Well I’ve been hiding a secret for the past two weeks. It’s something that I’ve felt conflicted and unsure of, something that I’ve felt ashamed of and proud of at the same time. Something that I’ve been trying to sort out before I actually wrote about it. Most people will probably say, “yeah, big deal.” But for me it kind of is a big deal. I haven’t told very many people. I showed Robert Scoble last week but have been kind of hiding it otherwise.
A little over two weeks ago I walked into the Apple store in Palo Alto and bought myself a new MacBook Pro. Yes, the new sexy Intel dual core MacBook Pro. And I went home and after not using a Mac for over 15 years, put my Dell PC notebook literally in the bookshelf and have been using this new Mac as my primary computer for the past 2 weeks.
And what do I have to say about the experience after two weeks? My God! This is f***ing amazing! For the past 15 years I’ve pretty much been a diehard Microsoft PC guy. I’ve mocked the religious zealotry of the cult of Macintosh. I’ve derided the senseless brainwashing that Steve Jobs seems so elegant at.
And then I just did it, I went out and bought one. Maybe it’s a self destructive bent that I’ve got. Maybe it’s the need to explore something new. The move made me think about marriage. Was I simply trading in my trusty old wife of 15 years for the sleek slender new 19 year old model? Was I somehow doing this as a fashion statement? But the answer was no.
I was very frustrated with my Dell PC for a number of reasons. When I would edit photos on it and then upload them the color would be all wrong. I couldn’t disable tap to click. I tried to buy an EVDO card for it and it wouldn’t work. (I tried three EVDO cards actually and had to return them all).
The Dell had this habit that I hated. It would go to sleep and then I’d open the lid to use it and press the power button to activate it. Nothing would happen. A full minute would go by, still nothing. So I’d think that maybe it didn’t know that I pushed the power button and would push it again. Then it would come on only to immediately begin shutting itself down because I’d pressed the power button twice. There would be no way to stop it and so I’d have to wait until it fully rebooted to start using it. Applications would hang. It wouldn’t work on my network right. It would tell me that I had a wifi signal but wouldn’t connect without a reboot. I was constantly needing to install drivers and uninstall drivers. So many things.
And all along the way it was my 18 year old tech mentor Kristopher Tate, who kept saying, dude, just get a Mac. Just get a Mac. They just work.
And so I did. And I have to say that he’s right. It just works. It took about 48 hours of getting used to but once my little introductory awkward phase was over it just works so much better. It springs to life immediately when I open it. The new EVDO card I got works perfectly. It’s fast. The picture quality is very accurate. I can easily work in both Bridge and Photoshop at the same time on it while still having Firefox and Thunderbird and Skype and iTunes and jUploadr all open at the same time.
I did have a few hiccups along the way. It wasn’t easy to get it to work with my Windows network at home, but having Kristopher around as tech support has been a fantastic safety net. Every time I need to figure out how to do something he shows me. He helped me transfer all my old email from my old Dell notebook, settings and bookmarks, etc. over.
And then there’s the design of the thing. I never in a million years would have thought that the design of a laptop would ever matter to me at all. It’s not about the aesthetics of a machine. It’s what it does for you right? Well, maybe. But this machine is damn sexy. I love the way that the keyboard is lit at night so that I can work in the dark. I love that glassy screen. There is something about the feel of the polished aluminum as I hold, no caress, the thing in my hands. It types perfectly. I love how I can use two fingers on the touch pad to move my screen down. I love how it has a hidden built in microphone and a small little video camera in the screen so that I can do video phone stuff through Skype super easily. I love how the little power supply has a magnet built into it and just kind of plugs itself in. And yes, I even love that glowing little Apple logo on the back of the case that I’ve scoffed at in the past at the various conferences and tech meetups that I’ve gone to.
I used a Mac back in college and used them exclusively from 1985 or so until 1991. My past memories of the Mac are of the Mac Plus and the SE/30. With my first Mac I literally had to swap floppy discs back and forth out of the drive between the OS disc and the application disc because it had no hard drive. And then I went to work for a bank in 1991 and the Mac was definitely gonski there. I did ask for a Mac and they just laughed.
I figured that since I had to use a PC at work, I’d better use one at home too in order to best master the beast. And it has been a beast for me. As tech saavy as I like to think of myself as I’ve had so many problems with my PCs over the years. If using a PC is being outside working digging ditches all day long in the hot sun, using my new Mac is like hanging out at the spa.
I’m not really giving up on my PCs yet. I still do have four of them at home and two at work. But I imagine that I’ll be spending 85% or more of my computing time on this slender sexy new MacBook Pro in the future. I was going to buy a new CableCARD capable Vista machine in January but I’ll probably hold off on that a bit. I may still end up buying one but will probably do it later if I do. We’ll see.
Call me a convert. Call me a traitor. Call me a heretic. Or call me a fanboy. Welcome me to the club or say it ain’t so Joe, but all I can say is that Kristopher is right. It just works. And it feels so great while it does that. It’s the best I’ve felt about using a computer in a long, long time.
Update: Thanks all for the comments and thanks to the diggers who dugg this story to digg’s front page and to Apple Computer for putting it on apple.com. A week later I’m still totally digging my Mac. Even more than ever. Here’s one other thing that I absolutely *love*. I love how no matter where you type on a Mac it spell checks everything for you. If I’m posting on my blog, if I’m leaving a comment on someone else’s blog, if I’m writing an email, if I’m doing anything with text it just constantly spell checks. And it doesn’t do it in a distracting way. No pop ups or spell checks or menus, etc. Just a thin red line under the word that is unknown and a simple right click to add the word to your personal dictionary or fix the spelling. That really rocks.
By the way, the Mac in the photo above is not mine. That’s just one that I took a photo of at the Web 2.2 party last month at Fluid. But it does show how very cool they do look.
I’m gonna have to interview you again in a few weeks to get your impression. I’m happy to have you aboard the cult of half-eaten fruit 🙂
Honestly, I think the only way to get a truly good PC/Windows experience any more is to build the stupid thing yourself. I used to recommend Dell to my friends and family if they wanted a pre-built machine to use, but they’ve just gone to the crap house, and I don’t think there is anyone to take their place.
I’ve built many PC’s over the years and have rarely had problems with them (that weren’t my own stupid fault anyways). Obviously though, that’s not for everyone.
Anyways, congrats on your new laptop, you obviously like it, and that’s all that matters. It’s just a shame there isn’t a PC vendor that can match Apple in terms of design and build quality.
Dude… I was the same until about 18 months ago – I’d used Windows since Win3.1 and the days of loading games from floppy disks in MS DOS. And I hated Macs. Mostly, if I’m honest now, because I found them unfamiliar.
But OS X Tiger really is very good.
Now I’m not the Mac-preaching type. And I hope to never become one. Apple as a company, and their products have their faults too.
Plus, I still also have a Windows PC. XP Media Center has some rather nice touches. But yes, those MacBook Pros sure are nifty little machines.
Everything about them is just hassle-free!
Welcome to the dark side… 😉
Congratulations! 🙂 Curious to read updates on that..
