Author: Mike Talon

Feb
21
2013

Alright, you’ve made it through the first two articles and have decided you need to use Microsoft tools in some form on your Mac. But which form is right for you?

First, determine if the apps you need are even available on OS X. Many Windows-based tools are not, so this could be an easy decision. Here’s some of the more common apps that do have OS X counterparts available directly from their vendors:

Office – Microsoft produces Office for Mac, currently at version 2011. While not every feature set is in the Mac version, the basics are there. You’ll get Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and some add-on features like the Remote Desktop Connection client.

Communicator/Lync – Note that here we’re talking about the messaging clients that are specifically used for corporate communications server systems, and NOT talking about MSN Messenger or Skype. Microsoft does have versions of both Communicator (for Office Communications Server) and Lync (for Lync Server) that are built for OS X and run on Lion and up. Most also work on Snow Leopard, but aren’t officially supported there. You will need to obtain a copy of the software and a license from your company’s IT department, as they are not sold directly to end-users like the rest of the Office suite is.

Cloud applications – Things like SalesForce, SharePoint, and other services are available via web browsers, and nearly all of them work fine in Safari, Chrome, and Firefox. This means that you don’t have to have a full (or “thick”) client software package for either Windows or Mac, and can use these apps on both.

VPN/Security tools – Cisco and other VPN vendors tend to make OS X versions of their VPN clients, but you’ll need to reach out to the vendor to be certain. If they do have an OS X app, then it is highly likely that you’ll be able to connect just the same as with the Windows version (I can vouch for the Cisco VPN app personally). Security tools are another story. Some vendors (like Sophos) do make OS X versions, but many do not properly connect to their corporate server counterparts. Again, check with the Vendor to be sure.

Many other applications used in a corporate setting (like Visio, for example) are Windows-Only, and therefore cannot run natively on a Mac. In some cases, you can find Mac application that has the same features and can read/save to/from the same file formats, allowing you to perform those tasks on a Mac. However, there will be times when an application simply exists in a Windows-only form, and there isn’t any Mac app that can get the job done.

For these times, it’s a good idea to create either a Virtual Machine or a Boot Camp partition to give you a Windows desktop when you need it, but keep out of the way otherwise. Personally, I use both for different reasons, but mostly I use a VM for day-to-day stuff.

Using a VM requires four things:
1 – A VM capable Mac
2 – A licensed copy of Windows XP, Vista, 7, or (for some VM tools) 8
3 – Disk space to hold the VM itself
4 – A license for the virtualization software

Most Macs built after 2009 can run a VM, check with your virtualization vendor (the top two are Parallels and VMware) to see if yours is ready to roll. Once you have that, and a licensed copy of both Windows and the VM software (which you can get from the vendor’s website or from the App Store), then you need some space.

A VM needs disk space to live in, and for most Windows VM’s this is a minimum of 50 GB. It can be on your local hard drive, or on a USB or other externally-attached drive. For something like a MacBook Air, this is the biggest concern, as disk space is at an absolute premium if you’re putting the VM on the local disk. You will probably need closer to 75-100 GB to hold a VM with a bunch of applications on it, so plan ahead.

Once you install the VM software, the tool should guide you through setting up a VM for the Windows OS you have chosen. If you’ve never done this before, it’s like installing Windows onto any other machine, except this machine is actually a window on your OS X desktop. The VM software from both Parallels and VMware will walk you through most of the basics, but you’ll probably want to get some help from your IT team or someone who’s installed Windows on a new machine before.

Boot Camp is another option, this is an Apple technology that allows you to install Windows into a partition (a segment of your hard drive) and boot into either Windows or Mac as needed. Apple has a lot of resources to help you do this, and you can start by reading the Knowledge Base article on the subject, located here.

Boot Camp does require a few things:

1 – An Intel-Based Mac
2 – Enough free space on your hard disk to create the partition (between 50 and 100 GB)
3 – A licensed copy of Windows Vista, 7, or (soon) 8

The major drawback to using Boot Camp is that you can only run one OS at a time. You either boot into Windows or into OS X, and you have to reboot to change between the two. This can be eliminated if you also use a VM system, as the major vendors all support booting the Boot Camp partition as a VM in OS X. This way, you can jump to Windows by rebooting if you need full horsepower, but otherwise use your Windows apps via a Virtual Machine from inside OS X.

So, now we’ve talked about why you might want to use Microsoft tools directly in OS X, why you may not want to or may not be able to, and how to use them on both Windows and OS X on the same Apple hardware. What will you do for your Mac? How will you leverage Microsoft technology along-side your Apple technology? Sound off in the comments, or drop me an email and let the world know your thoughts on the matter.

