There were no blog posts yesterday because on Tuesday night I couldn’t stand it anymore and sprung for a spiffy new MacBook Pro. Then I took up my usual “blog time” on Wednesday setting it up and transfering all my files over. More on that process in a minute…

First, let me say I’m very happy with my purchase. I’ve been on a 15″ PowerBook G4 for years and was starting to feel it creak. The increased speed and Intel chip were the main reasons I made the move. The new LCD monitor (which I love), built in iSight, more RAM, larger HD, better graphics card, two-finger trackpad and magnetic power connection are all very nice perks. I can actually use Spotlight now! Spotlight was so slow before that I was better off digging for the files myself.

I chose the 15-inch again. The 17-inch just felt too cumbersome for travel (about an inch longer and wider, and 1.4 pounds heavier) and I use a supplemental monitor when I’m in the office anyway. I went with the matte/anti-glare screen instead of the glossy. It’s supposed to have better color fidelity, but I was more concerned about overhead lights in my office reflecting into my eyes while I develop. And since speed was my main reason for trading-up, I went with the 2.4GHz model. While it does feel a little underwhelming to pay so much money for something that looks pretty much the same on the outside, the improvement under the hood was worth it.

Transferring files and configurations over was an interesting process. Apple lets you do a slick “suck all your old stuff onto your new computer” during installation set up. Since I have a lot of developer bits installed in odd places, I was wondering how much it would grab. The answer is: 100% of the non-developer bits and 0% of the developer bits.

I took a few notes on the steps I needed to take to get everything moved over. In case it’s helpful to anyone else, I’ll post them after the jump.

Upgrading from 15-inch PowerBook G4 to 15-inch MacBook Pro

General

1. Back up key data, just to be super-safe
2. Let new Mac pull everything over from old Mac via FireWire.
3. Run Software Update to get latest Mac software.
4. Launch all applications to make sure they run as expected.

PHP

1. Install PHP per: http://www.entropy.ch/software/macosx/php/

Ruby on Rails and Mongrel

1. Install XCode developer tools: http://developer.apple.com/tools/xcode/
2. Install Rails per: http://hivelogic.com/narrative/articles/ruby-rails-mongrel-mysql-osx
   (Readline, Ruby, RubyGems, Rails, Mongrel)

MySQL

1. Install MySQL from: http://dev.mysql.com
2. Install MySQL-Ruby bindings, per: http://hivelogic.com/narrative/articles/ruby-rails-mongrel-mysql-osx
3. Set new MySQL root password: mysqladmin -u root password "newpwd"
4. Move MySQL databases over.

   On your old Mac:

   mysqldump -u root ––password="your_password" ––all-databases > ~/Desktop/mysql_export

   Enable file sharing, grab the file from one Desktop to the other.

   On your new Mac:
   mysql -u root ––password="your_password" < ~/Desktop/mysql_export

5. I needed to follow the instructions here too: http://railsforum.com/viewtopic.php?pid=26469

Subversion

1. Install Subversion, per: http://hivelogic.com/narrative/articles/ruby-rails-mongrel-mysql-osx
2. Move subversion repositories over (may be helpful to .zip files to avoid permissions hassles)

Capistrano

1. Get Capistrano:
   sudo gem install capistrano ––include-dependencies
   sudo gem install termios ––include-dependencies

Misc

1. Re-installed my VPN client (I needed the Intel version anyway)
2. Transfer over any Apache httpd.conf customizations.
3. Transfer over any NetManager customizations.
4. De-authorize iTunes on old Mac, re-authorize iTunes on new Mac

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 14th, 2007 at 9:24 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.