One week on a Mac

It’s been a week since I’ve switched to the MacBook as my primary machine for work.

For a long time Windows user (since the DOS days) and having worked at Microsoft for 5 years I would say that I am a Windows Super User. There is something in Windows that I don’t know but it ain’t much ☺.

So after a week my productivity is still down. The coolness factor is up. I actually like taking my computer around with me again. It’s very light and it makes my DELL Latitude look and feel ancient.

Positive emotions come from:
- Spotlight which is absolutely awesome!
- Installing/uninstalling applications is amazing.
- Unix shell and all unix things installed.
- Doc
- Application management – I actually like the fact that you can see which applications are loaded and that closing a word document doesn’t quit word.
- Super fast startup and shutdown time
-

Negative emotions:
- Outlook is the best e-mailing and scheduling program ever. I miss it.
- Not being on the Windows domain is an inhibitor.
- I like pushing alt and seeing the shortcuts, I also like being able to use the keyboard for menus.
- Ctrl+Del is a great shortcut that allows me to delete a word at a time.

Couple of must get items I found so far:
- Firefox with a del.icio.us plugin.
- Windows Live Mesh to keep my documents synched up.

A couple of cool items that I found on the Mac:
- Aquamacs – a nice looking emacs.

I still use Windows for my development because I know Visual Studio and .NET better then all other stacks, but for Office use MacBook is a pleasure to use.