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Hi Gene, congratulations on your new Mac!

Some thoughts...

Re: metal: fortunately the next version of Mac OS (due in Oct) features a unified theme -- sans brushed metal. If you can't wait til then, Uno may be what you're looking for: http://gui.interacto.net/

Re: tabs on Safari: yes it does. It may also be worth your while to check out Camino: a Mac-native version of the Mozilla renderer that features better speed and integration with the rest of the OS: http://www.caminobrowser.org/

Re: dual boot: as I understand it, you can boot into Windows from either Parallels (VM) or Boot Camp (full OS) -- the latter may be faster for some apps. (AFAIK, faster in some cases than dedicated Windows machines. This could be the answer to your comments re: Visual Studio et al.)

As for the rest, I agree with you -- these are beautifully designed and built machines. One note of caution though: if you have sweaty hands and the "right" PH balance (like me), the aluminum on the palm rests can rust over time: it develops nasty black pits (http://www.appledefects.com/?p=69) that will stab at your heart every time you see them. My recommendation: get a Marware Protection Pack: http://tinyurl.com/2xtutx

Hope this helps... enjoy your Mac!

Jorge, thanks. That's excellent advice. I'll definitely look at Camino and Bootcamp (I can probably wait for Leopard to do away with the metal finish).

I'll watch out for the pits too. Though I kind of like that distressed look. :)

@jarango: wow, I wish I sweat acid! :P

@gene: it may sound silly, but I generally have Safari and Firefox open at the same time. Firefox has such great plugins, especially for development and blogging, but Safari is definitely faster and its "Private Browsing" feature comes in really handy sometimes *wink* *wink*

As for missing Visual Studio, may I suggest some gorgeous Mac-only development tools?

There's Coda for web design. The best there is for non-WYSIWYG webdev. BBedit is an awesome text editor that can be used as a multitude of utilities. Finally, if you do compiled coding, you're gonna love Xcode.

That's my .02 -- hope you stay in Mactown!

Hey, I remember that Apple II+. I also remember playing a whole lot of Lode Runner on it.

I switched in 1994 so I can't really speak to what will be different for you as I never really used Windows beyond 3.1.

For browsing I use OmniWeb and sometimes Safari. OmniWeb is a paid browser, however I love it for features like workspaces, fine grained ad blocking and per site preferences all without having muck around with plugins.

Coda looks like an awesome app. I don't do much web work so I haven't used it however Panic's other apps are very good. I use Transmit from them for ftp and Unison for newsgroups.

On the editing front I was a long time BBEdit user however I have switched almost completely to TextMate. It's extremely powerful and wonderfully extensible.

Other dev tools I'd recommend checking out are OmniGraffle for diagramming, and OmniOutliner for power outlining.

Hi Paul,

Yeah, that old Apple saw hundreds of hours of Lode Runner. :)

OmniGraffle is looking like an essential application. It also solves a problem I'm having getting Visio diagrams to EPS format.

I've heard good things about TextMate and BBedit, but I'm going to give skEdit a try. Coda looks nice, so I might try that if I'm not happy with skEdit.

In place of VS, it's actually easy to install nifty things like Rails and Django.

More software I'd recommend:
* Textmate: best text editor ever. Really.
* Adium: All your IM belongs to us, or them.
* Twitterific: Everpresent stream of presence
* Quicksilver: An app launcher, doc searcher, whatever... it's MAGIC
* Preview: comes with your Mac... shift+ctrl+open apple brings up cross hairs you can use for a screen grab. Open Preview and open apple-N opens a new doc with your screengrab pasted right in. open apple+I gives you info on the image (size, etc.)

Hi Gene,

I agree, OmniGraffle is essential. Check out the Pro version, it has a few timesaving features that make it worth the difference in price.

Okay, Austin, you've convinced me to try Textmate. Jorge, I downloaded OmniGraffle Pro the other day--I like it. Plus that auto-guide thing is really cool.

I have a question though: should I keep the thin piece of foam that protects the monitor from the keyboard when the computer is closed? Do I really have to worry about the keys scratching the screen?

I haven't had issues with the keyboard scratching the screen. That said, I don't think my machine is exactly like yours (I have an alum Powerbook, similar form factor).

Here's another vote for Textmate: it's one of the best text editors I've used, on any platform. Be sure to check out its blogging bundle; it's how I do all of my blogging these days (what little of it there is ;-) ):

http://macromates.com/blog/2006/blogging-from-textmate/