It didn't take me long to grow frustrated with the lack of a second display, although what is worth mentioning is that I was able to last longer without a second display under OS X than I would under XP. I attribute this mostly to features like Exposé that help manage the clutter, whereas under XP we've only got the taskbar and ALT + TAB. I'll talk about this more in a second.
Adding a second monitor is basically one of the easiest hardware upgrades you can do and believe it or not, it is even easier under OS X. I plugged in the second Cinema Display using the DVI port on the Radeon 9600. By the time I got back up to my desk the OS had already enabled the monitor, extended my desktop and set the resolution to the LCD's native resolution. There are not many options to tinker with with multimonitor setups under OS X, everything just works. Applications remember where you leave windows if you just move them there and close them, and the apps I've been using seem to be well aware of the setup.
There is a performance hit when multimonitor is enabled (much like the hit in XP), especially when using Exposé. Exposé already dips in performance when you have more than a few windows open, moving to a multimonitor setup does further impact performance with Exposé. Luckily even when you've got a bunch of windows open Exposé doesn't really slow down, instead you get dropped frames in the Exposé animation. The choppyness does get a little annoying but the functionality isn't really reduced which is very important.
Exposé retains its functionality while multimonitor is enabled, instead of mixing all the windows you basically get the equivalent of two Exposé functions running - one on each monitor. Exposé's functionality with multimonitors does make sense, it's exactly how you'd expect it to work.
I have yet to try gaming with a multimonitor setup, and I have high hopes as it is a pain to deal with under XP. I'll post about my experiences with gaming once I actually get a game installed on the machine :)
I'm getting better and better about using keyboard shortcuts in OS X. When I get back to the office today I'm going to try installing LaunchBar thanks to many of your suggestions. I'm at the point now where there are certain tasks that I can accomplish quicker under OS X than I could under XP because of the combination of Exposé and a plethora of keyboard shortcuts. I'm not more productive yet as there is still a lot of getting used to that's necessary but I definitely see the potential.
Switching between my Mac and PC machines continues to be a non-issue, all of the shortcuts and things I find myself doing under OS X remain on my Mac - I don't try to do them on my PCs. As I use the Mac more I may find myself trying to use Exposé and similar things under XP, but so far I thankfully don't have those issues.
I would like to close with some thoughts on the whole Mac vs. PC debate. The responses I've received to this experiment have been overwhelmingly positive from Mac readers; the help you all have provided is much appreciated and very valuable. At the same time, I appreciate the number of PC readers that are approaching this with an open mind and are honestly interested in the possibility of a die-hard PC user migrating to a Mac. Both camps have their "zealots" but for the most part, we are all here because we're nuts about hardware, software and computers in general. I would look at this experiment much like we look at different chipsets, CPUs, video cards or any sort of normal comparison between two pieces of hardware; approach it with an open mind and you'll end up with the best overall choice at the end.
I've got more Macdates coming down the pipe; I've finally got Photoshop, Office and Dreamweaver installed so now I should be able to do everything I used to do on a daily basis on my PC. More on that later...
Adding a second monitor is basically one of the easiest hardware upgrades you can do and believe it or not, it is even easier under OS X. I plugged in the second Cinema Display using the DVI port on the Radeon 9600. By the time I got back up to my desk the OS had already enabled the monitor, extended my desktop and set the resolution to the LCD's native resolution. There are not many options to tinker with with multimonitor setups under OS X, everything just works. Applications remember where you leave windows if you just move them there and close them, and the apps I've been using seem to be well aware of the setup.
There is a performance hit when multimonitor is enabled (much like the hit in XP), especially when using Exposé. Exposé already dips in performance when you have more than a few windows open, moving to a multimonitor setup does further impact performance with Exposé. Luckily even when you've got a bunch of windows open Exposé doesn't really slow down, instead you get dropped frames in the Exposé animation. The choppyness does get a little annoying but the functionality isn't really reduced which is very important.
Exposé retains its functionality while multimonitor is enabled, instead of mixing all the windows you basically get the equivalent of two Exposé functions running - one on each monitor. Exposé's functionality with multimonitors does make sense, it's exactly how you'd expect it to work.
I have yet to try gaming with a multimonitor setup, and I have high hopes as it is a pain to deal with under XP. I'll post about my experiences with gaming once I actually get a game installed on the machine :)
I'm getting better and better about using keyboard shortcuts in OS X. When I get back to the office today I'm going to try installing LaunchBar thanks to many of your suggestions. I'm at the point now where there are certain tasks that I can accomplish quicker under OS X than I could under XP because of the combination of Exposé and a plethora of keyboard shortcuts. I'm not more productive yet as there is still a lot of getting used to that's necessary but I definitely see the potential.
Switching between my Mac and PC machines continues to be a non-issue, all of the shortcuts and things I find myself doing under OS X remain on my Mac - I don't try to do them on my PCs. As I use the Mac more I may find myself trying to use Exposé and similar things under XP, but so far I thankfully don't have those issues.
I would like to close with some thoughts on the whole Mac vs. PC debate. The responses I've received to this experiment have been overwhelmingly positive from Mac readers; the help you all have provided is much appreciated and very valuable. At the same time, I appreciate the number of PC readers that are approaching this with an open mind and are honestly interested in the possibility of a die-hard PC user migrating to a Mac. Both camps have their "zealots" but for the most part, we are all here because we're nuts about hardware, software and computers in general. I would look at this experiment much like we look at different chipsets, CPUs, video cards or any sort of normal comparison between two pieces of hardware; approach it with an open mind and you'll end up with the best overall choice at the end.
