Apps UI ... continued

Application UI on the Mac is interesting. The goal for most application UI appears to be minimalist approaches. For many apps there are not any tool bars .. just a title bar and the app. Everything is controlled through the standard mac menu bar at the top of the screen ... or through shortcuts.

The little button in the top right helps to minimize any menu bars down further which in turn create more space on the screen. I kind of slammed this in an earlier post a few days ago but then I thought ... maybe that makes sense.

I have since gone through and minimized most of my apps to just a title bar. I have found that I use the menu bars far less than I thought. It seems once I get all the settings the way I want it then I don't mess with most of the available options. I also tend to know short-cuts for many common functions.

Obviously, applications such as MS Office are an exception.

However, there are some UI elements that are just bizarre (we will ignore the atrocity of Mac:Office). Some apps have multiple toolbars controlled by these weird text bubble icons. They kind of remind me of the MS Office 2007 ribbon ... but more poorly done.

Also the green plus acts strange. Sometimes it maximizes the window to the full screen but sometimes it just makes the window bigger. Hitting it again shrinks the app to only visible content. This again seems like a screen saving measure.

Suffice to say .. the conclusion is that apps and the Mac in general is intended to take a minimalist approach to everything. Show only what you need and keep the content relevant. This actually makes some sense. However, I have found it frustrating when I can't find what I am looking for ... since it is hidden in some menu somewhere ... wait that sounds like Windows apps also .. haha.

Apps are formatted much like all of OSX with the ugly grey everywhere. I still think Aero is much more engaging and beautiful experience.

Apple Crumble

I think that Google should have a 'throwback' version of Android and call it Apple Crumble. Maybe some kind of anniversary edition. Anyway ... aside from that I finally killed the Mac today.

It totally locked up ... and this was after I closed all apps ... I got the beachball, pinwhile, gay pride thing and it just spun forever and ever and ever and ever...

Being the mac newb that I am ... I didn't know what ctrl-alt-del equivalent on the Mac was so I eventually just hard powered it down. It was sad.

Final uptime was about 27 days for the machine. Not too shabby.

I hope not to have too many more of those.

Fail Whale - In the Spirit of Halloween

iTunes has plugins! Whoa!

My music collection has lyrics in most of the songs. I have been using iTunes on the Mac but really missed the ability to see my lyrics like in my Windows based players.

Then lo and behold ... direct from the Apple site are iTunes plugins to display lyrics in a myriad of ways. Actually ... they seem more like little apps that run in conjunction with iTunes and less of what I would call a 'plugin'. Either way ... yay!

I noticed that Apple has lots of little apps, plugins, widgets/gadgets, enhancements on the apple.com site. however, the interface for reviewing and learning about these are terrible. The site is pretty awful. I found many things with broken links, non-updated, terrible UI, etc...

My guess is that Apple hopes to remedy that with the Mac app store. In the mean time I am happy to have lyrics display on the Mac!

Apps

Alright. So what about apps?

This is a follow-up to the to my last post about the OSX registry ... errm or lack thereof. Apps are really easy to install. You open an archive and drag it to your applications folder and begin using. It is really easy.

It seemed to easy at first. I kept waiting for an install wizard to pop up .. Read my EULA and hit next next next finish ... watch some bars move across the screen and possibly a reboot before I could begin using my app. Instead I just dragged some icon to a folder and begin using... this still feels odd.

It goes beyond that experience though. I have not had to reboot for any app installation (except for a large system update by Apple).

Deleting apps is the same way. I select the app and move it to my trash .. boom it is gone. No add/remove programs, registry cleanup, uninstall wizard ... and no reboot!!

Now apple is talking about having an App store similar to that of their iPhone. I actually like this idea ... so long as they don't make this the only place to get apps.

I think the combination of an app store along with the ability to install from disc/web at any time is a great idea. The app store has many advantages:

• Single source for updating apps
• User reviews and comments
• Single repository for comparison
• Enhanced UI, security and other features 

There are some outstanding questions such as license use on other machines or even across platforms. For example, can I buy an app and use it on my phone and computer?

I have said for a long time that I feel like MS should have leveraged their auto-update systems in Vista/Win7 for the same purposes. How amazing would it be for developers to register their apps with MS and then all products on machine get updates through a single repository instead of every app bugging me for updates.

Register This! Cha Ching!

