20 Months on a Mac and Not Drinking the Cool-aid

Someone posted a request on an email list for comments on his thinking about moving from a PC to a Mac. He only wanted replies from people who have switched from a PC to a Mac in the last couple of years. Here is what I emailed to him, expanded and updated for this blog post…

Just a quick note on my experience … I purchased a MacBook Pro in Dec 2007 as my first personal Mac (though I have had others in my house). I used it as my only computer (though with XP running in VMWare Fusion) while I was away on sabbatical in Spring 2008 and in general I found it adequate and continued using it as my main computer when I returned home in the Summer.

Toward the end of summer, however, the hard drive died on my Mac and I had to send it in for replacement, which took a little over a week. During that time, I started using my desktop Vista PC again, instead of the MacBook Pro, as my main computer. When my Mac came back, I had to reinstall everything from scratch, and I found that I really did not want to use the Mac as my main computer again, due to a number of limitations, which I list below.

By early Spring 2009 (possibly earlier) my Mac started slowing down considerably and programs started hanging ("beach ball of death") more and more. This was especially true when I opened more than just a couple of programs. In addition, MS Word started crashing whenever I opened more than one document, and VMWare fusion (running XP) became incredibly slow. I was ready to chuck the computer!

Finally in late Spring 2009, I decided to wipe my Mac's hard drive and reinstall the operating system. At the same time, I decided to install Windows 7 under Bootcamp on my Mac, and gave it most of the hard drive.

I have been using this configuration (Windows 7 and Leopard on two partitions with Bootcamp) for the past couple of months and basically felt that there was not a lot of difference between the two operating systems in terms of most of what I do. If I opened in Leopard, I generally stayed there for most of the day; if I opened in Windows 7, I generally stayed there for the rest of the day. There was one program on the Mac side that I did not have an alternative to on the Windows side, and there were a few on the Win side with no equivalents on the Mac side – so that kind of determined which OS I would open at startup.

Now, however, I found a replacement for that one program on the Mac side and I almost always open in Windows 7. Although I think they are fairly comparable, I think Windows 7 is visually more attractive and has better functionality (especially out of the box without having to buy additional utilities).

Currently, my fastest and most stable computer, is my relatively inexpensive Gateway AMD quad-core Vista desktop. I have had it longer than I have had my MacBookPro and I have never had any significant problems with system slowdowns or programs crashing. It still runs almost like new! (The fan comes on more now than when it was new, but other than that, I love it – and Vista runs great!) And I install a lot of trial software and run many programs simultaneously. In fact, I kind of wish I could get rid of this 15" MacBook Pro and get a smaller Vista laptop instead (which I would upgrade to Windows 7, of course), because I find that my Mac is just too big to easily travel with.

In general, my complaints about the Mac are:

1. Almost nothing is free and some common file management capabilities on the PC are non-existent on the Mac. Freeware programs that I run on the PC need to be purchased for the Mac. I needed to purchase programs to add functions that are built-in to the PC to the Mac. I purchased Default Folder X (so I can do simple things in the open file dialogue box, like rename a file) and Pathfinder (which replaces the Finder application - Mac's version of Windows Explorer). Most of my early frustrations with the Mac were solved when a friend recommended these two programs to me.
   
2. The Mac intentionally tries to be un-Windows. There are a lot of functions that are done in totally opposite ways from Windows just so they can claim to be different, and without concerns for user functionality -- in my opinion. For example, whereas in Windows you can resize a window from any corner or side, the Mac will only let you resize from the lower right corner. Also, in Windows, the menus are part of the widow and move with the window. On the Mac, menus are fixed at the top of the screen. These two less-than-user-friendly design options continue to drive me crazy.
   
3. My Mac will overheats, especially in the summer, giving me the "Black Screen of Death". I think this is why my hard drive died, as I said above.
   
4. My Mac proved to be just as susceptible to the system aging and slow down as it a PC – possibly more so in my recent experience. It also has its bugs. For example, I cannot access to the Ethernet at my workplace using my Mac – and the head of our IT support (a Mac guy) could not resolve my problem. Despite what Apple fan boys claim, I do not think it is superior or more stable to a comparable Windows Vista computer.
   

So anyway, that is my personal experience. I have not drunk the Mac cool-aid and may be selling my MB Pro on eBay this coming year – though so far Windows 7 is mostly running great on my Mac, so maybe I will keep it...

Cheers
Alan

Getting My Macs to Behave on a Non-Apple Router with OpenDNS

This is a follow-up to my earlier "Help, I Got a Mac!" blog entry.

Shortly after I got my MacBook Pro in December 2007, I went to Singapore on a sabbatical Fellowship. There I rented a couple of rooms in a house that came with an ethernet cable on a fiber optic network that was among the fastest (most of the time) and most stable that I have ever used -- much more than I get at home in Flagstaff.

