[sylvaticus]

Thank you, everyone, for the great responses! I'm embarrassed at how long it's taken me to get back to responding.

My head was completely awash in all things Apple and Mac, and I completely lost touch with any semblance of GTD. Now, I'm finally getting back into the thick of it.

I'm still in love with my computer (how could I not be), and a little blue to see that the Mac Pro line is about to be refreshed, and there will go my "bragging rights." Ha! Still plenty to brag about, I know! :-)

I did indeed end up using Mail, iCal, and Address Book, exactly for the reasons suggested. I like them, but there are some serious flaws in them, eg, iCal has no appointment conflict detection! I ended up with two events overlapping. I called Apple because I thought surely a feature like this that has been around for over ten years (on Windows) must be present, but nope! The person who answered the phone told me the tech thought that was a good idea and they would think about adding it. WTH(eck)? There are some other issues like that, but on the whole they're still OK. And, as you all have observed, it's the hooks.

@Brian:
You're welcome; you've earned them!!

@Word Processing:
I actually haven't done much writing of late, and oddly, TextEdit is filling what writing needs I currently do have. I think Pages will work well for more advanced processing, and since I have been learning more about InDesign, that might be be final, do-anything-and-everything word processor when I need all the muscle I can get.

Of course, I will miss the ability to format on the fly for Chicago, MLA, etc. That might be one reason to consider getting something other than TextEdit, Pages, and InDesign. Perhaps there is a plug-in for Pages or InDesign that doesn't cost a fortune?

@pvonk:
I'd be interested to hear why, with Pages, you use Scrivener for your book. I did end up getting Circus Pony Notebook, but haven't really used it. I wanted to set up some formatting and was completely defeated. I'm sure I'll come back to it; I miss MS OneNote and so appreciate what Notebook offers!

@Richard:
Salve, Tu Bone Vir! Tu valde dixisti! I guess I'm more an "aspiring classicist." Thank you for the tip on setting my keyboard to type polytonic Greek! I'm still working with Latin currently, but I've now added the Greek, Hebrew and Devanagari (Sanskrit). Thank you!!

I'd love to chat over email or IM sometime about Macs for scholarly use if that's not too weird or nerdy. :-)

Thank you again, all. I'm thinking about OmniGraffle and OmniPlan as well. I'm not sure how often I'll need them, but when you need them, you need them!

[pvonk]

Originally Posted by sylvaticus

@pvonk:
I'd be interested to hear why, with Pages, you use Scrivener for your book. I did end up getting Circus Pony Notebook, but haven't really used it. I wanted to set up some formatting and was completely defeated. I'm sure I'll come back to it; I miss MS OneNote and so appreciate what Notebook offers!

Thank you again, all. I'm thinking about OmniGraffle and OmniPlan as well. I'm not sure how often I'll need them, but when you need them, you need them!

I've tried Scrivener because it has special features for novels, etc, but truth be told, I've hardly used it since the first week.

I use Pages for some short docs, like lab assignments or programming projects (I used to use Word for everything). For long projects, it's Word.

As for Circus Ponies: I've never warmed up to Powerpoint or similar products, since I usually need the ability to scroll down long code pages. Since slide pages don't work with me, enter Circus Ponies Notebook. It does outlining and more, and exports the material to html. Using a browser in class, I can expand and collapse subtopics as I do lectures - in lab, the students can follow along. I use OmniGraffle to create quick graphics that enhance my html pages (actually, graphics that originally go into Circus Ponies Notebook). OmniGraffle Pro is such an intuitive product that's quite powerful and looks so much better than other similar products. You know how a person who knows Word inside and out can create all kinds of "wow" documents? OmniGraffle is like that for graphics (the type I need)! I know it quite well and create a lot of images that spice up my "act" during class.

OmniPlan? I don't think so. I don't work in groups, never saw a need for Gantt charts. OF is just what I need, and with the iPod Touch/Phone version, I sync and have a portable version of my tasks.

