<p>I have tried to completely switch to a MAC from Windows quite a few times. Unfortunately, we have problems. First, courses in my undergrad degree require Microsoft products not available on the MAC. This factor does not bother me much because I should have as many tools available to me in the "IS/IT" field as possible. It's the second factor that bothers me. Second, I find that it is easy to depend on things that are not necessary. It seems to happen more in the Windows world than anywhere else, but it does happen in other places. A few examples might be in order. 1. I must use Visual Studio to develop .net applications. This is fine because Visual Studio is built for that purpose. However, the hangup is when I look for other developer tools for Visual Studio that will make my life easier. An easier life is not the problem, but why do it when it creates a problem down the road? Now, I have extra tools for Visual Studio that force me to depend on Windows. I could very well use other tools on the MAC or Linux to get the job done. 2. No doubt that anyone in college has to write essays requiring a specific formatting style such as APA or MLA. Sinc I am in college, I am at the mercy of these formatting styles. Some time ago, I picked up an app for Word 2013 to format my essays for me. Nice! No thinking about formatting styles, guidelines, rules, or points off homework! Later on, it creates a problem. To switch OS platforms, now I have to revert back to manually formatting essays. 3. After using Windows since Windows 3.1, a user would get used to how Microsoft works. Everything about how to use the core services of Windows is permanently burned in your mind forever. Therefore, making it difficult to switch because dealing with the pain of different UI structures, methods of getting things done, and shortcut keys gets in the way. At least knowing both OS platforms makes things easier to deal with. What is one to do with these problems? Oh, wait! Put a VM of Windows on your MAC. You have the best of both worlds, all of the necessary Windows and Microsoft apps are available to use when required, and it doesn't take up many resources. Well, back to Windows we go, except this time, it is on a MAC under Fusion instead of on native hardware. The Ultimate question for anyone facing this problem is how to break the ongoing cycle? Does anyone have any ideas?</p>
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Sure!
I actually do this. I rarely require Windows for anything, except MUDs, but that's really all. I do all my web development on OS X, and basically everything else. Once my semester starts whenever my immigration is sorted, I'll be using Office more mainly due to word processing. Office 2016 Word actually works better on the Mac in some cases than Pages does, and Outlook wasn't too horrible, and the same goes for Powerpoint and Excel. Still, some things you couldn't do, like working with tables of contents, although you can't do this in Pages either. Table navigation was a lot smoother in Word, however, as opposed to Pages.
Still, it's not quite there yet, so using Windows for that task will make it easier. Other than that, that'll be all I'd need it for. Virtual machines come in handy at times.
formatting
Just out of curiousity, what app was this that formatted your essays for you? I hold a batchellor's degree and formatted everything manually.
Formatting essays
Perrla for APA. They now have Perrla complete which formats a template online. All you have to do then is download the template and use it.
I Might Try Word 2016
Hi. I read elsewhere that Ms Word 2016 works well with VoiceOver, and I might want to try it out sometime. Emphasis on "might." I'm not really a power Mac user, at least not yet as I don't currently have a full-time job and I'm not currently a student. But both those could change, I really don't know at this point in time. Regarding Pages, I've used it only briefly and it seems to work okay. But for now TextEdit is my word-processing program of choice. That said, I don't use it much but I've found it to be an excellent little program.
How to Break the Cycle
Here's how I did it. As in your example, I got a Mac, but needed Windows for some PC-specific purposes, so I'm running Windows in a VM. I remember thinking, "Well, at least I can always go back over to the Windows VM if Mac just isn't as easy."
But then I realized that Mac was never going to be as natural to me as Windows if I kept retreating to Windows. Fortunately, my hand was forced by a couple little oddities that presented themselves with the way NVDA works on my VM. Not deal breakers in any sense, but enough that it wasn't *quite* as convenient to retreat to Windows as I'd hoped.
So I made the effort to just stay on the Mac side of things, except when doing Windows-specific work. The small issues with NVDA certainly made this easier, but I was committed to doing it anyway. And you know what? The funniest thing happened.
Before long, I was accidentally using Mac keyboard commands on my PC at work. I caught myself wishing I could do things on my work PC that I can only do on my Mac, like delete text a word at a time. Navigating text on my work PC started getting frustrating when I kept forgetting that the screen reader was always announcing what was to the right of the cursor, and not what the cursor had just passed over. My old fear that i'd find myself needing to retreat back to my VM every five minutes has disappeared. There are still little learning moments on occasion, but for the large part, the Mac OS, and Voiceover, have just really suited my style.
So in some ways, I broke the cycle by making myself use the Mac until it started feeling natural. In other ways, I didn't do anything to break the cycle - the Mac OS and Voiceover did all the work. What I mean by that is this: I enjoy the Mac computing environment. It now feels natural to me because it suits me. Some people may be better suited to Windows - in which case, the cycle may not break itself. Does that make sense? But at the end of the day, if you're determined to "make the switch" to Mac, then I think the key is just to commit to sticking with the Mac, and resist the urge to "retreat" to Windows. And after not too long at all, the Mac will probably feel so natural that you no longer have that urge at all.
Can someone explain me why
Can someone explain me why productivity is being treated like unnecessary things?
I keep saying folks to take their time switching and to only switch when that makes sense for the use case.
If the use case will behave better on windows, stay ion this system to address this use case. If it never behaves better on a Mac, always use windows for that. Using two systems is not a crime. No single person can acuse you, treat you as gilthy or say you're inferior because you use more than one OS at the same time to do different or even the same tasks according to your decision. What is *** stupidness ***** would be delaying the delivery of an activity or spending many more times of a time you would spend in another cenarius only because ........ well using another OS is something not popular, desirable or even cool anyways.
OS's aren't wives *** you can have more than one and can live with both of then at the same time and even more use each one for what they're better.
I am not a purist when it comes to operating systems and even more when it comes to any assistive technology. The machine shall work for me and not the oposit shall happen.
Currently I'm using a mix of Windows OS X and iOS to make my activities. What dictates what I use is my productivity because I have no time to loose.
I am using the Mac more and more but if I stopped to use Windows as soon as the Air was at home I would have given up and used iOS and Windows even more to get my activities done because I wouldbn't have time to learn another system. By learning slowly and consistently what works best in what system I have been able to achieve the maximum of productivity each one can give me and this woths the trouble of learning another platform I at lease think this way.
No clue
I'm not sure why it's referred to as unnecessary things either. I use whatever works. If that's two systems, or three, I'll do that. Whatever gets me the most amount of efficiency.
To Jake: Office 2016 works alright. Certainly, when it comes to more advanced features though, accessibility on the Mac does fall far short of what is on Windows. That's even the case with Pages, certainly in my experience. I'm happy to hear if someone has had better experiences, but too much of the formatting has been an unknown factor. Tables do navigate a lot better than they do in Pages, though, in my opinion, and they're also easier to edit.
The template for MLA and APA will be extremely helpful to me, so thanks for that. I'm in the process of migrating to the U.S. so this will be invaluable.
About Essay formatting
Not only can you use Office 2016 on the mac, but you can also save templates in pages.
You could create a blank document formatted as needed and save it as a template.
You can even export it to word or pdf should your professors require it.
you could also set up boot camp and have the best of both worlds.
That way, Windows would be running natively on Apple hardware.