One year after switching to a Mac…
Published
August 17th, 2009 by
lagreca
Just like the saying says, 3rd time is a charm. I tried switching to Mac two times before the final time. I am now a full fledged mac user, and am quite happy. Here is a list of things I like and dis-like:
Likes:
- OS is very stable and smooth and does not slow down between reboots
- faster reboots, shutdowns, sleep and wake
- iPhoto is great for managing all of our digital photos
- iMovie is great for making home movies from all of our video clips
- terminal with a familiar set of linux commands (ssh, rsync, etc)
- disk utility for managing disks (partitions, formatting, re-sizing, etc)
- time machine is GREAT for no brainer backups
- AdiumX is much better than Gaim or Pidgin
- preferences are all stored in files instead of a registry
- spotlight and quicksilver
- VNC is built into the OS
- File sharing is easy and make sense in P2P networks
- switching computers is no longer an all day affair. Either use migration assistant or restore from a time machine backup.
- switching hard drives is simply done by using disk utility to copy all files to the new drive.
- expose is great way to view all your open windows, desktop , or just a particular applications windows.
- The mac can be on multiple subnets simultaneously with just one NIC (Windows can have multiple IP’s on a NIC, but they have to be on the same subnet).
- software installs are often times as simple as copying the application to your applications folder
- playing music from remote itunes libraries is easy (unfortunately, this does NOT mean copying music, ONLY playing it).
- growl is a great 3rd party notification system
Dis-Likes:
- inconsistent user interface. Example: Sometimes closing a window closes the app. Other times when closing a window the app remains running.
- wireless seems slower than on pc’s
- mac file droppings left all over (solution for network shares: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1629) (solution for local drives: http://www.zeroonetwenty.com/blueharvest/)
- not able to cut and paste files to move them around the file system, must have two windows open and drag files/folders between them.
- pressing enter when something is selected changes the name, it does not open it
- no GUI application like putty to manage ssh sessions
- no notepad++ like application for editing text files
- no Chrome browser for Mac yet…
- when looking for wireless networks to connect to, Leopard does NOT display signal strength, just network name (solved in snow leopard).