ok, I switched to Mac

[mbpark]

Heya,

A few months ago, I needed a UNIX box for doing networking work and security testing.

I got a Powerbook 12" 867 with 384MB RAM back in late August.

This machine is sweet. So far, these are my favorite tools on it:

1. OpenSSH (yeah, I know it ships with it)
2. Chicken of the VNC (works with Windows VNC servers)
3. Fugu (graphical SCP and SFTP)
4. Fink
5. Nessus 2.0.7
6. dsniff
7. ettercap
8. Safari
9. iChat
10. MS Terminal Services Client
11. my Microsoft USB mouse.
12. xChat
13. Mail
14. Ethereal
15. SAINT

As you can tell, OS X does what I need without the pain of Linux. And, I'm not your average Mac user. This laptop, with a 1GB SODIMM, will have Oracle 10g on it when it's released as a database client.

Right now, I'm balancing using this and the ThinkPad at work, since I need both. However, for my SQL Server and Oracle work, I can VNC or Terminal Services into a Windows server to get my work done.

The only thing I miss on here is Microsoft Access, because I do a lot of work converting old Access databases to SQL Server or Oracle. Everything else, I have. WinSCP does have better directory support than Fugu, however.

The machine does about 75% of what I need now, plus it does not run Windows. I still need to keep a Windows machine around for Office documents, because OpenOffice doesn't like the corporate documents our customers put out. I also need to do the aforementioned Access work, and work with some platforms that need browser plug-ins, like InfraActive Help Desk (which I do development for), Netilla (which I admit not fully testing), and some other apps I use.

Otherwise, I like the machine. It's small, attractive, and fast. This and my new ThinkPad are smaller combined than my big TP 770X is.

I've been through three ThinkPads, an NEC mininotebook, a Toshiba I tested, and a Compaq. This is the most well put together of the bunch. OS X also does all that Linux did for me and then some, and Fink is awesome.

Dave, do they let you do work on this at SAIC?

M