Windows to Mac and back again?

 

It’s quite surprising to see the amount of interest generated by my recent switch from Windows to Mac. People seem very curious about the whole Mac thing. When asked why I made the switch my answers seem a little vague. I guess my main motives were:

  • They look pretty.
  • Most of my work involves the browser and command line, so I don’t care about the OS too much.
  • They look pretty.
  • It’s kinda nice not putting money into the pocket of the evil empire.
  • Oh yes! I nearly forgot to mention, then look pretty.

So now it’s about 3 months since the switch and my old Windows laptop has been retired to my brothers house. So what are my thoughts at this point?

The next time I buy a laptop I will decide what to get based on the price/pretty ratio, not on the OS…

For the most part I really don’t care about the OS, but there are a few negative things that really stand out about the switch:

  1. I really miss SnagIt. I read today that TechSmith, the makers of SnagIt, are going to release a Mac verison of the product, which will be great except for one minor problem. Most of my screen shots come from virtual machines running on my Linux server. I used to capture the images using my Windows laptop via the VMware Server browser plugin. That same plugin doesn’t install on Mac, only on Windows and Linux, so I will have the image capture tool of my choice, but not be able to use it…
  2. That leads on to my next annoyance. VMware Server isn’t available for Mac. I could buy VMware Fusion, but it doesn’t do everything VMware Server does, so why bother? As it is, I use VirtualBox, which I an OK product, but once again, it doesn’t do everything VMware Server does.
  3. I also miss UltraEdit. I’ve been using TextWrangler on the Mac, which is an OK editor, but I really like UltraEdit. When I finish this post I’m going to have a play around with Wine to see if I can get UltraEdit running on the Mac. My attempts on Linux have always proved flawed as there is always some functionality that fails, so I don’t hold out much hope, but you never know.

I’m sure if I were to switch back to Windows tomorrow I would find a bunch of things annoying about it, but for me there is so little difference between Windows, OS X and Linux that it is only the little things that grate on me…

Cheers

Tim…

Author: Tim...

DBA, Developer, Author, Trainer.

8 thoughts on “Windows to Mac and back again?”

  1. tim,
    you might want to give BBedit a try. I used notepad++ when i was “stuck” on windows at work, now i’m on a mac too and it’s tough to get used to a new editor!

  2. Hi.

    I’m using TextWrangler, which is the free version of BBedit. There is nothing wrong with it, but I’m used to UltraEdit. 🙂

    Cheers

    Tim…

  4. Hi Tim,

    Have you checked out FlySketch (http://flysketch.com/flysketch/)? It’s not as full-featured as SnagIt, which I enjoyed using on Windows, but it gets the job done for generating annotated screen and window captures. I also like TextMate (http://macromates.com/) as my can’t-get-this-done-in-vi editor. Neither is free, of course, but they’re nice apps.

    I hear you on the lack of VMware Server, though. If only VMware would include shared-disk capability in Fusion, I’d be much happier.

    Regards,

    John P.

  5. “It’s kinda nice not putting money into the pocket of the evil empire.”

    Are you sure you’re not?

  7. Hi Mate.

    Will command shift 4 not do want you want re snagit?

    Also Snow Leopard does screen recording if every you need a back up for a live demo…

  8. Hi.

    Not quite. I can capture screen, window or region on the Mac, which is good, but snagit does a few things more.

    The region shows me a high-res view of what I’m capturing, so I can be pixel accurate easily. Also, it allows me to automate post capture processing.

    Each solution I try comes with some of the features, but none have then all.

    Cheers

    Tim…

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