Mac OS X takes a little getting used to for a Windows user, but I’m warming up to it. Having Unix again after all those years of Windows and DOS command prompts is refreshing and liberating. A nice GUI on top of an excellent Unix port is very attractive and functional.
I downloaded and installed several apps including Xcode, NeoOffice, and Firefox easily enough. I downloaded R and built it from sources. That went surprisingly well.
Then all hell broke loose. It could have been Xcode or R or Chemical Burn screen saver, but one of them crashed the Mac so that force quit didn’t work and all the menus in all the running apps were as tall as the screen and empty! After that, the MacBook wouldn’t boot. Before it was over, I re-installed Mac OS X twice from CD. After much quirky operation such as Software Update freezing, I finally gave up and took it to my local Apple Store. They re-installed the OS and everything has been fine since.
I’ve since installed Xcode (via the iPhone SDK), R, Windows Remote Desktop (scroll down), Microsoft Messenger, and connected to a Windows shared printer and Windows shared files. All is good in newbie Mac land today thanks to Tim at the Apple Store.