After reading last week about how Microsoft is extending the life of Windows XP due to the slow adoption rate of Windows Vista, it dawned on me that the mad excitement over the initial launch of Vista was nowhere close to what it was for Windows 95, 98, and XP. Has Microsoft lost its OS innovation or has it simply reached a point where it is as good as it gets? Outside of the great new graphical interface, I personally have no need to upgrade to Vista. Actually, I am running a product called WindowBlinds 6 that has a XP theme that is spot-on! There are no killer apps that are egging me on to hop on the Vista train, and I know that many of the USB peripherals and software that I current use on XP will not function under Vista.

So what about Apple? Outside of having an iPod and the iPhone, I have never been a huge fan of the Apple Mac OS X operating system. That is most likely because I’ve always been a PC guy and all of my skills revolve around Windows and PC hardware. In recent years the Mac has adopted PC hardware, such as Intel chips, and many USB devices work with both Mac and PC. Earlier this year I bought a Mac Mini purely for doing native Safari browser testing and Yahoo! Widget development. This was my first Apple computer since my Apple ][+ days. My initial thought was that the UI was cool as hell and very easy to use. I got the low-end Mac Mini (512MB RAM) and hooked it up with the Apple wireless mouse and keyboard, using the VGA mode on my DELL monitor to view it.

This all led me to think… why not give the Apple Mac a run for its money? I can use the same keyboard/mouse monitor and most of the apps I use work on both platforms.

So next week is Mac Week for me. I’m giving the Apple Mac a week-long test to see if it can do everything I do on a daily basis with my PC.

Hardware: this week, in preparation for Mac Week, I upgraded my Mac Mini from 512MB RAM to 2GB. What a huge difference that has made. And you already know about my keyboard so I won’t get into that again. The good thing there is that I’m now used to the Apple keyboard on XP so switching over to the Mac won’t be an issue from the input device side of things.

Software: I’ve got the essentials already installed (Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Firefox, and Skype). I thought I was going to be screwed with Remote Desktop, which I use constantly to access Windows servers for work. Much to my surprise, Microsoft actually has a Mac Remote Desktop client and you know what? It works better than the Windows version! Go figure! While I’d like to try out the native Mac email client, I will probably stick with Thunderbird so I can just copy my mail files over and not be interrupted.

I’ll document my week in a separate article, updating it as I go along.

Yesterday I got the new Apple aluminum keyboard and I was raving how cool it is, even for Windows XP. My main complaint was that the Windows and ALT keys were swapped, which was causing me much havoc since my brain has been programmed for so many years to find the ALT key to the left of the space bar.

My initial hunt returned nothing, but after some more Googling today I found the answer in a Freeware product called KeyTweak. This program modifies the Windows registry in order to re-map keys. I was able to swap my Windows/ALT keys (or ALT/Command keys on the Apple keyboard), map the F7-F12 media keys for Previous Track, Pause/Play, Next Track, Mute, Volume Down, Volume Up, and a few other keys. My only complaint is that any changes requires you to reboot your PC. Big whoop!

It works great! I also found another product called AppleKPro (shareware) that does some other fun keyboard mapping action, but I haven’t tried it yet.

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This is kind of an odd discovery. I used part of my $100 Apple iPhone rebate to purchase the new Apple aluminum flat keyboard, with the expectation that I would be using it for my Mac. It arrived this morning and since my primary computer of choice is a DELL Windows XP desktop, I figured ah what the hell, I’ll plug it into my DELL monitor to see what happens.

Much to my surprise, it detected it just fine and not only that, it functions perfectly with Windows XP as well. The Command/Apple key doubles as the Windows key, and the Option key doubles as the ALT key. There are only two drawbacks, both of which are minor. First, the Windows key is swapped with the ALT key, so that will take some getting used to. Second, the multimedia controls to change the sound settings and pause/play movies do not work on XP. Perhaps there’s a driver out there somewhere that will allow this but I cannot seem to find one.

As far as the keyboard is concerned, it is similar to typing on a notebook keyboard (like my DELL) but better. I can typically type about 75 WPM, and it seems a heckuva lot easier on this keyboard. Plus it is low profile, so it is easier and a more natural way to type which should help with my tendinitis. Time will tell, but I think this is a keeper.

So in case you are curious, that is my current desktop setup above for Windows XP, and yes, that is Windows XP (not a Mac). I replaced the Windows taskbar with ObjectDock which I have been using for several years now and is very stable. It is very configurable, but as you can see I have it set to mimic the Apple OS taskbar. As for the big screen, that’s my beautiful 27″ DELL widescreen monitor running at 1920×1200 resolution. I absolutely love that thing… which for me is necessary since I spend so much time in front of the computer.