the one where I gush about my new mac
Last weekend I went out and bought a Mac Mini. I know. I just couldn't take it anymore. I've been wanting one for awhile just for the unix system with a pretty and usuable UI. Here are a couple things I've noticed. Keep in mind I am a biased windows user...
- Mac OSX loves memory. Writing rails apps on 256MB was fine, but I had to be careful not to have too many apps open. I bought a "1GB stick of PC3200 RAM from NewEgg":http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820144321 and now the Mini can get comfortable. 800MB comfortable. Yikes.
- Keyboard shortcuts throw me way off. Some are similar enough, substituting ctrl for the Windows key, but others are way off.
- The system sees my 5 mouse buttons, but neither Safari nor Firefox bind buttons 4 and 5 to back/forward. Luckily, Firefox's mouse gestures keep me from manually having to hit the "back" button.
- Expose is very nice (and much more refined than TopDesk). However, I very much prefer Alt+Tab to F9. I bound it to one of my unused mouse buttons, so it's ok.
Okay, this post turned into a Mac bitching session. Let me just throw in that I love "TextMate":http://macromates.com/. It's probably one of the best general purpose text editors out there (unless you're very proficient in emacs or vi. more power to you).
I also love the way the applications are packaged. You download an app, and it comes in one file. Not a zip, mind you, but just one executable. No dll's, external modules, anything (with the exception of documentation of course). To install, you drag it over to your Applications directory. To uninstall, you delete it. It just brings me back to the old DOS days when you could uninstall doom by removing the directory. I really dig the overall design methodology of the Mac. Everything is designed to be simple enough to get out of your way and let you work. Exhibit A: Compare iTunes to Windows Media Player.
Speaking of which, I recently subscribed to Dave Hyatt's (the main Safari developer) weblog. It's very apparent the amount of time he's spent "getting Safari to pass the Acid2 test":http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/hyatt/archives/2005_04.html#008011. This contrasts wildly to the IE Team. Yes, "people are excited":http://longhornblogs.com/rdawson/archive/2005/04/23/13881.aspx about "IE7's new features":http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/04/22/410963.aspx. PNG support and crucial CSS bug fixes will upgrade the lowest common denominator among user's browsers and allow web developers to use their next generation techniques to upgrade everyone's user experience. While MS is concentrated on their vision for -2007- 2006 (it's all just "fire and motion":http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000339.html, baby), web developers are working hard on the user experiences today. Who do you think is our ally on this front? Apple or Microsoft? Why do we have to wait years on bug fixes that have been "painstakingly":http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer/peekaboo.html "documented":http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer/guillotine.html for free? This is why I'm thrilled they're finally paying attention to our pleas and fixing these bugs. Please, IE developers, take this opportunity and run with it.
Finally, "QuickSilver":http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/ is a wonderful little utility. At first it seems like a little application launcher. Type 'fir' and it launches Firefox. It's really a little search engine and has more then just applications in its index. I can type 'com' and it finds my Textmate project file for my rails app Comiclog, for instance. Apparently it has a lot of extensions and nifty advanced features I haven't even begun to uncover.
I apologize for the outburst. I don't really know what got into me.