Well, now I am back in Arizona and connecting my MBP to my home router, which also has four PCs and an older, and seldom used, Mac Mini attached to it. To my surprise, while the PCs were running fine on a relatively new D-Ling DIR-655 router, my MBP was having some problems. I frequently got the message that the Mac could not find the server for the web pages that I was trying to connect to. This included www.google.com. I would have to refresh the screen one to three or more times to connect, and a few times it would never connect. This was very frustrating! And it got even more so when my wife got a brand new MacBook and encountered the same problem.

I know that any Mac fanboy will recommend getting an Airport Extreme router (US$180), and I am sure that would probably fix the problem. However, the D-Link DIR-655 is considered one of the best routers available by several computer magazines, and it is supposed to work with Macs.

After searching online, I found this discussion on C-Net.com: http://www.esyurl.com/98o , in which someone had a similar problem, but even worse. They could basically not connect at all. The solution in that email was recommended by a Microsoft support person, who suggested specifically identifying the DNS (domain name server) on the Mac, instead of assuming that it will use a DNS supplied by the router. It went on to suggest copying a DNS address that is found on a PC on the network.

So I tried this. But instead of using a DNS from a PC, I instead used the OpenDNS service, which can be found here: http://www.opendns.com/ - which is a free and highly secure DNS service.

The results have been FANTASITIC! Firefox and Safari both now access websites incredibly fast -- at least compared to what the situations was before. Hopefully this information will help some others who are trying to connect their Macs to a non-Apple router. ... And thank you OpenDNS.

Things, Windows, Mac, Oh My!

A friend recently turned me on to the GTD/To Do List program called Things (http://culturedcode.com/things/), which I absolutely love for keeping track of the many projects that I tend to pursue at one time. However, Things is only available on the Mac, with iPhone and iPod Touch versions coming n June. Thus I am in another Mac-Windows quandary (see my longer blog on this issue).

Things is the kind of program that I like to carry in my pocket -- on my phone, to be precise. I need to replace my Windows Mobile Verizon XV6800, which Things would not work on anyway. I could switch to AT+T and get an iPhone when my current Verizon contract ends in October (5 months from now). I could just get an iPod Touch and a cheap Verizon phone that I currently have. Or I could try to find a cross-platform or web/cloud-based GTD instead of Things.

Trying to figure this out, I tried the web-based Nozbe, which I did not like at all, and Remember the Milk, which I really like as a Gmail addon. Remember the Milk can also be accessed offline using Google Gears and syncs with Windows Mobile and Blackberry.

So currently, I am using Remember the Milk for short term, today and tomorrow, things to do. I use Things for more long term projects. And I am not going to think about my phone quandary until I get back to the US this next month.

Help, I got a Mac! - Frustrations moving from Vista to a Mac

First off, Help I Got a Mac! is the name of a podcast for people who have switched from MS Windows to a Mac, which you can find here. I bought my MacBook Pro last December, and have been using it for the past six months. I have yet to "drink the kool-aid" (i.e., I have not yet become a Mac fanboy). I sent a list of my initial frustrations to the Help I Got a Mac! podcast last January, which became the basis of their 14 January 2008 podcast (listen here - mp3 file).

