What PC software you miss on Macs?

[TrickyTank]

I know that you can use Bootcamp, but still having to close everything down and restart is a little annoying. And since I miss:

Counterstrike Source
Cubase SE 3 (My version only works on PowerPC)

there's no point trying to run them on Parallels or Fusion because they really are computationally intensive programs.

 

[macmee]

What...?

Have you tried:

Coda ($99, but oh, so gorgeous)
TextWrangler (free)
BBEdit ($125)
Smultron (free)
Taco HTML Edit ($25)

etc...

Check out the Web Design and Development forum for more alternatives...

Thanks, but I've tried all of these. They're fine, but I was thinking like...say I had
foreach($i=0;$i<10;$1++)
{
stuff here
}
I like when the editor highlights my brackets. Additionally if I highlighted $i in notepad++ it would highlight that variable elsewhere too as so I can see where it is. Little things I know, that I can live without.

 

[hawaiipoolman]

Picasa! cant wait any longer, running picasa on fusion is not a bad work around, but a native picasa would be great!

 

[munkery]

Obviously I still defragment my Mac's hard drive as part of my standard maintenance, as everyone should, but it is a lot easier and less time consuming on my Mac than it was on my PC.

Typically files smaller than 20mb are the files that get heavily fragmented so you don't really need to defrag that often. I prefer doing a clean install every 6 months or so. 64 bit versions of windows auto defrag under 20mb files as well.

Edit: Sorry for the redundant post.

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Little things I know, that I can live without.

I understand that...

Only one I know which does that is Eclipse (free) with ZendStudio on top (not free):



An added bonus with that one is that it highlights syntax errors word processor style...

Or you could skim through the Essential... thread over at the Web forum and see if anyone has a better suggestion than me...

 

[si77hay]

I switched a few months ago, and only saddened that I didn't do it earlier!

However, I can't find anything on the Mac that compares to 'Tag & Rename' on the PC. No software seems to find MP3 tags from the net

 

[Jodles]

I hate not being able to do ctrl+x then ctrl+v (cut and paste) in the Finder. Works fine with text though.

 

[NoSmokingBandit]

I switched a few months ago, and only saddened that I didn't do it earlier!

However, I can't find anything on the Mac that compares to 'Tag & Rename' on the PC. No software seems to find MP3 tags from the net

Media Rage
http://www.chaoticsoftware.com/ProductPages/MediaRage.html

 

[munkery]

I know that you can use Bootcamp, but still having to close everything down and restart is a little annoying. And since I miss:

Counterstrike Source.

If you miss CSS, check out Urban Terror. It is free and has a native mac version. Graphics may not be as good but the screen scrolling is way smoother. Has other elements to the gameplay I like better as well. Plus don't have to run a background app like steam either.

 

[si77hay]

Media Rage
http://www.chaoticsoftware.com/ProductPages/MediaRage.html

I wasn't aware this connected to CDDB or Amazon much like 'Tag & Rename' does. This is the feature that seems to be missing in all Mac MP3 renaming tools.

 

[Winni]

any essential softwares you still need a PC for?

I live in both worlds, but I clearly make my money in the Windows world. Since Macs are also PCs, I have both platforms installed on my Mac Pro.

What I still need Windows for:

- Microsoft BackOffice
- Microsoft Visual Studio and everything else that is .NET-related
- Ritlabs The Bat!
- A couple of games that are not available for my Xbox 360

The simple truth is that I could do without the Apple platform, but not without Microsoft. The biggest loss for me would be Aperture, the rest I probably wouldn't even really notice.

 

[si77hay]

I wasn't aware this connected to CDDB or Amazon much like 'Tag & Rename' does. This is the feature that seems to be missing in all Mac MP3 renaming tools.

I take that all back!

Just got it up and running and it does indeed do what I want...and more.

Thanks!

 

[NoSmokingBandit]

Yeah, Media Rage is pretty sweet. Getting tags, album art, renaming files... it does everything very well.
Glad i could help!

 

[Tennyo]

The only think I find myself missing is Minesweeper. How I love that game. There's a version for the dashboard but it's just not as good as the real one.

Otherwise everything is way better.

 

[MacGeek7]

SimCity 2000

Yes, I know there's SimCity 4 for Mac but there's something about SimCity 2000 that I really enjoy.

