Comments on David Alison's Blog: Switching to Mac takes the right mindset

Great analogy! Whenever I find my friends asking m...

2009-08-20T12:17:55.968-04:00

Great analogy! Whenever I find my friends asking me about mac, or comparison with windows machine, I had hard times to show that clearly. What I've done was just saying series of some specific issues different from each other, but you gave me a big shot for that.

Thanks david.

@Eric: I haven't really played BF2—or any of my ol...

2009-07-27T21:36:29.541-04:00

@Eric: I haven't really played BF2—or any of my older FPS games—in over a year. That is the one shortcoming of Macs; you can't just fire up a PC game without rebooting. I've tried playing games under VMware Fusion and with Wine based derivatives and they are really not all that playable. I did have some luck with Team Fortress using Crossover. Unfortunately Crossover doesn't support the game I'd like to be playing right now: Darkest Hour.

So one thing I was wondering is what do you play B...

2009-07-27T19:32:32.351-04:00

So one thing I was wondering is what do you play BF2 on now? I am reading through you blog starting at the beginning so you might have posted about it and I have not come across it yet.

Thanks
Eric

@JT: Nice find on Evernote. Very different than On...

2008-05-02T08:01:00.000-04:00

@JT: Nice find on Evernote. Very different than OneNote but very cool!

@grlgeek & David - give Evernote a shot. It's no...

2008-05-01T12:45:00.000-04:00

@grlgeek & David - give Evernote a shot. It's not OneNote, but it has some interesting features.

@GrlGeek: First off, thanks for being a WebSurveyo...

2008-04-30T14:29:00.000-04:00

@GrlGeek: First off, thanks for being a WebSurveyor customer! I really did love that company and moving on was tough, though I'm excited about getting the next venture moving. Hoping to launch at the end of the summer.

I hear you on OneNote; I used it pretty heavily too. You may want to check out Journler. It's not as flexible as OneNote but it supports the various media types and allows you to do some creative tagging in it. I was going to write up a post on it at some point in the near future.

David,I've been following your blog with interest,...

2008-04-30T14:21:00.000-04:00

David,
I've been following your blog with interest, not only because I was your customer at WebSurveyor but also because I recently made the same switch. I am an IT director in a large school district and just needed something on my desk that worked, that I didn't have to fiddle with daily and that - as an added bonus was enjoyable to use. I was a Mac user years ago, switched to Windows (NT, 2000, XP) and am back again. I started with a Macbook Pro at home, but recently made the leap to a Mac Pro on my desk at work. The first few weeks, I felt like a student who was dropped in the middle of France after only a semester of high school French, I could ask for the bathroom or the bus but that was about it.
However, after a few weeks I’m so glad I took the leap. I have 3 monitors connected to my Mac Pro, and have found Mac replacements for all of my programs except one – Microsoft OneNote. (I’m still trying a few – Curio is good, superior in many ways though lacking some of the features I want.)
Since I made the switch, I have 4 more staff members in my department who have done the same. Since we support both platforms we are saving on equipment costs using VMWare Fusion on our Macs we can each use one system instead of two. Anyway, please continue with the great posts like this one – I’ll continue to share your blog with those who are taking the leap.

That DejaMenu thing is interesting, in no small pa...

2008-04-30T10:20:00.000-04:00

That DejaMenu thing is interesting, in no small part because that's sort of how NeXTStep did its menus. I wonder how that got left behind in OS X.

@Bob D: I don't think Vista is that much of a stre...

2008-04-29T18:07:00.000-04:00

@Bob D: I don't think Vista is that much of a stretch for most people - I've installed and worked with it pretty heavily and while unimpressed overall with the changes, normal day to day activities work pretty much the same as they did in XP. That said, I'm running XP in my VM, not Vista. At least until I find a permanent replacement for Visual Studio.

@Grenamier: It is hard not to get excited about something and not share it with others. It's funny when you think about it; Mac users are generally accused of being smug. Maybe that perception of smugness comes from resorting to people having to say "I love my Mac and it really just works", which is likely less abrasive than "You should get a Mac, it's so much better than Windows".

I've actually stopped recommending Macs to people....

2008-04-29T17:57:00.000-04:00

I've actually stopped recommending Macs to people. I love my Mac, but like you I've come to realize that you can't just drop people into it and expect them to love it right away. They have to want to be Mac users. These days I make it known that I'm happy to support anyone I know who is getting a Mac, but I won't suggest it to anyone who's not willing to learn a different way of doing things.

Your article is quite accurate as far as it goes. ...

2008-04-29T17:27:00.000-04:00

Your article is quite accurate as far as it goes. However, XP users moving to their next machine are going to face significant changes whatever they move to, whether it is Vista, OS X, Linux, whatever. I actually think that the transition to Leopard is easier than the transition to Vista (plus you can always run XP, at least if you buy a copy before Microsoft stops selling them)

DejaMenu is awesome. I've been using OS X for near...

2008-04-29T16:23:00.000-04:00

DejaMenu is awesome. I've been using OS X for nearly 2 years now and I still find great new programs like DejaMenu thanks to the great Macintosh community here on the Web.

Also, Thanks n45800 for the keyboard key bindings webpage. I have been fighting with the same issues as David here with text cursor movement. I'm so used to Windows and how it handles text cursor movement that I'm still fighting trying to learn the Mac way. That page will help a lot.

@n45800: That is a really helpful list - thanks. T...

2008-04-29T12:58:00.000-04:00

@n45800: That is a really helpful list - thanks. The Control-Left and Right arrow will be my new replacements for Home and End. Thanks!

Not to make things more confusing, but OSX apps al...

2008-04-29T12:52:00.000-04:00

Not to make things more confusing, but OSX apps also support many emacs keybindings. ctrl+a to go to the beginning of a line, ctrl+e to go to the end of a line, etc. Here are a list of some..

@Anon: Outstanding! What a great little tip. I jus...

2008-04-29T10:15:00.000-04:00

@Anon: Outstanding! What a great little tip. I just installed it and mapped the activation to one of the lesser used buttons on my Logitech mouse (Cruise Up button). Now I can get to the menu even if I'm all the way down in the lower right corner of my second monitor. Here is a direct link to DejaMenu.

David,You've provided thoughtful advice. I have a ...

2008-04-29T10:03:00.000-04:00

David,

You've provided thoughtful advice. I have a little suggestion for the menu bar and two monitors. Deja menu was created to address that issue. It is a contextual menu which replicates the menu bar menus with a right click in your second monitor.

http://homepage.mac.com/khsu/DejaMenu/DejaMenu.html