Note that some of my questions to the Help I Got a Mac guys were misunderstood - mostly my own fault as a newby. The list of Pet Peeves that I sent them is below, along with comments on how I have learned to overcome them in the past few months.

~~~~~~
Hi Cliff -

I got a Macbook Pro about a month ago, which I also run XP through VMWare Fusion. This is not the first Mac in my house, but it is the first that I have used regularly as my primary computer, prompted by Vista problems this past year on an under-powered laptop. Here is my current list of pet peeves in using the Mac. I would like to know if there are utilities or other ways to do these tasks. - Thanks, Alan

FILE + FOLDER MANAGEMENT

- Move files from one folder to another – finder only copies files, which I then need to move to trash.
[To address this pet peeve, I recently broke down and purchased Path Finder from Cocoatech.com which now runs in place of Finder most of the time on my Mac - cost: $34.95. Path Finder is a very powerful file manager that not only matches what I could do on my PC, but well surpasses those capabilities.]

- Moving or Copying a file into a folder where another file with the same name already exists – does not tell me which of the two copies is newer or larger - I need to open both folders and compare the files -- what a hassle!
[Clarification: This is when copying a file to a folder where a file with the same filename is present. They might be the same file, or one might be newer than the other. Windows gives me this information so I can decide which file to keep and which to delete. The Mac give no information other than the file names. I still have no resolution to this -- Any Suggestions?.]

- the Finder Window sometimes gets too long below the bottom of the screen – I cannot grab the lower right corner to resize because it is below the screen – in general, I keep wishing I could grab other corners or the sides [Clicking the green (+) button fixes this. However, if the top bar is hidden behind a menu or is off the top of the screen I am stuck as there is no way to access it at all. There is a shareware program that allows you to grab anywhere on a Mac app window/box and drag it, but I believe that it currently only works on Tiger, not Leopard.]

- Can not change File Names, Delete Files, Copy or Move files when in an "Open File" screen – can not access non-openable files from an Open File screen - I often see files that need fixing while in an Open Files menu, which I can easily address in Windows. [I have been using the trial version of Default Folder X from St. Clair Software for this. I am not yet convinced that it is worth the $35 they charge for it.] [UPDATE 7May08: I used Default Folder X several times today so I decided to go ahead and pay for it.]

PHOTO PREVIEW

- Cannot Zoom photos and images to full size in Preview - can zoom larger, but cannot tell if I am zoomed to full size - because of this, I still use Windows Preview on XP in VMWare to browse and delete my recently taken photos.
[I have three comments related to this:
(1) The reason for this pet peeve is that I take many hundreds of photos when I travel, which I use for teaching. I need to skim through these as fast as possible to decide which to keep and which to toss.

(2) This question was a new user mistake on my part. I confused Cover Flow for Preview. Yes, what I want to do can be done in Preview, but not in Cover Flow, which I was using. I have since learned about Preview and it works well for previewing photos. I was also quite excited to learn that Preview had basic photo editing tools, like crop, color correction, and sharpen - which I use regularly on my many photos - available on flickr.

(3) HOWEVER, I was shocked to find Preview destroying some of my photos when I saved them after editing them. So far, I have been able to crop and save without a problem. But when I color correct and then save, occasionally Preview will save a mostly, but not entirely, black image. Because the image overwrites the original upon saving, the photo is destroyed! This happened about six time before I figured out what was going on. I now only edit color in Photoshop, which I have in Windows XP - and which really works much better than Preview anyway.
Update: I installed Gimp, a free photo editing program from sourceforge.net, using the Wilber loves Apple website and my initial reaction is very positive. I can see myself using this instead of Photoshop.]

- Preview - can not "Move to Trash" when a photo is enlarged to almost full screen – photo covers edit icon where the Trash command is found – Again I use XP's Preview instead because of this. [Again, this is a Cover Flow problem, not a Preview problem - my mistake. Cocoatech's Path Finder has scalable thumbnails, which work much faster for quick previews than the more flashy Cover Flow, which I no longer use.]

- Can not Flip a photo in iPhoto; Can not show a photo Full Size in iPhoto [I use Photoshop Elements in Windows XP, instead]

OTHER ISSUES

- After sleeping a couple of times the keyboard stops working, requiring a restart [I only sleep my Mac if there are only a couple of programs running - this seems to resolve the problem.]

- Can not view images in MS Word – need to open/edit the images to see them - these are probably on files that were created on a Windows computer [There is probably a fix for this out there somewhere, but I have not yet looked for it.]

- One feature that I loved and used often in Vista was the clock. The new Vista clock allowed you to create 2 or 3 different clocks for different time zone. All I had to do was click on the clock on the task bar and I would see these different clocks -- it was great for skyping with friends around the world! [As the podcast guys said, the Widgets Screen can do this by pressing on the + button in the lower left. I did not know was there prior to the Help I Got a Mac podcast. I have since highly customized my widget screen with additional utilities.]

BTW - I agree with you on iPhoto encapsuation – I hate it – I want to be able to access to my photos from a variety of different programs – I want to know where the files are so I can move them, copy them, edit them, upload them, and download them. [I use Photoshop Elements for Windows -- someday I will probably breakdown and get a Mac version of Photoshop.]

Thanks, Alan
***************

Some additional comments:

I like the speed of my MacBook Pro (15 inch). It is the most powerful and capable laptop I have ever owned -- comparable to my desktop PC at home. Unlike that PC, however, my Mac starts up and shuts down almost instantly -- which is very cool.

I push my Mac to the limit though, with all the program I often have running at the same time -- and yes, programs do crash and I do need to reboot the Mac from time to time. I will upgrade to 4gb ram soon, which I expect to help with this. A new Vista computer with appropriate hardware probably runs just as well as my Mac. I think, though, that a Vista computer would slow down over time much sooner than the Mac will -- we'll see. I wish MS Office 7 was available for the Mac, as I use it at work and absolutely love it!

Occasionally I think about just running in XP all the time, mostly because of three programs that I currently have only in Windows versions: Photoshop [though Gimp on the Mac may allow me to uninstall Photoshop], Dreamweaver [I may be able to get a Mac version from my workplace] and Roboform [unfortunately there is no Mac version of Roboform].

I also wish my MBPro had an SD card reader, though that will be fixable with an Expresscard adapter that I hope to buy soon.

I may be a bit of a ludite, as I still miss features in Wordperfect that I loved, but was forced to leave behind many years ago as MS Word overwhelmed my workplace. I will update this blog post as I continue to sip the kool-aid in the coming months.

Cheers
Alan