I switched! Updated: Feb 25th, 2008 (RSS) Last week I decided to upgrade my aging notebook with a new one. I saw a good deal at Best Buy for a 1.6GHz dualcore Sony Vaio running Vista for only $550... such a great deal that I couldn't resist going and buying it. I have had a little bit of interaction with Vista at work, but for the most part I was unfamiliar with the OS. It didn't take long for me to realize that I hated it, and I returned the notebook to Best Buy the next day. Meanwhile, MeLisa had recently bought a Mac Mini and she was loving it... and from my time spent with it, I thought it was pretty slick too, so I decided to give Apple a shot replacing my notebook. I ordered a 2GHz Macbook almost immediately after returning the Vaio. So, tomorrow will be a full week since I bought my Macbook, and I figured it would be worthwhile to post my impressions and experiences so far... Before I bought the Mac, I did a little research on my own habits to determine how I actually use a computer at home. Ultimately, I came up with a list of applications and functions that get used on a regular basis and would need to be replaced on the Mac... Firefox Not surprisingly, 75% of my computer time at home is spent surfing the web. I have been a Firefox fan for years, and thankfully this is a no-brainer on the Mac because Firefox is available for that OS. I didn't even bother with Safari... Firefox was the very first thing installed on the new computer. Additionally, I set up Foxmarks to sync my bookmarks between my old machine and the new one (and my PC at work too), so it didn't take me long to have Firefox running exactly like I wanted it to. Outlook/email I have used Entourage (Microsoft's version of Outlook for OS X) in the past, and I have never really liked it. So, I decided to go Thunderbird for email, in conjuction with iCal and the OS X Address Book for calender and contacts. Thunderbird is great (and free), but I did have one minor frustation when I saw that there was no keyboard shortcut to mark items as read (like Cntrl+Q in Outlook). And then I discovered that you could create a custom keyboard shortcut for any app in OS X.... so I just made my own shortcut and everything works like a champ now. Chat I know the Mac comes with iChat, but it only works with iChat accounts and AOL IM users. I still know a lot of people who use Yahoo IM, and I don't really feel like having two clients running. On the PC I use Trillian, but there is no Trillian client for OS X. Instead, I decided to use Adium, which is the OS X version of Pidgin. Installed it, setup my chat accounts and it works like a dream. Very slick and polished. Remote desktop I have to use a couple of different remote desktop clients for home and work, so I needed OS X equivalents of Terminal Services Client and VNC. Did a google search to find CoRD and Chicken of the VNC. Both work like a charm. Photoshop I was still rocking Photoshop 7 on my XP computer, but I use it fairly often. I downloaded an OS X port of GIMP, and it isn't horrible... but it definitely isn't Photoshop either. I will probably go out and buy Photoshop Elements 6 for the Mac when it is released. Easy CD Creator I have Roxio's Easy CD Creator on my XP system, but I don't actually use it too often. Every month or so, I burn a new MP3 CD for my car, but everything else is just put on thumb drives or emailed or whatever. I figure iTunes can do most of what I need for CD burning, but if I find myself needing more, I will just go buy Toast. CDex Another application that I love having but don't actually use too often anymore. I just don't come in contact with too many music CD's now... most of my music comes from the net in MP3 form already. If I need to rip a CD, I will probably just use iTunes. Activesync I have a Samsung Blackjack that I sync with my work and home computers using Microsoft's Activesync. I downloaded the Missing Sync and it works great. Also, on my XP notebook I have been using my Blackjack to connect to the internet through Activesync (and internet connection sharing on the phone) when I couldn't find a wifi hotspot. I was really worried that I wouldn't be able to do this on the Mac, but it was actually VERY simple to set up. I just paired the device through bluetooth on the Mac, and then set it up to connect as a Bluetooth PAN.... turned on Internet Connection Sharing on the phone and my notebook was up on the internet in no time. I think the setup on the Mac is actually smoother than on my old PC, and it is a Microsoft phone. Quickbooks I use Quickbooks to do the accounting for my side business. I am probably going to have to go out and buy Quickbooks again... Office Probably weird to see Microsoft Office so far down on this list, but I really don't use Word or Excel much at the house. The Mac came with demo versions of Office and iWork, and I think iWork will end up being the one I purchase. It's cheaper, it supports Office documents, and the interface seems much nicer. Media (Divx, WMV, etc) I have been using VLC on the PC for a while, and it runs just as smooth on the Mac. Like Firefox, this was another no-brainer. Offline files I have a server at home that I like to sync my notebook to. That way, if anything ever happens to my notebook, I don't lose any of the data. In XP, this was handled natively with Offline Files. OS X has some backup features, but no two-way synchronizing that I could find any reliable info about... so, I went and bought Chronosync, which is now syncing the music, video and photo folders between my notebook and my media server. For everything else on my notebook, I am using Time Machine to back data up to a 260GB USB drive. And that is pretty much everything... I haven't really found anything major I wanted to do on the Mac that I couldn't. Also, installation and setup of everything has been a relative breeze... everything just installs and works very easily. If I have any complaints, they are minor. OS X doesn't seem quite as stable as XP SP2... I have had the system crash on me once already, and I have had a handful of instances where applications have locked up or become unresponsive. Nothing horrible, but I can't remember the last time XP crashed on me. The stability probably comes from how new Leopard is still, but nonetheless... it is an issue that I hope Apple fixes at some point. Also, you can't change the mouse pointer in OS X. It might sound like a dumb complaint, but the tiny black mouse cursor is kind of hard to see sometimes and it is ugly compared to the rest of the OS. Really weird that you can't change the mouse... seems like such a basic feature. Overall though, I am really happy with the Macbook purchase. The hardware is very nice (the battery life is like 5+ hours... really good for that size notebook), and the OS already feels very natural to me. I am not sure I will be able to go back to Windows at home now.