I finally made the jump to the Apple Mac! Not that I was needing to move for any other reason than I decided to have a look at what all the fuss was about. I did also get a new system with Vista just to check out the differences..
Installation of the Mac was a snip just started up after entering my information! Vista was a different story, that took me about 6 hours because the drivers didnt work with the old air card I have! I managed to get it working after trawling through the web though.
So do I think the Mac is better? well in some ways I like it a lot however like all systems it does have a few problems! The biggest problem was the lack of support from IBM for the Client Access product. I finally got a copy of the Mocha terminal emulator from http://www.mochasoft.dk which does help. The only real problem is the annoying buy me dialog box which keeps coming up! It stops the emulator from connecting but the emulator sits in front of the dialog box so you can just sit there waiting for something to happen. I will go out and buy it once I have done a bit more testing, another issue I have found is the use of the function keys in MacX which interferes with the emulator. I keep pressing F10 to list detailed messages iin the job log only to have the screen change, F12 makes the dashboard appear! Then pressing F9 will bring all open pages to the desktop and size them for viewing? I am sure there is a fix out there to stop this but I have not had a chance to search for it.
There are bugs in the applications, I tried to import the address book into the Microsoft Mac Office and it just adds all of the information into the notes fields, totally useless but then again it is the Microsoft Office running on the Mac. The Mac mail program didnt do much better until I loaded the Address book importer from homepage.mac.com/sroy/addressbookimporter/which was very clean and easy to use. Just make sure you map the fields correctly and your on the way to having all your contacts in the mail address book. I now have to get them into the MS Entourage still….
Another problem I had was the Dreamweaver product! My advice to anyone considering dealing with this bunch of wasters is dont! I had been using the product on my Windows box for a couple of years and decided that if I was going to make the jump I would go all the way. So I went to the PC and un-registered the software as instructed and then installed the software on the Mac, I tried to activate as per the instructions via the web only to get a screen saying it had been activated too many times (I had moved it from system to system as I upgraded my PC so I can understand that) and that I should contact Customer Service. Well after 4 hours on the phone with the clowns I ended up speaking with a guy called “JEFF” who refused to give me his full name or support id or anything else that would identify him from the rest of them. He told me that I had to upgrade the product to allow me to use it on a Mac as I had already used it on a PC! He was a real piece of work and even said he would put the phone down unless I changned my attitude (I did say it was absolute BS no not “bull sh*t” just BS). So I asked to speak to his supervsor, he didnt want to let me speak with him at first saying he could not do more than he can! After about 5 minutes of protesting he agreed and said he would transfer me! So after 20 minutes I put the phone down. 4 hours on the phone only to be told I had to pay $649 US to upgrade a product that I didnt want to upgrade to allow me to use it on the Mac. I did fill in a web form stating my dissatisfaction which said I would get a response in 24 hours, guess what no response! however I did get an email asking me to fill in a survey about my experience so when I get a few hours spare I will fill that in! Dreamweaver is now back on the PC and registered so I can use it. I am looking for alternatives!
iTunes was a small problem as the iPod was registered to the PC, iPodRip fixed that for me on the Mac but my sons iPod on Vista cant be done because the program abends with an internal error! he is really miffed about that!
I have a lot of passwords so I downloaded the Paster product to try Here and will see if it does what I need.
FTP was also a challenge, I am very used to the PC products so some of the Mac products were very alien, however Cute FTP Mac pro does the job nicely http://www.globalscape.com/cuteftpmac2
I have installed Zend Studio for System i5 on the box and while the studio does work there are a few ruffles with the Zend Platform for the i5 which I am trying to resolve.
Skype runs just the same and I have MSN messenger as well so now I have all that I need to carry on. Early days yet but I a learning new things all the time! The biggest problem I have found so far is a lack of documentation with anything! The keyboard is different for a start and some keys work in some applications and not in others (the end key does not take me to the end of the line in this editor but does in word!). Installing applications and removing them is a scary thing! Most of the applications I have seen dont have an un-install program! Some of the ones that do dont work that well? But overall I am getting to like it.
I think the biggest problem is the lack of ‘Free’ Software which I was used to getting for the PC. Not that that should be a problem but the lack of options is.
If I find something spectacular I will post it here.
Chris…