Great review! I am also a longtime PC person who recently started using a Mac laptop. I love it as well. I have to be proficient with both for my job, but I have to be honest and say that I now prefer the Mac for most things I do.
Your experience sounds eerily similar to mine. I switched to a MacBook earlier this year and just recently switched my desktop to an iMac.
No turning back now…. !
Welcome to the club, if you post a photo of your new girl (mac’s are always female) I’ll teach you the secret handshake.
Welcome to the world or productivity and efficiency. Now you can work without technological interuption.
I made the switch a little over a year ago (via a terrible 6 months with Linux). Would love to hear your opinions on iPhoto and Aperture.
I hear ya, Thomas! After being forced to abandon my Mac for about a decade (my LCIII finally gave up the ghost and I was thrust into PC Land against my will), we have just purchased a 20″ iMac for me (2 Gigs of RAM… GROWLL!), an Airport base, and a 13-inch MacBook for my daughter. I had forgotten how SWEET it is to be a Mac owner!!! Before, when I used System 7, there was enough good stuff about Macs to make me love them. Now that I’m running OS X, I vow to never buy a PC again. I literally set my new iMac down, plugged in all my peripherals that I had been running with my Windows machine and it was good to go. The only software I installed was a new version of the scanner software that came with my ScanJet 3970. That wasn’t a necessity, just a preferential thing. In contrast, last week at work I unhooked my USB printer to move it and all hell broke loose with my PC. Two hours and several driver reinstalls later, after spending time underneath my desk plugging and unplugging cables in the hopes of finding the magic combination, I finally gave up and used an old generic printer driver that had been on my machine. It was the only way I could get my Dell machine to see both my printer and my other USB peripherals (card reader and scanner). I wish I could say that’s unusual behavior for my Dell but it’s more the rule than the exception. Such headaches have NEVER existed on any of my Macs! — See ya on flickr! Shutrbugr
What’s the EVDO card, and the data service?
’bout time!
Thomas,
Welcome. I’ve been telling you for how long now? that as a photographer, the Macintosh will be a much more productive work environment for you.
Best,
Bryan
Welcome to the club. I switched last fall and had many of the same emotions.
My only gripe is that my PB G4 is a bit slow but that’ll change when I upgrade!
I love that it is unix based inside and it just works. Did you see those new big imacs in the store. By some fluke, I won one at the Office2.0 conference so Julie is migrating right now.
Now all you need to do is jump from blogger to wordpress!
Congrats. I use a PC at work and come home to our Mac network at night. Bliss.
My son has installed XP on his Mac at the University for the occasional oddball prof that requires it. It runs great. Reports are that Vista also works fantastic on the Mac.
Will be interested to see if you ever try that as well as more updates on your experience.
Congratulations Thomas,
It makes me laugh why PC users refuse to believe that Macs can be so much better. We have 20″ intel iMac and it frankly rocks. I found myself using garageband and iDVD as well as Aperture. This week we just received out first calender produced through iPhoto and ordered online via Apple, the quality was excellent. Macs simply allow to spend more time being creative rather than worrying about the system set up all the time! Well done…
I’m curious how you’re liking the Mac *aside* from the hardware? It is obviously very easy to create a seamless hardware/software experience when you have a closed system. Seems most of your issues with the PC, and your love of the Mac, are strictly *hardware* based.
Knock on wood but I’ve always had great hardware experiences. I’ve also always had “beefy” machines because I’m a software developer, so having all the applications open at once that you mentioned is really just the *start* of the day for me. I’ll usually have Photoshop, Visual Studio, SQL Server, Borland Delphi, 10-20 Firefox/IE windows PLUS a Remote Desktop Connection (or two) AND a VirtualPC session open. All without a hitch, all responsive.
That said, I’m not a “fan” of any OS, they are just tools and none of them are close enough to my “ideal” to warrent my passion. I don’t really understand people that rant/rave over an OS, but then again I also don’t get sports fans. Why get excited over a bunch of people you don’t know, that aren’t usually from your state and that will probably leave “your team” the second they get a better offer some place else.
Anyway, my point/question is, how are you actually liking the OS? Ignore, if you can, the hardware/stability issues, and instead focus on usability.
HI Thomas, glad you made the right choice. Honestly, I was waiting for this moment to come. Welcome to the club. Now we just wait for you to switch over to Nikon. Hehehe
So can we now expect you to be one of the first to get an iDongle?
What model Dell did you have?
The Kool-aid is pretty good, eh? I have a lowly black MacBook, but you’ll pry it from my cold, dead fingers before I use a Windows notebook again. 😉
– Mike
I was ready to buy a Mac until I started hearing about the shutdown problems — as a hardcore PC user it gave me an excuse not to, at least not right then.
But in my secret life, I covet one.;-)
You are going to *love* Aperture.
So I guess I’m the only guy in the world who got a Mac and regretted it….
I spent 18 miserable months with a Panther machine, had no end of trouble with operating it, with unreceptive help desks who refused to believe I found it hard to operate.
I had apple stores who refused to take it back to check why it was slow and erratic under the guarantee, and who’d warn me that if they couldn’t find anything wrong, they’d charge me for looking at it. And I got sick of wide-eyed mac evangelists making insulting remarks to me.
I’m back in the PC fold and happy.
But a fortnight ago I bought an iPod 5G, because I wanted the accessories too.
Already I’ve had to reformat it twice, reinstall twice, can’t work it properly. My experience of Mac is that it just doesn’t work.
I’ve been wanting to get the new macbook pro but ive been too much of a chicken. I think you just sold me on just taking the plunge. thanks.
Welcome to the club!
Even more important to me than the wonderful design (and it is wonderful) is the software, especially OS X.
And of course Macs make wonderful photographic subjects! 🙂
I’ll have to disagree with scott williams on the DIY angle – it’s one way to feel really sure about your components, but getting everything to work together is and always was a crapshoot (unless dealing in hardware and device drivers and BIOS settings is your bread and butter).
To echo Shawn’s comments though, everything has issues. The hardware angle is generally better, though Apple has been slightly cheapening up their build process to keep marginally competitive. Everything will bog down, even OSX. It’s just a matter of how much abuse it can take before you have to give in and reboot it, and how much you can done in the intervening time. I’ve found the usability of OSX to be significantly better, though it’s mostly from the PoV of a unix sysadmin, so there is a bias.
-/\/
I have to say that I’ve seen that lots of times. People moving from Windows to other platforms just learn the good way to do things on those platforms, and they don’t make the same mistakes that they do thousands of times on a Windows machine. That’s why the new platform “just works”.
Windows “just works” for me because I’m a good user.
Hey Thomas why do you keep buying DELL there are other PC makers out there who make better laptops….I have a Toshiba Qosmio and it’s beautiful…and it just work.
Wonderful news Thomas! After 5 years, & 5 Macs, there is no going back. From Tiger, to the apps, the community, the hardware, ease of use and design, … this is why we love them so much!
Thomas, in your post you said “When I would edit photos on it and then upload them the color would be all wrong.”
