...so I got a big shiney new iMac the other day. It's a friggin awesome machine, and I'm loving it. Thought I may as well post some thoughts:
- Switching: Easy. I've found mac alternatives (and generally they're an improvement) to pretty much all the windows-only software I need.
- Mail: I've imported all my gmail to Mail.app - The gmail interface is probably a bit better, but Mail is much speedier (and the interface is better than most - at least it has conversation threading!).
- Address Book: Bloody brilliant. Once you've got it set up, it works together with iCal and Mail to display (for example) people's photos on the top of their emails - very cool.
- Spotlight: Also brilliant. Probably the best feature in OSX.
- iTunes: Much the same as on windows, but less crap. It still won't let me keep some of my old meta-data, so I'm in the prcess of writing a script to import my library and set the appropriate meta-data.
- GarageBand: Really good - I haven explored this much, but I want to...
- Browsers: Safari is nice and quick, but I rely on Firefox's smart bookmarks and extensions. I'm using Camino at the moment, but might switch to firefox when they get around to releasing the intel version.
- IM: Adium is better than any windows client I've seen. Oh, except for the default sound theme which is inexplicably hideous (it sounds much like an incredibly sick duck). Luckily that's easy to change.
- Dashboard: Pretty useful, but quite the memory hog.
- Tools: Having a unix-based system is incredibly handy. I can finally download and compile stuff just using "make". This is no different from linux, but a huge improvement over windows.
- iWeb: Absolutely useless if you don't have a .Mac account (screw that). Dissapointing, but it's not like I'd use it anyways...
- iPhoto: Unforgivably poor. I would greatly appreciate any tips for better programs. I used Picasa on the PC, and it was great. iPhoto sucks in these ways:
- Ignores folder structure entirely - who doesn't organise their photos in folders?
- Screws up the date data - apparently I took a lot of photos on christmas day, 2026. Even when I set the dates back to a more sane date, it ignores the date I set and keeps listing them as 2026.
- Can't monitor folders for new photos - you have to add them all manually.
- Doesn't recognise picasa comments - forgivable, although spotlight seems to manage it. I may be able to batch-add comments via some manner of script though.
- Doesn't add meta-data to image files - meta-data seems to be stored in a link to the photo, so when you search in spotlight it comes up as a document instead of an image - which means you get no thumbnails.
So overall I'm very happy with my Mac. I would love to replace iPhoto though, if anyone has any suggestions there...
2 Comments:
Oooh, welcome to the fold! :) Here are a few points based on your blog entry...
Mail: One of the biggest complaints I've seen about Mail (that you actually didn't make!) is that the toolbar buttons are horrid. They break several usability conventions that I'll skip here. You might like to try Mail Stamps to make them look and behave a bit more normal.
Browsers: Be sure to check out PimpMySafari for a bunch of add-ons that work similar to Firefox's extensions. Also, note that there are several alternatives including Shiira (my current favorite), SunriseBrowser, and the nightly WebKit builds (by Apple's own developers, more info here) that all use the same open source rendering/display engine as Safari.
I generally steer people away from Firefox for Mac because it's unfortunately a very poor example of Mac programming. It breaks all sorts of normal Mac OS X conventions and features. The only thing good it has going for it are the cross-platform Extensions. So, unless there's a particular Extension you can't live without, I'd suggest keeping with Safari or similar.
iWeb: I don't have the latest iLife apps myself, but I do know for a fact that you can save your iWeb site to a local directory and then upload it to a webserver yourself. The option is in there somewhere; I'm just not sure where.
iPhoto, Ignores folder structure entirely: iPhoto works the same as iTunes in that it manages the structure automatically, then allowing you to create "playlists" (albums) in the application itself for further sorting. Most people I know prefer it this way since they have hundreds or thousands of photos that would be a pain to sort by hand. It may just be something worth trying just for a while before giving up on it entirely. If not, I'm sure there's something else out there.
...and in general, EXPLORE! :) Dig around. Click through all the preferences in all of the apps. Remember that drag and drop works practically everywhere; I like to amaze others by dragging a file, hitting my Exposé corner, and dropping it into some window that was previously totally obscured. There are so many little cool things that'll make you say "why didn't I think of that sooner?!" when you stumble across them.
Cheers!
Hey Brad, thanks heaps for the tips!
Mail: I read about the mail icons a while ago, but I tend to use the keyboard so it doesn't bother me much.
Browsers:I'll be sure to try out those browser suggestions, hopefully one of them can replace firefox.
iPhoto: The problem with arranging photos in playlists is that it's not as portable - i suspect few programs can import iTunes data, whereas all programs know about folder structure (even if they ignore it).
I don't think photos should be arranged like playlists. Almost always, photos are going to be imported as a bunch related to a specific time / event. I have no problems with smart folders as well as that, but I think bunch of photos should have a "home".
(by the way - how is putting photos into albums any easier than putting them into photos?)
However, the 2026 Date thing is still incredibly annoying (and seemingly unfixable).
I'll give it a go though, I may write some sort of script to make albums out of each folder...
Unfortunately I had to disable the expose corners because mouse glitches kept throwing the mouse into the corners at random. Ahh well, I like the keyboard anyways ;)
And yep, I'm loving drag & drop :D