By Mike Talon •
Uncategorized •
0

Feb
7
2013

Last time, we talked about why you might want to use some of the Microsoft software technologies on your Mac. This time, let’s talk about why you may want to avoid – or at least segregate – them.

Microsoft tools are not perfect, I think we can all admit that. In all fairness, the Apple tools have their own issues, so Microsoft is not alone, but we’re Mac users and therefore we’re hoping to look for more faults in other peoples’ software =) I do want to point out that I use Microsoft products myself, both on my Mac and elsewhere. I also do a large amount of work with Windows servers, and love the OS and everything I can do with it. I simply prefer Mac as my desktop platform, and therefore have found lots of opportunity to explore mixing and matching.

So, why might you not want to use Microsoft software on your Mac?

– Incompatibility: This is the top reason I’d have to list as to why Microsoft tools may not be the best choice for you. As an example, if your company uses Exchange Server 2003 or earlier (and I know quite a few that do), then Outlook 2011 won’t connect to your Exchange Server at all. You’ll have to run a compatible version of Microsoft Outlook for Windows in a Boot Camp partition or VM. Be aware, Mail.app won’t connect to Exchange 2003 or earlier either, so sometimes you just don’t have any choice.

– Less Mac-focused: A purely subjective argument, but one I can’t deny. With the Ribbon and other Windows-centric interfaces, the Microsoft apps for OS X are simply not the same in terms of look and feel as their Apple counterparts. For most folks, this isn’t a big thing, but if you’re totally in love with the interface of Pages, then Word for Mac probably won’t get you all that excited.

– The apps are slow and crash: Again, not bashing Microsoft here, but many of the Windows apps for OS X do tend to perform worse than the Apple apps that do the same thing. Outlook on Windows, for example, is in no way the most stable application I’ve ever worked with, but compared to its Mac counterpart (Outlook 2011), it’s a streamlined race car. Outlook on Mac is very slow to start up with a large mail database, freezes for several seconds at a time for no reason, has trouble regaining focus if you click on the wrong area of the screen, etc. The user groups are chock full of complaints on these and many other subjects. Word for Mac and other Office apps have similar issues, and Communicator for Mac (for those of us not on Lync Server yet) is a world of hurt all its own.

– The apps are not the same as their Windows counterparts: While Microsoft has taken great pains to try to make the OS X apps as feature-complete as the Windows versions, they didn’t manage to get everything in there. For example, Outlook 2011 has no support for Social Connectors, and just barely managed to get support for some more basic things like recurring tasks/reminders into a recent Service Pack update. If you happen to need features that are just not implemented in the Mac versions of these apps, then they won’t work for you.

As you can see, the arguments for not using the Microsoft tools for OS X are about equal to the reasons you should use them. Luckily, there are ways to get the best of both worlds. Next week we’ll talk about the different options for using Microsoft software on your Mac, including segregation using VM’s or Boot Camp.

By Mike Talon •
General Info •
0

Jan
28
2013

[Editor’s notes:
First, sorry for the hiatus in my postings. I’ve been swamped with work, and ran out of pre-written posts just before the holidays here in the US. But, now that I’m back on track, you can expect a return to regular, weekly posts from here on out.

Secondly, the title of today’s column has nothing to do with Microsoft losing marketing share. Those of us who are fans of Monty Python’s Flying Circus will quickly see I’m using the conjunction form of wither, meaning “where to or wherever to” instead of the more common meaning.]

While many of us in the Apple community may wish to believe that we can totally live without any Microsoft products, there are simply too many reasons why you might find you need them. This is especially true if you use your Mac for work, or a combination of work and home life. This first article of three will discuss the reasons you might want to include Microsoft technologies into your Mac life.

Those of us who use our Macs for corporate stuff often find that the business world is an inhospitable place. If you are lucky enough to work for either a company that mostly uses Macs, or one that has an IT group that uses and supports Macs; count your blessings. Most enterprises do not rely primarily on Apple technology and – aside from a few cases where iPad apps are officially sanctioned – don’t want anything to do with them. This makes actually using your Mac and native Mac apps to access company resources a challenge at best, and a nightmare at worst.

