Apps

The Switch [Mac Apps]

It has been a little over a week since I made the switch from Windows to a Mac. The switch itself was pretty easy as I did a load of research and came across tons of great resources plus having several online friends who have Macs helped as well. This post is basically listing some of my favorite apps so far and what they replaced on Windows.

When I first started thinking about making the switch the first thing I looked at was the software that I use for work. I spend all my time in a code editor and FTP client and needed one with the features that I already used and maybe more. On Windows I had used Notepad++ for over 2 years and never had a problem with it. In fact I recommended it to lots of people as it had been great to me. I also used FileZilla for FTP for several years which has had its ups and downs but has made several great improvements over the years. Looking at Mac Apps I started looking at not only free apps but also shareware as I wanted the best. I did test a few text editors but as most recommended TextMate has been great and at only $59 it isn’t that bad. Loads of great features and several new ones that I didn’t have in Notepad++. For FTP I ended up going with Transmit from Panic for $30. I had thought about buying Coda (the all in one) which includes Transmit but in the end as I had already been messing with CSSEdit and TextMate I only needed an FTP client and it has also been great. Lovin’ the features and the look. No problems with either. I also got a copy of CSSEdit (through the MacHeist 2 Bundle) which runs for $30 as well. I feel more productive with CSSEdit and how it organizes the sections in a side bar. Between TextMate, CSSEdit, and Transmit I have a perfect setup and have been very happy with the purchases.

I of course have checked out other apps that don’t relate to working and so far love the Mac Community and the apps it offers. Most of the apps I have were bought through the MacHeist 2 Bundle. 1Password ($30) is a great password manager. I had used a few things on Windows including KeePass and 1Password is a must have. Adium is a free messenger that supports a ton of protocols including AIM and Google Talk. As GTalk isn’t available for Mac I gave Adium a try and don’t think I will be using any other (are there others?). CoverSutra ($22) has been the app that has gotten the most use. It allows you to control iTunes via shortcuts, support for Last.fm, displays CoverArt on your desktop, and more. If you spend a lot of time listening to music on your Mac then this app is a must have period. Skitch allows for screen captures and image sharing directly from your Mac desktop. It is simple and fast when you need to share a screenshot without any hassle. Snapz Pro X ($70) is a screen capture and movie capture app to not only capture screenshots but also doing screencasts. I have played with it a little and will more soon as I prepare to do some screencasts for a client but so far it has been great. Transmission is a bit torrent client which so far has worked perfect. It would be nice if uTorrent would just release an OSX version but for now they haven’t. The last one that I just recently started using is Connect360 ($20) which allows you to network your Mac with your Xbox 360. Before I did it through the laptop running Vista however after testing Connect360 recently it does exactly what I need which is stream shows to the 360. Plus it is nice having my iTunes library available on the 360 instead of having to move music via the iPod in the past. Will come in handy on Burnout Paradise (which doesn’t have the greatest soundtrack).

There are a few other apps that I haven’t had the time to fully explore so those have been left out. They include OmniFocus, VectorDesigner, Pixelmator, LaunchBar, iStopMotion, Cha-Ching, and Anxiety. Of course I left out the iLife suit which is awesome on its own. iPhoto has been great when importing recent pictures including Rachael’s 3rd Birthday Party yesterday and although I haven’t fully played with iMovie or iDVD from what I did explore they are going to come in handy in the future. Some of the apps can get kinda pricey but for what they offer they are worth it or at least for me they were (granted the MacHeist Bundle helped a lot with pricing). There are also plenty of opensource apps for the Mac keeping things free. I will have more Mac posts during the week of my thoughts on not only OSX but networking it and other features.

