{"id":9350,"date":"2020-07-23T09:21:59","date_gmt":"2020-07-23T08:21:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/?p=9350"},"modified":"2026-03-26T17:00:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T21:00:24","slug":"getting-along-with-a-mac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/2020\/07\/23\/getting-along-with-a-mac\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting along with a Mac"},"content":{"rendered":"

I realized recently that I had arrived at the fifth anniversary of a kind of freedom. It was in the summer of 2015 that I decided to see whether I could get along with a Mac. I had been using an iPad since they were first announced – I still am and wrote an update here<\/a>. After the iPad, I quite swiftly moved to using an iPhone. So, I was somewhat plugged in to the world of Apple. I was becoming more and more tired of Windows frustrations and some friends persuaded me to invest in a Mac and give it a try \u2026<\/p>\n

And I am not going back! [Although I do need to use Windows for some work-related stuff sadly.]<\/p>\n

I started out with a MacBook. I figured that, as my wife needed a new computer and her needs were quite straightforward, this would be fine, even if I did not get along with it. I very rapidly found that I could do everything that I wanted with ease. My next investment was an iMac with the 27\u201d screen, which is easily the best computer I have ever used.<\/p>\n

A computer is only good as the software – the apps – that it runs. Although I am happy to try new things from time to time, I have settled to a \u201ctool box\u201d that gets everything done:<\/p>\n

Chrome<\/strong> is the browser that I use routinely. I am used to it and I like the synchronization with my iPhone and iPad; so, if I was looking at a website on one device, I can quickly find it on another. I am aware that it is considered a bit of a memory hog, but I am not too motivated to change just yet.<\/p>\n

I use the standard Mail<\/strong> app for my personal email. I have tried others [like Kiwi<\/strong> and Spark<\/strong>] but it\u2019s simplicity makes me come back to it. It has some annoyances, so I will probably investigate others again sometime.<\/p>\n

For other personal communications I use a WhatsApp<\/strong> client app and the new Facebook Messenger<\/strong> app.<\/p>\n

I have used Evernote<\/strong> for many years for a variety of purposes and have never found anything that can better it for functionality, particularly moving between platforms.<\/p>\n

These are the apps that run all the time, along with some background utilities: DropBox<\/strong>, OneDrive<\/strong>, Magnet<\/strong> [great window tidying app], Clipy<\/strong> [clipboard manager], Dashlane<\/strong> [password manager] and Time Machine<\/strong>. Everything else is run as needed.<\/p>\n

Microsoft Office<\/strong> is an obvious choice and it works on a Mac at least as well as Windows. The usual apps are Word<\/strong>\/Excel<\/strong>\/PowerPoint<\/strong>\/Teams<\/strong> but I have also been playing with OneNote<\/strong> as I think it might be a good replacement for Evernote. I prefer its organizational structure, but the lack of edit-in-place attachments is frustrating.<\/p>\n

For photography related matters I used Adobe Photoshop<\/strong> and Lightroom<\/strong>. I recently trialled Affinity Photo<\/strong> as many people spoke highly of it, but I found it rather clunky; everything that I wanted to do seemed to take lots of steps.<\/p>\n

For video matters – editing videos and capturing presentations – I use Camtasia<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Of course, there are other apps that get used from time to time – like Family Tree Maker<\/strong> for genealogy and Scrivener<\/strong> for some writing projects – and others that are nice to have to hand.<\/p>\n

I am very surprised to find that many Mac users do not uses Spaces [virtual desktops]. This is a built-in and very easy to use feature of MacOS and I use it all the time – in slightly different ways on the iMac and MacBook. I guess the computers are flexible enough for us each to have our own way to work …<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I realized recently that I had arrived at the fifth anniversary of a kind of freedom. It was in the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71677,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spanish_translation":"","french_translation":"","german_translation":"","italian_translation":"","polish_translation":"","japanese_translation":"","chinese_translation":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[302],"industry":[],"product":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-9350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-off-topic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71677"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9350"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10910,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9350\/revisions\/10910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9350"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=9350"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=9350"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}