I've got more Macdates coming down the pipe; I've finally got Photoshop, Office and Dreamweaver installed so now I should be able to do everything I used to do on a daily basis on my PC. More on that later...
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Judge_Fire - Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - link
You might be using Safari as your browser, so you might appreciate David Hyatt's blog: http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/hyatt/He is working on Safari at Apple and discusses a number of design choices and features there - nicely open compared to what the h*** is happening with IE right now.
Anyway, related to picking up OS X as a Windows user, the entry on Safari 1.2 explains the UI keyboard shortcuts for tabbing etc.
J
Reply - Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - link
They actually have a few apps similar to Expose for Windows, the most popular probably being WinPlosion (www.winplosion.com). They were originally called WinExpose, but I assume that they were forced to change the name. There's another one here - http://onlinetoolsteam.com/WindowsExposer/Product....I don't know if they work exactly like Expose, but they seem to accomplish the same thing, which is to use clever animations and transitions to organize your desktop.
Mark - Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - link
I use Launchbar to get to commonly accessed files and folders, sometimes to start up an e-mail message to a new person quickly. It's not so much a Windows switcher tool, as it is a convenience utility when you think "Oh yeah, I want to open this App/file or folder/etc. quickly".There's a similar tool called for Windows called AppRocket, but I haven't used it personally.
Judge_Fire - Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - link
IMHO, LaunchBar is just one of those productivity enhancing tools that provides a great 'flow' experience in OS X (and perhaps Windows). As pointed out, it comes from NeXT so I don't really feel there's anything Windowish about it, quite the opposite. Of course it/copycats are likely available for Windows, but that's another issue.Another great such tool is Default Folder, which allows you to create, well, default folders for open/save dialogs and boost these dialogs in many other ways.
Some Haxies by Unsanity are quite functional too, like Windowshade. While Exposé renders the old OS 9 Windowshade feature kinda useless, things like making desired windows translucent via key/mouse shortcut is nice. Live ghost windows on your desktop : ) It also lets you control the window shadows, if you're for example having trouble visually distinguishing the topmost window. (Some people experience this with the less than perfect brushed metal shadows.)
The APE system behind their Haxies kinda hijacks every window being spawned, allowing things like theming or additional features like above. One such feature I've requested from them is the ability to 'float any window' into a global floater... let's see whta comes out of that. It'd be great for iChat, QuickTime Player, Console etc. - anything you want to keep an eye on when you're doing something else.
J
GL - Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - link
No third party tools like you've mentioned here. I seem to be happy with just a plain vanilla OS X. Granted, I haven't tried Launchbar or many other of these utilities. I guess I wouldn't know what I was missing.Since you will be jumping back and forth to an XP install, can I suggest if you haven't already done so to use an IMAP mail server as opposed to POP3? Mail.app has excellent IMAP support - the best out of any client I've seen yet. Apple has really done a good job integrating it so IMAP feels at home like a POP3 account. By using an IMAP account though, I can jump over to XP and use Outlook Express to view/send my mail (Outlook doesn't like my IMAP server), or to Linux and use Evolution to do the same. It matches some of the benefits of web mail with the convenience of using a real e-mail client. If you don't have an IMAP server setup but would like to experiment with one, you should have a free 3 month .Mac trial membership that comes with an IMAP e-mail account and you can use that.
Likewise, I've switched over to using MSN because I can use it on any platform and not have to worry about contact synchronization. Prior to this I was using ICQ and it proved to be inflexible if I ever wanted to use it somewhere other than my main computer. I guess you could also use iChat (I believe it stores the address book server side too) but nobody up here in my neck of the woods tends to use AIM.
Thinking about switching - Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - link
Can you try out iLife, including Garage Band and let us know how it rates.Starman - Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - link
I don't use any third-party tools. I even tried DragThing which got on my nerves. It's pure OS X for me.Mike
_Em - Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - link
Personally, I went through a similar thing as you when migrating from OS 9 to OS X; I also decided to keep the OS as vanilla as possible for as long as possible. The result is that I've found lots of neat ways to use the dock, and haven't used any of the other add-ons.A couple of things to note:
You can put folders in your dock. when you click on a folder, a sub-menu of the contents pops up. This is a great way to sort your apps.
One definite app to use once you start to get lots of processes running on your mac is Process wizard (http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/...
This sits in your menu bar and gives you control over all your running processes; you can kill them, switch to them, and change their priority on the fly.
One other thing to note: if you're not actually using a program, but it's still running, it will be one of the first things to be swapped out to disk. Even though I only have 384MB RAM in my mac, I find that I can leave 20 or so programs open with no problems, as usually I'm only actually *using* 4 or so at any given time. Instead of waiting for the application to launch, you just have to wait for it to swap into RAM.
anand lal shimpi - Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - link
Thanks again for all the responses guys. Keep em coming, they are helping a lot. I think I'm going to put all of these helpful hits into a FAQ of some sort at the end of the project to help others that have decided to switch (or at least try).SmurfTower
You are very right, I want to get as much of the OS X experience as possible without resorting to third party applications and drivers. That's one reason I didn't even bother with any third party mouse drivers as I wanted to get the full unmodified OS X experience. I may end up waiting on LaunchBar, but that brings up my next question:
For you OS X users out there, do you use LaunchBar a lot or consider it to be more of a Windows convertee's tool?
Take care,
Anand
Ripoff - Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - link
LaunchBar comes from the NeXT days originally, as do a lot of Mac OS X concepts. So it's almost family ; )It's more Unix command line than something from the Windows UI world (except for dos, tho)