Comments on: 23 hours as a Mac user

By: Darren

Darren — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:00:30 +0000

Dave, I will retain my Windows machine. The iMac was a private purchase, the ThinkPad is provided by my employer, and in their infinite generosity should allow me to keep it. There are a few reasons to keep the ‘Pad but last night I didn’t use it… it stayed in the bag.

By: Darren

Darren — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:57:26 +0000

Mike, thanks for the Wifi setup 101

Restricting mac addresses turned out to be unpopular when my wife’s sister brought her laptop to the house one day.

Seriously though, thanks for the keystroke help. Still need to find the # key. No wait, Stu has it.

By: Jason Hook

Jason Hook — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 08:55:26 +0000

I actually prefer the MS RDC client it occasionally has problems but the screen image is better in every way

I’ve got ClamAV, Easyfind, GrandPerspective, and KeyCue installed. Oh and handbrake and Flip4Mac

By: Dave Hay

Dave Hay — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 05:11:40 +0000

Darren

Congratulations on your purchase – as a long-time Mac user ( all of two months ), I can tell you that you won’t look back – EVER!

I’d echo some of the previous comments; the keyboard layout still drives me nuts, especially when alternating with my Thinkpad, but c’est la vie.

EyeTV is rather good; I used it last night to “tape” The Professionals (!) whilst the current Mrs H was watching Coronation Farm ( or was it Emmerdale Square ? )

If you do need to run Windows stuff on the Mac ( shame ), you can always look at VMware Fusion.

The one thing that I’ve found to be awkward is the lack of a decent BlackBerry sync. tool, but that may be less of a problem for you, as I guess you’ll retain your Windows machine ?

Enjoy

By: Stuart McIntyre

Stuart McIntyre — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 04:24:19 +0000

Hey Darren, welcome to the club. Not sure what you use for DVR purposes at home, but consider adding an Elgato EyeTV adapter (especially the Diversity dual tuner model) to your iMac and you have a great TV/DVR combo too…

Hash is Alt-3…

On top of Bill’s list, add Growl, QuickSilver, Adium, Skitch, NetNewsWire etc (all great free apps).

By: Mike Brown

Mike Brown — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 23:43:04 +0000

Also, you should drop WEP in favour of WPA, as the former is reputed to be extremely insecure.

Another change that I made in my own Wi-fi setup was to restrict access to specified mac addresses – that’s “mac” as in network card address, not “mac” as in Macintosh. Check your router’s documentation for how to do this.

Cheers,

- Mike

By: Mike Brown

Mike Brown — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 23:38:30 +0000

Darren,

Shift->Ins has been a deprecated keystroke on Windows for a long time now. Although it does still work there, you should really be using these:

Ctrl->x = Cut
Ctrl->c = Copy
Ctrl->v = Paste

On a Mac, use the Command key instead of the Ctrl key.

A handy Notes keystroke, which you’ll want to know sooner rather than later, is Command->. (i.e. Command->Full Stop), which is the equivalent of Ctrl->Break under Windows.

Cheers,

- Mike

By: Lawrence

Lawrence — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:41:22 +0000

More along the lines of a story last year about the explosion of Macbook users at US colleges – driven by their iPod use, and wanting to buy a computer that went with their mp3 player.

http://pix.motivatedphotos.com/2009/3/23/633733646781460510-thinkdifferent.jpg

By: Darren

Darren — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:50:30 +0000

Lawrence, do you mean the iPod versus Archos argument? No… the story actually started with a chance visit to Comet where a fella from Apple was demoing the iMac and I was extremely taken with iMovie (cos I have 11 years of camcorder tape that I’ve never done anything with). And I started thinking Notes 8.5, photos… and gradually the idea grew on me.

Bill, I’ve installed Skype (can see you on there now) and have an external drive.

Also, I’ve discovered 2 x USB connections in the keyboard so ignore gripe number 3. Hey, where’s the hash key?

By: Bill

Bill — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:41:51 +0000

Now go get:

Cord – MS RDP client
Mac Heist 4 – $37 and includes World Of Goo
Skype (free)
uTorrent (bittorrent clone)
Perrian (Vodecs for movies and sound)

An external 1gb drive (66 quid at tescos) for your time machine backup.

—* Bill