For the record, I had been using Mac OSX way way back to iBook G3; as I remember, it’s Tiger back then. I didn’t have much love for Mac OSX. That’s why I turned to Vista (believe it or not, I think it’s better than Tiger in many ways), and Windows 7. Nonetheless, destiny always plays us. I have to get a new machine after 3-year+ with X61 Tablet. X200 Tablet is my next target, but in Thailand, unfortunately, there is none available in brick and mortar store. It’s required a special order which takes like a month or so with *extra special price
* to get which is much more expensive than Macbook Pro. Thus, I decided to get Macbook Pro with matte screen & i7. My decision of purchasing Macbook Pro is about hardware alone since I didn’t think of software as a barrier.
I won’t go through all detail right away since I still need more time to adjust my routine to suit Mac OSX to get a fair comparison. In short, pros and cons I have found are below.
Pros:
- [software] Apple makes me believe that their trackpad is good; after I have so much love for Thinkpad trackpoint.
- [software] OSX handle multiple monitors well (just 2 monitors so far) [Linux is way way behind Mac OSX/Windows]
- [software] Never in love with multiple workspaces, but Spaces does the job very very well.
- [software] OSX handle most of Google thingys well: iCal, Address Book rocks w/Google account.
- [software] Mail app is way better than Live Mail in Windows.
- [software] Spotlight is as good as Windows Search.
- [software] VMWare Fusion is pretty damn good with a unity feature; it makes you believe that Windows app is native Mac app.
- [software] Gotta love having bash shell as default. To me, it’s better than DOS.
- [hardware] Macbook Pro looks very very nice.
- [hardware] MagSafe should be on every laptops!
Cons:
- [software] OSX just can’t handle copying files [from cifs to another cifs, multiple copy & paste, multiple times of drag & drop, copying files within many many level of folders] It doesn’t matter if it’s Windows’ thing. If OSX supports it, MAKE IT fully compatible. >> here is a fix.
- [software] Emptying trash is a pain in the ass; I don’t know what they do, how secure they are doing, but there is no choice for unsecured and fast one. That’s bad enough. shift+option+cmd+del is good enough to empty everything although it might take few hours.
- [software] iWork is useless to me–I can’t even open MS Word file.
- [software] Microsoft Office for Mac is below par when it comes to compatibility with Windows version–It’s not OS fault, but most people around me use Windows, that makes this a con. I expect much better app-and-OS-independent here.
- [software] Missing OneNote! there is none as good also. VMWare Fusion comes being a hero here.
- [software] no Windows Live Photo replacement–I hate iPhoto which can do only in its own library. Adobe Bridge comes close but it’s not built for viewing tons of photo in many folders at once. Picasa has its own way of keeping all info. I don’t like that. (I stick with spacebar to preview for now.)
[software] a change of not showing SMB/CIFS mount on desktop in Snow Leopard is very very awkward. In Tiger, if you mount CIFS path, you will get a link on desktop. This can be achieved with ln -s, but why make this more complicated than it used to be?my bad that I couldn’t find this: firing up Sidebar Preference | General Tab | you will see connected servers show on desktop option! checked!- [hardware] 2 USB for top-of-the-line machine?
- [hardware] Screen isn’t IPS-comparable; this is less than I expected. At least Thinkpad X200 Tablet will come with a better panel.
- [hardware] no PgUp/PgDw and many buttons on Mac keyboard, but I do love having CMD as an extra.
I know that many are applications’ cons, but if I only include what OS can do, not considering 3rd party app too, it would be non real-world experience. Is there anyone still uses computer w/o any 3rd party software nowadays? I’m sure I will have a lot more to add here; wait and see.
Popularity: 9% [?]
In a day that smartphone rules the world of a living, iPhone, Android and such are just outperforming all featured phone. I have been using so-called smart phone since Treo’s day. Before that, I never was a fan of all in one kind of things: PDA and phone specifically. Then I was super happy Tungsten T2 + Sony E T-630. I could access internet by connecting via Bluetooth. Now, I’m with Nexus One. Is that good? yeah. Am I impressed w/N1? absolutely. However, recently I have been forced to have 2 cells. One with unlimited data plan—on N1 surely–and the other with cheapy voice plan; the combination works. Things get more interesting from that.
is a sammy flip phone. Nothing is special at all by today’s standard—back then it’s the very FIRST POLYPHONIC ringtone capable phone LOL. Lucky me that it is still rock. What do I find? I find that it’s very very easy to pick up the phone and surely nothing bothers if I tap on the virtual button or NOT. If I want to answer the call, just open the phone. If I want to hang up, just flip it back. If I want to make a phone call, just type the name. T9 sucks I must admit, but swiping through 300+ contacts is worse. Oddly enough, I never find Treo is less effective in phone ability to any featured phone. I, nevertheless, have yet to find any easy-to-use/real productive in phone for touch phone at all.
Microsoft might not be trend setter anymore these days, but they are working hard to be back. That’s for sure. Live Mail or hotmail is one of popular email in the world, regardless of how good it is. Once in a while I get in my account to check if there is any of my mail, besides loads of junk. Then I noticed something new, single-use code ??






Palm OS was one of platforms that has very large community behind its success. No matter how many limited it has; there is a will, there’ll always be a way to work around. Yep, that was true. Sadly, now it’s definitely not.
but instead of promoting & improving it, they decide to leave it behind and promote the weaknesses–multimedia or whatsoever.