Raymond Camden's ColdFusion Blog: All Mac All Day (or in another words - my thoughts on moving to the Mac full time)

All Mac All Day (or in another words - my thoughts on moving to the Mac full time)

So on Tuesday my new MacPro arrived, completing my move to the Mac platform. I've been using a MacBookPro for almost a year now so OSX wasn't new to me, but this marks my compete move to the Mac platform. And I love it. Absolutely love it. Let me point out a few complaints first.

I was surprised by how few USB ports are on the system (3). My Dell has something like 7 I think. Luckily my Dell monitor has 4 by itself, so I'm ok.

Sound is a bit weird. When I booted up - sound wanted to output from the box itself - not my speakers. I was able to fix that easily enough - but so far I've not been able to get Firefox to make any sound (which isn't such a bad thing). Also - when I plug in the headphones I have to tell OSX to output into the headphone jack. That should be automatic.

The next problem is the keyboard. I've got a MS Natural Keyboard that I absolutely love. MS provides a OSX driver for it, but I'm having issues getting used to Cut and Paste using the Alt key instead of the Ctrl key (maybe I haven't set things up right). Also - "End" doesn't go to the end of the line. Instead it goes to the end of the document.

Next - my external USB drive (full of legally purchased MP3s) only mounts as Read Only. This is because I used NTFS. I've found MacFuse but haven't installed it yet.

Lastly - there is no button to open and close the drive bay. F12 works fine to open the CD, but hitting F12 again will not close the drive. It does make the icon show up - but it refuses to close. I've been pushing it in gently - but as we all know - the cd rom is the flimsiest part of the hardware.

So far all of the above are minor and I'm not terribly concerned about it. This machine screams. I only got the 4 core option with 2 gigs of RAM, but it runs like hell on wheels. In fact, I installed a certain piece of software (sorry, can't say what it was) in about 40 seconds where it took 4-5 minutes on my PC. Oh, and speaking of PCs - it runs Windows far faster than my PC did. And maybe I'm biased - but I just like the OSX interface.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 10, 2007 at 5:25 PM. It was filed in the following categories: Development. It has been viewed 2,125 times and has 22 comments.

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Comment 1 written by Scott Stroz on 11 May 2007, at 9:32 AM

Ray - I agree all the issue you mention are minor, but imagine the furor that would ensue if these were complaints about a Windows based machine.

/me runs and hides...
Comment 2 written by Damien McKenna on 11 May 2007, at 9:45 AM

I agree with you on that, my MacPro at work has me extremely jealous and using my G4/533 at home is painful in comparison. I've been contemplating a G4 accelerator, but nothing would compare to the 2x2ghz joy that is sitting beside me.

The lack of USB ports seems to be a constant issue with Macs going back for years, maybe they think the ports on the keyboard make up for it?

As for the PC keyboard, I used one on my Mac at home for a while but finally broke down and spent the $30, and it was definitely worth it, but that's just me. Personally I hate any keyboard that doesn't have the home-end block correct, which is 90% of the keyboards on the market today.

BTW, you can remap the modifier keys so they work the way you want, just go to System Preferences -> Keyboard and Mouse -> Keyboard -> Modifier Keys.
Comment 3 written by Raymond Camden on 11 May 2007, at 9:58 AM

@Scott - Nah, I don't think so. I am a bit tougher on Windows now than I used to be, but if I had just gotten a new Windows machine, I could live with this.

@Damien - Thanks. copy/paste is working now. Is it possible to make END go to the END of line?
Comment 4 written by rob on 11 May 2007, at 10:18 AM

So, this probably isn't exactly what you want, but you can use emacs key bindings which you might like if you give'em a shot.

ctrl+e = end of line
ctrl+a = beginning of line

I, personally, like those better then reaching over to hit then end key (or delete, backspace, the arrow keys). Others:

ctrl+f = forward one character
ctrl+b = backward one character
ctrl+h = same as backspace
ctrl+d = same as delete
ctrl+p = previous line
ctrl+n = next line

If you really don't like the emacs way, you might try DoubleCommand to swap around keys (you can change the alt / ctrl thing, and probably the end key): http://robrohan.com/2006/10/21/swapping-the-ctrl-a...
Comment 5 written by Russ Johnson on 11 May 2007, at 10:19 AM

@Ray

I have learned after making the switch, not to use the END key. What I do is us the Apple key and the arrows. If you hold down Apple and hit the right arrow key it jumps you to the end of the line. And the left arrow to the front of the line.

Add the shift key to the mix and it will auto select the charcters for you as it jumps.
Comment 6 written by Sam Farmer on 11 May 2007, at 10:27 AM

Command and right arrow will go to the end of the line. Command and left will go to the beginning. (Not sure if you have remapped your command key).

I just ordered a laptop like keyboard from Macally as I find it faster (plus their site runs on CF)

http://www.iunitek.com/macally/index.cfm?fuseactio...
Comment 7 written by Scott P on 11 May 2007, at 10:44 AM

I'm about to be mac-less for a week and it is your fault.

My macbook pro is leaving today for repair on the wireless. I'd gotten used to having to sit right under the access point but sitting beside you at a conference and your wireless has four bars and my exact laptop has none told me it was time to admit it had problems. Spent about an hour on phone with Apple support, which was extremely painless compare to calling Dell these days, and they sent me a box to ship it back.

Since you have been through it, did your wife's laptop come back intact or did you have to reload everything? I have a backup but just wondered on that part.
Comment 8 written by Raymond Camden on 11 May 2007, at 10:51 AM

My wife had a bad hard drive, so it can back nuked.

