My new Mac Powerbook
So I’ve officially switched. I bought the Mac Powerbook to try and familiarize myself with Macs so we could officially support them, since many of our customers at work are demanding Mac support. I wanted to “get it.” I really thought, as a power user, that I would hate the thing.
Alas, I’m done with PC. This thing is so freakin fast, reliable and flexible. I’m very, very impressed. Microsoft is in big trouble if you ask me - add a few more things to Mac OS and there’s not much reason to buy Windows anymore. Microsoft Outlook comes to mind, as does .NET 2.0 support and a few programming tools like Zend or Visual Basic. But with many things moving to the Web anyway, Outlook is the only remaining hurdle long-term, in my eyes.
Here’s what I was surprised to find works within Mac OS X itself:
- Active Directory domain support! Just go into Utilities and click the Directory Services program, then check the Active Directory button. Assuming you’re an admin or know the domain admin password, you can even join the computer to the network (use the “Bind” button) from within Mac OS X!
- Printers on the AD work fine after it’s joined. Awesome.
- 802.1X wireless authentication. Works great - just import the cert!
- Remote Desktop Connection to Windows PCs (though, really, could we add a few options like resizing windows here?)
- Samba/Windows file shares and mapped drives (some manual mapping was required)
I’m sure there’s more. So let’s be clear, though - Safari works fine for surfing the web, MS Office for Mac works fine for Word/Powerpoint/etc., TextMate works fine as a text editor, Adium is great for IM, etc.. So the only two things I’m using Windows for at this point are ConnectWise (work) and Outlook (for work primarily).
Very impressed, still. I’ll be posting my install instructions plus my top 10 favorite programs thus far in a post this weekend.