One of the remaining annoyances with the iPad and iPhone is the need to connect these devices to a computer to sync music and apps. Even more frustrating is that fact that you are limited to syncing your music to one computer. You may think this same limitation applies to app syncing, but thankfully it does not. We are going to show you how to transfer apps from your iPad or iPhone to a new computer. This is really helpful if you are getting ready to get the iPad 2 and need your apps on the computer you are going to connect it to.

How to Transfer Apps from an iPad or iPhone to a New PC or Mac:

Steps for Transferring Apps from the iPad or iPhone to a New Computer:

To Transfer your apps to a new computer, follow the steps in the video above or as outlined below. You will need iTunes, an iPad sync cable and your iPad to do this. You don’t need to buy any third party software.

Step 1. Connect your iPad to the computer

Step 2. When prompted to “Erase and Sync” or “Cancel”, Choose “Cancel”

Step 3. Click File in the upper right

Step 4. Click on Transfer Purchases from “Your iPad Name”

Step 5. Wait for the transfer to complete. This could take a few minutes or a long time depending on how many apps you have on your iPad or iPhone.

Step 6. Disconnect your iPad. If you want to make this computer your new permanent iPad syncing computer you can now “Erase and Sync” though you will lose your music and other data. To transfer music from the iPad to a new computer you will need a third party program which typically costs $10 to $40.

If you are prepping for an iPad 2, here’s a tip for speeding up your first sync from GottaBeMobile.

How to Transfer Apps from an iPad or iPhone to a New Computer is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

Switching to a new computer is a joyous event, but it can also be quite a pain to get everything up and running like it was on your old PC. During Black Friday my father picked up a Toshiba Satellite L460 laptop, his first mobile computer, and today I finally had time to help him get it set up so that he could get rid of his old slow desktop — a process made easier thanks to Chrome and Dropbox.

While dad normally uses Firefox and keeps most of his files in a few random folders the first step to getting his new computer up and running was copying all of his documents into My DropBox  including his small 1.5GB mp3 collection. While this began uploading to Dropbox, we also installed Chrome on his old PC and imported his Mozilla bookmarks and settings.

How To set up Bookmark sync in Chrome:

1. Click on the wrench in the upper right of Chrome.
2. Choose the second “Personal Stuff” tab.
3. Click Sync.
4. Enter your Gmail username and password.
5. Repeat steps 1-4 on all other computers you want to sync.

Chrome was already installed on his  and told it to sync bookmarks and presto — in a second he had a couple year’s worth of bookmarks transferred to his new computer. We made Chrome his new default browser as well since it does a decent job of keeping the entire browser from crashing if one tab goes down. Chrome’s one bar for search and addresses is also a bit more user friendly.

Over on the new laptop we installed Dropbox which immediately began downloading his documents, and should by the end of the evening have all of his music and pictures moved over to the new computer. We could have done this with an external hard drive or a DVD, but we didn’t have either handy and this process means he will always have a cloud backup of his most important files available at no cost to him.

The out of the box experience on many windows laptops can’t touch what you’ll find on a Mac, but thanks to the pre-installation of Chrome we were up and running pretty fast. It was helpful that the laptop came with Office 2010 Starter which does enough for my dad and Live Essentials for easy access to other needed tools. The only real downside was that we had to uninstall a Norton trial, switching over to the free virus protection from Microsoft Security Essentials; but for the most part the Toshiba Satellite L640 had a pretty good out of the box experience.

Have any tips for helping a family member migrate to a new computer with minimal hassle? Please share them in the comments below.

Use DropBox and Chrome to Transfer Files and Bookmarks To a New PC in a Snap is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

This guide will show you how to get your iTunes library set up just right on your new computer without losing any of the important stuff. It’s very common for new computer owners to find their iTunes libraries in disarray after migrating to a new PC. If you don’t take the following steps, you’ll find that your Apple devices you sync to your iTunes library will need to be wiped and re-synched.

When purchasing a new computer you generally want to back up your data so that you’ll have everything that you need on your new computer. Backing up photos and videos is pretty straight forward, just put them on an external hard drive or flash drive, then put them onto your new computer. However, when it comes to backing up iTunes, it isn’t as straight forward as just dragging your music folder onto the external hard drive then onto your new computer. If you do that, you’ll lose all of your ratings, playlists, album art, and other data.

What’s more, usually when you transfer your music from one computer to another then try to sync your iPhone/iPad/iPod, iTunes will tell you that you must delete all of the music from your device in order to start syncing with the new library. With the following method, your device won’t even realize that it’s hooked up to a different computer, and it will sync without any complaints (and without having to erase all of it’s media, only to replace it with the same media from your library!).

The only thing that you’ll need is a place to backup your data until you put it onto your new computer — such as an external hard drive or flash drive with enough free space to accomodate your iTunes folder.