Do you not calibrate your screen?
It’s a sad day. I think the main flaw that you were having lies not with Microsoft but with Dell. Dell has surely lost its way and this is the effect it is having. But I guess as long as your happy – but don’t try to sell me on any of that front row crap!
Thomas,
Welcome to the club man!! I did the same last year. I bought my first Mac. A iMac G5 20 inch screen and I love it. I only use my PC now for my Outlook mail and Media streaming to my Xbox 360. I just have to take the time to get that all my mail moved over. Do you know what program or how Kristopher transferred your mail and contacts to the Mac? I also just got my wife a White MacBook with I am loving too. I have been eying that MacBook Pro so that might be a purchase for me in the future!! Again Congrats on the new Mac!! Enjoy it!
Tom
Hey all, thanks for all the great comments and questions. I’ve wrote a new post addressing most of them here:
http://thomashawk.com/2006/11/more-qa-on-my-new-macbook-pro.html
Tom
Congrats Thomas, and welcome to the club.
I agree with Romar- if you’re gonna go PC, you’ve got to go with Toshiba! I also have a Qosmio and haven’t had a problem since I got it. The Toshiba I had before this one was awesome as well.
That said, I’ve always secretly wanted a Mac, and maybe one day…
Oh, wow! Unbelievable.
I’ve come by here a few times a long time ago, but you were so anti-Apple that I gave up reading anything you wrote (except for the camera purchase thing).
I can’t believe it. Is this a practical joke? Can this really be true? Is that really a picture of you with the MBP?
Oh, wow! And welcome! I hope your experience continues to be as good as it has been, especially after the honeymoon wears off in a couple of years!
thanks for pointing out the reasons that brought you to where you are now. i’m a mac nut not because of subliminal messages hidden in the desktop wallpaper nor because the machines emit intoxicating, brain-altering vapors. i’m a mac nut because they’re unbelievably better machines in every way.
Mate, I hear you loud and clear. This is almost the same PC to Mac story as mine. Been a PC user for years, now I have two Mac’s and no PC’s and love it. You said you use your PC for 85% of the time. This will change. I thought the same way, I bought my first Mac, i though I would keep my PC and use both. But after a month or so, I found myself not using my PC at all. So I sold it, and never looked back. Yes of course nothing is perfect and I know people have problems with there Mac’s, but I must be lucky, because mine work like a dream.
So welcome to the ‘light’ side. It’s fun over here.
Steve Jobs kicks Bill Gates’ ass…:)
My wife had a little eMac that she loved, then her school switched their network from mac to PC, and insisted that all the teachers be able to network from home. I’m a musician, and have worked in Mac exclusively for 20 years, so the thought of having a Dell in the house was pretty scary, being as how the Mac experience is perfect for idiots like me, who after 20 years still know nearly nothing about computers. Fortunately, the dual-platform Macs appeared, and we bought the black macbook, with Bootcamp and Windows installed, and it’s absolutely killer. I envy her a little, as I’m on a G4 laptop, but I can’t seem to run out of power or speed for the music work I do, so I continue to do Protools sessions, mixing, arranging, editing and so on in this little 12″ jewel. welcome, thomas, and enjoy.
good for you… have you checked out Traktor on the macbook yet? That and final scratch might be nice to mix on… I have a traktor MIDI (kontrol-dj) setup that i take when i work clubs and i love it…
good switch as I have done the same and am now using my 2 week old MBP/IC2Duo for 90% of my apps including Final Scratch with Traktor 3 and Serato for my weekly club and private party gigs in SF. Ableton and Native Instruments used primarily for producing.
I still have a dell desktop at home (not sure for how much longer!) because I haven’t carried over my outlook contacts yet and have a reliable Fujitsu laptop (made in Japan) that is Serato & Final Scratch/Traktor 3 apps only to use as a backup.
I definitely love how the majority of the programs on OSX seem to work together. Good luck!
-ed-
aka “dj special-ed”
Don’t forget to try out Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection for OS X. It allows you to run your existing XP Pro machine from within a window on your Mac from your network.
My headless PC is in the closet, only to be turned on when I really need that one PC app I must use for work. That may allow you to spend even more time in front of your Mac.
I have been a Mac user since 1988 and will never go back.
I have converted so many people over to the mac platform I have lost count.
I am currently writing this on a iMac snow that is only 600 mhz G3 and I bought it for $45.00 at the NC state excess sale . All I had to do is to reinstall 10.4 OS and open office and it is being given to my
13 year old neese for Xmas. She got an iPod nano for her birthday and has not been able to use it with the PC she has. I am sure that after her father sees how easy it will be to set up He will be making the switch too.
Caio
Charlie B.
http://WWW.bruckner.ws
Another one bites the dust..
Welcome to our side. I too have given up on Windows 3 years ago, and after 15 years of windows use. It was time to move on, and I never looked back again, and now have 6 Macs at home and 37 at work. Life is great!
Good luck and enjoy
Mark Qandil
Welcome to the machine, man!… 🙂
HAHAHAHA (evil laugh) DUDE I totally I’m with you. I converted about two years ago and I truly do tell people I am IN love with my Powerbook (time to get the MacBook Pro). I do rub and caress it. ~smile~
From the moment I saw Exposé, I knew I had to get a Mac. Now I don’t know what I would do without it. If I have to work on a PC, I always start cursing because there is no Exposé or anything remotely close to it on PC.
Again, welcome to the darkside.
Naoe
Those wanting to run Windows on the Intel Macs should scrap the messy BootCamp approach which requires you to reboot into the OS you wish to use, and move to Parallels — http://www.parallels.com. Apple already directs people to Parallels rather than BootCamp. See: http://www.apple.com/getamac/windows.html
Creates a virtual environment in which you can not only run both systems (or other select OSes) at the same time in separate windows, but you can even connect a second screen, have OSX on your main machine, Windows on the second screen, and scroll real time between the two OSes. Parallels has had excellent reviews and is very, very cool, very fast, and will run Win peripherals off the ports, read CDs and all the rest in your PC environment.
And this isn’t VirtualPC-like speeds either — Windows clocked at better speeds on Parallels on the Mac than it did on some PCs. Lots of info over on Parallels. No I don’t work for them (lol), but I did review the app for the Irish Times earlier this year.
I laugh when I hear PC users rationalize the crap out of why they still use them. Shut up already. The machine is supposed to work for crying out loud. I’ve heard a few comments in here that warrant that response too. Listen, calling all PC users, ditch the little voice in your head that keeps coming up with reasons why you have computer troubles. It’s as if you’re all brainwashed after years of Gates Inc.
As if I had a megaphone please try to get it: Using a PC is like driving a freakin’ geometro. Yeah, it runs, it can get you around, even if it is cramped and you feel every bump in the road, and it functions but the door sticks, there is a little thrust and kick when you change gears, and so what about that leaking oil thing. If you had the opportunity to toss the geometro and jump into a sportscar, who the hell would keep the old slug?
The Mac is the BMW of computers. Duh!
And what’s with these comments like “welcome to the dark side?” You must be recent switchers. The Mac is the Jedi out there guys. Microshaft is the evil empire. Hehe.
