I installed XiphQT to enable Ogg Vorbis, FLAC and other better than mp3 music formats. I also installed subversion using MacPorts so I can access my work files and other documents on my server. Subversion in combination with the sshfs allows for pretty good file sharing already, but I’ll need to look at nfs sharing still. SSHKeyChain is a good free piece of software to replace Linux’s ssh-agent, and a bit more.
Regarding iTunes, I also tested the podcasting and videocasting features of it. So far my podcasting has happened via a Linux server that downloads new entries from my feeds every night, and I just copy new stuff into my player when I’ve listened to everything in it. I don’t use the player for music, just for podcasts.
I stumbled upon another recent Mac convert, and his gripes about Mac. Good reading, especially the comments, where most of his problems are addressed. My main problem still is that a windowing system controlled by a mouse is just too clumsy and slow. I find myself spending much too much time just juggling the application windows around. So while Mac is definitely something I’d recommend to any normal computer user over a Windows machine (due to both usability and security issues), but the possibilities of tweaking the UI to match a power user’s needs just are insufficient, just as they are in Windows. The next release of Mac OS X should have virtual desktops, so that might help a bit. But I guess I’ll need to do a triple boot system with Linux and see how much of the hardware I can get to work in a pure Linux system.
Well, as I complained about this, my colleagues pointed out QuickSilver, which should allow me to do more using just the keyboard, and not having to bother with the mouse. Let’s install and see.
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