I made the switch over to Mac OS X when my T20 fizzled in Aug 2004. I did a 1 month analysis and decided my mac mini was the most economic supporter of the future of the Internet not to mention it's really cute!

What a ride it's been beating this machine up to death! I decided in the spirit of not participating in software piracy to go open source and accept using Panther - I honestly never saw anything I really wanted in Tiger (10.4) that convinces me I have to buy it - it's been a good experiment overall!

So at the end of the day - I could have named this wiki page something boring (like I named a page I put together the other day like VoIP) or I could just declare my choice - I'm a proud Apple owner and Mac OS X has it's ups and downs just like any other OS (ahem)

ok - enough for now - I really don't have time to go into a comparative analysis for you windoze switcher out there - it suffices to say I look forward to getting x86-based MacBook and you bet I never saw the transition coming back in 2006 and what a wonderful surprise to see a future of marrying both desktops! Go intel!

Admin

http://www.macwrite.com/criticalmass/mac-os-x-built-in-firewall.php

see Road Warrior

Articles

Apple OS X 10.5.2 (Leopard) - found this to be a pretty down to earth review with a willingness to say Leopard is not perfect but at the end of the day, a really great operating system amongst what is out there!
The Two Key Principles of Time Macine - very well written article distinguishing the importance of "context" in Time Machine towards usability and ease of use.
Another Windows User Brainwashed Into The Apple Cult - ha - i actually found this article wondering if I've been brainwashed by Apple - I actually want to work for them. That said, this article at least acknowledges the reality that switching from Windows is not overnight but once said and done - you're pretty satisfied with your choice!

Noteworthy

ok - something I did not notice until I installed Flock (Firefox derivative) on my copy of WinXP - fonts are noticeably sharper on Mac OS X! I didn't think it would be such a striking difference but it's pretty damn obvious to the point of why the hell use Firefox on Windows - it looks so chunky! See for yourself - you may find yourself using Mac OS X apps for this one reason alone! (NOTE: Vista has improved rendering to be fair - there are debates in regards to whose rendering is "better")

Importance of backups

some context: I'm a backup and more accurately "data through time" freak. Time Machine is a very timely (no pun intended) addition to the Mac OS X family! This section discusses an additional measure you can take beyond what Time Machine does to increase your "uptime" and ability to be unstoppable!

(NOTE: this issue happened on 10.3.9 (Panther) - Apple may very well have made Leopard (10.5.x) more reliable in this respect! however, I highly recommend you clone your system using a great utility called Carbon Copy Cloner to an external - you boot off your external in an emergency)

ha - just hrs after posting something `noteworthy` - my mini booted complaining it could not find its OS on its startup disk!

• thank god I had a bootable clone of the entire disk on my external firewire - my mini was up and running just like that (yes - to you reading who doesn't have backups - create one NOW!!!)
• repairing the disk didnt work - it is complains about
  • Checking Catalog hierarchy.
    Invalid volume file count
    (It should be 246740 instead of 246742)
    Checking Extended Attributes file.
    Invalid node structure
• I`m a little ticked off cuz I used `shut down` to turn off my mini - this is not even a poor shut down from a power failure or anything like this!
• this may be a hardware-related issue not the OS itself. I am a bit disappointed though!
• used my mini for almost 2.5 years without any issues - glad my backup solution came through - thanks Carbon Copy Cloner!
• highlights concerns of getting my laptop up and running as soon as possible when all else fails!
  • my intention for making my Leopard be on a 40GB separate partition so I can play the same game - just doesnt make Boot Camp happy - a reason to go with Parallels (although the advantage of Boot Camp is it is a backup OS switchable at the hardware level!

Leopard

more rigorous eval than Panther (10.3.9) now that it's in my hands and the hype is up :)

Features that did it for me in Leopard

1. Time Machine (you can say this 4x over - it is the killer feature - painless backups)
2. iPhoto (the Event feature is great - I love the scroll over to quickly "scroll" through pictures!)
3. Photo Booth - I believe this was introduced in Tiger. Burst mode make it more fun and more like a real photo booth. Well - it's fun now that I have an iSight!
4. Stacks - no more clutter on the desktop - esp for Downloads!

