I am now in my second week of working in OS X on the new Mac Pro. Last week was my first full work week working under OS X. I can tell you that it was very different. I am, though, getting used to it and am getting work done with it now.

Operating inside Windows for so long, I was not only used to how to use the OS, but I was also very familiar with the selection of software out there for Windows. As a web publisher, I live in my web browser. Aside from that, I also use a lot of more specialized software. Over the years, I had found the right combination of software to get the job done just the way I wanted – in Windows. Trying to find that right software lineup inside of a different operating system is tricky and, at times, disappointing.

My Windows Software Lineup

As I move further into my transition to the Mac, let me outline the list of the main software titles I use under Windows on a regular basis:

• Firefox (of course)
• Macromedia Studio (now owned by Adobe)
• Zend PHP IDE
• Allnetic Time Tracker (an old version that I used to track my time when on the job for clients)
• Quickbooks
• Quicken
• Trillian
• Camtasia Studio
• Yahoo Music Jukebox
• Paperport
• Topstyle
• T-HUB (for importing sales transactions from the PCMech Store into Quickbooks)
• Globalscape CuteFTP Pro

I use the computer to run my business and do web publishing and design. It is stocked up such to do exactly that and I want it to work as an extension of me, without me having to think about how to do something. Under Windows, and with the software I was using, that was the way I had it. Now, onto OS X…

My OS X Software Lineup (Work in Progress)

I have spent some time looking around to find decent equivalents to the above software. In some instances, I found the direct Mac equivalent. With others, not so.

• Firefox. Firefox is available on the Mac platform. I have it installed, but I am actually using Netscape 9 on the Mac a little more so. Netscape 9 runs on the Firefox engine so its essentially the same browser, but it does not run quite as large in memory.
• Macromedia Studio. I was tickled to find that I already owned the Mac version of this suite on my installation CD. Awesome.
• Zend PHP IDE. Same deal, so I was able to install the Mac version which works quite well.
• Allnetic Time Tracker. I was using an old version of this because it was free. Unfortunately, I could not find something like it under Windows. I am trying a utility called TimeTracker and another called TaskTime 4. So far, I am leaning toward TaskTime, however it is $20 purchase.
• Quickbooks. Intuit does offer Quickbooks for the Mac, however I would need to go buy it. I have already invested in the Windows version and don’t feel like buying it again. So, instead I am using Quickbooks inside of a Windows virtual machine inside of VMWare. Works well, although I have a weird issue with directory permissions that is not allowing me to save the data file directly to the OS X file system. For that reason, I am having to temporarily do my accounting with the data files inside of the virtual hard disk. It is working, for the time being.
• Quicken. Same deal as Quickbooks, althoug Quicken seems to have no issues working with the files on the OS X file system (which to Windows, looks like a networked drive).
• Trillian. I believe they are working on a Mac version of Trillian, but for the time being, Adium is my choice. It is free, open source, and a damn good chat client.
• Camtasia Studio. Camtasia is the best screen recording package out there, and unfortunately is only available for Windows. I have heard rumors that they are working on a Mac version, but it isn’t available right now. More sad is that the options available for OS X…well, in a word, suck. Snapz Pro X is one of the ones most often mentioned for OS X, but I tried it and think it sucks. Perhaps I am spoiled by Camtasia, but I am really disappointed they have no solid screen capturing software for OS X yet. Still looking…
• Yahoo Music Jukebox. Unfortunately, this is not yet available on OS X either. Sure, I can run it inside of the virtual machine, but VMWare Fusion currently has a bug – it will not use the external speakers for audio inside Windows. All audio is coming out of the built-in speaker inside of the Mac Pro. Needless to say, it defeats the point of Yahoo Music to be forced to use that dinky speaker. I hope VMWare fixes this issue soon.
• Paperport. Another one with no Mac version. So, for now, I am running it inside of the virtual machine under Windows XP. Working well, and I just move my scanned documents to the OS X file system.
• TopStyle. Truthfully, I have not yet tried to find a Mac equivalent. If anybody knows of one, I’m anxious to know.
• T-HUB. Nothing like it for Mac that I can find. Plus, T-HUB isn’t exactly cheap, so I am running it in the virtual machine.
• CuteFTP Pro. This one does have a Mac version, but it is simply not as good as the version for Windows. Not even close. In fact, the unfortunate fact is that of the many FTP clients I tried for OS X (Transmit, Filezilla, Interarchy, Cyberduck, CuteFTP Pro Mac ), NONE of them stacked up to CuteFTP Pro for Windows. They didn’t handle bookmarks very well, provided little control over them, or some other issue. For example, CuteFTP Pro for Windows allows you to set up bookmarks that control both the local and remote side. This is REALLY convenient for quick movement around a file system. CuteFTP for the Mac broke the link and you had to control remote and local separately. Also, when you uploaded a PHP file, it would copy the local permissions over to the remote side and make it completely unexecutable. CyberDuck is loved by some, but I found it extremely counterintuitive. Filezilla is acceptable, but it does not handle bookmarks as conveniently. Transmit is the best option I can find, and even it doesn’t add up to CuteFTP Pro for Windows. It comes close, but the interface for Transmit is clunky.

Broad Comparisons

To me, this whole experience just goes to show one thing – neither of these operating systems provides a better computing experience than the other. There is some software out there available only for OS X that works really well and is better designed than the Windows counterparts. But, the same goes for many Windows titles. There are more choices available for Windows, and those choices are very often much better and more useful than the Mac counterparts.

At this point, I would say the nod goes to Windows in this department. I have found some really cool OS X software, but in many of my daily work items, I am still in the “making do with what is out there” mode when it comes to trying to do it natively in OS X. Let’s hope that some of these long time Windows software vendors release decent Mac equivalents as they see the rising market share of Apple. Until then, I am one of those people who say that I could not possibly get all my work done on this Mac without being able to run Windows on it.

Thank you, VMWare Fusion.