It didn't take me long to grow frustrated with the lack of a second display, although what is worth mentioning is that I was able to last longer without a second display under OS X than I would under XP. I attribute this mostly to features like Exposé that help manage the clutter, whereas under XP we've only got the taskbar and ALT + TAB. I'll talk about this more in a second.
Adding a second monitor is basically one of the easiest hardware upgrades you can do and believe it or not, it is even easier under OS X. I plugged in the second Cinema Display using the DVI port on the Radeon 9600. By the time I got back up to my desk the OS had already enabled the monitor, extended my desktop and set the resolution to the LCD's native resolution. There are not many options to tinker with with multimonitor setups under OS X, everything just works. Applications remember where you leave windows if you just move them there and close them, and the apps I've been using seem to be well aware of the setup.
There is a performance hit when multimonitor is enabled (much like the hit in XP), especially when using Exposé. Exposé already dips in performance when you have more than a few windows open, moving to a multimonitor setup does further impact performance with Exposé. Luckily even when you've got a bunch of windows open Exposé doesn't really slow down, instead you get dropped frames in the Exposé animation. The choppyness does get a little annoying but the functionality isn't really reduced which is very important.
Exposé retains its functionality while multimonitor is enabled, instead of mixing all the windows you basically get the equivalent of two Exposé functions running - one on each monitor. Exposé's functionality with multimonitors does make sense, it's exactly how you'd expect it to work.
I have yet to try gaming with a multimonitor setup, and I have high hopes as it is a pain to deal with under XP. I'll post about my experiences with gaming once I actually get a game installed on the machine :)
I'm getting better and better about using keyboard shortcuts in OS X. When I get back to the office today I'm going to try installing LaunchBar thanks to many of your suggestions. I'm at the point now where there are certain tasks that I can accomplish quicker under OS X than I could under XP because of the combination of Exposé and a plethora of keyboard shortcuts. I'm not more productive yet as there is still a lot of getting used to that's necessary but I definitely see the potential.
Switching between my Mac and PC machines continues to be a non-issue, all of the shortcuts and things I find myself doing under OS X remain on my Mac - I don't try to do them on my PCs. As I use the Mac more I may find myself trying to use Exposé and similar things under XP, but so far I thankfully don't have those issues.
I would like to close with some thoughts on the whole Mac vs. PC debate. The responses I've received to this experiment have been overwhelmingly positive from Mac readers; the help you all have provided is much appreciated and very valuable. At the same time, I appreciate the number of PC readers that are approaching this with an open mind and are honestly interested in the possibility of a die-hard PC user migrating to a Mac. Both camps have their "zealots" but for the most part, we are all here because we're nuts about hardware, software and computers in general. I would look at this experiment much like we look at different chipsets, CPUs, video cards or any sort of normal comparison between two pieces of hardware; approach it with an open mind and you'll end up with the best overall choice at the end.
I've got more Macdates coming down the pipe; I've finally got Photoshop, Office and Dreamweaver installed so now I should be able to do everything I used to do on a daily basis on my PC. More on that later...
Adding a second monitor is basically one of the easiest hardware upgrades you can do and believe it or not, it is even easier under OS X. I plugged in the second Cinema Display using the DVI port on the Radeon 9600. By the time I got back up to my desk the OS had already enabled the monitor, extended my desktop and set the resolution to the LCD's native resolution. There are not many options to tinker with with multimonitor setups under OS X, everything just works. Applications remember where you leave windows if you just move them there and close them, and the apps I've been using seem to be well aware of the setup.
There is a performance hit when multimonitor is enabled (much like the hit in XP), especially when using Exposé. Exposé already dips in performance when you have more than a few windows open, moving to a multimonitor setup does further impact performance with Exposé. Luckily even when you've got a bunch of windows open Exposé doesn't really slow down, instead you get dropped frames in the Exposé animation. The choppyness does get a little annoying but the functionality isn't really reduced which is very important.
Exposé retains its functionality while multimonitor is enabled, instead of mixing all the windows you basically get the equivalent of two Exposé functions running - one on each monitor. Exposé's functionality with multimonitors does make sense, it's exactly how you'd expect it to work.
I have yet to try gaming with a multimonitor setup, and I have high hopes as it is a pain to deal with under XP. I'll post about my experiences with gaming once I actually get a game installed on the machine :)
I'm getting better and better about using keyboard shortcuts in OS X. When I get back to the office today I'm going to try installing LaunchBar thanks to many of your suggestions. I'm at the point now where there are certain tasks that I can accomplish quicker under OS X than I could under XP because of the combination of Exposé and a plethora of keyboard shortcuts. I'm not more productive yet as there is still a lot of getting used to that's necessary but I definitely see the potential.
Switching between my Mac and PC machines continues to be a non-issue, all of the shortcuts and things I find myself doing under OS X remain on my Mac - I don't try to do them on my PCs. As I use the Mac more I may find myself trying to use Exposé and similar things under XP, but so far I thankfully don't have those issues.
