It didn't take me long to grow frustrated with the lack of a second display, although what is worth mentioning is that I was able to last longer without a second display under OS X than I would under XP. I attribute this mostly to features like Exposé that help manage the clutter, whereas under XP we've only got the taskbar and ALT + TAB. I'll talk about this more in a second.

Adding a second monitor is basically one of the easiest hardware upgrades you can do and believe it or not, it is even easier under OS X. I plugged in the second Cinema Display using the DVI port on the Radeon 9600. By the time I got back up to my desk the OS had already enabled the monitor, extended my desktop and set the resolution to the LCD's native resolution. There are not many options to tinker with with multimonitor setups under OS X, everything just works. Applications remember where you leave windows if you just move them there and close them, and the apps I've been using seem to be well aware of the setup.

There is a performance hit when multimonitor is enabled (much like the hit in XP), especially when using Exposé. Exposé already dips in performance when you have more than a few windows open, moving to a multimonitor setup does further impact performance with Exposé. Luckily even when you've got a bunch of windows open Exposé doesn't really slow down, instead you get dropped frames in the Exposé animation. The choppyness does get a little annoying but the functionality isn't really reduced which is very important.

Exposé retains its functionality while multimonitor is enabled, instead of mixing all the windows you basically get the equivalent of two Exposé functions running - one on each monitor. Exposé's functionality with multimonitors does make sense, it's exactly how you'd expect it to work.

I have yet to try gaming with a multimonitor setup, and I have high hopes as it is a pain to deal with under XP. I'll post about my experiences with gaming once I actually get a game installed on the machine :)

I'm getting better and better about using keyboard shortcuts in OS X. When I get back to the office today I'm going to try installing LaunchBar thanks to many of your suggestions. I'm at the point now where there are certain tasks that I can accomplish quicker under OS X than I could under XP because of the combination of Exposé and a plethora of keyboard shortcuts. I'm not more productive yet as there is still a lot of getting used to that's necessary but I definitely see the potential.

Switching between my Mac and PC machines continues to be a non-issue, all of the shortcuts and things I find myself doing under OS X remain on my Mac - I don't try to do them on my PCs. As I use the Mac more I may find myself trying to use Exposé and similar things under XP, but so far I thankfully don't have those issues.

I would like to close with some thoughts on the whole Mac vs. PC debate. The responses I've received to this experiment have been overwhelmingly positive from Mac readers; the help you all have provided is much appreciated and very valuable. At the same time, I appreciate the number of PC readers that are approaching this with an open mind and are honestly interested in the possibility of a die-hard PC user migrating to a Mac. Both camps have their "zealots" but for the most part, we are all here because we're nuts about hardware, software and computers in general. I would look at this experiment much like we look at different chipsets, CPUs, video cards or any sort of normal comparison between two pieces of hardware; approach it with an open mind and you'll end up with the best overall choice at the end.

I've got more Macdates coming down the pipe; I've finally got Photoshop, Office and Dreamweaver installed so now I should be able to do everything I used to do on a daily basis on my PC. More on that later...