This is not an Apple

My first major step to taking off the Apple training wheels has been to stop using Entourage and to use Apple’s Mail, iCal, and Address book applications.

Now at first sight this looks like a bit of a step backwards to Outlook’s predecessor, Exchange client and Schedule+. However, Entourage has enough annoying habits that it is worth a go, and after all this is an exercise to see if I can remove my Microsoft dependency.

At the same time I have started to use Google Mail to see if I really need to use an Exchange 2007 server. Now the most remarkable aspect of that test was that when I set-up my iPhone to sync with the Google calendar, Google’s instructions made use of an Exchange connection. This says to me that Google is using Exchange 2007 for some of its mobile connectivity. Suprising to say the least.

So how do I feel about the change? Here are my random thoughts

• I soon got used to the multiple applications and liked their simplicity
• The fact that I can have all my calendars be driven off a single account is great and means I have a clean snap shot of my day
• Mail has a few oddities that I am getting used to, mainly its use of attachments and how folders (or mailboxes) work; but overall a good experience

The exciting news of the last couple of days is that Snow Leopard, the next release of Mac OS X, will have full support of Exchange 2007 out of the box. So maybe I will stick with Exchange …

On a different note I have started to use Merlin as my project management software. This is a great alternative to Microsoft Project and is able to open and save to the Microsoft Project format. So that’s another off the list!

If QuickBooks would just release a Mac version of their sofwtare (as they do in the US) my transition would be complete

Michael ITDashboard