Comments on: In-depth reflections on Mac ownership

By: Simon

Simon — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 22:34:42 +0000

I bought my first Mac at about the same time as you. I had a very worrying first 48 hours, but it’s OK now. I did take advantage of the Apple One-to-One deal. It has been useful for tips on using Garageband and iMovie, but there is an inescapable feeling that one is a little sad and has no friends and so have to pay Apple to provide some. The other isue I have is that I still haven’t replaced all those little shareware programs for cutting corners that I had accumulated and some of which have no Mac equivalent.

By: Martin

Martin — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:44:05 +0000

And those mac vs pc ads are so funny (and so true!)… I’m seriously thinking about switching to mac pretty soon too!

By: Simon

Simon — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:24:44 +0000

“I still need to decide which programme to use for doing my diagrams.”

For a long time I wasn’t sure what to use for this either: I tended to use AppleWorks Draw, which was similarly unfashionable and probably much worse.

I recently discovered Intaglio, which I now use for all of my scientific diagrams. It’s hard to explain how brilliant it is. Unfortunately, I don’t think has either of those functionalities, but I have a workaround for the first one on a Mac:

Do your drawing in the standard A4 size Intaglio gives you, and then take an area screenshot (Cmd-Shift-4). Open up the screenshot in Preview and use Save As to get it into whatever format you want.

It’s not as annoying as it sounds, and you quickly realise that area screenshotting is the best thing ever. (The ability to do this also means you can use the free demo version of Intaglio and still be productive.)

By: Steve Hearn

Steve Hearn — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 12:15:39 +0000

Dave, so you made the move, well done and welcome to the Mac world of cartoonists! I use Safari all the time and it works very well for the internet. Just shout if you ever need any help, I too find the Mac still has one or two niggles that can be awkward!

By: Will Pearson-Gee

Will Pearson-Gee — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:25:16 +0000

I am a few months ahead of you. I too need IE and I have installed VMWare Fusion. I had to buy it (£40) plus Win XP Home (£can’t remember) but it toggles seamlessly between the two OSs (pure joy to see it working), I cut and paste from my Windows app into Word for Mac. I am not a geek and was able to do by following the instructions. I now have over £1000 of Windows software working happily on my MBPro IE of course works fine too. I delayed the switch until this was possible as I had too much invested in Windows apps. I reckon I love my Mac even more as a result – I have the very best of both worlds.

By: wannabepriest / What I’ve been reading this weekend

wannabepriest / What I’ve been reading this weekend — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 14:37:08 +0000

[...] Like Dave Walker, I recently made the switch from PC to Mac and I’ve been interested and mostly in agreement with his observations. [...]

By: antonie

antonie — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:31:25 +0000

A good & free Mac image editing programme is Seashore. I use it all the time, but have never had the need to do the things you’ve requested. Might be in there…

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:08:09 +0000

James – Yes, sorry, I had read that you posted that and then forgotten it again.

It is still possible that circumstances will make this whole topic irrelevant. But thanks everyone for continued advice.

By: James

James — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:52:49 +0000

Like I said, the Windows 7 Release Candidate is effectively a free, legal Windows license that lasts until June of next year.

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:31:35 +0000

Update:

- IE for Mac no good to me – just tried it.
- Some of these things need a Windows licence – don’t have a spare legal one
- Crossover Mac might be an option, but it says it doesn’t run IE well.
- I’ve tried hooking up the two computers – can’t do it unfortunately. Straightforward it is not.