 Alright ... so I went searching for the OSX registry recently .. I was just curious. So ... at this point Windows users have a headache from the word and OSX users are laughing. There is no registry on a Mac. WTF? Huh? Where is everything stored and how?

Honestly, I still need to learn more about the OSX files system, OS etc.. But from what I can gather everything is stored withing archived packages .. sorta. When you install an app you just open the .dmg (what the hell is that? damaged file?) .. then you drag it to your 'applications folder' and it just runs. All settings are stored within itself.

However, it seems some apps do integrate more fully into the OSX environment. Again .. I am not sure how all this really works. If anyone has links they want to share then that would be cool.

But .. what does this mean? No registry cleaners, rootkits, registry malware, registry slowdown, bad settings, or all the other registry nightmares you can imagine. I think life without a registry is money!

Approves of this .dmg.

Slow it up!

Oh no! The Mac had to 'think' for the first time today. The machine slowed down and I got this little beach ball umbrella looking thing. It wasn't for too long and was just processing. It did it a few times and then kicked into another gear ... that was nice.   :)

What? Oh .. what apps was I running when this occurred?

• Multiple Finder Windows
• Dropbox upload
• Mac Mail
• iCal
• iTunes up and playing
• Excel
• Word
• Photoshop
• Illustrator
• Windows XP Virtual with apps running
• Adium
• Filezilla
• Acrobat
• Razor SQL (SQL Developer Application)
• Firefox
• A few other things (terminal windows, text edit, photo preview)

Yes... it was a crazy productive day. I was jumping through apps, writing sql, creating reports, analyzing data, printing docs, checking mail, scheduling meetings. I just didn't close stuff. lol.

A couple additional notes. At no time did the music pause, skip, burp or other. The backgrounds continued rotating without stutter. Nothing crashed. I did end up closing a couple apps though.

20 days, 11 hours

What is this number you ask? That is the current up-time on my Mac. How often do you go 20+ days solid uptime in Windows? I don't know ... feels like I reboot all the damn time which just pisses me off because I am always in the middle of something.

I have to say .. OSX has only asked me to reboot one time. That one time it saved the current windows position and state of everything running ... did its reboot thing and came back just like I left it. I didn't even know it did this. I assumed it would just close apps and such .. shut down.. come back .. and I start over opening all my stuff.

Admittedly... I was pretty shocked by this. I keep wanting to do it again .. but don't want to kill my up-time. I will just wait until I need to reboot again. Please power stay on ..

I will post every so often as I break new uptime records.

Of course ... my Droid X is running at 24.5+ days of uptime right now. Android vs OSX uptime .. fight!

Update:  It happened. The Droid X rebooted today. It ran for 25.75 days without a restart, reboot, battery pull ... etc... Pretty awesome I think. Let's see if the Mac catches up.

Turn Left in 500 Feet ...

Let's talk Window Navigation ... 

Okay ... so I am still struggling with window navigation. I totally dig corners, spaces, and expose. It really makes managing lots of apps more convenient. I generally group like items together and can jump between them.

However, I really miss alt-tab functionality. What is up with the not being able to alt-tab to minimized items. What is the minimize anyway?

I've come to the conclusion that it is supposed to work like this ... Open windows are things you are working on now and can alt-tab between quickly. Items that are minimized are intended to come back to and work on and thus not in the alt-tab because it is not a pressing item. Of course I could just hide windows ... which is that like the boss button.. quick hide my blog entry .. lol.

Maximize is another weird area. OSX does not like maximize functions. It really wants you to work in 'Windows' ... see what I did there ... anyway. I prefer to work in windowed spaces so this is not a problem but there are times I want full leverage of my screen. For example, when working in Excel with lots of data ... I want the whole view. Often I have two excel apps open on multiple screens comparing data and they both don't want to maximize. I just drag them to most of the space .. it is an unnecessary pain though.

I miss some of the Win 7 features like throwing things to the top or side. I miss the ability to view thumbnails of minimized items (in a size I read .. that little icon in tray sucks). I miss maximize. I miss shake to minimize ... .... just kidding .. shake is kind of stupid. I miss the Windows Aero ... the Mac Grey is pretty ugly compared to the beauty of Aero.

I also kind of miss being able to resize any window from every side .. but this is also kind of wasted space. I like that the Mac windows are so minimalistic with menus and borders. I always find myself changing settings in every MS Windows app to small icons, no text, smaller ... etc.

