My Thinkpad is sold and my Bootcamp partition on my Macbook is removed. Switch from hell to heaven Vista to OS X is completed.

Using OS X gives me a good feeling since the first day. I don't know what did happen within the last 2,5 years - maybe the system got better or my personal requirements have changed since summer 2006, when I bought my first Apple computer and sold it a few weeks later. Don't know.

Pros of OS X:

  • It still works pretty well.
  • Hardware support is better than expected (printer, monitor etc.).
  • It's pretty fast.
  • I don't miss any application. Okay, two (a practical client for RDP and a notepad++ alternative).
  • Time Machine! Backing up my data has never (!) been so easy.

Cons of OS X:

  • Rendering of small fonts especially on websites is bad.
  • Every single fu**ing tool costs money. Burning CDs (Win: CDBurnerXP), using Subversion (TortoiseSVN), editing Code (notepad++) or Graphics (Paint.NET) - you have to pay first. Especially a good graphic software is missed so we decided to order the Adobe Creative Suite last week to get the full Pro Package and not to have constant battles with that).
  • Playing around with virtualization software is a mess. At the moment Parallels seems to be the best choice.

Beginning the Apple experiment the first action was to install Vista via Bootcamp. But since the installation was completed I did only boot Windows natively one single time - to fix a buggy VM in Parallels. After installing Windows XP in a Virtual Machine using Parallels I decided to remove the Bootcamp partition today - because I don't need it any longer. The performance of the XP machine in Parallels is breathtaking and makes Bootcamp needless.

So still working with Visual Studio, SQL Server Management Studio and SQL Server, TortoiseSVN and all the development tools more is absolutely no problem on OS X, when using Windows XP instead of Windows Vista (currently anyway).

Summary:

I didn't expect this result, but I'm very, very happy with it. I now own a computer that still works, that looks fantastic, that's absolutely quiet and that's making fun.

Kommentare

#1 Erich schrieb am Donnerstag, 15. Januar 2009 23:07:00:
Als "kostenlose" Alternative für notepad++ nutze ich Smultron.
Ansonsten sind hier Alternativen aufgelistet: http://editplus.info/wiki/Alternative_Editors#Alternative_editors_for_Mac

#2 Flo schrieb am Donnerstag, 15. Januar 2009 23:18:00:
Wow, so weit bin ich noch nicht. Aber wüsste auch nicht, warum ich das Vista im Boot Camp wegschmeißen sollte. Stört ja nicht. ;-)

Wenn du keine großen Ansprüche an ein Brennprogramm hast, tuns die Bordmittel doch, oder nicht? Habe noch kein einziges Mal ein anderes Programm gebraucht, seit ich OS X benutze.
#3 Thomas schrieb am Donnerstag, 15. Januar 2009 23:49:00:
@Erich: Smultron looks very nice. Installed and mapped to *.txt

@Flo: "Wenn du keine großen Ansprüche an ein Brennprogramm hast, tuns die Bordmittel doch, oder nicht?"

Sure! But it's nice to have such a powerful software as CDBurnerXP for free, or Nero Home for about 5 EUR, isn't it?

Thanks for comments, my wonderful German audience :-P
#4 Flo schrieb am Freitag, 16. Januar 2009 11:25:00:
Ja, das stimmt schon, aber ich benutz irgendwie immer lieber Bordmittel. Hab ich nicht so viel Zeuch auf der Platte… ;-)

Btw: Sollen wir jetzt hier etwa in Englisch kommentieren? ^^
#5 Thomas schrieb am Freitag, 16. Januar 2009 11:51:00:
"Hab ich nicht so viel Zeuch auf der Platte… ;-) "

But that's a main difference between Windows and OS X - it still doesn't matter how many apps you've installed - because that only means that these apps are copied to your programs folder, they are not linked to hundreds of places within the OS like in Windows (registry) :)

"Btw: Sollen wir jetzt hier etwa in Englisch kommentieren? ^^ "

You can do what you want. But when I'm blogging in English and a English speaking reader comes from somewhere around the world to read it, it could be helpful for him to understand your comments too :):)

But when it's a problem to write in English just write on in German before not commenting ... ;)
#6 Karsten schrieb am Freitag, 16. Januar 2009 13:53:00:
Nö, hier wird nicht in Englisch kommentiert. ;-) Aber letztlich kommst Du ja zu dem gleichen Schluß, wie ich: Ärgerlich ist eigentlich nur, dass man den Switch nicht schon vorher durchgeführt hat. BTW: Wirf mal einen Blick auf Mono und MonoDevelop...

