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Sunday, January 16, 2005
Mac Progress
Good news on the Mac OS X upgrade. Yesterday morning, I called Mary and asked permission to upgrade her Mac OS from “Jaguar” to “Panther.” She was, of course, delighted. I told her that I would also upgrade Microsoft Office from version X to 2004.
I headed to my local CompUSA store where I had bought the computer. I went to the Apple section of the store where I met Mark, who is actually an Apple employee—an “Apple Solutions Consultant.” I explained that I had bought the PowerBook in August and wanted to upgrade the OS to “Panther.” He couldn’t believe that CompUSA sold me the machine without Panther. “It’s been shipping for over 18 months,” he said. “If you bring in the machine, I’ll upgrade it for free,” he promised.
Before I headed home, I went to visit my friend, Joel, who is a bi-platform user. He has several Macs, including a couple of really high-end ones for video and audio production, a PowerBook 15", and a couple of PCs. He showed me several things, including how he was trying to manage his GTD workflow with Entourage 2004. Once again, I was impressed with the possibilities on the Mac. The Entourage 2004 Project Center is a quantum leap ahead of anything possible in Outlook 2003 on the PC. It allows you to group calendar items, tasks, documents, e-mail messages, and notes by project. I think it has real possibilities for my own workflow.
I then went back to the house, picked up Mary’s PowerBook, along my daughter Madeline, and headed back to CompUSA. Mark was out to lunch, but I explained my situation to Fred, a CompUSA employee who was working with Mark in the Apple section. He verified that I indeed had Jaguar installed and proceeded with my free upgrade. It took about 45 minutes but went without a hitch. Wow! What a difference between the two operating systems!
Thankfully, I didn’t have to pay the $129 for the upgrade, but I think it would have been worth it. I did, however, buy a copy of Office 2004, Student and Teacher Edition. Surprisingly, the package included three installs of the software. (I have since learned that Apple also offers “Family Packs,” which give you up to five installs for very little extra. For example, iLife 05 is $79.00. The Family Pack is only $99.00. The Windows world could learn something from this pricing strategy.)
While I was waiting for my OS upgrade to finish, Madeline and I looked at all the cool Mac hardware and software. I also picked Fred’s brain about the difference between the PowerBook and the iBook. I’ve tentatively come to the conclusion that iBooks are sufficient for my wife and daughters if I decide to switch the whole family to Mac. (I’m not quite there yet.) Depending on the configuration, they are about 50-65% of the cost of the equivalent PowerBook. Madeline doesn’t care one way or the other; she just wants a Mac—now!
When I got home, I installed Office 2004. Once again, the installation went flawlessly. I was able to get Entourage working with my GMail account. Piece of cake. I even tried to use Internet Connect to set up a remote connection (via VPN) to our company’s Exchange Server. That wasn’t quite so easy. I had the correct IP address, my log-in name and password, but I couldn’t get it to work. But, in fairness, I tried to set up a new connection on my Windows PC and couldn’t get it to work either. I must be missing a setting somewhere. Oh well, I’ll let my IT guys configure this when I get my own PowerBook, hopefully, later this week. If I can get this to work, then I may completely switch to the Mac. If not, then I’ll have to be satisfied with using two platforms.
By the way, I am using the Mac to write this blog entry. I am using ecto, a blogging software client that is available for both Windows and Mac. My only complaint is that, unlike BlogJet for Windows, I can’t automatically insert typographic characters (e.g., curly quotes, em dashes, real apostrophes, etc.) I did a search on the Web, but couldn’t find anything other than ecto that will work with TypePad. If you know of something, let me know. Otherwise, it will probably be easier to write my entries in Word and then copy and paste to ecto—something I used to do in Windows before BlogJet was released. This may be a case where Windows has Mac beat. I hope not.
January 16, 2005 at 06:00 PM in Mac | Permalink
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» On switching from a PC to Mac from Lifehacker
Publishing company president and weblogger Michael Hyatt recently replaced his PC with a Mac, and he's got some interesting insights into the process. Hyatt's experience isn't an Apple "switch" ad, it's a real person making a huge workflow transition. ... [Read More]
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Comments
As a recent Mac convert myself, I've been through much the same process as you, and I've likewise been continually impressed by what's possible on the Mac. On the subject of blogging tools, I'd have to heartily suggest Mars Edit as an ecto replacement. It seems much more robust, and includes TypePad support. Not too sure about the typographic characters support, but there's a free trial, so you can at least check it out. My personal favorite feature is the ability to create preview templates, so you can be sure of exactly how the post will appear on your blog, rather than the plain text preview you get from most blog publishing tools.