Lastly, I use a lot of apps and jump between them often. Sometimes I find the 21.5in screen constraining. I would love to jump to the 27in model.  :)

Oh wait ... forgot about the button in the top right corner. I have found little to no use for this button. It minimizes the toolbars and leaves only the menu bar. That is cool for some things and if I remembered it was there I might use it ... but doubtful. Most interfaces are already pretty minimal.

Finders Keepers

The jury is still out on finder. Some days it is really working for me and other days I can't seem to find anything. I keep playing with the different views trying to find one that I like but it just seems like something is missing.

It could be that I am really used to using Windows Explore for navigating my files. Folders are always grouped together at the top or bottom.

One of my big compaints is that I cannot type ahead to get to the folder I want. Well ..I can but I cannot open it. So if I have dozens of folders and know that the one I am looking for is 'School' .. I can just type that into the window and it goes to school but then I have to use the mouse to actually open the folder.

In Windows I can just hit enter and keep drilling down. It is very fast. Also. I don't like how names get cutoff so easily. It is kind of a pain .. especially since I sometimes give things long file names.

A few other things. I really miss the thumbnail previews that for photos and music that Windows provides. Windows also has the task bar that allows me to see all my Explorer windows grouped together to quickly find stuff. Figuring out what Finder windows are open and where is a pain.

I don't know. Finder works .. but just seems to missing the extras that Win 7 has ... and that I am used to.

Maybe I am missing some super finder feature somewhere??

Edit: Okay. Got the thumbnail thing figured out. Sweet. It still doesn't seem as smooth as Win 7. I like the order of column, rows ... sometimes the icon interface is kinda crazy. It also drives me nuts that it doesn't auto resize/order.

Expelliarmus!

I hear the word echo as the mighty mouse flies from my hand and on the floor. I watch it squirm for a second as the little red glow under its belly dies out. I look around for the culprit savior of my woes with the Mighty Mouse and who should I find sitting in the spot once held by the mighty?

Enter ... the Magic Mouse. Armed with an arsenal of spells and a bag of tricks, I was immediately overwhelmed with the simple yet complex nature of this new creature. At first glance it doesn't seem like much .. no buttons to speak of and no scroll wheel... Okay enough of that.

Really though ... the Mighty Mouse was awful and was so glad to be rid of it. Maybe it was awesome like 10 years ago when it came out but today it is barely a step up from offering a mouse with an actual ball in bottom. Right click was terrible and tracking was awful. It was getting replaced one way or another.

The magic mouse is a whole new beast though. It looks like a hovering sports car from the future. Sleek, tiny, aerodynamic,  with simply curves. Sexy. Yes .. I called a mouse sexy. My first thought was this is going to be a pain to use. It is too small, no ergonomics and where was my tactile feedback for scrolling and such.

I began using it and it wasn't so bad. At first scrolling was a little awkward but I quickly got used to it and adjusted the sensitivity to my needs. The tracking is excellent. It is very smooth, responsive, accurate, fast, and works on almost any surface.

However, I quickly found out the mouse was very limited. It could only perform a few functions. Left/Rick Click, 360 scroll, and back/forward..... see anything missing?

How about a middle click ... it doesn't exist? WTF. Then I came across an app called Magic Prefs that opens the magic mouse to a huge range of possibilities. I can do more actions on this mouse than anything I have ever owned. It is incredible. I was still worried about daily use though and feared it would hurt my hands/wrists after long use.

I find this has not been the case. I can hold it a few different ways and since the whole back is touchable it can just reach over and lightly pet the back like a hamster and magic happens.

I will see how the ergonomics hold up after serveral weeks of use.

Overall, I am impressed with the mouse... much more than I expected to be. Don't get me wrong .. it is no Patronus Charm ... well for some it might be ...

Reflections

I tell you. I really love the iMac form factor. Everything is integrated and tidy. The screen is gorgeous. My wireless peripherals should arrive this week which will make everything even more tidy.

The system is pretty darn fast with a core i5 and 8gb of ram. I want to pop in a dvd after work just to use the disc drive ... but seriously ... I can't remember the last time I used a disc drive. Everything is USB drives, email, and cloud storage for me.

The camera on board is also pretty slick although I have never used it for anything useful .. just fun. There is a paranoid side of me though that wonders if Big Brother or someone else is watching me .. Sometimes I want to put a piece of tape over it.   :)  It is okay .. I am not that paranoid..... am I?