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

SimCity 2000

There is a Mac version of Sim City 2000, though you may need Classic environment (or an old System 7, OS 8 or 9 PPC machine to actually run it).

 

[Plastonick]

Why would I miss anything, I've got Bootcamp

 

[drgrafix]

Corel Draw & MS Visio

Yeah... I know I could install Windows and run these apps but I'm trying real hard to make a clean break and NOT install MS software on the machine. I'm interested in alternatives that wouldn't be a bear to learn. AI is obvious since I have CS3, but its not an easy switch to someone who has worked with Corel ever since it was introduced until v13! With Visio... I guess I could try a CAD program, but again... the learning curve... whew.

Other than that, the Apple alternatives are more than adequate or better .

 

[robbieduncan]

YWith Visio... I guess I could try a CAD program, but again... the learning curve... whew.

OmniGraffle. It can even open Visio files...

 

[nomad01]

Switched a few months ago... only thing i have not been able to find is a DVD Shrink Utility... i have MactheRipper for my DVD's that I backup, but nothing to shrink them.

I don't know if DVD encryption has just got tougher but I miss DVD Decrypter (and then DVD Shrink).

Was a doddle to use the two of them. Mac the Ripper and Handbrake just seem to fail on 90% of commercial DVDs I try to rip.

 

[sehnsucht77]

You gotta love all those things that steal your identity and and put ads everywhere. Don't forget about those ones that crash your computer. But I forgot what they were call because it's been so long

That more than makes up for anything missing. My iMac should be dead after all the things it's seen.

sounds like a unoptimized n00b computer if it is doing all that. any PC user worth his salt would know how to block that stuff out.

Yeah... I know I could install Windows and run these apps but I'm trying real hard to make a clean break and NOT install MS software on the machine. I'm interested in alternatives that wouldn't be a bear to learn. AI is obvious since I have CS3, but its not an easy switch to someone who has worked with Corel ever since it was introduced until v13! With Visio... I guess I could try a CAD program, but again... the learning curve... whew.

Other than that, the Apple alternatives are more than adequate or better .

a clean break at the expense of productivity? is Apple paying you to not use MS products even though you know how to work them? use what you need to get the job done.

 

[NoSmokingBandit]

I don't know if DVD encryption has just got tougher but I miss DVD Decrypter (and then DVD Shrink).

Was a doddle to use the two of them. Mac the Ripper and Handbrake just seem to fail on 90% of commercial DVDs I try to rip.

http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/FairMount.shtml
Have you tried this?

 

[Theophany]

I mainly miss the ability to run small apps with limited usage. Prime scenario: the other day I wanted to shrink down a copy of Windows XP with nLite to install on my Eee PC. I've been running Ubuntu on it, but got sick of it and wanted to be able to use my Eee PC for the odd Windows task to save me having to buy Parallels/VMWare Fusion or installing Boot Camp. I then wanted to make the USB stick bootable using the tools from Vista's recovery console.

It's fairly rare I need these kind of lightweight freeware utilities, but when I do, it would be nice to have XP handy. I'm not really keen on partitioning off space that I use on my HD to run a seldom-used copy of XP.

 

[Razeus]

Excel. A proper version of Excel on the Mac that's code for code as powerful as the one on Windows. Excel on Mac 08 is a joke.

Picasa. No longer an issue

MediaMonkey - the best mp3 tagger in the world. Ever. It'll pull all the tags and artwork from Amazon.com as I choose. I do all my mp3 tagging in this program. A clean and lean program with a great UI.

Mp3Tag - being that I'm OCD about things, all my mp3's follow a particular format for naming the actual file. So after I set the tags nice and proper in MediaMonkey, I load the mp3's in to this nifty little program to rename my mp3 files (because different people rename their mp3's in their own way) for consistency. It renames them right from the tags I set so I get (Track#)-(Song Title)-(Album Title)-(Artist Name).mp3

If someone will come along and make MediaMonkey and Mp3Tag for the Mac, I'd be good. I'm hoping that the MS Mac team gets their crap together and give me a proper version of Excel, hopefully in their next release and I'll be100% all Mac.

Why the Mac is lacking in the mp3 software department is beyond me. Especailly with the aura around Mac and creativity & entertainment.

 

[Theophany]

Why the Mac is lacking in the mp3 software department is beyond me. Especailly with the aura around Mac and creativity & entertainment.

iTunes performs both of the those functions, albeit to a lesser degree of sophistication.