Originally posted on Combat Consulting
About 18 months ago started using my MacBook Pro for all professional work, ditching my Toshiba and making “the switch”.
Despite really loving my Mac, various professional conventions and some much loved software keep me running a stripped down copy of Windows XP in Parallels nearly full time. Apart from being just another computer I have to maintain, it seem genuinely stupid to be strung between systems like this.
I am now very close to being able to complete the switch, but here are the applications that kept me from completing it. Any ideas about solutions and replacements are welcome.
This password manager is one of those open source gems that stunned me with its superb features and reliability. Happily, it is now ported to Mac!
MindManager and JCV Gantt 3 Pro
I love planning projects in MindManager then having JVC Gannt Pro turn those plans into MS Project compatible GANTT charts and tasks lists. MindManager is now available for Mac, but sadly JVC Gannt Pro is still Windows only. There are dozens of superb looking Mac project management tool
The absolute best Task Manager program out there. Nothing comes close to rivaling this simple and effective program. I have looked at online task managers and the current crop of Mac GTD & Task Management clients out there and found them wanting.
Office 2007 was pure sorrow so it was uninstalled and I went back to Office 2003, which is the best compromise between speed and functionality for me.
Yes I use Google Docs, but when I have to get serious documents or presentations done, I reach for the Office suite on Windows.
Office 2008 for Mac is ruinously slow for me on both my Macs despite my best efforts to get it working normally. I stopped using Outlook several months ago after spending months suffering freezes on Outlook 2007 (IMAP sorrows) only to have Outlook 2003 also become slow to the point of unusable.
I replaced Outlook with Thunderbird, I use Google calendars kept in sync with the Lightening plug-in with Plaxo keeping my contacts synced between all computers. I use Spanning Sync to keep my Google calendars synced with iCal. It all works together perfectly, so adios Outlook. The only thing I miss about Outlook is the excellent Speedfiler plug-in and its ability to “Send and Delete”, perfect for not storing the hundreds of petty mails shunted around each day. I have responded by resisting the urge to send “thanks” or “got it”, I do that by Jabber instead.
This is the only Office 2007 product I use. I adore Visio and it is the overwhelming standard for diagramming in the business circles I operate in. That said I have recently been using a trial copy of Omnigraffle and it looks very promising. I was able to save documents to Visio XML and send them to colleagues using Visio without anyone noticing anything.
I had endless trouble with Desktop search solutions, with Google Desktop, Windows Desktop Search and Copernic all falling short of requirements (i.e. slowing down PC or bad searching). I realised I am usually looking for emails or attachments) to what I really needed was decent email search. Mailstore enables you to backup all your e-mail messages from multiple applications and accounts into one secure and persistent archive. Lightning-fast search, one-click backup, powerful export - all information from your e-mail is at your fingertips anytime.
When this first came out I was so delighted by this software. It beat the pants off its Windows and Mac rivals. Now my copy is very slow to load and I am increasingly using Scribefire, or Ecto on my iMac. I think I can definitely live without it.
Next steps
Everything else running on my Windows machine is either related to maintaining or securing windows, also available on Mac or the Mac equivalents are better.
I am going to give Crossover Mac and maybe something like Darwine a shot and see if I can just run what I need from there.
One Comment
Just stay with free software and you’ll never have this problems again
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