Using some of the Microsoft tools (both on OS X and in Windows on your Mac – more on that later) can make life easier for those of us who have to talk to corporate data systems regularly. Systems like Office 2011 can give you native Outlook, Word and Excel features, though generally with a feature set and file formats that are a few years old. However, even with these legacy formats, the native experience can be much easier to deal with when working on company documents and files that were built with the Office applications on Windows machines originally. Granted, Pages and other Apple apps can do these things, but may (and probably will) have formatting and function frustrations along the way.

Also keep in mind that if a native Microsoft app like Outlook 2011 is having problems, the corporate IT staff will have far less of a hard time troubleshooting it. These apps typically use the same connection systems and functions as their Windows counterparts, so especially if the problem is server-side, you’ll end up not taking the blame for something that isn’t your Mac’s problem in the first place.

There are some very non-technical reasons to use Microsoft apps or a Windows VM as well. These days, most companies have a very strict policy when it comes to data and security and information ownership. If a system holds company data, the company owns it, no exceptions. In these cases, even though you *could* use Mail.app to connect to your company’s Exchange Server, you probably don’t want to. Keeping your work email independent from your personal email means not having to worry about which account you’re sending from, what signatures are being used, and who owns the content of a particular email database. I find this method invaluable – all my work email is in Outlook, my other email is in Mail.app – no confusion and no mistakes.

Of course, the biggest reason you might want to consider using Microsoft apps on OS X is if you recently converted to Mac. I know that Outlook 2011 isn’t the same as Outlook 2010 or 2013, not by a long shot. However, it is much closer to its Windows counterpart than Mail.app combined with Address Book and iCal. If your entire user experience has been based on Windows versions of MS Office up until this point, then using the Office for Mac applications is going to make for a much easier transition.

Next week, we’ll talk about why you may NOT want to use Microsoft software on your Mac, and then we’ll finish up in the third column describing ways you can use Microsoft tools, either on your Mac in OS X or segregated into a VM or Boot Camp partition to keep them on their own.

By Mike Talon •
General Info, OS X Mountain Lion •
0

Nov
21
2012

Any Mac user tends to get very used to the standard keyboard layout that you get with the included aluminum dealie you get with your new iMac or can buy with a Pro or Mini. While it does work for a lot of people, I found the layout to be a bit too compressed over time. The lack of a number-pad and dedicated home, insert, delete, and other keys become quite annoying to boot. So, I went on the lookout for other keyboards I could use instead, and ran into a problem.

I prefer ergonomic keyboards, but the few available specifically for Mac were outrageously overpriced. Now, I chose that word purposely. I’m not against shelling out a reasonable amount of money for an expensive, but great, keyboard that doesn’t forget the fact that I’m going to be banging away on it for hours every day. This means that I’ll probably have to replace the thing about once per year as I wear the text off the keytops and possibly jam one or more of them over time. Asking me to pay well over two hundred bucks for any keyboard – no matter how ergonomically designed – is just price gouging.

This left me with two choices, a non-ergonomic Mac-specific keyboard, or an ergonomic wonder that’s not designed for OSX, but rather built for Windows or even Linux. I tried out both, and they have their plusses and minuses.

First, the ergonomic boards for non-OSX machines. I looked through about a dozen choices available on major shopping sites and in stores, and settled on the Microsoft Natural Keyboard, as I had been very happy with it when I was still on a Windows desktop, and the vendor (Microsoft) claims Mac compatibility. While they were not lying, there were some problems to be found in this approach. First, there’s no dedicated Command key (⌘). When you plug in or connect any new keyboard that isn’t made by Apple, OSX first asks you to identify which keys are to the left of the Z key and spacebar, and then figures out what your layout looks like. This maps the Command function to the key immediately to the left and right of the spacebar. Typically this means the Windows key gets remapped to Command, leaving Alt (Option on Mac keyboards) and Control unchanged. You can alter all these mappings in your keyboard options if that doesn’t work for you, but the defaults are pretty workable.

All in all, it was an acceptable and workable solution, but there were definitely problems with long-term use of a non-Mac-focused keyboard. First, there’s no native media keys. This may sound like a fiddly little thing, but when you get used to instant media and volume controls, and suddenly have none, it’s annoying as all get-up. Microsoft has their Intellitype software package that can make the media keys on their keyboards work for iTunes, but not for any third party applications. As a regular user of Muse and Musicality, it got even more annoying to hit pause, and find it left the Muse application playing and started playing iTunes on top of it. The same goes with the loss of one-click access to Spaces and the Dashboard, which I use quite often for a variety of reasons and apps. Once again here, Microsoft’s software can compensate for some of these keys, but not all of them (though, see below for a way to overcome the Spaces issue).