Good luck with the experiment, and keep letting us know about these gems you find!
Posted by: Andy Wismar | Jan 16, 2005 5:21:55 PM
Regarding the typographic character problem, is that something that ActiveWords could do? I'm still figuring out ActiveWords, but it seems like something that's right up its alley. And if it took care of the character issues, you could stick with ecto...
Posted by: Bren | Jan 16, 2005 6:42:33 PM
Bren, unfortunately, ActiveWords is not available on the Mac platform. However, I'm going to check out QuicKeys.
Posted by: Michael Hyatt | Jan 16, 2005 7:25:01 PM
What size Powerbook are you leaning to? 12" or 15"
Very interesting developments. I'm starting to notice a real trend in people leaving the pc to go to the mac. I've seriously considered getting one just to learn more about it, understand the system more in order to help my customers more.
I think the overall angst is with people disgusted with spyware, viruses, and the instability of windows. I'll be honest, though, I've noticed that xp pro has remained, for me and my customers, really stable, especially with SP2. My network support issues have gone down drastically from Windows 98 to Windows XP Pro. I don't receive near the support calls that I used to get. However, Microsoft will continue to get targeted and hackers will continue to find holes. As the Mac gets more popular and mainstream, hackers will also focus on it.
Posted by: Rob Bushway | Jan 16, 2005 10:15:47 PM
Michael, the reason you can't enter special characters in the software is simple--on the Mac, entering such characters is breezy-easy.
No more ALT+1234 for you!
The em dash is Option-Shift-Hyphen.
The left curly quote is Option-[
The right curly quote is Option-]
Accents, tildes, copyright symbols, etc. etc. All of them are extremely easy to remember and use in your regular writing. Here's a site that outlines them all. Take close note of the keyboard equivalents on the PC. Ouch!
Posted by: jeremy | Jan 17, 2005 8:33:13 AM
Here's the site I mention. Silly Jeremy.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Posted by: jeremy | Jan 17, 2005 8:34:34 AM
Oh, and one more thing. Make sure that you install Quicksilver, if not on Mary's machine, at least on the PowerBook you're getting.
I know this is a dead horse, but it's one of those things I just don't want you to miss. Because I miss it--all day long at work, where I'm forced to use a PC.
Posted by: jeremy | Jan 17, 2005 8:46:38 AM
Wow I cannot believe MS did not put a project center in Outlook 2003. This is the feature Outlook is missing and by the looks of it will allow GTD integration and allow me to keep track of projects etc.
The Contact view in Entourage is so much cleaner and the view window seems much smarter.
Man I am definately going to consider a Mac in the future, maby not if an outlook replacement becomes available soon for XP.
Posted by: Johann Sigurdsson | Jan 17, 2005 8:57:27 AM
Hey Michael,
More on special characters in OS X Panther (copy-and-pasted from the built-in "Help" program):
Typing special characters and symbols
You can insert special characters, such as mathematical symbols, letters with accent marks, or arrows and other "dingbats," into your documents using the Character Palette. You can also use this palette to enter Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, and Korean characters, as well as characters from other languages.
1. Open the application you want to type in, and place the insertion point where you want the special character or symbol to appear.
2. Choose Edit > Special Characters to open the Character Palette.
This menu item is only available in applications that were specifically designed to work with Mac OS X (native applications). If you don't see this menu item, you can open the Character Palette using International preferences. Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, and click International. Click Input Menu, then click the checkbox next to Character Palette, and then choose Show Character Palette from the input menu in the menu bar (the one that looks like a flag or character).
3. Choose the type of characters you want to see from the View pop-up menu at the top of the Character Palette window.
If you don't see the View menu, click the button in the upper-right corner of the window to show the top portion of the window. Click this button again to hide the top portion of the window.
4. Click an item in the list on the left to see the characters that are available in each category.
5. Double-click the character or symbol in the right column that you want to insert into your document.
You can also select the character and click Insert. To see more options for each character, such as the variations in glyphs for some characters, click the Character Info triangle and then the Font Variation triangle at the bottom of the Character Palette window.
If the character doesn't appear in your document, you may be using an application that doesn't support that character. Try a different character or try to insert it in a different application.
You can also type special characters and symbols by pressing combinations of keys on your keyboard. To see what keys to press, turn on the Keyboard Viewer in the Input Menu pane of International preferences, and then choose Show Keyboard Viewer from the input menu in the menu bar. Press the Shift, Option, or Option and Shift keys simultaneously to see the characters that are available. To type a character, press the modifier key (or keys) and the key on your keyboard that's in the same location as the character you want to type in the Keyboard Viewer.
