"Macs 'just work' so often, and so well, that I'd rather just use my computer than spend all my time maintaining it. There are already scores of religious fanboy zealots who are going to tell you how great the Mac is, and why you should switch. I'm not going to. I'll let them convince you. But beware. Just because the Mac is an excellent computer, that doesn't mean it's panacea. Here are some things you're going to want to pay attention to as you switch."
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Member since:2005-07-06
His main recommendations are to ditch Safari and iChat for Adium and Camino (neither of which have equivalents on Windows). Both Adium and Camino are far better Mac apps than their i* counterparts. They actually look like Aqua apps, and are quite HIG compliant. The fact that they have better features and are more robust is icing on the cake.
Member since:2005-07-06
Safari + Saft is much more robust than Camino. Does Camino have "Undo Close Tab", or "Restore Browser Windows After Crash"? Even with CamiTools, its out of the question. Don't like Brushed Metal? You can switch Safari between brushed metal and aqua with Saft. How about spell checking? bah. The only minor niggle I have with Safari is that flash videos have choppy playback when not focused, and PAUSE when another tab is selected in the same window as the movie. The NERVE. Although it makes sense.
A much worse case is Firefox, it seems to try to balance being cross platform with looking like the Mac, and ends up in some sort of "Uncanny Valley". I mean it doesn't feel like an X11 app, and it doesn't feel like a native Aqua app, its somewhere in between thats very out of place. It doesn't even have native controls. Ew.
iChat and Adium serve very different purposes. One lets you chat with AIM, with good file transfers and video chat, while Adium natively connects to multiple protocols. I use Adium most of the time, and iChat when i need its advanced AIM features.
I don't see the gripe with the mighty mouse, now that I've become used to it I find myself trying to squeeze the mice at work. 
One thing I highly recommend is xGestures. Mouse gestures in any application are wonderful.
Edited 2006-05-13 22:18
Member since:
2005-11-10
Part of getting a mac should be getting used to it. The author just tells the user to get rid of all their Mac software and just get Open Source equivilents which are near enough the same on Windows (Firefox, Thunderbird). I would rather recommend that you actually try things out more and get used to Apple Mail and Safari.
Personally, I like using Mail.app because I can run it without any toolbar and it's so much simpler than Thunderbird.