I can’t believe I’m here writing this. All my life I never thought it would happen to me, you know? I always thought I could fight it, I wouldn’t be the guy who gives in. I’ve been making fun of the people who do as long as I can remember. The snide remarks, the slightly-less-than-playful jokes. I thought I was stronger than they were, better, cooler. But no – last Friday I gave in… I broke.
My name is Zachary Cohn… and I just switched to Mac.
I’ve been thinking about it for a while. The sleek unibody aluminum design, the efficiency resulting from it all being designed to work together, a unix base under the hood with a user friendly blanket on top. It was pretty tempting.
I threw it all away... FOR THIS!
I’ve been using Windows for all my life. Started with 3.1, then 95, then 98. After a brief stint with ME, I got my first XP box. It was awesome! I knew how it worked, inside and out, I had grown up with it, and life was good. I built a desktop and got a laptop. My desktop slowly became a Frankenbox, my laptop got stolen and replaced with my current one. I graduated college, moved to Seattle, and now only have my laptop. It’s definitely mine, covered in bumper stickers ranging from Streetlight Manifesto to TechTV, American Parkour to Unicycle.com.
But my laptop is dying. It’s old, it’s slow, and last time I tried to install linux on it, it was a disaster (Several pieces of my hardware aren’t supported). A fresh install of XP (won’t run 7) would probably get me another 6 months out of it or so, but recently the battery has gone to hell, it’s been BSODing, fans have been failing, and it’s overheating like crazy. It was time to move on, and I figured with Black Friday right around the corner, I should hold out until then.
I wanted something reasonably state of the art. It didn’t have to be a powerhouse, but I wanted something that wasn’t going to be completely obsolete AND useless in a week. I wanted something with solid state hard drives. They cost a penny or two, but I think they’re worth it. Mostly I wanted something that had a unified user experience, that was sleek and user friendly and all the pieces were designed to work together… so I started looking at Macs.
I spec’d out a specific one: 15″, i5 core, 128gb solid state, 4gb of ram a while ago. Then I waited for Black Friday and watched the Refurbished section on the Apple store. Black Friday came around, and while their deals weren’t that impressive (and didn’t seem to stack with the educational discount), something of interested popped up on the Refurbished section. 15″, i7 core, 128gb ssd, 4gb of ram.
So I bought it. And it arrives later this week. I can count the number of times I’ve used a Mac on my fingers, and now I’m taking the jump. I have no idea how to use one, I don’t know how to install (or even find!) programs on it. But I guess we’ll see how it goes…
I’ll be using this blog series to chronicle my experiences learning to use a Mac. Check back when I receive my new laptop later this week for Part 2 of ???
This is pretty close to my switch. I’ve used linux since 94′ (as my main workstation) and windows desktops since 95; Never once was I interested in the mac experience. After tiring of linux driver issues (not really at the fault of linux developers), and not having the time to hack my own anymore… Feeling uncomfortable in the windows development environment, and appreciating the fact that i don’t have to spend 800$ on xcode etc. I decided after my younger brother made the Mac jump maybe I should give it a try; after all I can’t show my age, and I should maybe attempt to accept change :).
So I went to apple store online, used my employee discount and purchased a brand new 13.3″ macbook air.. I really do love this machine, it’s an engineering marvel in terms of laptops IMO. The OS itself….it’s just ok so far, I don’t find it as intuitive as everyone says…maybe I’ve been spoiled by years of apt get who knows? I’m learning to like the UI and like most interfaces they tend to grow on you.
I’m currently working on a game for iOS and a cocoa app for my mac…So far so good. At this point in time I’m glad I made the switch and I don’t believe I’ll be making the trip back. Oh one of the hardest things I’ve had so far is finding replacement applications for things like inkscape and gimp etc, most don’t feel as well made (might pay for pixelator). Macports are a life saver too. I’m working my way to the finish line on gui tools though, and I’m happy I spent the $ for textmate even though it’s future may not look totally bright. I’d be curious to hear about alternative applications you will end up using. I’ll stop rambling now because my grammar and spelling blow.
I was thinking about one of the new Macbook Airs, but I opted for the Macbook Pro simply because it was going to become my primary machine, and I couldn’t see myself using that as a primary.
What are some of your favorite sites to use for mac applications and stuff? So far my plan is Step 1) Google. Step 2) ???. Step 3) Profit?
I switched a few years ago, now I wouldn’t consider a windows computer, although I own several but whenever I use them I really wish I would be on my mac again.
I usually go with Zacs plan for finding software, well that and twitter.
You don’t really need any for the general things but for producing documents I use iWork or Office both of which you can get from apple.com. For coding I use TextMate from macromates (although I’m moving towards MacVim) or xCode (which is on your install disks), for ftp and such I use Transmit and for design i use Omnigraffle (like Visio only.. better) and the Adobe Creative Suite.
Good luck.
Yep, told ya ;) I can help you get sorted with customizing and apps, iusethis is my favorite site for just browsing what’s popular and available.
@Zac Google and definitely twitter (http://twitter.com/textmator has text mate tips and occasional useful apps tweeted) I’ll have to check out iusethis like Tyson mentioned. I don’t really have a lot of useful sites at my disposal so far since I’m still learning my way around :)
@Karl I’d like to try Omnigraffle but I’m having hard time parting with my currency :)
BTW if any of you guys use git you should check out tower git (it’s free in beta) seems pretty nice so far http://www.git-tower.com/
I switched a few years ago, now I wouldn’t consider a windows computer, although I own several but whenever I use them I really wish I would be on my mac again. I usually go with Zacs plan for finding software, well that and twitter. You don’t really need any for the general things but for producing documents I use iWork or Office both of which you can get from apple.com. For coding I use TextMate from macromates (although I’m moving towards MacVim) or xCode (which is on your install disks), for ftp and such I use Transmit and for design i use Omnigraffle (like Visio only.. better) and the Adobe Creative Suite. Good luck.
@Zac Google and definitely twitter (http://twitter.com/textmator has text mate tips and occasional useful apps tweeted) I’ll have to check out iusethis like Tyson mentioned. I don’t really have a lot of useful sites at my disposal so far since I’m still learning my way around :) @Karl I’d like to try Omnigraffle but I’m having hard time parting with my currency :) BTW if any of you guys use git you should check out tower git (it’s free in beta) seems pretty nice so far http://www.git-tower.com/
I was thinking about one of the new Macbook Airs, but I opted for the Macbook Pro simply because it was going to become my primary machine, and I couldn’t see myself using that as a primary. What are some of your favorite sites to use for mac applications and stuff? So far my plan is Step 1) Google. Step 2) ???. Step 3) Profit?