But .. yes there is always a but. I do have some issues such as the audio port and the usb port location. I would really like some more easily accessible side ports. I guess that is what the USB ports on the keyboard are for though. I can get past all that ... the machine is easy to turn around.

The big thing is the screen. It is gorgeous but it is so shiny! Seriously, who needs the camera or a mirror when I can just look into the screen of my iMac and see myself. Today I have these white shiny buttons on my shirt .. kind of a pearl look (not country pearl snaps) and the reflection from the screen is awful. I don't see letters ... just these shiny buttons blinding my eyes ... I turned the brightness up and that helped but man this screen gets bright ... Blinded by the Light!! Revved up like a Deuce ... it is Deuce right?

Anyway ... I want a less shiny screen or maybe I should just change shirts?


Edit: Maybe it is a security feature by Apple so that I can see if Jason or the Earth Band is behind me! 

1900 or 1904?

I just went through some fun wall banging trying to figure out why copying and pasting a date across two spreadsheets ended up with different dates? WTF is that?

In other words I would copy '09/22/1979' and end up with '09/01/1975' .. or something like that.

Well ... Excel can calculate the date based upon 1900 or 1904. This is set in advanced excel options for each workbook/file. Here is the MS support doc:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/180162

Let me copy/paste the main problem:

By default, Microsoft Excel for the Macintosh uses the 1904 date system. Because of the design of early Macintosh computers, dates before January 1, 1904 were not supported; this design was intended to prevent problems related to the fact that 1900 was not a leap year. Note that if you switch to the 1900 date system, Microsoft Excel for the Macintosh does support dates as early as January 1, 1900. 

So as I was switching between Excel in Mac and Excel in Windows because Office for the Mac is a piece of sh*t and because I wanted to use more complex features ... I ran into date problems.

Edit:
Okay... I want to be clear on a few things.

1. The setting is saved in the Excel workbook .... So sending files back and forth across Windows/Mac and with other people is okay. It will keep the setting and calculate the date correctly. 
2. The issue only occurs if you are copying/pasting dates across different files (Excel Workbooks) where the setting is different in each file. 

Lastly, The MS support doc has more detail and some tips/tricks on working between files. 

Office for Mac

Is awful. F****** awful.

End post.

Headphones vs. Speakers

Seriously Apple.... What is up with the inability to toggle sound output sources.

Okay. Here is the deal. I am using my iMac at work. Generally, I use headphones but at night and on weekends I like to use the speakers. The iMac internal speakers are pretty awesome. I like them.

Sound Panel

However, there is not a way to toggle between the output sources. There is even a screen that makes it looks like this is possible (prefs - sound) but when you plug in headphones then all other options go away.

So I have to plug the headphones in and out everytime I want to use them. Now this isn't that big of a deal except that Apple made the headphone port in an inconvenient location. I have to reach behind the system or turn it around in order to find the correct port. I don't get it.

I searched the issue thinking that I had to be in error. It turns out that that I was not in error ... sadly. In fact, I found complaints dating back up to 5 years. Really Apple? You can't fix this issue? It turns out that the most preffered fix is to buy this thing called the iMic by Griffin which plugs into the USB port. This provides two more jacks via USB. Then you have to use a special piece of software to control the outputs. All of which cost ridiculous money ... like everything else with Apple products.

I don't know. Some of you may think this is nitpicking but I find it to be an unnecessary annoyance. Put the headphone jack in a convenient location or give me a toggle switch or something. It is not that big of a deal and something that most Windows systems have had for years and years.

I think I will save my cash and just plug the jack in when I need it .. or maybe just hook up the speakers with my old system and split the signal... starting to lose the beauty of the minimalistic design.

Apple ... Pie? Nom Nom ... Thoughts.

Where do I begin? I have finally been putting the machine through some paces and it is holding up very well. In short my current conclusion is that OSX is better than Windows XP but not as good as Win 7.

I have not had any compatibility issues yet. Hooray! A list of  some things I like, don't like or just want to comment on.

• What is up with Command-Tab. It doesn't scroll through items that are minimized? Why? This seems like an obvious fix. I have decided to use spaces and keep most things open on different spaces divided by category. This works pretty well. I thought Expose would do the trick but it only works for your current space. This doesn't help when switching between Windows. 

• Some of the finder views still seem foreign to me but I am getting used to them. I noticed that in Icon view the icons do not dynamically realign. This is annoying. Also the folders are just kind of mixed in with files. I am used to folders coming first or last ... again something to get used to. 

