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With the iPhone 3G and the iPhone 2.0 software for the first iPhone generation and the iPod touch Apple also introduced Microsoft Exchange support.

For a client like Outlook, but also e.g. for my Nokia E61, Zimbra Server will look like and behave lika an Exchange. That means you can simply point Mobile.me (me.com) or your iPhone/iPod at your Zimbra mail server and done. You get mail, calendar and contacts push over the air. Note: Make sure you diable your IMAP account for the same server should you have one, otherwise you might confuse yourself…

Even with Office running quite well on Leopard through VMware Fusion most of you switchers will still not want to depend on the messaging solution from Microsoft on your Cupertino OS. But how would the required migration work for all the emails from the past? There is no export feature in Outlook that would create anything meaningful to Apple Mail. Obviously for pure IMAP (or Zimbra connector) users as I am, it is no issue, as you just point your new client towards the right ports of your server and off you go. But I’m also an offline user as a POP3 user would be when it comes to mail archives. My thousands of received but also sent messages are nicely archived in separate local folders in Outlook format for each of the past years.

The answer to the Outlook to Mail migration question is: Thunderbird.

Simply install Thunderbird on your Windows environment next to Outlook and agree to all import from Outlook suggestions you will get during setup. Thunderbird will store online as well as offline content in the local application data folder in your home directory.

C:\Documents and Settings\[USER]\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\[PROFILE]\Mail\..

The .msf and the corresponding files that do not have an ending are what you need to move over to your Mac. Mail.app has an “Import Mailboxes…” feature that you can use to include them into your local mail.app setup.

During my own migration I realized that not all files (each representing one folder from Outlook) were offered for import. This seems to be file size related. The solution here is to split them into items below 1 GB in Thunderbird before moving them over to the Mac. Note, if you split e.g. a 1.2GB file into two 600MB files you have to compact them before moving, otherwise the file size doesn’t change.

This way I successfully migrated 18′972 emails from Microsoft Outlook on Windows to Apple Mail on OS X Leopard. All available at the tip of my finger through spotlight of course.

After a couple of windowsfull years it was finally time to go Mac again. My employers typically give me decent PC hardware and most of my day 2 day job can be done on those quite ok. Also, my personal requirements were easily covered as I did some email, web and pictures, maybe small videos here and there… But here we go: I remember borrowing PowerBooks, spending two full Saturdays at the local Apple retailer, having seen more from the New York Apple store in Soho than from New York itself and having been frustrated about the quality of result you get whenever you want/need to do something nice, smart and easy that in the end will blow the recipient away when none of the above mentioned work arounds are an option. It is that simple.

And as I started to have more an more pictures and videos of our daughter I do not want to clutter my work laptop we needed a ‘home’ computer anyway. So I took the opportunity and went for a 20 inch iMac. It’s what I need and it’s what a lot of people need.

Not sure for how long I will be ok for this during working hours, but my doubts started when I caught myself thinking about a desktop background for my laptop saying “My other PC is a Mac”…

How did it go? Well it went like it goes with Macs. Unpack, plugin, go.
I did have some issue with the migration of my data (surprise, surprise) but they are already almost solved. Here are a few links I used:

• Apple’s 101
• Macuser.de forums
• MacUpdate
• Hack Attack: A guide for switching to a Mac
• Dan Rodney’s Keyboard short cuts