Quick, someone check the temperature sensor for Hell!

[tcepsa]

I was at the Northern Virginia Software Symposium this weekend. Holy crap was it awesome. If Groovy can deliver on the things that were hinted at over the weekend... wow. But that's not what this post is about. This post it about a simple observation that I made while at the conference.

Every single presenter that I went to (with the possible exception of one that I forgot to check) used a Mac. And they did it REALLY WELL. As in "I'm going to give this full-fledged demonstration complete with code examples and slides and running the demo applications, and when I am done you will be able to count the number of times that I used the mouse on one hand." (Most of them were also running XP in a program that I believe was called Parallels, but that's a digression from this post). Combined that with the fact that it's now running on a Unix kernel, and there are applications like Quicksilver out there, and I am seriously considering going over to the Apple side. [Though almost certainly not completely...]

So I'm interested in learning more from those of you who have them, especially those of you who do development work on them, how you like them, what are the things you love about them, what are the things you hate (or would prefer were different)? What things do you wish they had?

And what things would you say that I, as a relative Mac newbie, should keep in mind when considering the purchase of one? Could I get away with something used, or is that just crazy talk? I've got about 22 years of experience (of various levels and flavors) with computers (and those of you who know my age and think I am pulling your leg, I can provide proof, at least anecdotally ^_^) but precious little of that involves Apple products, and even less of that involves modern Apple products.

Thoughts? Recommendations? I'll probably follow this up with a more specific-questions post once I think up some more specific questions ~grin~

Comments

[belushi81x.livejournal.com]

I've been tellin you (because I tell everybody) for years that macs are friggin' awesome!!!!

[belushi81x.livejournal.com]

Seriously tho.... you dont' want anythign without an intel chip these days.... used or no... if you're getting a desktop and you don't want to spend top dollar just get a mini.

If you're going for a laptop all their laptops are pretty solid (If you get a laptop I seriously reccomend an extended warentee, tho i owuld say that for any brand, I think)...

The 2 questions I have to ask are
1) budget?
2) use?



Because I know the work you do I will point out that apple puts out most of their own dev tools on the cheap.

[tcepsa.livejournal.com]

~nods~ Intel chip good. Got it. Will probably take your suggestion on a Mini, since right now I'm just trying to get my feet wet, get a feel for it, and see whether it's something that would be worth my investing more time and money in, or whether at this point it would be better for me to stick to honing my current Windows and/or Linux skills.

Budget: More of a time thing than a money thing, though I'm hoping to get started just for experimenting/playing around for less than $500. That having been said, I do still want something that'll run the latest OS reasonably well.

Use: Primary: Code (especially Java) Development and IM/E-mail/Web Stuff. If Eclipse and Firefox work, I'm pretty much good to go. Some kind of Office suite would be nice to have as well (is there a version of OpenOffice for the Mac?)
Secondary: Possibly image editing. Possibly music mixing. Maybe watching the occasional DVD.
Tertiary: What other cool things can one do with a Mac? ~grin~

One of my major goals here is an operating system and working environment that support complete keyboard-only operation. The less I have to use the mouse (especially for the primary usage things) the better.

Would be up for checking out those dev tools that you mentioned as well.

[belushi81x.livejournal.com]

Apple Dev tools...
http://developer.apple.com/
Bum arroudn there, you'll find lots of interesting reading and tools etc.
(tho if you're mostly doing java you might as well just get tools from SUN) Apple users have made some interesting dev too on shareware/demo at
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/development_tools/

• What is Eclipse?? I am not familiar with that.
  
• I use firefox on my mac often and the apple default browser (safari) is also quite well done.
  
• The is a version of open office for mac. There are also other options including apple developed software (called iWork) and ported versions of UNIX software that used to be used like open office.
  
• Haven't done a lot of image editing. iPhoto does most of what i need it to do... (keep and orgainize photos... SIMPLE touchups... etc.)
  
• You can do a lot without using a mouse. There are a lot of tricks, but saddly you must still use your mose a bit.
  
• Randumb cool stuff... Umm... some simple built-in voice recognition that's fun to play with till the novelty wears off (i.e. you can say "open mail" into your mic and if you've set it up properly it will open your mail program). Last time I played with it voice commands could be set to anything you can double click, any menu command within a program, and a series of other macros etc.
  Now that I think on it that could reduce mouse use as well
  All kinds of UNIX stuff... I use the unix prompt far more often than I used a command prompt or a DOS prompt on windows...
  http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/
  

Go for the mini... tho only thing on your list you'd notice the difference in power on is compling code, and it shouldn't be TOO bad on a loaded mini. If you have a spare monitor, and USB keybord/mouse you can probably keep that in the $600 range. I'm sorry to say the cheapest NEW mini goes for $599... tho you might be able to get a discount for some reason. I know you're no longer a student and no longer working for the government.