(Proud owner of a blazing fast Intel MacBook, and iMac desktop…who switched in 1998).
After using Macs for about two years in class, I made the switch here at home short after Apple went Intel. Simply, owning a Mac made me an advocate of Apple as a whole.
For crying out loud already, enough with the use of the word “club” by you die hard macites. It’s pretty faggy.
I recently purchased the 24″ iMac and run WinXP through Parallels. Overall, it is a good experience, but I still need certain Windows based apps. And after using Outlook for so long, there just isn’t any comparison from what I experienced. I tried the “LittleMachines” import to Mac Mail and wasn’t too pleased… not with LittleMachines, a nice little app, but with Mail.
My biggest peeve with the Mac, however, is with file management. What’s up with the 31 character file name limitation? But that’s only a minor concern. Personally, I prefer Windows Explorer and how it operates. I dislike how you can’t right click and drag to copy files in Finder. But this is understandable since most long time Mac users don’t even know the right click feature now exists.
Still, I will agree using the Mac is pleasant. But don’t think programs on the same never lock up, yet the beauty here is it’s often isolated to the program and not the whole OS.
I do like the Mac. It is a beautiful machine that’s enjoyable to use in part because of its aesthetics. Some of the resident apps are also excellent. Built in iSight is phenomenal… just phenomenal. For this reason alone, I wish the new iMac came out last year before I bought my parents a Dell. One regret I have is I used two monitors with windows, which is why I bought the 24″. In hindsight, I think I should have stuck to my original plan and purchased the 20″ with an additional 20″ cinema display. This is primarily because of the screen’s design resolution. I’m constantly expanding documents and web pages just to be able to read them.
Be that as it may, those who feel like they belong to some silly ‘club’ are still gay.
Out.
It is funny to read some of these posts from PC users who cannot relate to how Mac users feel about their machines. I have been a Windows based Sys Admin for over 12 years now. Several years ago a co-worker made the switch to a rainbow colored iMac and I scoffed at him for years. He was using OS8 and I made fun of him until I saw OSX. I started paying attention then and started making trips out of my way to the Apple Store. As a Sys Admin I spend my days fixing and repairing Windows based machines and when I would come home at night I would just want to check email and surf the internet. My computer would constantly slow down to a crawl, the spyware would take over, Norton would give me problems, and Windows would blue screen because of some update that went wrong. The issues were more Windows than the HP hardware I was using. I see alot of Dell bashing but I have used their hardware for six years now and have had minimal problems. Their tech support is great. I am a Dell shop at work because of their reliability. I had to format my Windows machine about once a year to keep it working properly. One day I got tired of fixing my home machine and I bought a iBook G4 on line. I had no experience on a mac but it was working on my wireless network in under ten minutes and I was surfing the internet. That was almost three years ago now. I am still typing on that same laptop now and I love it. I am looking for an excuse to upgrade but I do not have one. My wife who would never touch the Windows machine has now taken over my laptop. I have made several movies with iMovie and iDVD. I just purchased my second iPod and passed the old one to my wife. I will never go back to a PC at home. All the features in Vista are there plus more in OSX that I have had for the past three years. I spend many nights at home in my chair connecting to my Windows domain in a VPN RDP connection working on PCs in my network. Everytime I do this I just smile at myself because it doesn’t seem right.
Windows will always be around but more software developers are taking notice of the Mac. Once you try one for a little while and get past the differences, you will never go back. I still don’t know how to do any major maintenance on the Mac, but I have never had to…… That is enough for me!
Thomas,
Welcome to the Mac side. I am a probook user too. You could, if you wanted the safety blanket of the PC, use Boot Camp or some other alternative to use Windows on your make, not as an emulation mode but in real time. But I suspect as you begin to use the Mac mode, that will become less important. BTW I use the Verizon EVDO card and have liked it a lot – it is everything you say it is – although I have kept T-mobile also so that I can use hotspots in Starbucks.
Does anyone else find it strange that he talks about a MacBook Pro, but his picture shows a regular white MacBook? Just something I noticed…
You right click by clicking control and click. 😉
Owning a Mac nowadays doesn’t mean leaving your Windows world. With the new Intel Macs you can have your cake and eat it too (unless you want to use your old pre-Intel Mac software). That’s what’s great about the new Macs. I myself was a PC user, though I sure didn’t recommend Dell. I still have an IBM NetVista, but my Mac Pro desktop is my only machine. I’ve got Tiger and XP running on it right now. I’m thinking of looking into Parallels so that I might not have to use bootcamp. Congratz on the Macbook Pro.
I found out that they are not many computers out there. Dell, Toshiba are just a few that I find that are still out there. What happend to uhhh Compaq? It faded because it was a piece of crap. Apple is soo much easier and simple to use than Windows. There are going to be people who will love Windows. You cant change that. But here is something that most people fail to realize. Apple is the best of both worlds. The newer machinces do operate most of windows operating systems from what I found.
Anyway glad you switched and that Apple will bring you lots of great results. I have an EMac and it continues to run great to this day.
Do they still make PC’s?
After 15 years of being Apple-less I took the plung and will not look back. It’s good to be back in Appleland. the 20″ Imac is just good. I like using it, looking at it, and just plain having it on my desk. I could not say that about either of the two Dells I have. Enjoy.
macbook pros look nice and all, but still need improvement in terms of durability and build quality. I have a mbp 17″, and the area under my right palm is weak and creaks alot, due to the gap where the dvd rom drive is. Being aluminum the machine is also susceptable to dents if you’re not careful. My friend’s mbp got a dent on the top cover after something fell on it. Thinkpads T series are still the toughest notebooks ever.
and here I started watching Scoble’s “Photowalking with Thomas Hawk” about two weeks ago, and in the first episode or so, you said you had a “Dell in the truck” and I thought… “well, then I guess I can’t learn anything from this guy, if he’s still a PC user….” little did I know.
Glad you made the move, I was wondering how long it would take you.
and here I started watching Scoble’s “Photowalking with Thomas Hawk” about two weeks ago, and in the first episode or so, you said you had a “Dell in the truck” and I thought… “well, then I guess I can’t learn anything from this guy, if he’s still a PC user….” little did I know.
Glad you made the move, I was wondering how long it would take you.
at long bloody last mate!!
I think you hit the nail right on the head when you said “It’s the best I’ve felt about using a computer in a long, long time.” Thats exactly how I feel too. Ever since I made the switch last May things have been great. The MacBook Pro is beautiful, OS X apps are beautiful, the whole experience just rocks. Quicksilver, Adium, Aquisition, Transmit, DefaultFolderX, Expose, Wallet, NewsFire – so many great apps. All I’m dissapointed about is that I wish I’d made the switch sooner – well guess I had to wait til Intel.
By the way I’m a Windows Mobile Developer so run Visual Studio in Parallels. Heh even while Windows locks up and does its thing you can still carry on with other things in OS X.
woowho, so what you switched to a mac so what you’re still a moron.
