Six months after my switch [to Mac], an update

David Alison's Blog ^ | 08/16/2008 | David Alison

[Swordmaker]

I'm now just past the six month mark since tentatively purchasing my first Mac and beginning to switch away from Windows. At the time I bought my MacBook I had a number of machines in the house, all running either Windows or Ubuntu. What I've tried to do on this blog is provide a kind of running commentary on switching, hitting on some of the challenges I've encountered, the native Mac applications I've found and the general feelings I've had about making the switch.

What I find interesting after 6 months is the impact buying that little MacBook had not only on the way I handle my personal computing but to a large degree the influence it has had on the way I do my development work. You see after I bought the MacBook I found myself doing more and more with it. I had a Windows XP development / gaming rig parked directly in front of me but I was constantly sliding my hands over to the MacBook.

My entire development platform—at the time Visual Studio—was completely set up and I had my after-market libraries installed and was using it to build my next online service business. Even with all of my development experience being Windows based I constantly found myself pushing away from my XP system and over to the MacBook. This was not helping my productivity, at least on the development front.

I rationalized that if I bought a Mac Pro that I could install VMware Fusion on it and use that as my primary development platform. I was obviously hooked on OS X and the idea of having a machine with 8 cores and 12GB of RAM running it was pretty cool. I bought the Mac Pro, placed it in the position of being my primary workstation (pushing the Windows XP machine off to the side) and I was off and running.

I was quickly able to get the Mac Pro up and running with Windows XP and my development environment in a VMware Fusion instance. With a couple of minor exceptions it worked great, providing me with everything I needed to build my web based solutions just as I had been on my native Windows XP machine.

Not long after all this I started to look at Ruby on Rails as an option for development, something that would serve as a replacement for my Visual Studio environment. Why? Much like with Windows itself, I had been doing the same kind of development for a very long time. Given the recent sale of my last company I have the luxury of defining fully the tools I could use to build my next generation of products and I wanted to see if there was an easier way to build Web 2.0-like web applications.

Though it took me a month of getting up to speed on Ruby on Rails I found it to be a fantastic platform for building what I needed to create. With a very English-like language, an extensive library of free plugins, nice Ajax support built in and the ability to get a basic application framework up and running in a matter of hours, RoR was exactly what I was looking for. In two short months I've made far more progress than I did in the 4+ months I spent building my solution in VS .NET / C#.

On top of all that, it turns out most of the core Ruby on Rails guys are Mac people too. OS X already comes with RoR and the fact that I could use TextMate, easily one of the best programming editors I have ever experienced, was a huge plus.

I suddenly found myself using my Macs exclusively. I wasn't even firing up the Windows XP instance because I only needed it for Visual Studio. The Windows XP gaming rig was powered down and resting in the corner, serving mostly as a device to crack my knee on if I swiveled my chair too quickly. Fortunately I was able to find a buyer for it, leaving me without any native Windows hardware (well, my wife and son are still using XP).

Selling the XP rig gave me the money to purchase a MacBook Pro, giving the MacBook to my youngest daughter. She couldn't be happier ditching the Dell she had for it and is constantly using the machine. Photo Booth alone has provided her with endless amounts of fun and she's using the iSight camera to do video chats with her cousin in California.

Then, suddenly, the iPhone became part of our digital lives. When Sprint dropped the ball and our service failed miserably I bit the bullet and bought my wife and I both a couple of iPhones. It's been a fantastic device and my phone reception (contrary to many reports I've read) has been excellent. The best part of getting the iPhone though was watching my non-technical wife not only use it but embrace it completely. Between pulling down her e-mail and doing some web browsing while out shopping, I was shocked by how quickly she took to it. This from a woman that had up to this point in time never sent a single text message. She sends text messages regularly now with our daughters.

She now finally wants a Mac of her own and is going to get one for her birthday next month. I'll be writing about how she adapts to using it as well. Now that summer is winding down and our extended vacations are coming to an end I'll have a little more time to commit to blogging.

[Blue Highway]

Why don't you just bite the bullet and get a Mac so you can actually post something of substance in your criticisms instead of posting assumptions that invariably prove to be wrong?

I am commenting on your own source material it's not like I am making the stuff up. You are providing the material Swordmaker. Since when have I assumed anything or have been proven wrong?

[Swordmaker]

I will let the reader judge for himself the degree to which the author is afflicted with solipsism:

Solipsism? Sheesh. What part of blogging do you fail to understand—especially when the article is intended to talk about what the author's experiences with changing from Windows to a Mac have been? It is entirely appropriate to speak about himself and HIS experiences. I understand next week he is going to commence a blog describing the clipping of his toenails.

Alison, as the ex-CEO of an INC 500 tech company (WebSurveyor), the ex-CTO of the combined company (Vovici) after he and his partners sold their original company, and an expert programer who has a fairly large following of tech types who read his blog about his experiences, might have some fairly good insights about technical issues with switching from a lifelong involvement with Windows to an entirely new platform.

[nathanbedford]

I rather thought you would have responded by listing the number of times that I used the first personal pronoun in my post.:)

[Swordmaker]

Since when have I assumed anything or have been proven wrong?

Every time you post on Mac threads, Blue. You are consistent.

Your assumption that Parallels and VMWare Fusion do not allow the use of Windows keyboard shortcuts by default in this very thread is an example of your ignorance, your making an assumption, and being proven wrong.

You display your ignorance of Macs every time you comment on them. That's why I suggested you get one. Actually using one, as David Alison now does, might open your closed mind and allow you to have an educated opinion to write instead of spouting myths, outdated information, and things you've heard from other equally ignorant of the OS X platform.