Features that are used to my surprise

1. Spotlight - works well - I think better than QuickSilver - it appears to be an improvement over the Tiger version.
2. (dual monitor support - I am sure this was there before - just discovered on my macboo!)
3. Quick Look - great for pictures - although I did find instances where they didn't work on all JPEGs (Dance Chalat) - don't know what is up with this. I like the previews for even PDFs!
4. Safari - while Flock is my primary browser, *native* tabbed browsing is great :) (was tabbing available in Tiger?)
5. screensaver - iTunes and esp the picture collage ones are pretty neat (CoreAnimation)
6. iLife browser to choose files... - a definite step towards the future (in Tiger? dependent on iLife version?)
7. iCal - while I still don't think the UI is as "refined" as Outlook - I think it's come along way in regards to usability. There is something to be said for the classic windowed "event form" - where you input all your data in at once.
8. "New Airport Menu" - i really would have to see this in Tiger (as the first time I am really seeing this is in Leopard) but I assume it's a hell of a lot more straight forward to use (cuz that's how it occurs!)
9. Application-based firewall
10. tagging of downloaded applications - ensures safety of what is executed.
11. Dynamic partitioning of my disk (Live Partition Resizing) - PartitionMagic with the operating system - nice! You don't even need to reboot - wow!
12. Eject all partitions (very nice for my fw drive which has 4 partitions on it)
13. Alex - a new voice - very impressive but a bit of a gimmick (it's used when an Application wants attention)
14. Spaces (dual monitor support works well) (hey will both screen flip? ie. different contexts for *both* screens?) (i used to be a huge twvm user at CMU too! i suppose what' missing for me is the little "viewer" that communiciates u actually have windows in other "spaces!")
    • UPDATE: I found a context to use Spaces - full screen WinXP! Coherence mode can get a little picky about window placement and what not so Spaces is beautiful for just leaving a full-screen WinXP in another space and making it easy to demonstrate "parallel" versions of the same software (ie. Mind Manager) or in my vision, alternative implementations of Mission Control vivid displays!
15. Bootcamp - constriction to only have 2 partitions is kinda bogus!!!!!
    • UPDATE: yes, i broke down and bought a copy of WinXP! I was willing to accept the 2 partition scheme and just get it working - it works well! even Second Life works impressively well in native mode (due to direct support for Intel 945 chipset on Windows. I was also impressed that Parallels is able to use my existing Boot Camp install with no changes on my behalf - great job!
16. Dashboard - still don't really get what's the draw - haven't found my killer app - yet.
    • UPDATE: getting the iPhone facebook into a dashboard web widget would do it for me. I am thinking of getting my yoga schedule as web widget too - there is a future here!
17. Mail - just don't work well with gmail IMAP - esp if you have tens of thousands of emails....
    • iPhoto insists on mailing photos using Mail so technically I use it for this purpose. Mail is now set up for offline email using POP3
18. iChat AV - just plain failed between here and SF! I want to try iChat Theater and Screen Sharing! killed the possibility of it being easy for my dad..
    • UPDATE: it works! Effects make it a pleasure to use and the future of iChat Theater is awesome. Only gripe right now is you need a wide pipe between you and your users - it's not P2P like Skype
19. Printer Sharing - for some reason, my mini is able to use my printer over the network connected to my macbook. Brownie points for Leopard and will have to verify by trying vice versa again - this is technically not a new feature!

Don't find myself using

1. Sync with Yahoo! - ha! they lost to Google a *long* time ago - Plaxo is my choice of app for this task.
2. Front Row - still seems to be more like a toy. I am disappointed the Remote wasn't built with the innovative dial control iPods have!
3. iCal Notes - no use until it it syncs with my iPhone! saving to IMAP is horrible and confusing.
4. new Parental Controls - no kidz yet!
5. 64-bit - I don't think I am *really* taking advantage of this am I?

to evaluate

1. new Automator - esp Recording!
2. new XCode 3
   • new Objective-C 2.0
3. Dictionary Japanese language support - how to enable?
4. CalDAV - group scheduling!
5. "Hiragino Gothic and Hiragino Mincho, are considered among the most beautiful of Japanese fonts"
6. Tabbed Terminal
7. TextEdit Word 2007 document editing

Archive & Install

ok - I didn't expect to use this feature to troubleshoot a iCal & iPhone sync problem. It went pretty smoothly overall. My only gripes:

• some preferences not kept
  • Dock doesn't hide (I may have unhid it now that I am back a 2 monitor setup)
  • Time Machine was off
  • "Windows HD" was missing from my Spotlight exclusion list (other drives are there, so perhaps I am wrong)
• all logs are cleared (this actually may be a good thing...)
• don't see a method to just "rollback" (you are just given a "Previous Systems" folder)

this are minor at the end of the day