Kristian Lunde

At Orange Bus we all work on MacBook Pro, and when I started up at Orange Bus it was the very first time I used a Mac and OS X. It is now 12 days since that first experience with an Apple computer and though I am still a bit unfamiliar with certain features I am getting in to it, and I really like it. The stuff that I have most problem with are:

The keyboard
I have some trouble finding the keys and key combinations I am used to from both Ubuntu and WinXP. And it probably does not help that the keyboard on the laptop is English, and my external keyboard at work is Norwegian (I was thinking it would be a good idea to bring a Norwegian keyboard to the UK, yeah right).

Changing windows
Moving between different set of windows and the different set of their instances are still a bit unfamiliar. In particular moving between a set of windows of the same application.

Universal access
Universal access is a piece of software which enhances for instance the readability on the Mac, and the key command to activating the speach on the mac must be some command I am used to from Windows or Ubuntu. I am always turning it on, very annoying.

That was the “negative” part about Mac, but that is just things I need to learn. Now let us have a look at the positive stuff in OS X.

Simplicty
I have heard it a million times by mac users, it is so easy to use a mac but I have never really believed them. But they are correct. Using a mac is extremely simple, Apple must have some of the best UI designers in the world. Everything is so amazingly simple. And another thing you just have to love in OS X is how you install software. You open the install file and drag it into the Application folder, and woosh, the application is installed. I would go as far to say that if you are a novice computer user, Mac would probably be the best choice. Lets compare it to moving around. Using a mac is not much harder than walking, in comparison to Microsoft Windows which would be something like controlling a space shuttle.

Flexibility
Well I have been praising Mac for their simplicity right now, but even though it is very easy to use you still have the possibility to do advanced stuff. For instance, since Mac is based on Unix you have a terminal easily accessible and you can use almost all your regular commands

Mail
Mail is a Mac application for managing….. yes you are right, mail. Well Mail is a okay application it works fine, but it is not as good as Microsoft Outlook, but it is yet another example of how simple and intuitive an Apple product can be.

Quicksilver
Quicksilver is a third party software for easy launch of applications. Type “ctrl” + “space” and then start typing the name of the application you want to launch, it automatically find the application and launches it when you hit enter. Brilliant!

At this point I can not see one good reason for going back to MS Windows. I am still very fond of Linux distros like Ubuntu, but Mac and OS X have really impressed me. So I suppose I have to line in with all the other Mac fanatics now (no I am not a mac fanatic, at least not yet).

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