I never thought I would do it, but I did.

I just ordered a macbook pro

I'm a PC user since for ever and know my way arround (my wife owns a PC store so we also know the technical stuff) and never had problems with windows or whatever (just know what you combine hardware wise).

The simple reason I make the switch is actually laughable, powered firewire.
I will be running bootcamp with windows on the MBP but of course also MacOS.

Are there any must have software utils that can enhance my experience and maybe switch me more towards the mac ?

At the moment I run into three problems why I have to use bootcamp.
1. My gisteq software is only PC
2. My calibration software is only PC (not colorprofiling, but the software I use for ISF calibrations).
3. I need outlook on a daily basis and must be able to exchange the whole data file in a few minutes.

But I also like to experiment with the Mac OS of course.

So let's share some tips for utils or software that really let the mac stand out

I develop software on/for PC's but bought a Mac to use Aperture when it first came out. Still use it on my iMac and recently bought a Macbook to use on trips for my photo stuff. I installed Parallels in order to be able to run MS Access, VB etc in case I needed it while on a trip. I find it works very well and lets me set up different virtual PC's for the various versions of Windows/Office I have running.

hi frank,

hope u've tested the power output of the firewire port in the MBP with ur back. There isn't enough voltage to power the most backs. The older powerbook and the plain macbooks have more power. Also the usb port in macbooks is slower than the rated hispeed2 but on windows via bootcamp is fine. Let us know how it works for you.

sid.

Yes I supose you need to check that.

My experience: PhaseOne P21 and P20 can be used with the macbook's (pro) FW port without problems. Even with the battery only in the macbook.
H20 needed a Firewire repeater.

No experience with other brands... sorry.

Get yourself a student copy of MSOffice for Mac. Entourage has pretty much the same functionality as Outlook. You can get those in the various Macstores.

I have been a PC user since CP/M and have switched to Mac 2 years ago (still use PC). Today I prefer working with the Mac even.

I am sure you will like working with the Mac. Get used to using the keyboard and and key combinations more often.

Biggest adaption will be the feeling of the lack of a right mouse button.

It will be a mixed bag indeed.
But I LOVED the two fingers scrolling on the mousepad.

Power is a good suggestion, did not think about testing that to be honest.
I read so many people using the MPB with the aptus that I thought it would be good enough, that's why I did not go for the 17".

It will be delivered tuesday so I will know by than.
Even when I have to use power that's no problem I'm always traveling with a accu giving 220V on location, but I hated the cables and two powerblocks which I needed for the PC notebook.




now you got me all scared....

I did the same a few months ago. No regrets at all. You have to get used to the slightly different way of doing some things - burning a DVD caused me massive problems - can't think why, it seems easy now. Probably a sign my old brain needs upgrading.

I also have to use Windows for some programs and I bought VM Fusion. I saw some reviews that said it was the best and it works flawlessly. It's like having a PC and a Mac on the same desk, but you can drag and drop files from one to the other all day if you want. Great program.

My Macbook Pro runs an Apple 23" screen plus its own without any problems. I'm so pleased at the change I'm getting a Mac Pro in a couple of weeks. The way I see it, I'll then have two Macs and two PCs (using VM Fusion).

Hi Frank
Since you are using the Aptus 22 get a repeater. The Aptus is power hungry. I have shot both ways but with a repeater you can have a longer FW cable & will reduce connection problems.
Denis

In my Aptus days I could run easily to a G4 powerbook (on Version 8) using a gold 15' non powered repeater (look it up on google, or call Rick at LOA and he'll tell you which one).

I briefly tried the Aptus on an intel I-mac and it ran ok but from what I can tell all intel machines are not created equal when it comes to the power to external ports.

Leaf reall shoud make some dummy clip that allows for the back's battery to power the back when tethered as that would solve a lot of problems.

Still, call Rick, he'll probably have the answer.

JR

I agree with Dustbak.I have a Mac Pro and run bootcamp also, with XP Pro.I like MS office better than on a PC.

Frank, judging by your post you know PC's very well and are technically inclined. Coming from a PC world, I found the biggest change was that the Mac platform hides a lot from the user. Generally PC users like to *SEE* and exert (tweak) a lot of control over their systems. Tasks like optimizing and doing preventative maintenance on my PC - skills I had learned over the years - are different on a mac. But, these tools helped me get an insight into things.

-IceClean / Onyx / Cocktail < either one is a good System Maintenance & optimization tool.

