Mac Transition Almost Complete
After my initial frustrating disorientation with switching to the Macintosh, including a couple times where I almost decided to return it, I’ve drunk the Kool Aid and decided I’m now a Mac-head. I won’t rehash all the great stuff about the Mac that so many others have been saying for years, but I think the ultimate reason I’ve decided to stick it out is because Mac OSX is simply a superior operating system to Windows. During the 90’s Windows started to catch up to the Mac and in some ways became the better OS, but Apple’s embrace of a Unix-based OS, combined with their truly world class design sense. Has put the Mac back out in front by a mile, and I don’t really see how Microsoft can catch up without doing something radical. Vive la revolucion!
September 24th, 2006 at 9:52 pm
I have to agree.
Of course, there is more to a “platform” than the OS. But …. Apple has really done a superb job. Now … add to that the experience of using Apple’s developer tools and their frameworks … and you have yourself a truly amazing experience. Core Data, Core Image, Core Animation … It’s all quite impressive stuff.
I’m optimistic about Apple. Something I have not been able to say for about 10 years ….
September 25th, 2006 at 12:00 pm
I’m with ya buddy. Looks like we did this at right about the same time. I still reach for the old PC on the side of my desk once in a while, but at this point it’s only to find some obscure document or a misplaced file. I thought I’d really be using Windows under parallels alot, but i basically never touch it anymore.
September 25th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
Does Parallels allow you to put your VM “to sleep” ? i.e. to suspend the client OS so that you don’t have to start it from scratch each time.
September 25th, 2006 at 12:09 pm
yes, Tom. At least for Windows I can confirm that this works fine.
October 9th, 2006 at 9:19 am
Derek,
It sounds like you turned a corner. Can you shed any more light on the switch from Outlook to Entourage? Have you been able to fully replace your Outlook GTD options/actions?
One other thing: I met with a spyware dude recently who had a pretty negative opinion of iTunes. I spent some time last week looking for an alternative media player. I didn’t find anything that really gets me jazzed. Do you have any suggestions on that front?
October 9th, 2006 at 11:44 am
I actually bailed on Entourage. I didn’t realize it when I bought it, but apparently the current version doesn’t run natively on the Intel platform, which is the basis for my Mac. So it’s rather slow and a bit unstable. I’m now using a combination of Apple’s Mail & iCal along with kGTD for OmniOutliner.
Excel and Word are slow too, but I don’t use them too often so I can live with that for now.
I’m not a guru about mp3 players. I use iTunes and think it’s pretty decent. The best feature is probably that the computer comes with a little remote control, so I can basically use iTunes as my stereo and control it with the remote.
June 30th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
> I actually bailed on Entourage. I didn’t realize it when I bought it,
> but apparently the current version doesn’t run natively on the Intel
> platform, which is the basis for my Mac.
Interesting.
I have to use Entourage, at various places. I have not found its speed on my new MacBook Pro to be at all a problem.