Congrats – did the same switch 3 years ago; 3 Macs now with incredible MBP C2D. As long as Apple keep up no need to consider PC. Paralles with XP allows me to ‘revisit’ when necessary. And Open Office stears me well asway from MS Office… Freedom and quality.
Welcome, enjoy the ride!
Welcome Brother, Welcome to all that is MAC. I am happy tha you have converted. I too love everything thast you just mentioned. You are part of the elite now. People all over will envy your apple as it glows through out the night. No matter where you are, because of this fruit, people will do a double take and check it out. I can pretty much gurantee that you will covert totally (at least at home) within a year. I am sure you are already salvatating at the very thought of a 30” monitor to use with your macbook. I just have one question…. this will determine if you are truly in the club…. did you keep the box?
I’ve got a 12″ PBG4 that I’ve had for about 3 years and love it. I carry it with me everywhere. Have been using Remote Desktop Connection to manage my W2K servers, and to connect to my desktop at the office to use Outlook. Tiger is fantastic, iLife is fantastic. It really is a very comfortable environment to work in.
I switched completely to the Mac about 2 months ago and used O2M by Little Machines to transfer over 44,000 e-mails in nearly two dozen folders, not to mention 4 years of calendar entries, and didn’t have any trouble bringing it all into Mail/AddressBook/iCal. Sure, there are a few differences, but when I think about them… they really make sense. I’m very happy. The only thing really keeping me using the PC was Outlook. I used my PB for most everything anyway.
Now, if only my new C2D MBPro will show up already! And, the last guy was right on the money, I will be keeping the box!
Okay, I have been on Macs exclusively since 1989 and had some encounters with PCs at various places of work. They seemed perfect for tinkerers, guys who in an earlier time took some pride in hopping up or maintaining their cars . . . that is until emission controls, sealed systems and multiplexed computer modules put shade tree mechanics out of business. In addition to all the hassles in getting peripherals to work, many of the PCs I encountered were ugly to behold. Their enclosures looked as though they were designed by folks who produce cheap boomboxes. The Windows screens were cluttered and Microsoft’s nomenclature seemed so counterintuitive (hit start to shut down).
Networking the Macs was a snap as was setting up and managing publishing workgroup applications. When the owner of a company I managed saw how easy it was for me, with little technical background, to network the Macs and keep them running reliably, he became infuriated with the PC consultants who set up and maintained a network that needed constant (and costly) tech support. Sure, the PC boxes were a lot cheaper, but the Macs were a bargain when productivity and reliability were factored in.
Yeah Macs are great! I switched from PC to Mac and it was the BEST thing I have ever done. IF YOU USE A PC YOU ARE A FUCKING DUMB IDIOT.. YES A FUCKING DUMB IDIOT!
Wow, this is so strange. I just bought a MacBook Pro yesterday with the catalyst being my Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop won’t accept any EVDO cards.
I thought I was the only one.
I’ve been reading through all these posts, and noticed something, any of you guys who say you’re still using a PC for Outlook…ENTOURAGE IS Outlook (Included in MS Office 2004), an enhanced Outlook as a matter of fact, you should be able to take all of your contacts and e-mails right over.
Can’t resist saying, having been through this process myself, when it was a bit less obvious (Mac OS 9) I can see why you enthuse over your ‘revelation’.
You and the others here are helping the tipping point to be reached, when all sensible people will see the light.
Enjoy!
Glad you like it, except the MacBook Pro doesn’t ‘just work’. It works in Rosetta. Flash doesn’t like it much but churns on. Word and Excel are nobbled. If you are a stats person SPSS doesn’t function correctly and is unsupported. iChatAV doesn’t just work with lots of routers so you have to use Skype. And the insistence of mac-click instead of right-click is annoying as hell.
It’s nice to be zealous, but important to be realistic. Getting me a macbook pro for my coding has worked ok. Getting my girlfriend a macbook for her uni course has been a complete nightmare. Try copying and pasting forty excel graphs into a word document on a PC, then on a Mac.
And pages is very neat and very clever, but so inflexible by contrast. I got suckered into buying it, and wish I hadn’t.
I like Macs, I love the design and feel, but sometimes I hate the quality of the software.
Congratulations!
Hey, another person dropping their fears and suspicions and coming over to try out the Mac side!
Yay!
I did the same recently – I bought a second hand iBook G3 Dual-USB. But I have had the same experience as you, and many of these other commenters!
It is AMAZING! I ditched my Dell too!
PC lovers, byte me.
Welcome to the cult!
I veered off the Mac road shortly after the introduction of the Performa line (the low point, IMHO), but I’m back with a vengeance. My entire business runs on Macs, and my home computer is a fantastic iMac.
Using the PC is a chore. Using the Mac is a pleasure. It really is as simple as that.
you know what they say, “once you go mac you never go back!”
Parallels Desktop for Mac. Vista on Mac. Everything in one laptop. Game over.
I don’t know one person at my school who would prefer to use one of the Macs there over the one PC in the library. My mac experience has been terrible. Programs lock up, everything slows down when i have more than 2 or 3 programs running, the little rainbow wheel of death pisses off just about everyone, and half the time safari just quits out on me. I don’t hate macs, I just dislike them because of the terrible performance they give me.
“Smiley” congratulated you on your new “girl” and said the Mac’s are always female…my MBP is male, reliable, faithful, plays well, never complains, does whatever I ask him to, and damn sexy to boot. My husband is jealous!
P.S.
Another reason to love your mac is Apple’s customer service. Even in the unlikely event that something does go wrong, most customer service reps (esp. applecare) are friendly and want to make customers happy. Even sending an item in for repair is easy and fast (they email labels, send a box, pick up and drop off via FEDEX Express, etc.). The Apple online store is by far one of the best out there..easy to navigate, fast and usually free shipping, thorough order and shipping updates. It all adds up to make mac users the loyal freaks we are.
I converted about a year ago – what a difference! Entourage *is not* exactly Outlook. It has strengths and weaknesses. Email still requies conversion. One thing I love about Entourage is that you can drag and drop standard mbox folders in *and out* of it. Besides the Little Machines program, I also can recommend Emailchemy (http://www.weirdkid.com/products/emailchemy/), which has been a great help for me.
Great choice in picking out a Mac. In fact, I’m about to buy a MacBook Pro also, and I couldn’t be more impressed with it.
Now, call me biased-because I will openly admit it- but Macs definately are better than PC’s.
I have grown up on Macs. My brother worships Steve jobs and considers Bill Gates Satan which is very true if you think about it. I mean, both Bill Gates and Satan try to brainwash us for evil purposes.
Getting back to what I was saying, my brother started me out on a Mac when I was 8 years old, and I’ve had that computer now for 10 years, and it still runs fine.
Now, I’ve since upgraded to an e-Mac and that has been my primary computer, but I still go on my other Mac to play games and such.
Doom never looked better, by the way. 😀
All throughtout school I’ve exchanged words with other students about how Macs were better, and simply put, while all of the Dell labs in school were shut down because there were glitches, or viruses, the two Mac labs never once closed down.