• The time and date is in the upper right corner instead of lower right. It does not open a calendar view when I click it. Boo. Then I found dashboard shortcuts! Yay! I like the way dashboard better than widgets. Pretty slick implementation.

• Mini display port for using a second monitor ... and the cable is 30 bucks ... I just hate getting ripped off. One of my biggest complaints with pretty much everything Apple makes. Thank you MonoPrice!

• I think the Mighty Mouse sucks. Feels cheap. Crappy laser. No extra buttons .. like a back button. I like buttons. Right click seems to have problems... get over it .. I like to right click.

• Everything wants to be a keyboard shortcut. It will take time to memorize all the shortcuts. I am really struggling with using command-? for doing things. My fingers need a muscle memory wipe. 

•  MS Office .... that is a whole other post ....

• Spotlight is awesome. It searches everything so quickly. Very nice. Indexing files appears to be really fast ... almost instant. Searching appears to be faster and more relevant than Win 7 (although not by much .. I will be testing this more).
  We want even talk about Win XP searching ... 

• I found an FTP client. Yay for Filezilla!! Now I am looking for a Notepad++ replacement. So far two MacHeads I talked to said there isn't one.   :(  I am going to miss Notepad++. Maybe I will try out some Wine! 

• The jury is still out on the keyboard. I like how the f-keys are mapped to activities like sound and stuff. This is logical to me. When I need to use a function key then I just hold down fn. This is slick. I think I am going to map all my windows function keys at home to do the same thing.  

• I just installed iTunes 10. I will probably have a post about iTunes. 

 Still more to come folks. Comment below!

First Impressions

I survived my first day on the iMac. Everything seemed to go pretty smooth but I performed relatively light work duties. I am fully expecting some challenges ahead.

Anyway... on to my initial impressions.

I am still trying to find where everything is. There are some UI elements that don't make a lot of sense to me and others that I am just not used to. For example, navigating the file/folder/documents/images structures is different than Windows. There are similar things but my eyes are just not drawn to the right spots or I don't know the best place to click. Oh .. and why do I need/want coverflow for my documents folders? Not sure about this UI "enhancement".

Honestly .. OSX kind of feels like using iTunes a little bit. I hate iTunes. Haha.

I finally figured out that the red x closes the documents but that the application continues to reside in memory. This is a change from Windows ... at least visually and not necessarily technically. What are the best practices? Should I close an app (or is it called quit an app) when I am done everytime or just let things reside in memory unused. Will OSX auto close them if it needs the space? Is there an inactivity timer to autoclose?

Other notes: I setup VMWare today and can now run Windows XP virtually. I have not really looked at it but so far it looks slick. There appears to be some really nice integration points between the two systems. I think it is BS that I cannot just run OSX virtually on Windows but Windows can do either.

A quick list of the software I have setup to use so far.  Ideas, suggestions, and thoughts are very much welcome.

• Mail app that comes with OSX (MacMail?)
• iCal
• Spaces (I love spaces and don't know why MS has not implemented)
• Firefox (Safari a little)
• Adium (I tried ichat but Adium seems better)

In conclusion .. based upon a day, maybe day and a half, of usage ... I prefer Win 7 hands down. Will this change? I don't know. I am really trying to stay open minded. I have no intention of using my Windows XP virtual environment unless necessary.

I have been keeping a list of my thoughts in a file and plan on putting them into a blog post soon.

... oh yeah ... getting used to "command-?" vs "ctrl-?" ... is a huge change. My fingers are so trained for windows style copy/paste/cut/bold/undo/all etc... that it is proving a pain in the apple. I can't seem to figure out how to place my fingers to quickly do back to back actions really quickly. Control (CTRL) just seems like a much better key for this activity.

First Day

Today will be the first full day of using the iMac at work. Speaking of which what is the right term? What does the community say? Am I using my mac, Mac, iMac, OSX, Snow Leopard, 10.6.4, Apple or can I still just call it a PC.   :) 

Anyway, I am still working on file transfers and setting up the virtual environments but for the most part I will be working as normal.

I am not totally sure how I am going to update the blog yet with my experiences. For example, should I make lots of little posts throughout the day with my thoughts and then a summary or just try and keep track of it all and then make a couple posts.