[Swordmaker]

I rather thought you would have responded by listing the number of times that I used the first personal pronoun in my post.:)

This commentator thought about it... ;^)>

[Blue Highway]

I am not saying those programs don’t allow Windows hotkeys AT ALL. I just restated what you mentioned about there being a conflict. How is that assuming anything? You were the one yourself that brought up this specific conflict and the blog which wasn’t linked to here provided a solution 2 weeks later.

[cynwoody]

[Swordmaker]

Up until Rush Limbaugh contacted Apple, they weren’t even aware of this flaw? It took the experts at Apple to resolve this as he has his own IT guy that couldn’t resolve it.

I'm familiar with the issue. The problem Rush had was his eMail's index file's permissions were incorrect and could not be overwritten or replaced by correct permissions. It could, however, be written by the system when email was received, moved, or deleted, so his eMail still continued to work. When he did the restore of the deleted emails, the restored folders attempted to delete the index file and force a re-indexing to include the restored emails, but could not properly delete the index file because of the permissions prohibiting file deletion, so the index file be could not be rebuilt because the original file was still there. The fix is fairly easy... but it involves permissions in an area of OS X that the user is not generally allowed to make a change. Therefor, the tech (Rush could have done it himself using the terminal and a sudo command to re-write the permissions) changed the permission on the index file, and then deleted it. The system then automatically re-indexed the email folders and Rush had access to his restored emails.

[101voodoo]

I have an hp running Vista premium. I paid $450.00 for a dual core AMD 2.3 processor, 4 gigs of ram and 240 gig HD. What would I have to pay for a similarly equipped Apple desktop and why is it worth what i think would probably be more then twice as much?

BTW, I have had no trouble with the HP.

[Gaffer]

In fact, this post was written on a Mac Pro....

Hmmmmm......it doesn't look any more superior.

[Swordmaker]

How is that assuming anything?

"So the conflict of Macs inability to run Windows apps 100% within Parallels (First incorrect assumption due to ignorance—Swordmaker) does take away from all the hypesters saying, “Buy a Mac and just run the apps in Parallels and you can ditch your Windows machine forever.” Doesn’t it? You reference Visual Studio as being one of the few apps that has this conflict, but the conflict is OS based (Second incorrect assumption due to ignorance—Swordmaker) not likely an update within Parallels that will solve this issue (Third incorrect assumption due to ignorance—Swordmaker) which would lead me to believe that Visual Studio isn’t the only piece of software that will exploit this flaw. (Fourth incorrect assumption due to ignorance—Swordmaker)

Is that enough?

[Swordmaker]

I have an hp running Vista premium. I paid $450.00 for a dual core AMD 2.3 processor, 4 gigs of ram and 240 gig HD. What would I have to pay for a similarly equipped Apple desktop and why is it worth what i think would probably be more then twice as much?

OK, you paid $450 for the computer. What did you pay for your monitor and for Vista premium?

[merp]

I have an hp running Vista premium. I paid $450.00 for a dual core AMD 2.3 processor, 4 gigs of ram and 240 gig HD. What would I have to pay for a similarly equipped Apple desktop and why is it worth what i think would probably be more then twice as much?

Really! Because that sounds like utter bilge, and hey, when I go to verify your claims, it turns out the absolute cheapest HP they sell ($299) when set up the way you claim, runs me a spiffy $568. With MS Works! Oh, no antivirus or security software, either. That all costs extra.

Or, for less than $50 more than a barely-equivalently-kitted HP a6500z, I can have the $1199 20" iMac, a better software package, a faster CPU, better video, a nicer case, way faster wireless and wired networking, a superior selection of input/output ports (the HP doesn't even offer Firewire), a built-in webcam, and Bluetooth.

And I don't have to deal with a product named a6500z...

[Vinnie]

Might try some HTML on this ‘Rush’ remarks.

I don't know why you have such animosity toward Macs.

I am switching from many years on PCs. Bought an iMac a few weeks ago.
Frankly, got tired of all the security issues.

Boots up fast, no fan whirring noise, no 'clackity- clack' hard drive. The space set aside in my desk for the tower is now empty. Think I'll make some shelves for it.

OSX comes w/ a pretty good photo editor, don't have to go out and find one.
Comes with a secure erasing program so I don't have to go get that 3rd party.
Comes with a dictionary, another thing I don't have to go get.

Just a couple items I've come across in 2 weeks.

One annoying thing I haven't been able to resolve yet is the musical chord when the system starts up. I don't like it and haven't found where to turn it off.

[Spktyr]

You bought a “dual core” AMD from HP?

Wow, my condolences. AMD blows these days.

[Spktyr]

You can’t turn that off, it is the power on self test complete noise, like the beep a PC emits when it starts up (which you can’t turn off on all PCs, either.)

(Posted via iPhone, by the way.)

[blu]

I wish it to be publicly known that Blue Highway is not a relative of mine, I do not know him, and I certainly do not share his views on Macs and Apple.

said the MacBook Pro fangirl

[Vinnie]

Thanks for the info.
The chord really doesn’t bother me but I get up early(don’t want to, just do) and I’m afraid of waking my wife when I fire this thing up.

Apple had (may still) a rebate of $300 toward an iPod with purchase of a computer, so I took advantage of it and got an iTouch 16g.
I have Alltel and am happy with them so passed on the phone.

[Vinnie]

Thanks for clearing that up. We were all wondering whether he was your alternate self. :^)

[Spktyr]

One workaround, if you want, is to hit the mute key before you turn the Mac off, that will set the volume level to zero on startup. It will still chime, you just won’t hear it.

There are also some programs you can get that will do this automatically for you, or even let you adjust the initial startup volume. See: http://www.macinstruct.com/node/138

You can’t turn it off (nor should you be able to, IMHO - it IS a diagnostic noise), but you don’t have to hear it.