Life on a Mac - Five Months Later
It's been about five months since I switched to using a MacBook Pro as my primary machine. So far everything has been going way better than I expected with two notable exceptions.
Email/Calendar - On their own, Mail.app, iCal, and Address Book are really nice and simple applications. However, if you factor in the need to work with Exchange it can be a real mess. I had to do some hacky things like use Plaxo and keep Outlook open on another machine to keep things in sync and even then there was too many outliers to justify the complexity. I finally broke down and ordered Mac Office the other day so hopefully that will enable me to keep all of these things in sync with less complexity.
The reason this is troubling for me is productivity. Previously I did email and daily development tasks on separate machines. This made it very easy to ignore Outlook. When I started using the Mac having Mail.app and VS.Net in separate windows/spaces made it much easier to ignore. Now they are merged together and I have a harder time ignoring email (I am weak, I know).
Blogging - blogging on the Mac is still very weak. Mars edit is OK, but has no WYSIWGY editing experience and offers no ability to configure which features your site supports. The feedback from their supports has been to implement the Moveable Type version of the MetaBlog API, but that is a complete mess and a copout. (note: This is another area where WLW shines. Blog tools can expose which methods/options they support and WLW will auto-configure itself.) When I do blog on the Mac, I use a combination of TextMate and Textexapnder. This requires I write all of my own HTML, but a combination of TextMate short cuts and Textexpander make this almost completely painless. In addition, using a simple template I can tell TextMate exactly which MetaBlog features I need. Nice!
Here is my previous list of software I use on the Mac.
Other applications I have used regularly:
- Evernote - I actually use both the Mac and PC version at the same time to keep some simple notes/etc in sync. I just started to get into this one, but so far I really like it.
- Skitch - OMG, I love this tool. It is free in beta, but as soon as I can send them some cash they will have my credit card number. I have a full post on this in queue, so all I will say is that they (plasq) made taking screen shots fun.
- Cyberduck - I have not yet broken down and bought Transmit. As much as I like it, these days I do not FTP enough to justify a spending money on FTP.
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There is a lot of (rightfully so) hype around cloud computing and web based tools. One area, that I find very interesting which gets very little coverage is desktop computing with support in the cloud . There are three tools that I use all the time which
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There is a lot of (rightfully so) hype around cloud computing and web based tools. One area, that I find very interesting which gets very little coverage is desktop computing with support in the cloud . There are three tools that I use all the time which
Comments
Arik on on 4.24.2008 at 11:44 AM
It will be nice to hear how is to develop in VS over a Mac. I guess that you use some kind of a VM - which one? How is it compared to a regular PC?
Scott Watermasysk on on 4.24.2008 at 11:51 AM
Hi Arik,
Yes, it is via a VM; Fusion by VMWare. So far it has been really nice. The machine has 4 gigs of ram so I dedicate two to OS X and two to the VM.
Greg Hughes on on 4.24.2008 at 12:03 PM
I agree completely about the real lack of a native Mac blogging tool that can come even close to WIndows Live Writer. I run WLW in a Fusion VM and that gets me at least part of the way there, but as far as I can tell there is no way to share clipboard data (image copies or URLs for example)and that's really frustrating when it comes time to write a blog post. Plus of course when you want to add a pic or a file to the post from the hard drive, WLW uses the Windows filesystem, while I'm storing and grabbing things on the Mac. Could be made better - and I hope they do.
Also in agreement on the calendar/email/contacts thing. I'm considering picking up a copy of Office for the Mac and seeing is that makes things better for me. I'm using Thunderbird and the calendaring add-on for that, buy there are some things it just doesn't do well (and other things it does great). Mostly reliability is an issue in my experience. I have to kill and restart it a lot, and it doesn't always recognize calendar formats and other things.
I was also pleasantly quite surprised at how well I have adapted. It was not a whole lot of effort, really. I still like Windows and find it better for a few key things, but in terms of time spent each day, I find myself using the Mac almost exclusively now. It's pretty slick.
Rob Bazinet on on 4.24.2008 at 12:20 PM
I have been a Mac convert for about a year now and see the same things you do. There has to be a better blogging tool in the queue for the Mac. Heck, most other tools on the Mac are better than a PC, so why is the blogging tools so weak.
My solution for blogging from my Mac is to often to use MarsEdit to get the post started or complete if I don't need WYSIWYG. If I do then I have Vista in a Fusion VM with Windows Live Writer to complete the post were WYSIWYG is needed.
Matthew on on 4.24.2008 at 12:24 PM
Have you tried ecto its a pretty nice blogging client. infinite-sushi.com/.../ecto
Scott Watermasysk on on 4.24.2008 at 12:39 PM
@Mattew - yes I have tried ecto as well. It suffers most of the same problems as Mars.
Jeff Putz on on 4.24.2008 at 3:22 PM
I know it's a leap, but switching to Google Apps for me has been very freeing in terms of e-mail and calendaring. It's not perfect, but I don't need my computer, or even Windows. I love it.
sam on on 4.24.2008 at 6:09 PM
scott, your comments reminded me that it was time for my dell 700m to be handed down... I just ordered a macbook for myself...I'm looking forward to using it for dev work and media management.
sam on on 4.24.2008 at 6:14 PM
@Arik - apple runs vista faster...(certain exclusions apply)
www.news.com/.../8301-13953_3-99
Ken Robertson on on 4.24.2008 at 9:20 PM
I actually use two separate VMs... one for dev and one for Outlook/Office. Keeps them separate, but at the cost of an extra VM.
Tobin Harris on on 4.25.2008 at 4:57 AM
I think I must have switched to Mac around the same time as Scott. Like Scott, I'm really happy with things.
I actually went for a 2.2Ghz 4GB MacBook (non pro) and it's been great for most windows things (VS2008, Office etc). However, I reckon next time I'll get a MacBook Pro, as a *little* more oomph would be appreciated!
I'm now moving away from Exchange using Plaxo as a migration intermediate for everything other than email, which Google Apps will manage. Wherever possible, I want to be spending time in OSX rather than windows!
Arik on on 4.25.2008 at 8:18 AM
From what I see in the comments, blogging software is more issue than Visual Studio. Well, in that case - anyone interested in a used XPS1330? :)
sam on on 4.25.2008 at 1:09 PM
and my new mac arrives today!