You can’t argue with facts, and these ones just prove why Macs are superior.
Cheers to you for picking the “sexy” laptop. You just made one of the most important decisions of your life.
I, too, am a recent convert. About 8 months ago my PC died. It was the last drop in the 15-year-old glass that begun when I learned MS-DOS prompt and ended the 1,098,563th time I had to format my hard drive to perform a “clean install” of Windows XP.
Then, this April, I said “No more!” and (after making sure I kicked the PC for making me miss the deadline for a paper because of its sudden death) I decided to go to the Apple Store. I bought my iBook out of hatred for Windows. Once the anger passed, I became very scared. On a student budget, I had just spent $920 on a computer that I really didn’t know how to work with. I looked for the familiar control panel, the start button, and the ever-growing system pane in search of a way to configure my internet connection. Where were the wizards when I needed them?
However, I plugged in my modem and it just worked. I began typing with Pages and creating presentations on Keynote, and it just worked. I tried out Garage Band and made some changes to pictures in iPhoto and it just worked. Without installing drivers, I plugged in my digital camera and it just worked. I dragged an application to the trashcan and it just worked. IT JUST WORKS.
After 15 years of being my family’s geek du jour, after 15 years of fixing all sorts of different computer problems, recovering deleted files, changing settings for drivers, and reinstalling windows I have had it: No more! No more rebooting, no more fixing, no more reinstalling, that is all over now. Like you, I left the old 60-year-old hag of a wife for the 19-year-old model that doesn’t complain and knows how to cook.
Welcome to the dark side. Now put one of those apple stickers in your back window, begin to tell non-mac users to hit the “Apple key”, and curse the stupid non-macs you are forced to used in different situations. Then, you will have joined the cult.
Congrats Thomas – I also switched to a MBP earlier this year and I’m totally blown away.
Love my new Mac-life and there is no turning back now 🙂
I am yet another satisfied Macintosh customer, who used to buy Dell computers all the time. I had used PCs since Windows 3.11 on my 486, and the next two computers I had were big improvements, with the second one being a dell. The dell worked pretty well, as it was made around 2001. Around 2004 I bought an apple powerbooki G4 and it was pretty awesome and outpowered my PC. The Dell I bought last year for video gaming is a major diappointment, dual core or not it is even slower than the 933 mhz dell I had. Apple all the Way!!!!
I am with you! Just unpacked my new sleek MacBookPro tonight, connected it – and here I go. I have never had such a sexy device in my life!!!! Never ever did I think that a computer can make me so happy!
I made the swicth also, bought a 20″ iMac then a 24″. Then went out and bought all the Adobe software I could get my hands on! It just works. However, I have to glare at bright blue pixel right in the middle of the screen on this huge 24″ screen – I did feel cheated though. Mac says it’s an anomaly, not a defect! Did yours come pre installed with an ” Anomaly “. Sad my 20″ didn’t. So, Mac’s work great, but Apple doesn’t. I do want a 17” power book though, but don’t want the “blue dot”! Sorry Apple
Congrats on your switch. I used macs with floppy disks back in high school but I was a PC user from 1996 until 2002. I was involved in the XP beta (2000-2001) and I went enthusiastically to the Windows 2000 launch on behalf of work. I too thought that I needed to have a PC at home because I used them at work but now I don’t really see the logic in that.
Today, I have a MBP pro and an eMac (my first mac) and prior to the MBP, I had a 12″ pbook. I have no problem connecting up to head office when I need to through VPN and terminal services.
@Scott Williams: I don’t think it’s just the build quality of Dell’s but rather the whole legacy combination of BIOS combined with poor implementations of ACPI and windows itself.
Modern Intel macs come with EFI firmware (with a BIOS compatibility module) and a properly implemented power management system loosely based on ACPI but unlike most PCs, you can do stuff like scheduled startups and shutdowns in the OS GUI.
Hey Thomas, you really don’t need all those PC’s. Just buy Parallels and load Windows XP or Vista on your Macbook Pro and now you have everything you need on your Macbook Pro.
I think you are going to be a lot more happy using your Macbook and not have to deal with viruses and spyware.
Man, glad I’m not the only one feeling that hesitation to let the world know that I’ve switched to a Mac.
I’m a developer but my altered ego is video shooting/editing not to mention cooking. I ordered a MacBook Pro about a month ago and it’s great. I also dumped a beefed up Dell.
I’ve become way more productive with my Mac (had years of unix experience) and my kids are also having fun with it. An important factor for people who are thinking of switching is that Apple provided great quality software out of the box rather than having to buy many separate packages. Hence, making you more productive quicker.
To put the switch more in perspective, I also purchased Parallels software to run Windows since I have lots invested in PC sw. It’s been one month and I have not had the need to install it.
So far it’s been a blast I’m looking for more things to do with it!!
Cheers
Did the same thing several months ago. Totally happy about it. Honestly both my wife and I still have PC laptops as secondary machines to our (now) primary MacOS workstations, for reasons outside our control (client requirments, specialized software). I guess if you can afford a few grand for new hardware and cross-grades it is worth it. It’s a shame that cost is the main reason Apple doesn’t have 50% share of the OS market. If we could all be rich, we’d all be running Macs. The PC is still the choice of the frugal man…. not the man in pursuit of excellence.
Congrats! It’s refreshing to see that people who ‘hate’ Apple’s computers probably haven’t actually tried one is a very long time. I am 17 years old and have never had anything other than a Mac at home.
Anyway, welcome to the light.
This is the most concentrated list of Switchers I’ve ever seen on a message thread. It’s great to see so many “wake up” to the advantages and joys of owning/using a Mac.
I’m a PC virgin (never owned a PC), and bought my first Mac in 1986. I have never understood why anyone with the choice would use anything else.
I also wanted to mention that what you all like so much has been around and fully formed for a long time.
Welcome dude,
As you said, it just works… nothing else to say/write. Your experience will show how well Apple computers can behave in a productive environment.
And again, welcome in the REAL world.
Signed: a researcher who has been dealing with both OS’es for 15 years and besides his ‘real’ work is responsible for the whole computing of his company…
First time to Thomas’s site. What an amazing, amazing thread. Been a Mac’er since 1992.
[b]Thomas[/b]: what would be really interesting is for you to start a new post, and ask people what their top 3 shareware programs are. Those little (sometimes big) Mac apps that once you integrate them, you wouldn’t live without. I love sharing what I’ve found, but I’m always fascinated to hear what others are using.
Starting a new thread would be best, but just to get the ball rolling:
1. Spell Catcher. Spelling is the [i]least[/i] this thing does! Using it since the 90s, and first thing I install on my new Macs.
2. wClock. Tiny little guy that allows you to see both Date and Time.. [i]at the same time![/i]
3. USB OverDrive. Tops any mouse manufacturer’s default software. Many cool options.
Thanks again, Thomas.
tuqqer
YOU TRAITOR. YOU HAVE FORSAKEN YOU CHUBBY PC WAYS. I HOPE YOU DIACF AND YOU KNOW YOU WILL GOTO HELL. /sarcasm
Told you so.
