by Veit on April 22, 2007
One of the first software products that I install when I integrate a new PC into my Windows environment is Pure Networks’ Network Magic. Its promise is very simple: Provide a graphical, mouse-driven way to set up a reliable network and then manage it day in and day out. And it does so through an intuitive and easy-to-learn interface that hides the power and complexity of networking from any of its users. It runs on all our PCs, works in the background to keep the network up, our stress levels down and does a very good job at it.
So what, you say? Yes, I can set up my own Windows XP network, share printers and mount other drives. And if it does not work or goes down occasionally, I can fix it. So why Network Magic? The answer is simple: It’s only I who can do it. If the network or a printer goes down while I’m out of the house, I’m getting “The Call”. And while I’m the CTO, CSO and CIO of our household, I’m only a one-man show, so no delegating the call to someone else! If you ever tried to fix a network problem over the phone, you know what I’m talking about. With Network Magic, my family now knows where to click to help with diagnostics of the problem before making the call or even being able to fix it on their own.
And while I cannot prove it, I’m sure that some of the credit for the painless integration of my MacBook Pro into our Windows environment was due to the clean way Network Magic configured the initial Windows network setup.
Highly recommended!
by Veit on April 13, 2007
How much did Apple’s Software offering influence my switch from Windows? If you are like me, the answer is: It depends.
Obviously, Mac OSX 10.4 was the big draw. The stability, reduced virus threat, no anti-virus (at least not yet) and less frequent updates were a big draw. So was the ease of use of the interface plus the fact that I still remember my Unix roots, thus knowing that I could always do something in Unix, if I had to. So far I have not regretted the switch for one minute, even although I’m obviously still in learning mode. But my notebook is up and running, stable with no crashes – what more can I ask for?
The picture looks a bit differently when it comes to using all the additional software that was pre-installed on my MacBook Pro. To me, compatibility with some Windows applications was more important that using the best available software, since I’m still running in a mixed Windows-Mac environment. Many people will argue that Apple’s Mail is a better mail program than Mozilla’s Thunderbird, but to me, the familiarity of Thunderbird plus being able to retain my hundreds of megabytes stored in various email folders were the deciding factor. Similarly, I constantly synchronize my bookmarks, cookies and other browser settings between Mac and Windows through a Firefox extension, so Safari was not really an option. Ditto with website development and management — Dreamweaver runs on both and I just don’t want to switch.
While the above examples were obvious to me even before I made the switch, I’m surprised how few of the Apple software tools I’m actually using about a month after I received my MacBook. Since I’m heavy-duty into Photography, Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom are my obvious choices, so I have only fired up iPhoto once. I played a bit with Garageband, but I’m musically challenged, which became very obvious when playing back my feeble attempts at composing my own “music”. I don’t create movies on my notebook, so iDVD and iMovie HD idly sit on my Mac. I have no need for iWork, so I have not activated the trial. Quicktime 7 was the obvious choice for video playback (with the DivX codec installed), but too many issues with some of the more exotic video formats accelerated my switch to vlc. My Treo automatically synchronizes with my company’s Exchange server, so I cannot use iSync either.
Overall, this is not a judgment on the quality of Apple’s software offerings; in many cases, my existing “computing life” simply dictates the software choices on my Mac.
The only app that has received quite a workout is iTunes, but that was not a surprise, either. After all, I had already used it on Windows.
by Veit on April 11, 2007
A very interesting entry by ZDnet Blogger Tim Bajarin describes how a Fortune 500 IT manager is now evaluating Macs for mainstream enterprise deployment. Personally, I’d love to have a dual-boot Mac as my work horse, but in my opinion, two issues stand in the way of mass adoption by corporate warriors:
1. Screen Size
Have you ever had to work sitting in a crummy “cattle class” seat while the person in front of you had their seat reclined? You will quickly find out that you cannot open a notebook with a 13 inch screen any longer! The only reason why I have an ultra-portable notebook with a 10 inch screen today is so I can still work in a situation like that. Unless Apple introduces a smaller MacBook, it would be a non-starter for me.
2. Keyboard Support in OSX
When you spend more than a hundred thousand miles working in an airline seat you learn a very important productivity lesson: Keyboards are much faster and easier to work with than mice. Apart from the fact that you have no space for an external mouse and internal mouse designs (touch pads or sticks) are an ergonomical challenge, you’ll quickly learn that it takes you longer to move the mouse to the menu bar and find the “Insert” menu in Powerpoint than to enter ALT-I P F to insert a picture from a file. Ditto for ALT-I E A to straighten an image in Photoshop or ALT-A I A to insert a row in a Word table. I know these key combinations sound very cryptic, but believe me you will memorize them quickly when working on a plane. The lack of keyboard shortcuts is the biggest issue that I’m facing on my Mac right now, since I’m so used to them from Windows. And unless they are added (or there are third party tools that provide them — if you know of any, please let me know!), using a Mac running OSX means a step back in productivity. Of course, these issue would go away, if your company provided a dual boot Mac to you.