I am leaning towards having a draft post and making notes of things I want to say and then publishing once a day or so. I imagine that as time goes on that I will have less posts.

Something keeps bouncing at me ... what is that thing .. stop it! ...

The Leopard has Pounced

Taken with my Droid X

Well folks. The leopard ... or rather snow leopard has pounced. I have had it on my desk for the last few hours.

Fun note: This is my first blog post on the iMac.

However, due to meetings and work, I have not had very much time to actually play learn how to use the new machine.

So far I will admit that there are some very different things and some very similar things.

I am having hell with the spacebar/keyboard typing this message but it is probably something I just have to get used to.

Also .. why don't applications close when I click the red 'x'? Some of the UI elements kind of baffle me.

Okay ... first order of business. I need an inexpensive (preferably open source) SQL editor that will connect to Informix or via ODBC. Thoughts?

More to come....

Random note ... the blinky cursor in blogger doesn't play nice in Firefox.

Arrived!!

The machine finally arrived to IT today. Now I just have to see how long it takes before it shows up on my desk. Very soon ... the experience begins ... welcome!

Quick Update

The iMac still has not arrived. It was ordered on the 10th so I would have though it would be here but I guess with school starting and the back to school marketing promotions that Apple is a bit behind on their orders.

Will update again when it arrives.

The Replacements...

No iMac yet. Maybe today. 

In doing some reading it turns out that MS Visio and MS Project are not available on a Mac. I have not found replacement products for these items yet. Since, I rarely share the source file and usually provide summary details or .jpg/pdf outputs then I think a replacement product would work. Have to search.

However, I did order the iMac with 8gb ram so that I could run virtual Windows. I would like to avoid getting in the habit of relying on virtual Windows. If anyone has suggestions then feel free to comment below.

Software & Specs

The iMac should arrive tomorrow.  Okay. so what kind of software do I use everyday.  Here is a quick list ... not in any order.

• Web Browser (Firefox, Chrome, IE). -  I have some tools that are IE only .. this will be interesting. 
• SQL Development/Database tools - Mostly for writing quick SQL reports. 
• MS Office - Yes. I use each one of these. I have some complex spreadsheets and some Access DBs.
• Word
• Excel
• PowerPoint
• Visio
• Access
• Project
• Email/Calendar - MS Outlook
• Text Editors - Notepad++ is a favorite
• Music Player - MediaMonkey, WMP, Pandora
• IM Client - Trillian Pro
• FTP Client - Filezilla
• Adobe Products
• Acrobat - I create many pdfs some with forms
• Photoshop - I do some basic photo editing for various reasons

Those are the big ones. There are also some specific tools for our ERP that I use ... not sure how that is going to work either.

Lastly. Computer specs for the nerd in all of us.

Current:

• Dell Optiplex
• C2D - 2.13ghz
• 2gb Ram
• 3 LCDs spanned (2-19in, 1-17in)
• ATI X300 .. I think

iMac

• 21.5in Screen (plus one 19in from old system for dual monitor)
• Core i5 3.6ghz
• 8gb Ram
• ATI 5670 512mb

The Beginning

Hello and welcome to the iSwitch Experience. The goal of this blog is to outline my thoughts and experience of switching from a Windows based PC to an iMac in my daily job. This blog is intended to capture my thoughts until I get tired with it ... at which time I will probably write a conclusion and then just let it live on the web for some indefinite length of time.

So what is the deal? Why a Mac? I act as a liaison between business and IT functions. I write specs/requirements and I also do some coding. I used to be a full time developer and still code in my free time. However, I have since obtained an MBA and now focus on the hybrid of business and technology. 

In recent years there has been a surge of Mac users from internal and external users (30%+). I evaluate and provide a wide range of services that increasingly must be more Mac friendly than they are today. 

Thus we are left with the switchover to an iMac. This allows me to fully engage in the OSX experience as a user. I will still use Windows 7 at home and will therefore be living in a mixed environment. 

Alright. Some other details. I do not like Apple. That is right .. let me repeat. I do not like Apple. I do not like their business models, overpriced/inferior products, closed systems etc... I could go on and on but you get the idea. Despite all this ... I am entering this arrangement with as open a mind as possible and believe that logging my thoughts will assist in providing an honest assessment. This is long term switchover. I do not plan on jumping back to Windows in a week or a month etc... I fully intend to learn, use, engage, and fully understand the OSX experience. 

Keep a lookout for more info to come soon. 

-B!