Couldn’t have said it better. After supporting DOS and Windows for too many years, I finally saw the light with Macs and bought a 17″ MBP recently after a test run with a Mac Mini for almost a year. Now I feel like I have to convert everyone from the Windows world since I’m so much happier to having made the move to Mac.
It is just so much better having it work the way I work and think. And yes, the Macbook Pro’s are sexy.
Scott Williams said: “Honestly, I think the only way to get a truly good PC/Windows experience any more is to build the stupid thing yourself.”
The problem is the software (i.e. Windows) and not necessarily the hardware.
Shawn Oster said: “It is obviously very easy to create a seamless hardware/software experience when you have a closed system. Seems most of your issues with the PC, and your love of the Mac, are strictly *hardware* based.”
Actually, the software is a lot more responsible for his problems than the hardware. Microsoft has still not created a Sleep/Hibernate that works anywhere near as well as the one in OS X. Also, he spoke of drivers, network issues (wired and wireless), etc. The hardware is generic for these items and it is the software that is causing the problem.
Anonymous said: “My biggest peeve with the Mac, however, is with file management. What’s up with the 31 character file name limitation? But that’s only a minor concern. Personally, I prefer Windows Explorer and how it operates. I dislike how you can’t right click and drag to copy files in Finder. But this is understandable since most long time Mac users don’t even know the right click feature now exists.”
There is not a 31 character file limit in OS X.
You can option-click-drag any file in OS X to copy it.
Anonymous said: “And the insistence of mac-click instead of right-click is annoying as hell.
Getting my girlfriend a macbook for her uni course has been a complete nightmare. Try copying and pasting forty excel graphs into a word document on a PC, then on a Mac.”
What the heck are you talking about? I have no problem copying excel graphs and pasting them into a word doc on my Mac. There are several ways to do it. And for the record, the OS X version of Office is much nicer than the Windows version. In fact, you are going to see some features from the OS X version appearing in the 2007 version on Windows.
Congrats on the MBP! I too have a 17″ MBP. If you find the time, surf on over to Macmentor.org. The people there are very friendly and more than willing to help “Switchers”.
And for the record, most Mac users would prefer to remain the minority. Yes we will always welcome Switchers but we don’t care if most prefer to live with viruses & such. We feel, better them than us. Which reminds me, I’m not one who usually flames Microsoft, but that crap Vista… doesn’t work, period.
You should use Safari and and included Mail program, They run much faster then firefox and thunderbird…nothing against those programs though
I too was a die hard PC Fan. The change to intel and a verypretty machine changed my mind and i bought an imac 20″ in March this year.
Thomas hawk is 100% right the Mac just works and does what it says on the box…. it’s great
You should be ashamed for making a deal out of it. Who really cares? Use whatever works for you. They are just tools and nothing more. I really don’t understand why people get so caught up in things mac or linux.
For the record:
I own several Macs, PCs (some running various BSDs)and even a Sun Box. I have been a technologist for more than 30 years, deeply conversant with UNIX, Windows, and a few esoteric OSs in my professional life and in my hobby/personal life. I came to Apple through the ancestor of Mac OS X: NeXTSTEP.
That was the preamble.
I always find it deeply amusing when people say that the Mac is closed and Windows-based PCs aren’t. It’s the OS stupid. And Windows is as closed as it is possible to be in a general purpose OS. It is controlled by one company and unless you are some gigantic enterprise and sign very restrictive agreements, you can’t see the code.
To simplify a little, underlying the user interface bits, Mac OS X is a BSD variant UNIX. In fact it’s open source. It’s called Darwin and you can even install it on PCs. You can install tens of thousands of free open source BSD/UNIX/Linux software to do incredibly powerful work. It leverages the work and testing of the thousands out there who contribute to development of the UNIX-family OSs and contributes back, in turn. That is vastly more “open” than Windows.
The incredible attention to design Apple lavishes on its hardware is a reflection of their understanding that design means “how it works not just how it looks.” But it is the OS that makes the crucial difference.
The albatross around the PC’s neck, is Windows (I know, one can now argue that Apple machines are PCs without the cruft). Windows is a monopolistic closed system that has taught a few generations of computer users that computing is necessarily painful, that egregious security problems are the norm, and that they are stupid if they can’t get the printer they just bought to work when all they wanted to do was write a note to grandma.
Even though I chase electrons all day, and I can and do “fix” the problems I encounter with Wintel PCs for myself and for my friends, I would rather not. I have better things to do. I find, almost universally, that those who vociferously defend Windows are simply ignorant of the other possibilities. That’s why the new OS X Macs are such a revelation to them. It is less the “advanced” Mac OS than it is the sorry state of the rest of the industry; read, mostly Microsoft.
I’m just glad people are beginning to realize it doesn’t have to be this way. Computers, including Apple’s, are far from being human-literate. They are still, as a whole, dreadful in that respect. But they don’t have to be as bad as Windows.
Perhaps the Apple renaissance will push MS to do much, much better and that will be good for everyone. Unfortunately, they are bound by the poor legacy designs of their own creation. Meanwhile, the world suffers yearly to the tune of tens of billions of dollars of lost productivity, criminal security breaches, and retarded interface development.
Well, that ended up being a longer rant than I intended. Anyway: people need to understand what the definition of “open” is. Windows is NOT open.
This is great! Another “I’m a MAC”.
“THAT, is a PC, a what?? PC? what’s that”?? Apple should have given you a MAC PRO for this fine, fine review you wrote. Maybe we’ll see you on TV with the other badly dressed MAC actors.
Crash Different – I like that phrase.
Yours truly, Steve Gates
Congrats.
Just happened on to your site. I have a MacBook Pro and it is sweet and it works for me. I have bookmarked your site. thanks for the info on Canon.
Three things.
Every innovative feature on a Mac eventually becomes standard a few years later (Vista). Macs were the first to sport the usb interface.
Microsoft caught a break by buying DOS from a guy for $50,000 and selling it to IBM. They don’t innovate, they buy companies that do that for them. (Don’t even get me started on HALO. They took what could have been the most sucessful multi-platform game of all time and made it only for their jerry-rigged pc they call the xBox.)(Did you know the xbox 360 has a couple of macintosh type Power PC G3 processors at its heart? So much for innovation)
Don’t tell me pc’s are so great. My cousin went though two ipods that darn near caught on fire when connecting to her PC. I’m just guessing it had something to do with the PC hardware. Just maybe.
And by the way, I once used PCs alot. I got tired of the BS like those little programs on the bottom right that can not be destroyed. I had software on my pc that could only be eliminated by a full HD format.
I’m a 23-year Mac user who’s very experienced on both windoze and MacOS.
A friend of my wanted a recommendation on buying a laptop for college, and I frankly didn’t want to have to be her tech support as she switched from PC to the Mac. But after looking at Dell’s website advertising as $699 laptop…which ended up being about $1900 when all was said and done…she decided to pick up a $999 Apple iBook. It took her no time to get up and running, and I only had to give her minimal support!
