I say that it is easy but that is only the case if you are au fait with the way that Mac Folder Script Action work, which I was not and to make matters worse the way they work seems to have changed between Mac OSX versions making a Google search a challenging exercise.

Anyway, here is what I did to get a watched folder for Evernote on a Mac running OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard):

1. You will need to create a new folder that you want to be “watched”. I created one called Evernote in Documents.

2. You will need to go to the following article on Thought Asylum on Evernote watched folders on OSX. Copy the script to the clipboard.

3. Open the Applescript Editor and paste the script from step 2 into the editor.

4. Compile the script

5. Choose File | Save As…from the menu

6. This is the important bit! You must save the script in the following location: /Library/Scripts/Folder Action Scripts. I called the script Save to Evernote.

7. Now go back to the folder you created in step 1 and right click on it and select Folder Actions Setup… Ensure that Enable Folder Actions is ticked and that the Folder you want the action on is listed and ticked.

8. Click the + button under the right hand pane and a new screen with a list of scripts to attach will open. On this list you should see your newly created script.

And that’s it. I hope that someone finds that useful.

However, there is been a bit of a change at Thompson Manor with the addition of the first Apple Mac machine, a MacBook Pro to be precise, and this has given me a real opportunity to finally make a comparison between the two rival operating systems.

Mac is famous for, amongst other things, its ease of use and so I was confident that I could get to grips with it reasonably quickly. Oh contraire! What I have actually found is that my 15 odd years of working solely with Windows is acting against me. I find myself having to reach for Google to find out how to do the simplest of things that are just second nature to me in Windows.

So, for example, my initial problem was how to cut and paste – how on earth do you do it from the keyboard? That was quickly resolved.

Next, how do you take a screen grab? In Windows you press the Print Scn button and bingo the screenshot is copied to the clipboard. On a Mac there is a sequence of key presses that do the same thing but I am yet to learn them and, for a more complex screenshot, seem to require the dexterity of a concert pianist.

And don’t get me started on that keyboard. Where is the #? The Del is missing altogether and why are the @ and the “ in the US configuration? You wouldn’t think that you could miss the hash key quite as much as I do. It is the keyboard short cut in GMail to delete a mail and pressing alt+3 just doesn’t work.

That’s not to say that there isn’t plenty to like about Snow Leopard – the name is better for a start! But I do begin to wonder how many people are simply blinded by their familiarity with one operating system or another and, in fact, that they are both very close to each other in usability.

Any Apple fan boys out there want to chip in?