1. Keyboard Shortcuts
I didn't realize just how big of a hurdle this would be for me. I've been working with Windows for a long time now and have gotten used to using a lot of keyboard shortcuts. In fact, if a Windows box I'm working on loses all mouse function I can still navigate Windows pretty easily just with the keyboard; I prefer it actually. The Mac keyboard, though, is missing some essential keys that I used regularly for navigation (Home, End, PageUp, PageDown, Windows key). No problem, I thought, I can setup keyboard mappings in Fusion to address this. I may have to re-train myself on some shortcuts but I can live with that. Easier said than done. I was tweaking the keyboard mappings in Fusion for a few weeks and I've finally just given in to the fact that I'll have to use the mouse, or trackpad, more in my Windows VMs. I've been trying to learn keyboard shortcuts for the Mac too and it is sometimes hard to keep track of what shortcuts work where. To compound the problem some of the mappings don't work all of the time like using the Ctrl key to do a Ctrl+select for instance. So if anyone has any suggestions I'm all ears. Here are my current keyboard mappings that I'm using in Fusion:
NOTE: These are Fusion specific and are in addition to the inherent Mac shortcuts for Home (Fn - Left), End (Fn - Right), PageUp (Fn - Up), PageDown (Fn - Down).
| Mac Shortcut | Virtual Machine Shortcut |
 | Windows key |
| Option | Alt |
| - Z | Control - Z |
| - X | Control - X |
| - C | Control - C |
| - V | Control - V |
| - P | Control - P |
| - A | Control - A |
| - S | Control - S |
| - W | Alt - F4 |
| Control - Option - Delete | Control - Alt - Delete (forward) |
| Control - Option - I | Control - Alt - Insert |
| Control - Right | Control - Right |
| Control - Left | Control - Left |
| Control - A | Control - Right Alt |
| Option - P | Alt - Print Scrn |
| Control | Control |
To make my keyboard misery even worse, Microsoft's RDP client for the Mac only gives you 8 keyboard mappings that you can configure; you can't add any of your own! I think they did that on purpose just to frustrate guys like me.
2. Only two USB ports?
This one is pretty minor but it does irritate me occasionally. There are only two USB ports on one side of the MacBook Pro. I have two external USB drives, a thumb drive, and a USB wireless mouse that I sometimes need to use. Of course the solution is to have a USB hub or dongle to use more than two devices at once. I'm sure if there was extra room Apple would have added another USB port. The slimness and sleekness of the MacBook Pro is worth the minor inconvenience. The other problem though is that the USB ports are spaced just far enough to only allow two usb cables to be plugged in side by side. However, my SanDisk thumb drive is wider than a typical USB cable so it can't be used if something else is plugged in. Arggh.
3. My home printer doesn't work.
I haven't been able to get my home printer (HP OfficeJet ?) to work on my Mac. I'm connecting to it via a share on a Windows XP workstation which isn't a problem but I haven't gotten any drivers for it to work on my Mac. My printer is not a very common HP printer so it didn't surprise me all that much. I have a hard enough time getting it work in Windows believe it or not. I've tried it on Snow Leopard too thinking it may have gotten added in the updated printer support but no such luck. I don't print a lot at home so it's not a big deal for me.
4. MS Office replacement.
At work I have to write documentation for the projects that I work on for our customers. I'm pretty picky about the formatting in my documentation because I like it to look professional. That being said, over the years I've gotten used to the features in MS Word but thus far haven't found a good replacement for MS Word on the Mac. I tried NeoOffice (OpenOffice for Mac) first but it couldn't handle all of the formatting properly in existing Word documents I had.
So what about MS Office 2008 for Mac? I would have to fork over $150 to MS but surely it would be a seamless transition, right? Well, I was warned to stay away from MS Office 2008 but of course I ignored the warnings and had to learn for myself the hard way. What I quickly learned was that MS didn't build Office 2008 to work like a Mac application is supposed to. For one, the installation puts bits and pieces here, there, and everywhere instead of packaging everything together in a nice & neat .app package file. Secondly, it seamed to "infect" my Mac because after I installed it I noticed a definite slow down in general. It did, however, do a satisfactory job of handling the formatting in my documents. I tried it out for a few days but decided I wasn't willing to pay $150 for what seemed to be a poorly written application. So after I dug around for awhile I found the uninstaller and got it removed. My Mac, though, still wasn't working the same as it had before I installed MS Office. After some more research I discovered the maintenance routines that Macs run periodically on their own to keep things working tip top. I ran all of these and then also found a utility called Cocktail that would reset the permissions on my files. After doing all of this my Mac appeared to be working normally again, phew!
I also gave iWork a try but it didn't handle the formatting correctly in my existing documents either. I could probably recreate the formatting in NeoOffice or iWork but I haven't had the motivation to try. So for right now I've settled with just using Office on my Windows VM and using NeoOffice occasionally for quick documents or spreadsheets.
5. Too much time on the computer.
Most evenings now are spent "playing around" on my Mac instead of watching TV or movies. Before I didn't want anything to do with computers once I got home from work. The Mac makes the experience enjoyable again though and I love working on it. In fact, there for awhile I thought I was getting carpal tunnel from spending too much time on it. Thankfully that's not the case.
Okay, I'm done raving about by MacBook Pro. I may create another post on what I think of Snow Leopard. So far the new Exchange support using Mail and iCal has been adequate but I do miss some features that Outlook offered.
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