Find your iTunes folder Find the folder labeled iTunes” on your computer by following this path: Start > Computer > Local Disk (C:) > Users > *Your username* > My Music >  iTunes

1. Backup your iTunes folder – Now that you’ve located the folder, you want to back it up onto your external hard drive by simply dragging the entire folder onto the external drive as shown (click to enlarge):
2. De-Authorize iTunes on your Old PC — On your old computer, open iTunes and click on store. Once you do  you’ll see an option to De-authorize your old computer (shown below). Click it and your old computer will be removed from your account.

   

3. Install iTunes If you haven’t already installed iTunes on your new computer, do so now (you can download it here).
4. Remove Default Folder — By default, iTunes will create a new iTunes folder in your My Music folder. We need to first remove this. Follow this path: Start > Computer > Local Disk (C:) > Users > *Your username* > My Music. You should see a folder called iTunes. Right-click on it and select delete:
5. Place Your Old iTunes Folder Once you’ve deleted the default iTunes folder, you want to put the backed up iTunes folder in it’s place. Plug your storage device into your new computer, navigate to your backed up iTunes folder, and drag it into the My Music folder. Be sure that it is still named iTunes (not iTunes backup, etc.)
6. Launch iTunes Now launch iTunes. You may see a bar that says updating library”, once it finishes, you should see your iTunes library just as it was on your old computer, with all of your playlists, ratings, album art, play counts, and more, intact:
7. Sign into Your iTunes Account Just to ensure that everything is copacetic, go to the menu bar at the top of the iTunes window and click the Store button, then drop down to find Sign In. If you have an iTunes account, enter your credentials. This will ensure that you are properly configured to browse the store, purchase music, and download missing album artwork.

Enjoy your new PC and all of your iTunes ratings, playlists and music!

How To Move Your iTunes Library to a New PC is a post by Ben from Notebooks.com.

So far we have looked at two ways of installing Windows 7 on your PC Clean/Custom Install or In-Place Upgrading. Many persons will be buying Windows 7 on a new PC when its released and would like to get their personal data from an old PC to the new PC running Windows 7. Windows 7 offers an easy, convenient way to make the move with the built in Windows Easy Transfer utility. As you can see in the screenshot below, I have a lot of files on my old PC running Windows 7, and I would like to get those files over safely over to my new computer also running Windows 7. First lets find out what it is Windows Easy Transfer:

My old computer

Windows Easy Transfer guides you through the process of transferring files and settings from one Windows computer to another. Using Windows Easy Transfer, you can choose what to transfer to your new computer and how to transfer it. You can transfer most files and program settings. Specifically:

• • Files and folders. Everything within the Documents, Pictures, and Shared Documents folders. Using advanced options, you can select additional files and folders to transfer.
  • E‑mail settings, contacts, and messages.
  • Program settings. Settings that keep your programs configured as you had them on your old computer. Windows Easy Transfer does not transfer the programs themselves. Some programs might not work on this version of Windows, including security programs, antivirus programs, firewall programs (your new computer should already have a firewall running to help ensure safety during the transfer), and programs with software drivers.
  • User accounts and settings. Desktop backgrounds, network connections, screen savers, fonts, Start menu options, taskbar options, folders, specific files, network printers and drives, and accessibility options.
  • Internet settings and favorites. Internet connection settings, favorites, and cookies.
  • Music. Electronic music files, playlists, and album art.
  • Pictures and video. Pictures—which includes any visual file type (for example, .jpg, .bmp, .gif)—and personal videos.

Windows Easy Transfer sounds like just the solution I am looking for to move my personal data to my new computer.

Launch Windows Easy Transfer

Launching Windows Easy Transfer utility

1. You can find the Windows Easy Transfer utility by clicking Start > type: Transfer. Or click Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Windows Easy Transfer.

2. When you start the Windows Easy Transfer, a wizard gives you an overview of what you can transfer and what will happen after the process is completed. Click Next to begin.

3. You have three methods of transferring your data from your old computer using Windows Easy Transfer:

• An Easy Transfer cable is specifically designed to work with Easy Transfer to move your personal data from an old PC to a new computer.
• Network which is the method I will be using for this tutorial, requires that both PC’s have a network port installed and using a CAT5 cable to connect both computers.
• If you have an external hard disk with sufficient space, you can let Easy Transfer backup your data in a single file.

4. After clicking the Network option, you are asked to identify the computer you are using now. In this case, I am on the new computer.

5. Next you will be asked to install Windows Easy Transfer on the old computer, my old computer is already running Windows 7, so I will click that option.

Our next step now as the instruction says is to get an authorization key from the old computer before continuing.

On the old PC, follow the same procedures by selecting the same method you will be using to transfer your files, with the exception of identifying the Old computer when asked.