Posted by: scott | Jan 17, 2005 10:50:18 AM
If you are looking for a blogging client I would say give MarsEdit 1.0 a try. I am a big fan of it, as well as NetNewsWire.
Posted by: Scott McNulty | Jan 17, 2005 11:06:03 AM
TypePad might have the ability to do Textile or markdown formatting, either of which automatically convert your quotes and hyphens to real typographic ones.
Posted by: Daniel Von Fange | Jan 17, 2005 11:18:08 AM
Hi there!
Wow sounds like you are really plowing ahead into this MAC thing! I am a MAC nut from waaay back - but got pulled over the PC side of things when Windows 2000 came out. As an IT solutions provider we do most of our work with Windows 2000/3 and Windows XP now, but I have a MAC client or two (though I don't hear from them nearly as much as our Windows folks)
I too have recently joined the IPOD junkies and really love this device - (it's the Photo edition!) It reminds me of what I like about MAC. Simple and elegant - the technology hasn't gotten in the way of listening to music. I can not say that about my wireless CREATIVE device that pulls music from my PC to upstairs.
I would like to know how you plan to replace your "Tablet" functionality if you move to MAC? As far as I am aware MAC hasn't ventured into this territory yet and you seem to really like the TABLET PC for your workflow. I'll keep watching to see how your evaluation goes.
I do beleive that there is plenty of room for both MAC's and PC's - each has it's own focus. I am really saddened to see a lot of school districts around here abandoning their MACs in favor of PCs so that they don't have to support both worlds- VERY narrow thinking in my opinion.
Posted by: Tom Lademann | Jan 23, 2005 6:06:57 PM
Actually, Microsoft has introduced the family pack for Word (whatever it's called) in Windows format as well. A good idea that's long overdue, and fortunately not limited by operating system.
There has also been a lot of movement lately by software companies allowing users to load software on their desktop and on a laptop, to accommodate people who want to stay productive on the road. Another good move that's LONG overdue!
Posted by: Eric E | Jan 27, 2005 12:03:48 PM
Try HumaneService, a "Service" under OS X that works with Cocoa apps. It will do some conversion for you, like taking care of those nasty special characters and encoding them properly. It also converts plain text into XHTML.
Posted by: John Hendron | Feb 27, 2005 4:48:12 PM
I switched for my mobile needs to a powerbook last year, after having been a MAC basher forever. Now I am starting to use a TabletPC and while the adjustment back to the windows world is not hard (I work for a MS solutions provider) I miss some things, but have warmly welcomed back some things too.
I saw the threads on licensing and may I remind you that the Office 2004 you bought with 3 installs is a Microsoft product. Also for the PC side Microsoft sells Office 2003 Student and Teacher edition that allows 5 installs I think for around $150 at Costco. It includes Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook.
I am looking for a good PC blog editor, I used the grandslam of NetNewswire and MarsEdit on my mac.
Posted by: Brendan | Sep 12, 2005 10:53:36 AM
Santa just got me an IMAC. What a treat!!!!!!.
I have been a PC user all my live, but as soon as I turned on the mac, I was amazed as how fast I got the hang of it. Mac is very intituive, clean and elegant to say the least.
The only thing I miss from the PC word is the keyboard layout configuration. I have to write in spanish, my native language, and those special characters, such as the accents, where configured in the US International keyboard layout. I didn't have to remember any alt #### sequence.
I am a little bit frustrated because I haven't found any similar keyboard layout for the mac, and I don't like the idea of stopping my typing just to enter a sequence of "opt e" plus the letter.
There must be a way around this. If any of you mac lovers know how to do this, please share it.
Thanks.
Posted by: Dally | Dec 28, 2006 6:04:25 AM
Santa just got me an IMAC. What a treat!!!!!!.
I have been a PC user all my live, but as soon as I turned on the mac, I was amazed as how fast I got the hang of it. Mac is very intituive, clean and elegant to say the least.
The only thing I miss from the PC word is the keyboard layout configuration. I have to write in spanish, my native language, and those special characters, such as the accents, where configured in the US International keyboard layout. I didn't have to remember any alt #### sequence.
I am a little bit frustrated because I haven't found any similar keyboard layout for the mac, and I don't like the idea of stopping my typing just to enter a sequence of "opt e" plus the letter.
There must be a way around this. If any of you mac lovers know how to do this, please share it.
Thanks.
Posted by: Dally | Dec 28, 2006 6:07:24 AM
