It’s traditional when joining a forum to create a “hello” post, as I didn’t see another spot to do it I’ll put it here.
I’m an old time computer user, going back to my first machine, a TRS-80 Model 1. From there I moved to a Radio Shack Color Computer, a Commodore 64 (which I still have setup in my office), and finally landing in the Microsoft world with DOS 2.1.
In that time I never had an Apple machine, no particular reason why, I just didn’t need it. I did wind up buying an iPod touch, when my Zune died and they had been discontinued.
In 2016 I was writing a book and needed a screen shot from an iPad or iPhone to demonstrate reporting capabilities in Microsoft SQL Server 2016. So, I went out and bought an iPad. I admit it quickly grew on me, I especially liked the way a lot of the apps seamlessly integrated with each other. When it came time to renew my phone (I was kind of tired of my Android) moving to iPhone was a pretty easy choice.
Fast forward to 2018, and again it was Microsoft that spurred me into the purchase of a MacBook. (Actually I have 2, plus the one I had to get for my daughter, long story there). Microsoft has been really embracing the multi-platform world with some of their tools like VSCode and SQL Server Operations Studio. I could easily test these in a Linux virtual machine, but for OSX, well you have to have a real Apple machine, so I bought one.
In that time I’ve been amazed at how it has integrated itself into my daily workflow. I still use my Lenovo ThinkPad for my main work (I create training videos for Pluralsight) but the management of my work seems to have migrated to my Macs. I love the integration between my iPads (I now have both the 10.5 and 12 inch pros, and the iPad mini 4) and my iPhone. I set a reminder in one place and it’s there on all of them. I also love the ability to do iMessage on my Mac. When my wife gets chatty I can have a full size keyboard to reply to her with and not deal with touch screen on my phone or iPad.Those are some simple examples, I’m sure you experienced folks don’t need to be told of all the ways in which these devices integrate.
Of course there are still some things that annoy me. One is the lack of support for more than two external monitors. I have six hooked up to my Thinkpad through a combination of the docking station and USB Video adapters. The inability to do this on my Mac is a pain.
The second is the lack of support for the RDP protocol. At home I leave my big machines setup in my basement office, then can wander around the house or go out on my back deck and work, just RDPing into my main machines. If you haven’t used Remote Desktop Protocol then you are missing out. If you have, for example, three monitors on your current machine, whatever machine you remote into will instantly adjust to use all the screens you have on the machine you are coming from.
While I can use the Microsoft app to RDP from my Mac to another RDP compliant computer, I cannot RDP TO my Macs. Right now I am using Splashtop, the free version lets you connect to another machine on your home network, through the paid version you can remove from anywhere via the web.
Other than that, I am pretty happy with the Macs, especially my smaller 13 inch model. It’s small size and good battery life makes it very convenient to carry around.
I love podcasts, so naturally when I got into the Apple ecosphere I sought out some. By far, MPU is the best, hands down, and I’ve listened to quite a few. I suspect it is because of the focus on productivity, as a small business owner it’s productivity that I want from my computers.
Well I’ve gotten long winded so I’ll shut up for now, just wanted to say hello and thank everyone for the great posts I’ve read on here so far, and to the hosts for their hard work on the MPU podcast.
Thanks,
Robert / @ArcaneCode