-Disk Inventory X - A graphical representation of what is taking up diskspace and where it is.

-Remote Desktop Connection - Yes, from Microsoft - let's you access your PC via terminal services.
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/remo...op/default.mspx

-Monolingual - deletes unnecessary language files - saving diskspace.
http://monolingual.sourceforge.net/

- Linotype Font Xplorer - iTunes for Fonts - Better than the built in font manager.
http://www.linotype.com/fontexplorerX

-http://www.iridientdigital.com/ - a mac only RAW converter which is rather good. (I have NO affiliation with the guy who wrote it!)

After getting up to speed with the Mac I find it a much more productive platform which I use more now than my PC. Your mileage may vary

All the best.

-Nik

A question to those who have used it this way...
What is the speed difference between using a Aptus on a Macbook vs a Macbook Pro?
the Macbook has a FW400 port as opposed to FW800.

I prefer the 13" size of the Macbook and if the speed difference is negligable I may just get a Macbook
Alternatively I have an older 12" Powerbook G4 which I'm updating with Leopard so maybe that may be able to power the Leaf

I don't need long cables on locations, 4.5 mtr is more than enough, in the studio I do use a repeater with 10mtrs in total, if it powers up I'm happy
runtime will be short I'm aware of that, that's why I will bring a tronix explorer on locations to act as my power outlet.

Thanks for the utils, will take a look at them when the book arrives.

Yep, remote desktop connection (downloadable at MS) is handy. When you want to have total control over your Mac familiarize yourself with Unix (eg. FreeBSD) and use the terminal (kind of warping back in time).

RD from Iridient is also very nice, especially for you since it renders Leaf files beautifully with a lot of control.

You need or want;

Stuff-it (to zip, rar, etc..)
Toast (to burn CD/DVD's and mount all sorts DVD/CD files)
MacMessenger (to MSN )
I prefer Firefox over Safari as my browser (unfortunately it does crash often at this moment when used together with PS)
You could also check out Opera

I found there are only very few applications that cannot be found in a Mac version, one way or the other.

I also like Mac because I don't find myself stirring in registry files anymore but putting more attention to actual work (You can if you really want to but why should you).

The firewire repeater is only a very small block that goes in between 2 cables. It will set you back about 25euros and really does can come in handy now & than. At least for me it does.

Another tip; The Weather service provided in the Widget standard with your Mac I found the most accurate of them all. This also does include all the other Dutch weather reporters. I always check the coming weather on my Mac. It rarely misses with its predictions.

MacOS 10.5 nicely integrates in Windows networks as well. It finds network shares easily and remembers the login credentials. Much easier than 10.4. I have not checked whether it still provides the login credentials in plain text but I guess it does. OTOH, if you have people that are willing to go that far to get to you, you have more severe problems.

So it's been a few days now.

1. the back boots up nicely and shoots perfect.
I tried it with 50% battery power and it still ran smooth.
The battery gave me 1.34 hours of play, after connecting the back it dropped to 1.08 and after 10 minutes of use it was on 58 minutes so I guess that with a full battery I can shoot for app 1-2 hours.
I will test that in the next weeks.

Now the rest
I absolutly love what I have seen till today.
There are some things I like more in widows and some I like more in the mac OS.

I tested bootcamp and that has been a surprise and made me take a decission.
BECAUSE of bootcamp I'm able to run BOTH macos and Vista on one machine and it works, I get a windows index of app 5.4-5.9 (5.1 for memory) which is fast and that's on a notebook

Take into account a powermac is much faster it set me to think to maybe switch for my workstation to a powermac and run bootcamp for both systems.
In comes VMfusion for which I downloaded a beta/test and also that runs smoothly for most apps.

In short, I'm thinking about switching to mac. NOT to run MAC os only but because I can run both.

So I think it's a success

In my experience, the fastest Windows laptop I have owned sofar was my MBP. Now is that telling about the performance of the Mac Hardware

Try finding a dual quad core machine for Windows like the Macpro by buying separate stuff like mainboards etc... You will have a hard time finding a dual processor mainboard that is not meant to go into a server

If you do get one, it will perform less than the MacPro and the cost of the total will be almost equal to a MacPro but it will not look as good and is not able to run both OS's (unless you like to tweak with MacOSX86).

My next desktop machine will be a MacPro indeed, after which I only have 2 win2003servers that run my mail, ftp & WWW but these will be the last Windows machines which is akward after so many years.