Two weeks ago I made the radical switch from Linux to Mac in the hope that I would achieve the advantages of a fully supported, integrated platform (Apple/OSX) without losing too much of the pure power, security and flexibility of Linux.
So far, my hopes have been hugely exceeded and I have already benefited from massive productivity improvements, had a great deal of fun, and achieved things in a few minutes which I have wasted hours upon hours trying to perfect on Linux.
The process of adding functionality to my MacBook Pro is still more akin to Linux than that other operating system. Still need to do some research (ie Google-ing) and often need to give the system a bit of a helping hand. Since OSX is Unix, this is straight forward to someone with my background… may be a bit foreign to someone moving from the “Dark Side”!
Why does this blog exist? Well, to a large extent, it will be something of a shared documentation or reference document for my personal use. Earlier this year I had the somewhat odd experience of searching Google for assistance with a problem getting a wireless network card working on a Linux box … found a really well written explanation of how to get it done, and then realised that it was one of my own posts on a Linux related blog!
Please feel free to add your comments, clarifications or questions, bearing in mind that I have absolutely no history with OSX, so if it isn’t on the current version (Leopard) you’ll be depending on others for assistance and will probably get better results from one of the many excellent Mac Forums.
Coming soon…
Here’s a quick list of the packages already in my Downloads Folder. All have been installed, some have already been removed and some will be removed as soon as the evaluation period expires!
- 1Password
- Air Mouse Server
- Aperture Trial
- Aptana Studio
- BC Composer
- ?? BLKOPWMRX_esd ??
- Call Recorder
- Circus Ponies Notebook
- Classic Mac
- Disc Cover
- Drawit
- Evernote
- Firefox
- Growl
- Hydra
- Flash Player 10
- iPhone SDK
- iSoftPhone
- iWeb SEO Tool
- Jellyfish CSS
- Jumpcut
- Kompozer
- Letterbox
- LiveScribe Desktop
- Logitech Control Center
- Cine Pant
- MacPorts
- Mail Plane
- MailTags
- NEO Office
- Net 4.4.8
- Novatel XU870 drivers
- OmniFocus
- OmniGraffle
- OmniOutliner
- OmniPlan
- Pixelmator
- Printfolio
- SafariSpeed
- Skype
- Stuffit
- TextMate
- TomTom Home
- Wallet
- WD Anywhere Backup
I have also installed git-core from MacPorts
Watch for posts on all of these, and more, in the near future.