Next, I went looking for a non-ergonomic keyboard built for Mac. There’s are honestly not a lot of choices out there. Logitech has a couple, but most manufacturers either make Windows keyboards or generics. After quite a search, I found that Das makes a couple of them. They are most definitely not cheap, but they are about half the price of some of the competition and are very highly respected by the tech community. For those who’ve never heard of them, Das makes keyboards that have the distinctive key-click and overall layout found on older IBM keyboards from the dawn of the modern computing era. The tactile feedback of the key clicks and spacing of the keys makes them very finger-friendly for those of us who type a lot and want to avoid carpal tunnel syndrome; the theory being that the click causes your fingers to ease up on the pressure and not slam into the hard stop at the bottom of the key.

The Professional for Mac was the one I went with myself. The Mac-specific key layout and full media key support was exactly what I was looking for, and I have indeed found that typing stress is reduced when using the clicky keys. It also helps that they keyboard is wired – which is a major thing for me. I find no reason to use a wireless keyboard, as the travel distance of the keyboard on my desk is so small that any cord can easily accommodate me. So I don’t want to have to swap out batteries every week when the keyboard isn’t mobile in the first place on my desk.

This isn’t to say that they keyboard is without fault. There’s still no Dashboard or Spaces keys, but I can use Control + Right and Left arrow keys to flip between Spaces, including the Dashboard. The keyboard itself is also incredibly noisy, and can be heard when I’m on my telephone handset or headset as I clack away taking notes on the call.

I suppose, unless you’re ok with the native keyboard that came with your system from Apple, there will always be some trade-offs. The choice is between ergonomics at the cost of full hotkey functions; hotkeys but no ergonomic layout; or spending a ton of cash on a keyboard that isn’t really any better than the lower-cost alternatives in terms of build quality.

Experiment, ask for recommendations online and from friends, and if at all possible; try out a few in a store before you buy. See which combination of look, feel and functions you think will work best on your desktop. Remember, you’re going to be typing on this thing – a lot – for quite a while, so it’s best to find one that works for you instead of the other way around.

By Mike Talon •
General Info, HowDoI?, Product Review •
0

Nov
6
2012

Late last week, Apple announced that Scott Forstall was leaving the company. Many newbies to Mac, iDevices, and Apple in general may not know what the big deal is. Well, here’s the story:

Scott Forstall was an integral part of the design team for many Apple products. Not all of his decisions, however, were well received by the general public. They were also not well received by other bigwigs at Apple either, which led to the current situation.

Forstall was a huge proponent of a design theory called skeuomorphism, which is – in short – application of physical-world textures to digital vision. Basically things like the leather texture and stitching on things like the iPad calendar and some of the icons (like Find My Friends) on other iDevices are a great example of this design philosophy. Textures and “look and feel” points from real-world objects (desk calendars and leather covers) are applied to purely non-physical concepts (digital calendars and icons). For some folks, the merging of the real-world and the digital world makes software more humanized and easier to relate to. For others, the “window dressing” takes up valuable screen real-estate and doesn’t offer any true benefit.

Until recently, most people had seen and used desk calendars and blank notebooks with physical covers to write things in at least at some point in their lives on a daily basis. Today, there is an entire generation who’s gone mostly paperless, and may not even relate to the skeuomorphic attributes of these software platforms at all. Yeah, they look nice, but they don’t add anything to the software for those folks and detract from the overall surface area that can be used for more important information.

Johnny Ive and most of the other Apple designers wanted to move in the direction of cleaner lines, with digital-focused interfaces that were recognizable both to people who worked on pen-and-paper objects and software. When the tipping point came, Ive’s group outnumbered Forstall’s group, and he was out the door.

Things also went south because Forstall was in command of the high-profile failures of Apple Maps and other mis-steps in iOS 6. The very public failure of those apps, combined with a power loss in his design philosophy meant his days with Apple were numbered.

So what does this mean for the average Apple gear user? Not a whole lot, overall, but many little things will change. Software on the Mac and iDevices will start to lose the little real-world texture touches we’ve seen over the years. That process started back with Leopard, but will become even more prevalent now. Lines will be cleaner, sharper, and more digital – with more useable screen space taken up by information and data, instead of leather and cloth textures.

Scott Forstall will be missed. Some of those skeuomorphic touches were quite beautiful, but in the end, cleaner lines and less window dressing will make devices more useable and functional. No one can debate that this is a good thing for Apple gear users.

By Mike Talon •
General Info, iDevices, OS X Mountain Lion •
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