6. Once the authorization code has been generated, go back to your new Windows 7 PC, click Next and enter it and click Next.

Entering authorization key on new computer.

Easy Transfer analyzing the old Computer

7. A connection will now be established between both computers and Windows Easy Transfer will do a set of scans on the old PC to determine what can be transferred. You will be able to select accounts and shared files that you might want to transfer.

Creating an account on the new computer

8. Choose Advanced Options if there is some specific options you would like to apply such as Creating a specific account for your personal files on the new computer. My old computer has the account ‘Andre Da Costa’, I would also like that account on the new computer, so what I will do is click in the ‘User account on the new computer:’ list box and click Create User, enter appropriate information and click Save.

New Computer left, Old Computer right, Transfer in progress

Recommendations:

• Do not use the old and new Computer’s during the Transfer process.

Errors during Transfer, you can retry transferring, if you continue experience errors, check all files and click skip and transfer the file or files manually.

When the Transfer process is complete, you can view a report of what was transferred along with what you will need to reinstall.

The time it takes will vary depending on the data set (amount of information) you have stored on the old computer in addition to the user accounts that you might be transferring. I must say the transfer was a success except for an error I had with Easy Transfer reporting Windows Live Mail open on the old computer, refusing to transfer my storage folder. But after loading Windows Live Mail on the new computer, everything seemed to be ok, I could access all my messages and newsgroups  just fine.

Windows 7 (new computer), successful transfer..

And there you have it, an easy, convenient, secure and reliable process of transferring personal files and settings from your old computer to your new PC running Windows 7. My default wallpapers, taskbar layout, account picture, even my Firefox Bookmarks, Windows Live Writer settings were all transferred successfully.The only thing I need to do now is reinstall the applications recommended by the Windows Easy Transfer utility.

Lessons to learn

What I have discovered is that although Windows 7 64 bit will allow an Easy Transfer of personal files and settings from 32 bit Windows to 64 bit Windows, it will not do a vice-versa, see the proof below.

Oh really? I didn’t know that!

Interesting huh? I thought so too, but it brings up the question, is this a sign of the final hurrah for 32-bit Windows? Microsoft has not stopped development of 32-bit applications or operating systems, since Windows 7 will be available in both 32 and 64 bit flavors when its released to manufacturing. It does however bring up the issue of supporting 32-bit technology going forward where Windows is concerned. I asked a trusted colleague Bryant Zedegan, editor of popular Windows enthusiast community AeroXP.org why Microsoft would prevent Easy Transfer from 64 bit to 32 bit computers, here is what he had to say:

In strictly logical terms, blocking migration from 64bit to 32bit Windows likely exists in order to discourage rolling back to an old instruction set. Based on what Windows Easy Transfer is able to migrate, I doubt that there would be any significant issues with allowing for migrating data in the 64-to-32bit direction; it’s just one of those things where Microsoft wants to ensure that migration to x64 happens without users rolling back.

BryantZ

In a sense, the industry has been going through a transition from the old architecture for quite some time. Its something that happens every now and then as advances occur, examples include the transition from 16 to 32 bit instruction set during the the 90′s. 64-bit has been much slower because of early lack in available device drivers and programs that can harness the full benefits of what 64 bit has to offer such as a larger memory address space, meaning the ability to utilize 4 GBs or more of RAM, increased performance and stability. The release of Windows XP Professional x64 in April of 2005 and Windows Vista x64 in fall of 2006 help to boost the transition, a vast majority of Windows based desktops and notebooks now come with 64 bit processors built in and large amounts of memory. Windows Vista 64 bit has also seen greater adoption in recent times. But this does not mitigate the fact that there is still a large deployment of existing 32 bit only systems out there such as my Dell Dimension 8300 purchased back in March of 2004 that I have upgraded over the years and runs even Windows 7 32-bit well with full functionality such as advanced Aero window management effects.

Conclusion and Recommendations

My primary aim was to at least maintain some consistency between both desktops where personal files and settings are concerned. Although I learned a hard lesson, I was able to transfer back some of my personal files and settings manually from the User folder and AppData directory in Windows 7 64 bit to Windows 7 32 bit, I still lost some personalized settings along the way though. My recommendations for persons in a situation similar to mine is to use the create an Windows Easy Transfer file method and keep a copy of the file if you plan to continue using 32 bit Windows on that same computer you transferred from. This creates a safety net for restoring your personal files and settings, although a lot of available space will be needed for storing this information during the transition.

Resources

Step-by-Step: Windows 7 Upgrade and Migration

A Look at Improvements to Windows Easy Transfer for Windows 7

Explore the features: Windows Easy Transfer

Using Windows Easy Transfer in Windows 7 is a post by Andre from Notebooks.com.