Update: June 4, 2007: I have no idea what I was thinking when I said kind things about Entourage below. I was very, very, very wrong. Entourage is beyond bad.
Two days ago, I switched back to the Mac as my primary work machine after just over a year using a PC. I was a Powerbook user for a couple years before coming to Yahoo and use a Mac at home, so the Mac is nothing new to me. I’m sure I’ll have more to write later, but here’s a very superficial rundown on the first couple of days with the MacBook Pro:
Love
- Entourage. When I used a Mac before, I used Mail.app and Thunderbird. I’m hooked into Exchange at Yahoo! (good for calendaring and Treo synching), so I’m using Entourage now. It is so much better than Outlook on the PC. I had no idea.
- Backlit keyboard. I like working in the dark.
- Expose. Expose, oh how I missed you!
- Unix. Yeah, there’s Cygwin for Windows, but it never feels right.
Hate
- That absolutely idiotic magnetic power supply. Who thought that was a good idea?
- Single mouse button. I’m a big right-mouse-click person. I know you can still do that if you plug a mouse into the Powerbook but there’s nothing like having it on the laptop keyboard. This is nothing new, of course, I just forgot about it until I switched back.
I could say a lot more, but after two days, I’m loving it overall.
Chad Dickerson's blog 
Chad, welcome back.
http://www.pencoyd.com/clock/2006/05/17/macbook-in-my-hands/ was my work move back to Mac, and I’ve been very happy.
You absolutely need QuickSilver or LaunchBar, though. If you’re a keyboard person (and you must be, with your Unix experience), these utilities leave you frustrated when you DON’T have them.
Cheers,
John
Second the reco for Quicksilver or Launchbar. I’m a launchbar fan — can’t live without it.
I think you may be the only person on the planet who likes Entourage.
You can solve the single button click problem by changing the trackpad settings so it recognises a tap with one finger as a left click and a tap with two fingers as a right click. It takes a bit of getting used to but is pretty cool. You’ll need the Mac OS X 10.4.7 update for it to work on a 15″ MacBook Pro. Along the same lines two finger vertical and horizontal scrolling is fantastic.
Not the ideal soultion to “right-click” but workable…:
“On MacBook and MacBook Pro computers, Mac OS X provides a feature that enables the trackpad to accept a “tap” as a mouse–click.”
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304052
Holding down the ctrl key while clicking provides the right-click functionality you desire.
I use a PC at work and a MacBook at home. I much prefer my Mac (except for the pesky heat issue). I almost wish I’d gone for the MacbookPro for the backlit keyboard (my Macbook doesn’t have that nifty feature.), but I’m all about small.
Don’t forget about the nifty two-finger scroll on the trackpad … that almost makes up for the lack of a right-mouse-button. 🙂
Don’t worry about the magnetic power cord for the moment. The first time you stumble over the cord and it doesn’t pull the machine off the table, you will love it and know that it just saved you a new screen or whatever 😉
I’ll second on Launchbar/Quicksilver. I used to run Launchbar on my Powerbook, but am now using Quicksilver on the MBP, as it is fast enough to do the nifty graphics.
If you don’t like the tapping for clicking, just hold down two fingers on the trackpad and click. That should give you a right-click too.
Several suggestions already in the comments about setting it to use a tap as a right-click but that can be a pain.
With the MacBook Pro, unlike the PowerBook, if you touch the touchpad with two fingers (like you do when scrolling) that is a right-click. In the Trackpad system prefs, make sure there is a check by “Place two fingers on trackpad and click button for secondary click.”. I think they enabled that in 10.4.7 – no more silly Control-Click.
Kevin
Argh! That should have said “if you touch the touchpad with two fingers (like you do when scrolling) and then click, it is a right-click.”
Quote “That absolutely idiotic magnetic power supply. Who thought that was a good idea?”
what don’t you like about it. my old powerbook dies after someone tripped over the cable and no it did not land on the floor but did rip the power connector off the mother board. I like it. cute small and connects easier
As far as heat on the mac book pro hmm yeah kinf of hate that.
and from new apple have had to replace my mother board after a weried video problem.
The magnetic power cord is a very nice touch… planned breakage is always a good thing for something that is easily broken.
I just switched and the right click issue… was an issue but the two finger trick is an acceptable alternative.
Were you from K-zoo? 🙂
The fact that you hate the magnetic power cord means that you have not lost three previous laptops to the normal wear-and-tear of traditional laptop PC power jacks like I have. Three people in my house have had computers rendered useless because of normal stress on the power jack from cords, which means a logic board replacement or a jack repair costing ~$250 that may not last long. I refuse to EVER buy a laptop again that doesn’t have a magnetic connection.