24″ Apple iMac

On Monday I became an official Mac User as my 24″ 2.4Ghz iMac arrived. Granted there were a few problems with FedEx (details below) I was still excited to get it. Honestly, I didn’t think I could get that excited over a computer but I couldn’t wait. I had spent hours looking at iMac/Apple flickr pools and reading lots of great resources on switching. Lets go over the order again. For my first Mac I debated between a MacBook and using my current 22″ Dell LCD or the 24″ iMac. I personally prefer desktops for the amount of time that I spent on it and really love the look of the iMac. I also love big monitors. On my PC I used dual monitors with the 22″ Dell and my old 19″ CRT (that the Dell replaced as main) and grown to love the screen space between the two. The CRT was used to hold my ‘extra’ programs and social app such as Snitter (a twiter app), GoogleTalk, iTunes, uTorrent, etc. Basically used it for ‘play’ and the Dell for ‘work’. The setup worked perfect. Moving on to my new Apple Era. I ended up with a 24″ iMac, 2.4Ghz Processor, and a 4GB Ram Kit from Crucial to max it out.

My first thought after looking at the iMac box was how huge is this thing. Its amazing in all its 24″ glory. After opening the box you are presented with another box with manuals, cleaning cloth, apple remote, wireless Mighty Mouse, and wired keyboard. First was the keyboard which is just amazing and so small. I always have a hard time finding a keyboard that I love and was worried about the Apple Keyboard with it being so slim and the keys so small. However, it came so natural to type on it and the keys are so soft. Next came the wireless Mighty Mouse which is just awesome. After admiring the keyboard for a little bit I got to taking the iMac itself from the box. I was blown away by the size. Sometimes moving up in monitor size you can’t always tell a huge difference but moving from a 22″ to the 24″ was a huge difference and in fact sitting here I still can’t get over it. I love screen space and this is just crazy. Even after only 3 days I find it hard to look at my 22″ and not feel that it is just too small now. It makes me wonder what it is like to sit in front of Chris Pirillo’s setup of 2 30″ screens. The iMac is just so slick, shiny, thin and looks amazing in person. It’s important to note that I had never seen the iMac in person so I really didn’t know what to expect besides pictures. I wanted to get it setup on my desk as soon as I could but ran into a problem. The gap for monitors on my desk wasn’t tall enough for the iMac, it was just over an inch smaller. Which meant that I would have to take apart my desk before I could set it up. Well I wasn’t going to wait for that so I set it up on the dining room table so I could go through the setup and then install the 4GB Ram kit.

After powering on the iMac it started the setup which went smooth and was pretty quick. One of the main selling points for Apple is that the Macs just work out of the box. I always thought okay that’s cool but until you take it out of the box, power it up, and start playing with it you have no clue. I know how many hours upon hours I wasted installing Windows XP when getting a new PC. Spending hours before I could even log on for the first time. Everything you hear about OSX, its features, eye candy, and apps are true. It really is a beautiful operating system that works great on a beautiful machine like the iMac. I am still blown away by some of the features that before when reading about them I always that well that’s a cool feature but never thought about them being useful and saving time. However, you feel more productive and it feels like you do a lot more in a short amount of time on OSX because of some of these great features like stacks for example. Everything seems to be aimed at being more productive and keeping things simple so you can GTD.

I had done lots of research before making the purchase on which apps were the best for what I do and did what I needed them to do so I didn’t spend much time testing apps. I had bought the MacHeist 2 bundle in January so I already had several apps including CSSEdit which I planned to purchase anyways. I also bought Transmit for FTP. I’m debating which editor I want to use but currently using Smultron which is going great so far. I love the whole drag & drop to install aspect of the OS. I am also using my 22″ Dell as a second monitor and its going great. I’ve of course played around with the built-in iSight and some of the Mac Apps in iLife which have been great and I know will get some use in the near future.

Overall I am really happy with the purchase and look forward to life as a Mac User from here on out. I do have pictures in my flickr account but not as many as I had planned as I kept getting distracted. I’m sure that I will have future posts about Apple, the iMac and OSX. I will be posting about what apps that I find useful as a new Mac User sometime in the next week.