Nope, no comments in English. ;-) But at least your conclusion is the same as mine: The annoying thing is the point of time for the switch - should have been earlier, could have been earlier. ;-) BTW: Take a look at Mono and MonoDevelop - should be a good alternative for the standard ASP.NET-stuff, runs natively on the Mac, but can of course not be a full replacement for Visual Studio.
#7 Thomas schrieb am Freitag, 16. Januar 2009 14:03:00:
I'm planning to take a deeper look at MonoDevelop to convert a little but useful application which I am using for sending letters with company's notepaper (but I'm not sure if the used pdfsharp component could be used there!?!?).

The first look was certainly a bit deflating, I installed MonoDevelop and opened it a few weeks ago on Ubuntu Linux. I think I am too deep in love with Visual Studio and all the little tools around it (Resharper!) as I could develop without it.

By the way: I don't know if the date of the switch was too late - two years ago Bootcamp was in early beta stadium and not really usable, and even the black plastic Macbook couldn't convince me at this time (especially too loud). The hardware of the new Alu Macbook is just awesome :) (only the harddisk gets loud when booting Windows natively, I think the S-ATA driver used by Windows isn't as good as the driver used by OS X. But it doesn't matter any longer without Bootcamp :)).
#8 Karsten Samaschke schrieb am Freitag, 16. Januar 2009 14:19:00:
MonoDevelop actually is no replacement for Visual Studio - neither by intention nor by implementation. But it is an usable editor for (ASP).NET on the Mac, able to read the VS 2008 .sln-Files and to populate the projects. It has no support for VisualSVN oder ReSharper (the main additional tools I'm using), but using VersionApp (http://www.versionapp.com) at least the SVN-part is covered. But, again, no replacement for ReSharper.

PDFSharp: Never used this component in the past - but it is OpenSource and a pure C#-component, so there should be no reason for not working under Mono. At least an individual build using Mono should do the trick. But I haven't tried this yet.
#9 Thomas schrieb am Freitag, 16. Januar 2009 14:23:00:
I will do.

It seems that we're using almost the same VS setup (VS + ReSharper + VisualSVN). I am working heavily with that and have to open therefore the virtual machine with XP day by day, so no need for mono (concerning the everyday life).
#10 Thomas schrieb am Freitag, 16. Januar 2009 14:24:00:
Ah, by the way: is "Versions" the best SVN client for OS X? My colleague is still testing around to find the best one ...
#11 Karsten Samaschke schrieb am Freitag, 16. Januar 2009 14:28:00:
Yeah, we have something in common... ;-) Actually Versions is the only SVN client I liked. There are some more - SyncroSVN and svnX, for example. Just do a litte search on that topic and you should find at least some three or four usable clients. And if you're one of the hardcore guys, you could even use SVN from command line. :-)
#12 Erich schrieb am Montag, 2. Februar 2009 22:23:00:
Hi Thomas,
i found "TextWrangler" as a TextEditor with more Features.
Look on this site: http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/download.html

Its for free, too. ;)
#13 Thomas schrieb am Montag, 2. Februar 2009 23:16:00:
I already did - before taking a look on Smultron. I think Smultron is the smarter choice :)
#14 Gunnar schrieb am Sonntag, 8. Februar 2009 23:31:00:
Hi,

ist ja echt lustig, ich hab zum Jahresanfang nach 15 Jahren Microsoft den gleichen Entschluss gefasst. Hier meine ongoing-Erfahrung:

http://germanswitcher.blogspot.com/

Sieht so aus als werden wir mehr... ;-).

Grüsse,
Gunnar
#15 Thomas schrieb am Montag, 9. Februar 2009 09:57:00:
Okay, bist im Feedreader ;-)

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