I wired up the IOGEAR MiniView Extreme Multimedia KVMP Switch (GCS1732) and my first impression was: “oh s**t, I can’t live with this”. My monitor, a 20″ ViewSonic VP201mb LCD, was previously hooked up to my Dell via a DVI connection. I knew I’d lose this with the KVM switch which only supports VGA, but I read reports from people that couldn’t tell the difference, so I thought I’d try it out. DVI switches are very expensive (except for the Linkskey LDV-202AUSK which is out of stock everywhere I look).

Then I configured my monitor settings by first letting it auto-adjust the image, then I manually adjusted the contrast and brightness, and now I have to say – it looks just fine! I’m honestly not sure if it’s any different than the DVI connection, although theoretically it should be. Before the adjustments, the picture was really fuzzy, but now it’s quite sharp. So I guess I’ll stick with it for now. I figure within 30 days I’ll know if I want to keep it, get a DVI switch, or live with accessing the Dell via Remote Desktop.

Apparently, the home/end keys don’t work as they do in Windows, moving the caret to the beginning/end of the line, but apparently, this can be changed! I won’t be able to try this until my Mac arrives (in 3 days, btw!), but here it is, courtesy of Slashdot:

Create a file ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict with this content:

/* Home/End keys more like Windows */
{
“\UF729″ = “moveToBeginningOfLine:”; /* home */
“\UF72B” = “moveToEndOfLine:”; /* end */
“$\UF729″ = “moveToBeginningOfLineAndModifySelection:”; /* shift + home */
“$\UF72B” = “moveToEndOfLineAndModifySelection:”; /* shift + end */
“^\UF729″ = “moveToBeginningOfDocument:”; /* control + home */
“^\UF72B” = “moveToEndOfDocument:”; /* control + end */
}

Yesterday, the AppleCare for the Power Mac arrived, along with the keyboard, mouse, and external Lacie d2 DVD burner for the Mini. I purchased this burner instead of upgrading the Combo drive to a Superdrive because my father-in-law just purchased a Sony camcorder that records directly to 3in (8cm) DVDs, and he wants to be able to import content from these DVD to create full-sized DVDs. I could not verify that these small DVDs will work in the slot-loading drives on the Mini, nor could I find his camera listed on Apple’s device compatibility list, so since I pushed him so hard to switch to the Mac, I wanted to make sure he could read the small DVDs. (The Lacie is considerably faster than the Superdrive, and it comes with Toast Titanium, so when you subtract the $100 you would spend on the Superdrive, the $199 ($181 at Amazon) for the Lacie is really not a bad deal).

I’ve heard nothing but bad things about Quicken on the Mac, and I’ve been using this software for over 10 years, so that will have to stay on Windows for now. My employer still uses Visual SourceSafe for one project I need access to, so I’m stuck in Windows for this as well. For the most part, though, I’m excited by the prospects on the OS X side, and I’m looking forward to trying everything out, especially QuickSilver!
Since it’s obvious that I can’t completely rid myself of Windows, I have considered 2 options:

1. Sharing a monitor, keyboard, and mouse between both my Dell and the new Mac.
2. Using remote desktop to access my Dell
3. Virtual PC

For now, I think #1 is the best choice because it doesn’t force me to re-install everything on the Mac, so I want ahead and ordered an IOGEAR MiniView Extreme Multimedia KVMP Switch (GCS1732) from Amazon.com. #2 is a viable option but I’d prefer a physical connection to my Dell at this time to minimize my risk. If all goes well over the coming months, perhaps #3 will be the ultimate solution, allowing me to re-purpose the Dell for something else and move it out of my office. (Although the Dell is not the noisiest computer I ever owned, it’s certainly not the quietest, and I’m hoping the incoming Power Mac will be much quieter).

I just realized I haven’t mentioned exactly what I ordered from Apple. I concluded since I’m attempting to use the new Mac as my primary computer upon which I earn my living, I better get something powerful, so a dual 2.5Ghz Power Mac with 1GB of RAM is headed my way. (It actually won’t ship until next week sometime). I thought about getting an iMac for my wife (she’s using my old Pentium III 800Mhz Thinkpad), which would be cheaper and at least get me into the Mac world again, but then I’d be jealous and want one of my own and wind up getting a Power Mac for myself anyway. If all goes well, maybe I’ll get her a Mini down the road.

Speaking of the Mini, I’m not the only one switching to the Mac! My father-in-law is currently running Windows 2000 on a Pentium II 266Mhz (one of my former primary development machines), so it’s definitely time for him to upgrade. Since he’s much more of a mainstream computer user than I am, switching him to the Mac should be much easier than my own switch, and the Mac Mini should seem like a supercomputer next to that Pentium II! He was initially reluctant to switch, but after giving it some thought and asking me a bunch of questions, he’s now just as excited as I am!

So there it is. Can’t wait to see how all this pans out.

That was then, this is now. The G5 processor has since been released, and my preliminary tests indicate that it’s a much better performer than the G4. Below are the results of building a test project composed of 364 Java classes and 242 JSP files. The results, expressed in minutes:seconds, include time to pre-compile the JSP files and create 3 different EAR files. The tests were performed using Sun’s JDK 1.4.2_06, Ant 1.6.2, and run under both WebLogic 6.1 and 8.1. (8.1′s JSP pre-compilation blows the doors off of 6.1). The times were the average of 2 runs:

Dell Latitude D800 1.7GHz
6.1: 4:56
8.1: 1:25

Dell Precision 350 3.06GHz
6.1: 5:05
8.1: 1:09

AMD 2200 running Mandrake Linux 10.1 (older box)
6.1: 7:46
8.1: 1:49

1.8GHz PowerPC G5 running Mac OS X 10.3.7 (512MB SDRAM)
6.1: 6:00
8.1: 1:25

I would hope, and expect, that the dual 2.5gHz PowerMac would top all these numbers. So with the performance problems out of the way, I’ve begun to drool again over OS X, while simultaneously growing more and more tired of Windows XP.

It’s not that XP is unstable – quite the contrary. Many of the early switch-to-Mac reports were from people tired of constantly rebooting or crashing Windows, but my Dell Precision 350 has never blue-screened once for as long as I’ve had it (about 2 years). I’m just tired of all the little annoyances in Windows: like Explorer occasionally thinking I have 17 desktops after “upgrading” to SP2:

Or how XP lets you rename a network place (I prefer to group shares by computer name), but somehow manages to create a new network place using the default name (sharename on computername) over time. Or how it constantly insults me by reminding me that my firewall is turned off. There are many other minor complaints of this nature. And don’t even get me started on how MS changes things for no technical reason whatsoever. Their Java compiler was called “jvc” when everyone else’s was “javac”. Their Java runtime was “jview” when everyone else’s was “java”. And why on earth did they have to use “default.htm” as the default HTML file when every other web server on the planet was “standardized” on “index.html”. I can’t stand arrogant crap like this, and I even experienced this “do it our way or else” attitude first hand while doing some development work for MS several years ago that I won’t get into.

Enough MS-bashing. Like I said, XP has been rock solid for me and I am very productive in it. It’s going to be very difficult for me to get used to a lot of the nuances in OS X, and I know that life is certainly not going to be perfect once I switch, but it’s time for a change, and this blog will document my switch-to-Mac experience as best I can.