iNoob – Epilogue

Mac App Store

Mac App Store (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well, this was a short series. My sixth month experiment as a PC-turned-Mac user is now complete….and I have a few things to report:

  • I really liked the speed of booting up or restarting.
  • The MacBook Air I used was extremely light, which was helpful given my lower back problems.  Years ago I had an ENORMOUS Lenovo ThinkPad which weighed a lot.  I liked the screen real estate, but had to take a deep breath to lift my computer bag in the morning….
  • Firefox on the Mac is a speed demon, unlike on my Windows machines.  Chrome clocks in about even on either one for me.

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iNoob – Chapter 2: Learning to be Productive

English: Product icon for MindView mind mappin...

Image via Wikipedia

I’ve been in the crucible of work with my MacBook Air for nearly 3 months now.  I’m finding myself feeling more at ease with many of the differences between Windows 7 and OS X. There is still the need to have a mixed environment for me to be productive AND happy.  One thing I found that I just NEEDED to do was purchase a copy of Parallels for Mac so I could get to Windows software like Visio, Project and Mindjet MindManager (there is a version for Mac, but I already own a license for the Windows version….). The installation of Parallels, Windows 7 and the various programs I wanted (including Windows Live Writer with the Zemanta plug-in, which is still my favorite blogging tool) went flawlessly.  Windows even boots faster in the Parallels environment than on my quad-core at home!

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