If it makes you feel better - I fixed the 'big xml' issue in LHP. Hoping to ship it tonight. (I think that was you talking to me about that.) Got a big update to LHP for late tonight (trying to get the wishlist used again. ;)
Comment 9 written by TJ Downes on 11 May 2007, at 11:08 AM

Ray, sounds like a sweet rig. I'm guessing that quad core CPU is what's making it scream, as well as the 4MB of L2 cache it came with. Comparing that to a single CPU PC with (probably) less than 1MB of L2 really is fair, but I understand your enthusiasm.

have you gotten MySQL running on it? i'd be interested to see some benchmarks on that, considering the quad core and all.
Comment 10 written by Sean Corfield on 11 May 2007, at 11:10 AM

Re: sound - I like the flexibility of the sound handling so that I can have certain programs using the headset and other programs using the built-in speakers. It even maintains different volume levels for each sound device (so I can mute my speakers but still use the headset for Skype).

Re: the CD drawer... there are systems that let you load the drive with a button press? I've always just pushed the CD drawer back into the machine - for all the years I've ever had CD drives on machines (and never broken a CD drive that way). Live and learn!
Comment 11 written by Thomas Messier on 11 May 2007, at 11:59 AM

Holy $#%@!!! I've used a Macbook Pro before recently (had to buy one for a friend to take abroad), but I hadn't even looked at this MacPro. The specs are amazing. I've kind of gotten used to working on a laptop and I'm not a big fan of having multiple computers to keep in sync, but this is really tempting. Hmmmmmmm... must... have... power!
Comment 12 written by Joshua Curtiss on 11 May 2007, at 2:11 PM

I never switched to Mac...because I have been an Apple loyalist since I was 6 years old. ;-D

I have to admit, the different behavior between Windows and OSX for Home/End keys IS frustrating, especially since I have to use all Windows PCs at the day job.

I just have an Intel Mac Mini for now, but I will probably pounce on a new Mac at the next Mac upgrade (the timing of purchasing your Mac is an art, not a science).
Comment 13 written by hibiscusroto on 11 May 2007, at 8:37 PM

If you are using Parallels or VMWare Fusion (free), you'll at least be able to write those drives via Windows. If you are totally switched over, consider moving to mac formatted drives. Enjoy!
Comment 14 written by thinman on 13 May 2007, at 12:09 PM

Can I have it? I'll get you another pile of stuff from your wishlist (just another anonymous round of appreciation)?
Comment 15 written by Raymond Camden on 13 May 2007, at 4:55 PM

You want my drive? Heh, thanks but no thanks. I just need to install MacFuse. Worse comes to worse, I'll buy a new drive, do a copy, and then format the older drive.
Comment 16 written by dickbob on 14 May 2007, at 2:55 AM

I've you're looking at MacFuse it might be worth checking MacFusion as well.

http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/08/mgorbach/M...
Comment 17 written by Raymond Camden on 14 May 2007, at 5:54 AM

@dickbob - yep, got em both. Today I will actually install them. I swear. Along with the UPS I bought two weeks ago that is still sitting in the box.
Comment 18 written by sal on 14 May 2007, at 10:44 AM

Ray,
I've had a few issues with mac now that I've gone fully mac based myself. A few of them were answered here in your comments, like "end line". I usually take the approach of apple + right arrow and it takes me to end of line, But back to your post:
"When I booted up - sound wanted to output from the box itself - not my speakers. I was able to fix that easily enough"

How did you fix that, I just recently bought my new mac mini 1.83Ghz Duo Core for my home desktop and does the same thing. kinda urked me too...

and also, another thing that kinda gets me is, I'm a huge fan of using tab to browse through form elements, and I've noticed (it could just be the implementation of FF on mac) but when I tab to a select box it skips it and goes to the next text box instead. Like I said it could be the implementation of FF on a mac, because another thing I just noticed this weekend is it doesn't read CSS2 that great. On one of my apps I used the @import statement to import a css file and Camino and FF on my mini didn't pick the css file up. I had to add a "link ref" tag for the browser to pick it up... :-(

ahh just some food for thought. Anyone else notice these FF on Mac issues??
Comment 19 written by Raymond Camden on 14 May 2007, at 10:57 AM

I just changed the output in the sound preference.

As for Firefox, check this:

http://sidesh0w.com/weblog/2004/09/01/tabindex_osx...

FYI, I got my USB drive mounted writeable, but it is slow as heck. Anyone know of a good OSX util that can reformat AND save the data? If not - I may just borrow a drive from someone who has the space (man I wish I had added another drive now ;)
Comment 20 written by sal on 14 May 2007, at 11:08 AM

@Ray,
haha cheers man, good link to post! that guy crack'd me up. but thats awesome about the tabfocus now!
Comment 21 written by Raymond Camden on 31 May 2007, at 8:12 AM

I just wanted to add a quick note. Turns out I'm a bit silly - I didn't look at the front of my Mac, where I see 2 usb ports and a few other ports as well. So all in all, I think it has close to the # of usb ports my old Dell did. (Which is useless to me since I can't reinstall Windows w/o a floppy and I don't have a floppy. Ugh.)

So now I think the grand total of my problems are:

1) I still can't get the sound to auto-direct to headphones when I plug them in. Oh well.

Heh, that's it actually.
Comment 22 written by Shawn Inman on 6 September 2007, at 4:54 PM

For anyone still having this problem with their headphones on a mac, Soundsource does it automatically.

Get it free here:
http://www.rogueamoeba.com/freebies/