I would like to close with some thoughts on the whole Mac vs. PC debate. The responses I've received to this experiment have been overwhelmingly positive from Mac readers; the help you all have provided is much appreciated and very valuable. At the same time, I appreciate the number of PC readers that are approaching this with an open mind and are honestly interested in the possibility of a die-hard PC user migrating to a Mac. Both camps have their "zealots" but for the most part, we are all here because we're nuts about hardware, software and computers in general. I would look at this experiment much like we look at different chipsets, CPUs, video cards or any sort of normal comparison between two pieces of hardware; approach it with an open mind and you'll end up with the best overall choice at the end.
I've got more Macdates coming down the pipe; I've finally got Photoshop, Office and Dreamweaver installed so now I should be able to do everything I used to do on a daily basis on my PC. More on that later...
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Coren - Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - link
You can right-click to bring up a context menu on items- ie drag the apps folder into the dock, right click and instantly have a list of apps to use.anand lal shimpi - Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - link
Erik K. VelandI haven't been happy with Dreamweaver MX '04 for Windows either, curious as to what your complaints are for OS X as I have yet to use it. My last favorite Dreamweaver was v3, since then there have been a lot of additions that I didn't need at all.
jeffosx
Thanks for the kind words, I appreciate them :) I have already played around with the terminal (after all I'm a command prompt guy at heart) and have already been handling some tasks in there instead of in the gui. I'll try the cd trick though to play around even more :)
Thanks again to everyone who has been commenting, everyone has been very helpful.
jak - Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - link
Anand, I am enjoying reading your blog. I love Macs and PCs both, and couldn't imagine limiting myself to only one platform; Why limit yourself to blondes or brunettes when you can have BOTH?!I would use OS X in its unadulterated form first, without Launchbar. For now, do the following:
Drag a copy of your Home icon to the dock.
Drag a copy of your Applications folder icon to the dock.
Now you'll be able to cntrl-click (or just left-click but keep the button depressed) on those dock icons and you'll get pop-up menus to access frequently used files and apps.
jeffosx - Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - link
Great approach to the trial so far Anand. I appreciate the way you dont complain about how OSX doesnt do this etc but rather "I cant figure out how to do this". Saves a lot of flame wars also.As an app switcher you may also like the way OSX differentiates applications from documents and so switching just documents is done via command-` .
You may also want to venture into the terminal at some point. They have some nice GUI integration there also. Try typing cd (then drag a folder from the finder to the terminal)
Erik K. Veland - Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - link
I just wanted to point out a small issue: Dreamweaver MX 2004 fucking sucks. And yes, I paid for it (or rather my work did). It was singlehandedly the one thing that pushed me back to hand-coding with just CSS.The last good Dreamweaver was version 4, when they ported to Mac OS X it got a lot worse. I thought it could only get better. Boy, was I wrong. Macromedia promise that they are working on an update though, but I just don't see how they can put any more makeup on that pig DMX2004 has become.
thePurpleGiant - Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - link
I use LaunchBar all the time. Yes, all the time, for nearly everything. I am not a Windows switcher at all, I just like to get things done as quick as possible, and LaunchBar lets me do that.SmurfTower - Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - link
My mistake....thanks for the clarification. NeXT huh? wow thats some old code. :) I knew about the dock tho. :pbakshi - Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - link
Re: LaunchBarI used OS X for about two years before discovering LaunchBar and IMO it's like grease on the wheels. It just helps speed things up. I have a Dock pretty full of icons, but there's always something it doesn't have, for which I hit Cmd-Space, type a few characters that are in the app name and hit enter, boom. WAY faster than scrolling through a (hierarchical) menu of stuff to find what you want. No fuss, no muss. It's also great for firing off a quick email (it can search Address Book) and locating docs.
It's very good at predicting what you want, so even if you mispell something typing it quickly, or just plain enter a few characters, it knows what you want. I find myself typing only 3-4 characters and it already has the item I want highlighted.
I don't consider it to be a "Windows" thing at all (at least I'm not aware of anything remotely as functional in Windows). Start-Run is not quite the same thing.
Michael - Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - link
Judge Fire, it's also interesting to note for everyone that in addition to being on Apple's Safari/WebKit team, Dave Hyatt is also one of the lead developers for Mozilla Firefox.Michael - Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - link
There isn't really anything like LaunchBar in a vanilla install of Windows. So, it definitely isn't a Windows-switcher's tool. However, I would strongly recommend sticking to vanilla OS X until you're very comfortable with it (at least a couple of weeks). This is what I did when I switched from windows and it worked very well for me. The only GUI enhancer I ever used was LiteSwitch X, however, most of its functionality is now in Panther so I have a completely vanilla Panther environment.Also, not using GUI enhancers at first would do a better service to your non-Mac readers in my opinion.