Archive for April, 2006

04.30.06

Taming the Tiger

Posted in General Ramblings, Mac at 8:44 pm by kkj

I am typing up this post on silver keys, a soft backdrop of pale moonlight glowing through each letter and symbol, screen dimmed to spare my eyes. In the wake of Commodore’s demise, for a decade I’ve been slugging along with Windows on bulky PCs with no elegance or style, just muscle. But no more, ’cause finally supreme and superior design go hand in hand with high-end gear: I’ve bought an Intel based MacBook Pro.

Apart from its sleek looks and raw power in the shape of a 2.2 Ghz dual core Intel chip beefed up with 2GB of memory, my MacBook sports stereo speakers, a magnetic tripsafe power cord, wide screen, light sensors, and a builtin motion sensor designed for harddrive protection, and put to more cool uses by community geeks: how about a car-like alarm, which can be armed and disarmed by the Mac’s remote control, and which will trigger if someone so much as tries to lift the machine?

And don’t get me started on the virtues of Mac OS X (”Tiger”), which is by far the most elegant version of Unix I ever worked with and years ahead of what the Redmond Empire has ever produced. I’ve spent the better part of a month now taming this truly amazing beast and while the task has been daunting at times, it has been worth the effort.



Mac os X with Windows: I named him Garfield - my pet XP

  • Office Software. I use Microsoft Office and Visio - and yes, I have tried OpenOffice too, but it just can’t measure up. Now this is a problem on a Mac, for it’s Microsoft Office versions are slugging behind and the 30 days trial of Office 2004 (!) has too many issues . My company already has a Microsoft Powerpack deal going on, which gives us heavy rebates, and the Mac versions are not included. I solved the problem by installing a VM called Parallels, a truly amazing product which is very fast, and although still in beta, works well. My OS X and my VM with Windows XP now share the same files and the clipboard. I used to use Powerpoint for presentations, but after trying out iWork Keynote I switched instantly.
  • Development tools. Well OS X is Unix so no need to install Cygwin or the like to get a decent set of shell commands. Intelli/J is already ported to OS X, and I used the opportunity to upgrade my license to 5.1. Works like a charm. Instead of XML Spy I got me Oxygen, which is really cool too. Most of the other tools I use are built with Java and do seem to live up to the “run anywhere” sales pitch.
  • IM. I mostly use MSN Messenger these days, and like Office, the Mac version is generations behind the Windows version. Parallels to the rescue again! Yahoo messenger is up to speed though like Skype.
  • Planning.My contacts are now imported into the OS X native Address Book app, and my schedule is in the native Calendar app. I synch my archaic Nokia 6230 over bluetooth with both applications using the native iSynch program. For email I setup both the native Mail application and Mozilla Thunderbird which I used on Windows too. The native Mail uses the built-in address book, and Thunderbird does not. We’ll see.

I still haven’t figured out a way to print to my wireless D-Link printserver from OS X and the manufacturer states rather explicitly that they will never support anything but Windows. Fortunately I AM running Windows (in a window) … and I CAN print from my XP VM so going via the native PDF facilities of Mac OS X, anything can still be printed.

In conclusion it is involved to make the switch from XP to OS X, but it is one well worth the effort!