Evernote (for sharing of notes and travel documents across all devices).MobaXTerm (for all my terminal/ssh needs to connect to Linux boxes, Raspberry Pis, etc.).Altova MissionKit (mostly XMLSpy, MapForce, DatabaseSpy, and DiffDog).Altova MobileTogether (for developing mobile apps on all platforms).

Sublime Text 3 (my go-to programmer’s text editor for development purposes).Microsoft Office 365 (mostly Outlook, Word, and Excel).Adobe Creative Cloud (mostly Lightroom, Photoshop, and Illustrator).In terms of software that I actually use all the time, the list is fairly concise: The bottom-line is that I found I hadn’t been using any MacOS-specific apps for a long time… For photos I had been using Lightroom instead of iPhoto for many years already, so I wasn’t tied into the iCloud/iPhoto platform. So I ended up mostly using my browser of choice (Chrome) to access my personal email and calendar, and using Remote Desktop to my office machine for working with my office email/calendar/contacts. Since I wasn’t using Apple’s own iCloud offering as a sole repository, the integrated MacOS apps just didn’t play well with either my office email system on an Exchange server or with my personal email on Google Apps (i.e., GMail, calendar, and contacts on own personal domain). At the same time, the UI design got cutesier and more candy-colored - but that didn’t translate to any productivity increase for me. And what I noticed over the past few years is that the built-in software for Mail and Calendar and Contacts in MacOS X got less useful with every iteration of the operating system from Mountain Lion (10.8) to Mavericks (10.9) to Yosemite (10.10). For work I used mostly Windows machines and at home it was mostly Macs.

I’ve been using both Windows and MacOS devices essentially in parallel for the last 15+ years. You may ask why anybody would want to convert a MacBook Pro into a Windows 10 laptop in the first place.

I’m very happy with the result and this is now going to be my main laptop for all my business trips (and vacations) going forward. In fact, startup times, as well as time to wake from sleep, are slightly better than under MacOS, and all of the software, including Office, Adobe Creative Suite, etc., appears to perform better as well. The process was surprisingly straight-forward, and the machine runs extremely well with all hardware features fully supported, including the high-resolution screen (“Retina display”), integrated camera (“iSight”), WiFi, Bluetooth, and all external ports. With the recent release of Windows 10, I embarked on a fun weekend project to convert my old MacBook Pro laptop (late 2013 model) into a new Windows 10 laptop.

Macbook pro win 10