I’ve been a Windows user for many years and just recently I’ve started to venture out to different operating systems. I spent some time with Ubuntu Linux, loved it. Then I moved on to OS X (10.5.2 Leopard) and one word could sum up my experience so far, wow! Although my positive experiences with OS X may hold some type of advantage over my prior operating systems due to that fact I am running it on a brand new Macbook Pro. So my following review will be a combination of working with OS X as well as my new Macbook.

The initial setup and getting comfortable with everything in OS X was a breeze compared to Ubuntu. Which for the most part was probably related to the fact OS X came pre-installed on my new Macbook Pro and everything worked out-of-box while I had to install Ubuntu from scratch on my old Gateway 4540GZ. Battling for drivers with my hardware was not fun, so I avoided that nightmare with OS X.

Development
I’ve read that Macromedia Studio 8 does not run well on Intel Macs, even from Adobe’s website. I decided to install it anyways and as far as I’m concerned it runs without a hiccup. I installed MAMP for local development, which is an excellent application for running MySql and Apache that can be controlled within it’s own Dashboard widget. I’m still running Firefox with Firebug and the Web Developer tool bar. One thing that I’m missing is Adobe Photoshop. I was considering upgrading Studio 8 to Adobe CS3 Design Premium, which includes the latest version of Photoshop but I’m having problems installing the trial. From what I understand there may be a conflict with Studio 8 already being installed, so I’m going to have to try to remove Studio 8 and try again. For now I’ve been using Fireworks and The Gimp for all my graphics and to be honest I wouldn’t mind working with them from now on. Of course I’ve been using PS for so long that it will take some getting use to the new apps but for what i used PS for I don’t think that I was utilizing 80% of it’s features. IMO Photoshop is geared towards photographers while The Gimp and Fireworks is more suitable for web design and graphics.

Positives:
The user interface and general OS experience is the best I’ve ever seen. I’m loving all the OS X features such as The Dock, Genie effect (when minimizing windows), Front Row and the nice shadowing effect on all windows and menus makes everything look very nice. Finder, which is Mac’s version of Windows Explorer is great, you can choose between multiple views from tiles or thumbnails to a list view of your files and directories which makes navigating around your computer very quick and easy.

Using Windows I would dread putting my computer to sleep because it would take ages to restore from standby, but with OS X I can shut the lid to my laptop or put it to sleep manually and when I recall the system it loads right back almost instantly, which is needless to say awesome. Installing and removing software has become very simple, basically all you do is drag the application you want to install into the applications directory, and if you want to remove an app you simply delete it form that directory.

I am really diggin’ the built in camera (iSight), the lighted keyboard was also an ingenious idea. I spend a lot of time on my laptop at night, sometimes with no light on in the room so having the ability to turn a light on that illuminates all the keys on my keyboard is quite convenient. At first i was skeptical of not having a right mouse click button, but the Mac’s touch pad is engineered perfectly, to right click (as you would on windows) you simply tap the track pad with two fingers, same goes for scrolling, I just anchor my middle finger and let me ring finger do the scrolling.

Negatives:
Very few if any negatives about OS X but one thing that I’m going to need to get use to is keyboard shortcuts. I find my self often trying to use the CTRL key to select multiple files, save documents and other uses that I built a habit of using on Windows. The Apple key or the Command key (I believe is the technical term) is a new addition to my keyboarding life, I’m starting to come around but it will take some time. I also kind of miss the delete key. There is a ‘delete’ key on my MBP but it shares the same functionality as the backspace key on all my prior systems. I do miss the hard drive LED, I used that quite often to determine if my computer froze or not, but maybe I don’t have to worry about that on OS X. The MBP also tends to get very hot at times, from what I understand it’s case was designed to retain the heat, this way creating less stress on the hardware, which although gives an illusion of bad in reality its good?

Summary
Out of the three main operating systems I’ve used with the past few months, OS X Leopard is definitely my favorite. The visual effects, the GUI and the way everything just “works” is just amazing. I look forward to learning more tricks and becoming more familiar with OS X. Although my positive experiences may have something to do with the new laptop I happen to be running OS X on, I plan on installing both Ubuntu and Windows as a triple boot system to see how they run on the same hardware. My guess is they won’t even compare, but we’ll see.

Screen shot of my desktop:

Tags: leopard, MacBook Pro

This entry was posted on Monday, March 3rd, 2008 at 1:31 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.