undertakingyou

I have written quite recently how I have been using Mac OS X as my primary OS over the last month or so. In the times past I have failed at this in large part because I have not given Mac OS a chance. I found myself making quick judgements about the nuances that existed and then hated everything. This go around I am affording more of a chance here. Although I have been uncomfortable to a certain degree because I am used to all the FOSS tools that I have come to love and rely on. But there are a few things that have really been able to help me keep it together as I make this transition.

My Tomboy Notes replacement. I love Tomboy notes, and having something close to take a quick note. Mac OS stickies doesn’t even come close to it. After some searching I found Evernote, which really is awesome. I like it enough that I upgraded to the premium account. I think Evernote will replace my default note taking app permanently.

For chatting I have had to replace Irssi with bitlbee. I chose to use two things here, even though I could use one. The first is Adium, which is a great multi-protocol chat client akin to Pidgin. It even has a bird as its icon, a duck, that can be the color of your choosing. I use that for google talk, and a jabber account I have for school. The second chatting replacement is Macirrsi. I used port to install Irssi, but the terminal in Mac is still … not the best. Macirssi gives the power of Irssi but without the headaches of mac terminal.

For a text editor I like to use vim. Vim is available in Mac OS, but I have found in Linux that sometimes that it is very nice to have the extra features of a GTK application with the menu’s and what not. In comes MacVim  which provides basically the same functions as gvim. I still have vim in the terminal, which we all know is awesome.

OpenVPN is a great open source VPN solution that we use at work. With ubuntu I just go to the terminal and as root run openvpn with my .conf file or I would set up a VPN connection with NetworkManager and just connect. In Mac OS there is a very eligant solution with the use of Tunnelblick. Seems to be more fickle with configuration file options, and there are some more steps in setting up a connection. Otherwise there is a simple connect on demand option that keeps things going smoothly.

On ubuntu I really liked using gnome do for quick startup of applications. Gnome do is based on the native Mac OS Quicksilver, which is actually quite awesome. Gnome Do has done a great job in replicating it. Because Mac OS didn’t have any kind of menu until recently, Quicksilver is a must so you can access things easily.

There are some apps that I have not found yet a suitable replacement.

• Revelation, password keeper. I have keepassx but it isn’t as good.
• Banshee, a great music player. The current Mac OS version won’t run for me, and iTunes just can’t hold a candle to it.
• A decent terminal. The default terminal is still the best that I have used out of iTerm and Terminator. But there are some drawbacks still with the default terminal.

Recently I have been just using Mac OS instead of some flavor of Linux for my computing needs. With the announcement of the latest edition of the Mac OS X series I eagerly watched for the release of Lion. I followed all the predictions of it being released on the 14th, then when that didn’t happen it was to be the 15th, because the last 3 releases where on a Friday, then it was to be on the 19th because Apple was releasing their financials. It was like waiting for Harold Camping’s rapture. On the 20th when it was released I waited for it to be a hoax, and so I didn’t upgrade till the 21st.

I did appreciate not having to go down to the Apple store to buy the product. The Apple store is always like a zoo with no cages, and no help. Just a gaggle of people standing around waiting for those with the all powerful blue shirt to pay attention to you. I just don’t have the time. The download is big, but it is a new version of the OS. I would have waited just as long to download the ISO DVD of Fedora or Ubuntu. So no harm lost there. The install was smooth and I didn’t loose any of my settings, well not a lot of my settings, but we will get to that.

Two things that I have read in other reviews that are very true. It is slower. My MacBook Pro lags on things that before where no problem. Sometimes on what seems to be the simplest task. Mind you I do have an older laptop, but still, this thing should be able to powerhouse through the occasional typing lag that I am now getting. The other piece of review fodder: there is noticeable change to be like the iPad interface.

For instance, there is no more Spaces or Expose (which constitutes my largest settings change), these have been replaced with Mission Control. Which acts like a hybrid version of the two. You do not have a preset number of desktops (or spaces) but you can create as many as you need. You must have these desktops arranged in a line. I used to keep my spaces in a square with two rows and two columns, but no more. Also the dashboard is by default the leftmost space, with your default space being the second, exactly like the iPad. While at first I had a hard time with the Mission Control change, I now find a certain amount of finesse with it.

Launchpad is another new addition to Lion. It’s icon looks like the MacBook Pro power button but with a rocket ship on it, and rightly so. Using that shows you all the apps that you have, exactly like the iPad does. Complete with first screen showing all the default installed apps, and the second (and subsequent screens) showing apps that you have downloaded yourself. While it is easier and prettier than the default dock Applications folder, I don’t see a lot of added value in having it.

Another iPad like change is the scroll direction with the trackpad. It has been changed by default to have the screen follow the direction of your finger. So if you drag down, you will actually scroll up. I read a lot of complaints about this, and when first using it I was thrown for a loop. But then I looked in the System Preferences, low and behold you can change it with the un-checking of a box. World is back to normal. I don’t know why people complained so much.

Otherwise, while overall Mac OS 10.7 is more ascetically pleasant, I am not finding a lot of other things improved. I was looking forward to a better terminal, which I didn’t really notice a change on. I was also looking forward to better SMB performance, which seems to have only a minimal change. It does however handle crashes much better. Banshee would just hang in 10.6.* but with Lion it actually kills the program, and gives me a very convenient stack trace to solve the problem.

While looking forward to the new multi-touch gestures I can’t seem to get them to work. I attribute this to my MacBook Pro being a 3,1 model, and maybe not capable but I am not sure.

