Can your Mac talk to a PC?

The hate mail continues to hit my box from Macintosh users miffed about my recent disclosure that I’m throwing out my Apple and switching to the pervasive and ever-popular PC.

To those of you still writing me in the hopes that I’ll revisit my follow-up column, I have just one thing to say: get a life. Run back to your newsgroups and tell all of your friends to get a life, too. There are more important things to worry about than operating systems.

Like how to transfer all of your files from the Mac to a real computer when you’ve finally made the well-reasoned choice to chuck the Apple. Until I found MacDrive 98, a simple application that lets PCs read Macintosh files, I thought this would be a messy proposition if not downright impossible. Sure, I could save my files as text-only and then transfer them to a PC by disk or e-mail, but how long would it take to do that to six years’ worth of articles?

Before leaving on a recent two-week business trip, I decided to download a couple of essentials, like the latest two chapters of my book and a few files with research I had pulled off the Web. MacDrive 98 installed quickly and effortlessly on my laptop.

Once there, the application never showed itself – except when it recognized a Macintosh file and asked if I wanted to extract the original Mac file. When I told it to go ahead, it translated the file flawlessly every time, including the formatting, font size and style and margins. I couldn’t believe it.

No big deal? Oh yes it is. I typically transfer two or three Macintosh-format Microsoft Word files between both computers a day, sometimes on disk and sometimes via an e-mail attachment, and each one demands a certain amount of attention. Maybe a margin gone awry here or a rule out of whack there. It takes time to fix these things – time I could be spending elsewhere doing more productive things.

The first thing I wanted to do (but couldn’t for obvious reasons) was to send a copy of MacDrive to my bosses. From my editor at Trip.com, I got this note yesterday: “Yo Chris, what are you writing your columns in? Your attachments aren’t in Word. I usually can’t open them.” Actually, they are in Word. For Macintosh. All the more reason for me to switch to the PC, don’t you think? And from my editor at ABCNews.com, “Chris, your e-mail is putting all kinds of funky stuff in there. What’s up?”

Ah, if only my editors had this $70 program, then I wouldn’t be getting their messages of puzzlement.

MacDrive translates practically anything – formatted diskette, cartridge, CD-ROM or even a Macintosh-formatted SCSI hard drive. This came in especially handy for salvaging what was left of an old Mac-formatted external hard drive that even my throwaway Mac had a hard time reading.

Those of us who travel all the time won’t want to leave the office without MacDrive. Even road warriors who work in all-PC offices? Especially them. A Mac disk can blindside you and stop your progress cold. You could spend hours trying to decipher a file, or worse, you could be unable to make sense of the data and have to do without it.

When you’re on a trip and don’t have the ability to resave a file as PC-compatible, a copy of MacDrive can mean the difference between a presentation that sizzles and one that fizzles. It can help you meet a deadline or give you the information edge to win an account.

Installing an application like MacDrive isn’t so much an acknowledgment that we live in a world of multiple operating systems as it is an insurance policy against a communication breakdown. Because you never know when someone might hand you a disk or send you an attachment that only a Mac can read. Users don’t always think about compatibility when they send photos, graphics or other data to you. (I know: as a Mac user of many years, I lost count of how many .exe attachments I got that I couldn¹t do a thing with.)

Not that MacDrive will solve all of your translation troubles. You still have to know what program to open a file in once it’s been processed. A misstep and you’ll find yourself staring at a screen of gobbledygook. But MacDrive bridges the communication gap between the PC and Macintosh in an elegant and simple way. I like that.

So until everyone is on a PC, I’m going to make sure I’ve got my MacDrive handy. Even after I’ve retired all of my Apple computers.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

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