Things I love in Mac OS X

It is only fair that after writing about the things that I don't like in Mac OS X, I write about the things that I love in the operating system and the Mac philosophy. And there are quite a lot of them, in spite of being a Mac user for just 5 days.

Front Row
What an amazing piece of software. Using the Apple Remote with this software, can really turn your MacBook Pro into a multimedia computer where you quickly have access to all your music, movies and photos. And the browsing effects are even better than the iPod experience.

iSync
Syncing contacts and calendars with my cellphone is now an easy task. iSync supports several different devices and there's no need to install drivers*. Synchronizing my Nokia N80 on Windows was always a real hassle. Nokia's software was not that stable and Bluetooth integration almost never worked. Since the Nokia USB cable has a very poor connector, the simple task of synchronizing contacts between the device and the PC, is quite close to hell.
Now, with iSync and Bluetooth integration this task is impressively simple and fast. I can easily sync Address Book's contacts and iCal's calendars with my Nokia N80 through bluetooth at the speed of light. And with zero-configuration.

Java on steroids
For an intensive programmer like me, the Java experience on Mac OS X is amazing. I don't know what Apple did, but the truth is that Java on Mac OS X is a lot faster than on Windows. I don't have the numbers to prove it, but it really feels a lot faster. Also there's a specially-designed distribution of Eclipse for Mac OS X specifically for Java that works like a charm.

Hiding apps
Yes, there's more to life than minimizing windows. This feature is something that I got used to really fast. On Mac OS X you can easily hide applications and they sit quietly on the Dock until you need them again. It's a simple concept but it works wonderfully.

Applications (Un)Installation
I love the application installation philosophy on Mac OS X. To install, just drag the application to whatever location you want. Uninstall is as simple as dragging the application to the trash. How can it get any simpler than that?

Silence while working
No noisy fans or hard-disk clicking sounds. This MacBook Pro is amazing.

Exposé
Exposé is a little utility on Mac OS X that allows you to have a complete view of all windows that are opened, by clicking just one key and then easily navigate to the desired window using the mouse. Especially useful for people that use a lot of windows opened at the same time. Once you get used to this function, you'll never go back.

Two-finger sensor on trackpad
The MacBook Pro trackpad accepts different commands depending whether you have one or two fingers on top of it. For example, two fingers and mouse click correspond to right-click. Scrolling is made easy on MacBook Pro by using two fingers. And it works on every direction.

Image grabbing
Instead of having to have a dedicated application to capture images from your display, Mac OS X offers a set of shortcut keys to automatically grab images:
- Command + Shift + 3 = image of the whole screen
- Command + Shift + 4 and then Spacebar = image of the chosen window
- Command + Shift + 4 and then mouse = image of specific region
All these create a PNG image file on the desktop with the captured image. You can use CTRL to transfer the captured image to the clipboard instead.

*Some devices are required to have some drivers installed. You need to check the manufacturer's website for those. Nevertheless, most common devices are supported.