I’ve been a loyal Windows user since I was in grade school. My job is mainly a Microsoft shop. I cut my programming teeth coding in ASP and .Net. I’m addicted to Outlook & OneNote for my personal email, task tracking and calendaring. Apparently at some point, I sold my soul to Bill Gates.
A few months ago I took a leap and bought an Intel based MacBook. I was attracted by the laptop’s power and small size. But the deciding factor was Parallels, which lets me return to Windows whenever I crave a Microsoft fix.
I’ve been very happy with my MacBook, but there have been some drawbacks to the switch.
Plusses
- Hardware: The MacBook is fast. Maxing out the memory makes it insanely fast.
- Parallels: My virtual machines run just like additional computers, wrapped up in tidy application windows.
- Quicksilver: This Swiss-Army-Knife app makes programs, files, basically everything accessible with just a couple keyboard strokes.
- Attention to detail: Apple makes common tasks easier. Simple things like touchpad controls are more intuitive. It took less than five minutes to connect to my wireless network.
- Apple Care warranty: I had to return the laptop for service, which is a negative. But I had it back in my hands within 72 hours of calling support. Unreal.
- Better apps: OS X apps and utilities are flexible, imaginative and tailored to usability.
Minuses
- Printing: Setting up a printer is way too complex. Setting up a Windows-attached printer over my network proved impossible.
- Basic networking: I’m running a Windows file server. Managing SAMBA connections on the MacBook are a pain. They disconnect regularly. Mapping a drive is so much easier and more reliable in Windows.
- Application networking: OS X applications aren’t geared towards working with networked files. iTunes, iPhoto, and other apps seem to count exclusively on local files.
- MS Office: Like I said, I’m hooked on Outlook and OneNote. The Mac Office suite is miles behind the latest Office edition. I haven’t found worthy replacements.
I’ve also recently switched, and like you, I live in Outlook and Onenote.
There are no “easy options” (indeed, I’m still using onenote through parallels) but you do have a couple of options.
Entourage on Mac (their outlook by MS) has the project functionality that Outlook doesn’t have – which is very amazing. The crap factor here is the lack of integration between Entourage and OnenOte on a parallels installation.
However, after testing just about every note program for the Mac there are a few good options.
NoteBook – this has some level of entourage interaction like onenote. It’s no onenote, but it uses alot of similar functionality.
DevonThink – king of the mac note taking apps – it’s complicated but very useful if you get it going.
Yojimbo – a cheap middleground. Not as robust as either, but much easier to use.
Good luck! (I also gave up on printing. What I do now is setup a foldershare (foldershare.com) and then use logmein.com to print from my desktop.
[...] One of my big complaints about OS X is the difficulty I’ve had working with network file shares. Windows XP does it well. Pick a network file path, give it a drive letter, and then it’s available everywhere just like it was an internal hard drive. [...]
You can print via bonjour services…google “bonjour parallels printing” and it should bring you to the right post.
I’m still trying to find a worthy replacement for OneNote
Devonthink just doesn’t quite cut it.
I too was a slave to Bill gates for 20 years and recently (on impulse) bought a MacBook – I love it. I have had no issues with networked printing. I have a HP Laserjet 2605dn networked printer which takes about 20 minutes to setup on a windows machine and 5 mins on the mac (if that) – it never fails with the mac but fails with the windows machines occasionally. I also have a local HP laserjet attached and shared to a windows machine and the mac just uses it as any other windows machine would do on the network (given the PC is running of course).
My biggest gripes are:
1) lack of EASY backup unless you subscribe to .mac 2) Finder is crap compared to windows explorer – moving files and folders is much more tedious in the mac environment – I want a tree structure with all the branches visible
But i love:
it is fast fast fast it doesn’t crash (well very very very RARELY) installation of software is a dream I am quite taken with Entourage but then I have never used one-note it is so so intuitive
I find however that I am still not sure of what is happening underneath it all whereas I was very familiar with what windows was doing – I am sure this is just ignorance on my part and just requires some learning
the keyboard on the macbook is just too minimalist – particularly for navigating – and get one where the keyboard is backlit!
Parallells is FANTASTIC though i am not yet comfortable enough with virtual machines to trust it with really important files yet but running in coherence mode makes all the difference
and of course copy-paste is still an issue from parallells to mac particularly with things such as visio objects
BUT overall for the quality of the hardware and the price of the laptop I still think that even if you are running just windows it is a great machine – I intended to do just that – the salesman said i’d play with OSX and like it and eventually use little else and he is right!!
I develop on a Mac exclusively in a large Windows shop. I use VMWare to host a single server product only.
For Sam 1) try SuperDuper! backup (and Time Machine might be nice in Leopard) 2) Finder is awful (Apple’s blind spot) – try Pathfinder.
For n/w printers, http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301397
It’s a nuisance having to delete and redefine the printer every 3 months (corporate mandatory password policy) just to change your password, but it works.
Yojimbo has a different purpose than OneNote, but it is addictive, although, to be honest you could probably do most of it with Spotlight tagging. I like it though.
MS Office is ok, but Entourage doesn’t feel like a Mac app. It’s pretty much required though for decent Exchange calendar integration.
Consider CoRD to connect to Windows Terminal Services.