After almost four years since my "switch" to the Mac, the honeymoon is still in place. Hoping you'll experience the same!

[watchit]

I transferred to Mac 20 years ago but I often work in a Windows world. I find there's no problem keeping fingers in many app pies. Page is terrific for some tasks and mediocre for others. Scrivener is great for bringing certain kinds of creative ideas to fruition, but not others. SubEthaEdit is worth checking out if you want to collaborate with remote co-writers on the same document. Nisus is fluid for very long projects with TOC, indexing & bookmarks. But Word 2008 is indispensable for me for most heavy duty word processing tasks and I continue to use it.
If you are used to Outlook in Windows, I would recommend that you use IMAP email instead of POP and use both Mail and Entourage. I work in Mail for some communications tasks and Entourage for others. By using IMAP, anything received, sent or created in one is in sync with the other via your various mail servers. Entourage has some great features (similar to and in some cases surpassing Outlook) but it's typical of Microsoft's bloatware closed-garden attitude to app development. The major limitation to this set up is the old bogey, synchronisation. Not all fields in the contact cards of Address Book & Entourage will synchronise. If only Apple would put some real work into Address Book and iCal, then the endless search for a PIM / CRM combo might end. sigh :) but that's another story. Hope this helps.

[sylvaticus]

It seems most still favor Word, at least in certain situations. I bought and installed Vista x64 on Fursion, in part so I could install Office 2007 (which irritatingly has a fuller feature set than Word 2008).

I have found some merit in in writing in a plain text editor, and then formatting the document in InDesign. Writing and design are two different tasks and using tools that allow me to focus on each task to the exclusion of the other might be the way to go. Still, I like Word and some of the features it offers should I want or need them.

I don't need to collaborate, though if I did I'd consider getting InCopy. I'll have to look into what features Scrivener has for novels and creative ideas, though, I don't see getting any new writing software at this time. For some complex things, I think OmniOutliner would be the way to go for me. I love outlines and tend to think hierarchically. An outline structure is perfect for me to order my thoughts in a longer, more complex document, where I might need to shift whole paragraphs around.

And--yes and thanks to you both! I am still in love with my Mac and I want to use it every day!

Keith

[Toadling]

FWIW, I do all my writing in the excellent BBEdit. It's a plain text editor, but like sylvaticus mentioned, writing and design are two different tasks. I like the separation.

Besides, virtually all of my writing gets published to the web anyway, so having it as plain text in BBEdit makes it all the easier to add markup later on (in fact, BBEdit excels at this).

I'll also throw in a plug for OmniOutliner. Like sylvaticus, I tend to think hierarchically and love how easy it is to "pour" out ideas with OO. I'm often torn between BBEdit and OmniOutliner when choosing a tool at the beginning of a project. I guess that's a good problem to have though. :-)

-Dennis

[sylvaticus]

Dennis,

Thanks for the input. I looked at BBEdit, but just couldn't justify the price. I know tons of OS X coders love it! I have OO, so perhaps that will help for that hierarchical writing, and then TextEdit, Dreamweaver, Pages, and InDesign will complete the picture.

Sheesh...how many writing applications does one man need? Je m'accuse! LOL!

Keith

[Toadling]

Originally Posted by sylvaticus

Thanks for the input. I looked at BBEdit, but just couldn't justify the price. I know tons of OS X coders love it!

Oh, yeah, you're absolutely right, Keith. The price of BBEdit is rather steep if you don't spend your day in a text editor. But if you do a lot of web-related work, write code, or need powerful plain text processing, BBEdit is a great choice. Otherwise, it's probably overkill, especially if you already have a full stable of other writing apps to suit your needs. ;-)

On the other hand, there is also a free version of BBEdit called Text Wrangler that seems to keep a lot of people satisfied. It packs more text-processing-punch than the very basic TextEdit, but still might be unnecessary for your needs (especially since you already have Dreamweaver).

-Dennis

[sylvaticus]

Funny you should mention it: I installed TextWrangler, but have never really needed to you use it! :-)

Keith