Thomson’s Mac Tips for Windows users
I like reading what other Windows users who switch to Mac have to say. Ed Thomson writes about his experience and offers some tips. Emphasized are his tips and my comments follow:
Get a new keyboard - I disagree with this one. I like the sturdy white Mac keyboard.
Get an old mouse - I haven’t done this, but agree that the one-button Mouse is not nearly as effective as a two button Mouse with scroll wheel.
Ditch Safari - Ed advocates using Firefox instead, which I’ve begun doing the last few months. Firefox is now my regular browser of choice on Windows too. One thing I like better about Safari is their built-in RSS reader, but Firefox with its continually growing army of extensions is tough to beat.
Ditch iChat for Adium - I have barely used iChat so have no preference here. I’m not that excited about IM, but Adium sounds like Trillian on Windows which is the way to go vs. any single one IM app anyway,
Don’t expect to be able to compile anything yourself and Install Xcode and X11 - I have done almost zero development using the Mac, so this hasn’t been an issue to date. Ed makes good points here though.
Edit /etc/hostconfig and add the line: HOSTNAME=yourcutehostname.domain.com - thanks for the info.
If you’re a graphic designer, wait - the frustration here is with the apparent sluggishness of Adobe Photoshop CS2 on the new Intel Core Macs. Again, a non-issue for me, since I’m not a graphic designer and don’t own an Intel Core Mac. Yet.
Get a wireless card - advice for laptop users
You will not play games - an old and well known dig against Macs. I didn’t buy the Mac to play games, that’s what the Xbox 360 is for. Although I do play a few games on Windows. I do wish Second Life ran better on my Mac, but I don’t blame the Mac, I need more than 256MB RAM. My next Mac — an intel core — will have a minimum of 512MB and probably 1GB.
All in all, I’ve been a Mac owner for a little over 1 1/2 years now and it hasn’t prompted me to want to switch all our systems to Mac, but it has been moved to the left of my desk so I can use it every day. I listen to the radio through RadioSHARK through it, iTunes for music and Colloquy for IRC. I do some blogging through it — mainly this Mac blog. I use Cyberduck for FTP.