done this right now in two places where it lives, live on the Internet. The first implementation was at HamiltonBerchman Design Group, Inc.
I set out to rework, or basically remove, all the non-relevant content from the website and was left with a stripped down, single web page that tells what the current state of affairs is, and shows a sample of work that I completed in my time operating HamiltonBerchman Design Group, Inc.
Once I had this complete, I wanted to take it to another place and that was on the Dennison+Wolfe Internet Group website where I am a partner. This implementation allowed me to refine and rethink some things to how the portfolio is implemented.
I think both of these came out looking quite nice.
It will be a part of the new, upcoming Berchman.com redesign.
My next step, I think, is to clean this up, write a tutorial on how to implement this, and release it on an “as-is” basis. What does that mean? It means if you want it, download it, and figure it out.
That is what I had to do. 
Let me know what you think.
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