[tcepsa.livejournal.com]

What is Eclipse?? I am not familiar with that.

Eclipse is a free plug-in based environment that is huge in the Java development community these days--as an example, probably 80-90% of the developers at the conference that I was at this past weekend use it as their IDE (it was an informal poll, but pretty much everyone looked like they had their hands raised when they asked that one).

For image editing, I'm thinking more along the lines of Photoshop, but I don't know that I'd necessarily really get into that all that much, and I've heard nothing but good things about Macs and image manipulation. Between the keyboard tricks and voice activation stuff, it sounds like I could probably get away with almost no mouse usage.

All in all, it's sounding very appealing. I don't mind a little bit of extra time in the code compilation phase (especially since for the most part I'll be doing smaller homebrew stuff for experimenting anyway); what I'm really hoping for is something that doesn't pause when I'm not expecting it to. Waiting for code to compile? That's expected. Switching between windows? Please don't make me wait to see the window and do simple manipulations on it like move the mouse or enter text. (Guess what my current pet peeve of the moment is ~grin~) Hell, that thing with being to zoom all the windows out to their own separate area of the desktop so you can see a full-but-tiny view of everything you've got open, and then switch between them? That's BRILLIANT! Especially if they all go to the same place every time! Double-especially if the creators thought to include a way to automatically jump to each one by hitting a key (1 for the upper left, 2 for the middle top, whatever) but even without that, that could be one of those rare occasions where I can actually get there faster by using the mouse than by trying to alt-tab between every window.

Anyway, stepping away from my mini almost-rant, I'll definitely check out the links you sent me and see how things look ^_^ Thanks!

[tcepsa.livejournal.com]

~grin~ I figured you might have an opinion that you wanted to share with me on this one...

also...

[judyisis.livejournal.com]

I also recommend going to like a Best Buy and finding an Apple salesguy on the floor. That's what got me started on the quest to find out more. I was looking at PC prices and the Apple guy here started telling me all about Macs--you confirmed stuff he told me, I kept looking into it--you know the rest.
Also--if you mean like Word, PowerPoint, Excel, etc--those are all available on Macs--one of the first things I asked ;)
I am looking forward to the info you get here so I can learn more, too!

brat

[judyisis.livejournal.com]

I'm mad at you because I JUST talked to you this AM and you didn't ask me how I like the Mac that you know I have!
That being said--since you and Xilet are my computer guru goto people, I know you know way more about the Macs than I do, and I can't help with the technical stuff you need to know. I will tell you this, tho--the Mac I am using, even tho it is quite old, is making me happier than any PC I have EVER used. I cannot WAIT until I can plunk down the funds for a shiny new one!! Every single person I have talked to about Macs (who has one) since I first started asking YOU about them loves them and will not use PCs anymore. (And I've asked a butt-load of people) I am a solid convert.
(Just make sure you take snow-cone syrup to hell when you go ;)

Re: brat

[tcepsa.livejournal.com]

The reason I didn't say anything this morning was, well, you said it yourself--I'm more looking for technical details like what kind of processor I'd need, how much RAM, etc. for stuff like code development. I know that there are enough fans out there that they must be doing several somethings very right, and I'm trying to discern whether it's enough to warrant the expense involved in making the transition when I've already got my current level of proficiency in Windows and Windows-related tools.

Re: brat

[judyisis.livejournal.com]

ya ya--I still woulda thought it was cool! I'm glad they impressed you ;)
The Minis are super cute, if you get one!

Re: brat

[belushi81x.livejournal.com]

The cheap minis are more powerful than the 4 year old mac I am typing on now and I have done dev work on this machine... mostly home-brew tho.

[purplepathos.livejournal.com]

I've been using Macs at home for thirteen years, exclusively. Living in a college town, all of my Macs have been used and have been pretty reliable. I don't do anything too advanced with them--internet stuff, games, photos, CD/DVD playing/burning, etc. I love how intuitive they are--someone like me who hasn't had much real training can just get on them and use them. My only real frustration is the lack of software support for them. So many times there's some piece of software that looks like fun and I'd love to have it, but, whoops, it's not available for the Mac. Grr.