The impossible has happened. When you're outside over the next few days watch the skies. If you looks carefully you may see pigs flying through the air! Why? My Apple MacBook arrived yesterday and I'm playing with it now. After some initial problems with my Linksys WRT54G wireless router I got the laptop online using the neat "network setup assistant". Soon Firefox and Thunderbird were downloaded and now I'm trying to figure out how to migrate my email from Linux to the Mac Thunderbird. Hopefully it's as easy as copying over the data folder.
Despite myself, I am impressed. It's going with me to San Francisco so I'm going to have a busy few days installing Apache, PHP, MySQL, Subversion and whatever else I can find to amuse myself on a long trip!
Now, where are all those Unix tools hidden?
Update – writing in Mac Flock, ripping a DVD with Mac Ripper, iTerm, VLC, Samba on my Linux box allows me to browse my mp3, movie and photo collections, from the living room! Bottom of the machine is very warm. No need for central heating this winter!
iPhoto likes to do it's own thing with my photos. Not sure if I'm comfortable with that but I'll give it a go. I knew the DOOM Collector's Edition I bought a few years ago would come in handy! PrBoom works a treat, but avoid the 2.4.3 release. The "Launch" button is greyed out no matter what WAD file you throw at it. 2.4.2 works fine though.
XAMPP for Mac OS X is downloading now. Like the well known version of Windows, this is an installer bundled with Apache, PHP, MySQL and PHP. Along with Vim and Subversion I should have a complete dev environment for the long wait in the airport tomorrow! Later – I spoke too soon, XAMPP doesn't work on Intel Macs yet. I'm going to give MAMP a go now.
Later still! Lots of tips for new users switching from Windows to Mac on this wordpress.com page. Podz saw it on the top posts list! I still don't know how to switch between Flock windows. ALT-TAB switches between applications only. Anyone know how?
6 replies on “The Pigs, they are a flying”
[…] Jaysus! Donncha at Holy Shmoly’s gone and got hisself an intel MacBook. Wonders will never cease. Dyed-in-the-wool Linux type seduced by the white plastic? Who knows? Hope he enjoys it anyway – I’m still on PPC but the Mac desktop experience is still the best around… […]
Learn to love the Exposé and Dashboard buttons. Try F9, then F10, then F11, then F12.
Even better: try F10, then hit Tab.
Command-` (tilde key, right below escape) cycles through the windows in the current application. Once you’ve command-tabbed to the right app, command-tilde to the right window or use the window menu found in most apps. Or just use Henry’s expose suggestion posted above 🙂
Thanks for those tips. I found out about that tilde combo a few days ago from Bazza and he’s given me his “Mac OSX Missing Manual” to get up to speed!
A mac! Are you mad? 😉 Why?
My Pigs don’t fly, but come and visit my Pig Space at Zone Umide