All in all the upgrade is ok. If you are struggling financially to feed yourself don’t upgrade. If you have the $30 bucks you won’t loose out to much. I would not look to this to be a revolutionary change, but I will say that not a lot has broken with the upgrade, and I really like that.

The other day I wrote a post about Mac OS and it quietly suggesting that people install anti-virus software. I want to bring up this link shown to me by my friend JC. In short, Apple has removed the knowledge-base article suggesting Mac OS users install anti-virus software. The reason that they removed this is that “The Mac is designed with built-in technologies that provide protection against malicious software and security threats right out of the box.”

Joseph brought up a great question, why are Operating Systems built on a *nix kernel more secure against malicious software than Windows. I think there are some fundamental reasons why this is true. First, Unix/Linux OS are actually multi user. Yep, I would contend that even though Windows can have ‘multiple’ users, it is not actually a multi user operating system. Let me explain. Unless you actually have a SysAdmin that is going to change it, Windows by default will let anyone look at, write to, and execute any file regardless of who’s file it is (Windows files don’t actually have ‘owners’). So, who cares that it isn’t a multi user system? Well, instead of having programs that are restricted to specific services based on which user it is actually running under any program can do anything and has access to any service.

With any file having access to anything it brings up the second point. Unix style systems keep the operating system separate from the other programs. Windows does not protect itself in any way. It will let any program install and even change vital system dll’s within the Windows32 folder. Further more it will do this with no verification that this is actually being run by someone with proper authority.

Now any system could be compromised depending on what software is run. It is important to know and trust where software is coming from. Most Linux/Unix software comes from online repositories that are verified by GPG key. If someone has changed the repository the package management system will throw up a warning. Furthermore the majority of software that is not received from an online repository will give an md5 sum to verify that the package hasn’t been tampered with. By way of contrast Windows updates, and software for windows received off the internet has no verification method whatsoever.

I’m sure that more experience will lend to more reasons for greater system strength. If anyone has further thoughts on this I would love to hear it.

So, it has been around the web for a couple of days. Apple has been encouraging that users of Mac OS install an Anti-Virus software. They even go so far as to offer suggestions on which ones to use. I think what is interesting is that my initial reaction is that I am not shocked and I don’t care. Yes, I think viruses, or any malicious software sucks. But I really don’t mind that Apple is making this suggestion even though they have touted themselves as the virus free alternative. Here is why.

First, Mac OS is still built on a Unix base which by design is safer from malicious threats than Windows is. There are many reasons for this. I won’t explore them here.

Second, I read that Windows has dropped below 90% of the OS market share. The lowest since 1995. And that Mac OS is up to 8.9% of the market share. Of course that puts my OS of choice in the 1.1% but that is not the point. The point is that with Mac OS getting more popular you are going to have more people using it that are not security conscience and you will have more people trying to write malicious software for this rising star in the OS arena.

Really, if Linux was at nearly 10% of the market share the problem would be there for us too.

All that said the best defence against viruses, etc. is good security practices on your computer.

This is a rant about iLife in general. elg I am curious if your experience is different. I needed to make a slideshow and thought that I would try and use iMovie. Apart from it being a little feature thin I guess it was all right. The KenBurns stuff is random and so it was zooming in on the feet of the subjects instead of their head with no obvious way to change it. But I guess it comes down to a general rant about iLife.

I want to be able to use files on my computer. I don’t want to use a third application to import those files before I can use them. So, with iMovie, I can only use pictures that I have imported into iPhoto or Apeture. I can only use songs that I have imported into iTunes. Never mind that the photos are on a cd and I could just have the movie use them from there. I have to import them into iPhoto.

Simple desktop computer use, to me, is to have the least amounts of steps needed to get the results desired.

So, I really like my MacBook Pro. I have never used a laptop that really felt so comfortable to me. I do have another rant about Mac OS though. We have all seen that the ‘home’ and ‘end’ keys need to have the ‘FN’ key pressed in order to use them. However, what frustrates me is the inconsistency.

For instance, in Open Office it is ‘FN’+'end’ or ‘FN’+'home’. In firefox it is ‘Command’+'end’ or ‘home’. And in the terminal end, home, pageup and pagedown don’t work at all.

By way of comparison, in linux, regardless of the distribution, these keys work as expected in any program that I use them in. So, to the Mac OS people (who likely will never read this but who cares, it is a rant) fix the home, end, pageup and pagedown keys so that they are consistant, GOSH.

So, I have had to use Mac OS for about a week now and I have decided that there is a fundamental flaw with the OS. It is not meant for keyboard only use. You can’t live without a mouse. Let me illustrate.

If you have some windows open you can through them. But if you minimize your firefox window, and then to it, you can’t get you window back up. I have not been able to find a keyboard shortcut that well let me maximize a window. So, you have to use the mouse.

When using the terminal program provided you can open tabs as you would expect. But, if you are in tab 0, and need to be in tab 5, you can’t just 5 like I would like to, you have to cycle through all tabs.

Otherwise, I miss having my calendar right there with the clock, and appointments showing up there. And gnome-do kicks the trash out of QuickSilver. So yeah for the gnome-do devs!

So, it is my first day of just using MacOS X. Is there any way to have tomboy on Mac OS? I loved tomboy notes and the closest thing that I have found is a program called sidenote. But it isn’t the same. It doesn’t auto save, it doesn’t have bulleted lists. Any help would be appreciated.