Jul 19 2009
Life with Mac – Stuff that Worked
Software. Without it a computer would be an expensive door stop or paper weight. With it, a computer can become far more.
Over time we all end up with our favourite applications that let us do what we need in the way we are used to doing it.
In moving from Windows to Mac I was determined not to just cop-out and install Parallels and XP and just keep using all the Windows programs I was used to using. I wanted to do as much as I could in native Mac.
As a starting point, I went looking for programs I’m used to using in Windows that have an equivalent in the Mac world.
Initially, there are a few commercial applications that I need on a daily basis:
- Microsoft Office – especially Word, Excel, Outlook and Publisher. Office for Mac offers different bundled applications to Office for Windows. While Word and Excel are common, there’s no Outlook or Publisher. I’d expected Word and Excel to be largely the same under both platforms but, in reality, they are quite different. After putting in the learning curve on getting used to the ribbon, I find that the Mac versions implement things quite differently and now I’m learning yet another interface within a same program. As for Outlook and Publisher, just out of luck (more on that later).
- Adobe CS Collection – in Windows I used Photoshop regularly and the other Adobe applications in spurts of heavy use followed by periods of no use. With the move to Mac and a lack of a good way to handle Publisher I’m now coming to grips with InDesign. I’ve also failed to find a good offering for my favourite Windows web editor (HTMLKit) and have decided to move to Dreamweaver as a result. In the end, the lack of some good alternatives has meant that I’m moving more heavily into the Adobe camp. I sort of expected this to happen given Adobe’s long history with Mac software.
- Of course, no conversion is going to be complete and I’ve had to keep Parallels/XP around for a number of particular requirements. More on these in a future post.
Commercial applications get you only so far. Beyond this, there’s many FOSS-style offering that form part of my daily ‘kit’ of essential software:
- Firefox – I probably should give Safari a chance to be my browser of choice but I’ve been using Firefox for years and I’m happy with how it fits together so I stayed with it. In the future, I’ll probably give Safari a longer trial and see how well it suits my needs. My browser use means that I’ve really never needed much in the way of add-on tools so I can’t really comment on how well browser add-ons work in a cross-platform way. (if you want to know if your favourite Firefox add-on works under MacOS let me know and I’ll try it out for you.)
- Remote Desktop (Microsoft) – I have to connect into my servers for various sysadmin tasks and this all happens on RDP so having an offering (direct from Microsoft) is very useful. I have noticed that RDP from a Mac seems a little less responsive than RDP under Windows. Because of that, I may still end up trying out a VNC-based alternative. Stay tuned for more on this.
- RSS Owl – after trying out any number of RSS readers I settled on RSS Owl over a year ago. The way it works suits my needs in RSS better than anything else I’ve tried and I wasn’t looking forward to having to find another alternative. Knowing it was a FOSS offering I took a punt that it might be cross-platform and checked their website – yes, there’s a Mac version. Nicely, the Mac version works almost exactly the same as the Windows version and I was able to just export/import my configs straight across and keep using it as normal
- FileZilla – no self-respecting web developer can live without an ftp client. Many years ago everyone on Windows seemed to just use ws-ftp and I even purchased a version of this back in Win 9x days. For the past few years, though, I’ve been using FileZilla and have been extremely happy with it. Once again, there was a native Mac version and I was able to just cut over without any hassle.
- iTunes – I’m a relatively recent convert to iPod after having owned a range of non-Apple MP3 players. Most of the alternatives I was using sync’d well through Windows Media Player. I moved to iPod about six months ago and, along with that, moved to iTunes in Windows. As expected, iTunes on Mac wasn’t a problem.
- Citrix ICA – my business is an authorised service provider for a few computer manufacturers and some of these companies use a Citrix-hosted application for managing jobs. Lack of Citrix would have been a problem but, again, there’s a native Mac client that smoothed out any issues that might have occurred.
All in all, the biggest hassle so far has been forcing myself not to just take the easy way out when I run into some task that I need to get out of the way quickly by going back to the “Windows way”. Instead, I’ve researched ways to do the same thing under Mac although at times this has resulted in serious loss of productivity (taking half a day to get to the point where I could update a simple web page being one memorable instance).
Still, it’s not like I haven’t done this before – I’ve been a full time AmigaDOS user who converted to Windows; a full time Windows user who converted to Linux, and then dabbled in OS/2; a full time Linux user who transitioned back to Windows (albeit mixed environment as, to this day, I still run some things under Linux); and, now, a primarily Windows user transitioning to Mac.
Probably the most significant difference this time is that my Mac has Parallels and XP installed. I have an easy alternative available if I need it (just run the Windows program under Windows and be done with it). The temptation is always there but as I gain familiarity with Mac it’s becoming less of an issue.
Next up, I plan to talk about the stuff that didn’t make it through the transition and how I’m planning to work around the problems this brings with it.