Then another friend…we’ll call her the “Mac Hater,” who swore that Macs were the stupidest thing in the world, broke down and bought one. She’d never touched a Mac since elementary school. She went through the tutorials, and was self sufficient the first day!
And as a former tech trainer at Apple’s call center in Austin, I can tell you I could take a former Dell support agent with no Mac experience and have them fluent in MacOS and doing basic troubleshooting within days. That says something about ease-of-use.
At work I have a PC. And I get so frustrated with the stupid things I HAVE to do to make it work. I wiped out a website that I was working on because I hit a wrong key. So I just jump on the network with my Mac wirelessly, accessing the same server and files. It’s wonderful.
I love my Mac!
Sounds like you did the right thing. I wish that Apple products were cheaper in other countries too like BRAZIL. That would help a lot!
I am a mac user since my first pc left me on the road, with clients waiting and a big loss.
Macs just works! Always did for me. I have now a 2.33 intel duo core 2 MBpro , QUAD Power PC , One PowerBook Titanium ( 4 years working without any problem) and Two G3 from 1999 working as File servers 10.4. I love them All
I was a Mac user from 1984-1995 and a Windows convert from 1995 until summer 2006. Finally made the plunge back to Mac for several reasons:
– I could use Parallels to run Windows XP if I needed to.
– Most interesting applications to me have moved to the Web or are open unix/java things so they are available to Mac users.
But since I moved, I realize that I just enjoy using the Mac more. It’s designed better and while it still can crash on occasion, overall it works better than XP did for me. Plus I’ve gotten into the whole iPhoto, iCal, iMovie thing.
Bottom line for me: use whatever you want, but in the short time we are here on this Earth, why not enjoy life by spending time with something that’s actually fun and works well for a change?
PS. The transition took two weeks for me. After that, no looking back.
I used to live in constant pain working with Windows/PCs.
A friend introduced me to the Mac world. It’s been 9 years now. There’s NO WAY I go back to the Microsoft’s awful solution. Although Macs are pretty expensive here in Brazil, they are really worth every penny. I wonder how come people still hesitate buying them in countries that prices just match.
Bruno Cortese – Brasilia – Brazil
Welcome, welcome, and very welcome. There’s no sin like the original apple sin…
so this is where the apple fanboys hang out 🙂 remember you were using an old OS with your PC´s vs new ones with your new apple and perhaps Vista will improve the things that you hated about the PC. anyway… Fanboyism is strange, I have one friend who spends most of his time trying to convince us (the PC people, guys who know pretty much how to get around the tricky corners of a pc) that we should buy apple but so far without any luck.
wow. man. welcome to the good life. i just got a MPB C2D about 2 weeks ago. its crazy aint it? I outgrew my iMac. Mac user for 3 years now. again, WELCOME.
Congratulations hawk, its a bold move to switch to Mac. I was in your shoe 3 months ago before I washed off with Windows and commited myself to Mac. I would say, its a point of no return and I just like the way things are now with my MacBook
I gladly switched to Mac about two years ago – I bought an iMac. I used to think that the integrated all-in-one machines was for losers. And, I used to think that most people were buying Macs for that pretty little logo to display proudly along with their Starbucks coffee cup. But after a long bout with viruses (thankfully all mild), spyware, unexpected blue screens while working on grad school reports, crashes while doing digital darkroom work, I fled WinTel in desperation. The only real option was Mac/OS X. I could handle Linux, but the rest of the users in my family would have struggled with moving to a system that seems to require even more expertise in using a computer.
Needless to say, I’ve been very happy with the transition, and have talked several others into making the switch. At my place of employment, several of us are making the transition, as well, thanks to Parallels and Bootcamp – we run alot of Windows only programs like AutoCAD, etc.
To be honest, I wish Apple would drop their pricing a little, especially on software, but what can you say – capitalism, baby! The market obviously accepts the Apple price premium, and Steve Jobs would be a fool to not take advantage of it.
What can I say – after medical school, business school and law school, the Mac was always the best. That’s not to say that there wasn’t an occasional need to use a Windows box but even that reiterated the value of the Mac OS and its thoughtful and attractive hardware. To those who snicker at the market share, I can only offer that it is similar to that of BMW and Mercedes in their respective market. One of my employees went to a CompUSA store to inquire as to laptops. The sales person immediately began pushing him into the direction of Windows machines at which point my friend mentioned his boss’ love of Macs – whereupon the sales person made the comment that you cannot even talk to a Mac person about laptops – they simply will not consider a switch – ENOUGH SAID. Thanks
Mark
I’ve used every operating system ever produced and from my experience, nothing beats Mac OS X! I came to Apple the moment they ported NeXTStep/OpenStep into the new Mac OS X. I never considered Mac OS 9 or prior to be anything more then a toy. Sure it was easy to use but it was not flexible. Mac OS X bends like a Zen reed in the wind!
I run all the Unix/Linux software on my Mac’s as well as Office 2004, Adobe Software, etc. I love the free development tools that include C/C++, ObjC, Java, Perl, Python, Ruby, etc. I can manage an entire Unix server farm using just a MacBook / MacBookPro.
Heck, you can even dual boot WinXP / Vista on the new Intel Mac’s as well as run them under a Virtual Machine at near native speed.
Thomas – you have perfectly described my feelings and experiences with making the switch. I couln’t stand hearing from the folks I called “Mac Snobs” in the past. Now, I happily view myself as one of the “Mac Snobs.”I went to iMac G5 at work late last year, and then and iMac Intel in early spring this year.
I’m doing the same migration with a Mac Mini. Only thing that I’m having trouble with is my old copy/paste keyboard shortcuts. My fingers haven’t yet rewired the old Shift+End finger placement to the new Command+Shift+RightArrow.
It probably doesn’t help that I’m using a PC keyboard (BYOKDM)
better late then never
OSX – New hotness
XP – Old, busted, legacy
Vista – New, busted, legacy
I started using Macs in 1984, in college. Started using PCs in 1986 at work. Been using both daily since then.
I tell everyone the same thing:
If you want to spend your time working ON the computer, buy Wintel.
If you want to spend your time getting work done WITH the computer, buy Mac.
It’s that simple: Macs just work.
Welcome back, Thomas!
I switched to Mac on November 14, 2003. I bought a new iBook G4 laptop. Other than required reboots for OSX software updates, my iBook has been running continuously since that day. It has *never* been turned off. It has *never* crashed. It has *never* had a virus. It has *never* given me one second of frustration. So what has it done? It has created websites. It has made movies and burned them onto DVD’s. It has allowed me to rediscover music, thanks to iTunes and my five iPod’s. It has made me smile every single day for the past three years. Welcome to what computers *should* be.
I’m a Mac notebook addict, and I won’t switch until some form of Linux becomes as idiot-proof as OS9 was, at least. From the last time I messed with Linux, that’s a ways off in the future, so my plan is to keep buying Apple notebooks for the foreseeable future.
My latest/current one is the very last PowerPC variety of 15 incher. Intel machines were becoming available at the time, but I felt this was the safest course, and this machine is good ’till Feb/March, when IMO it’s likely any next steps will be announced by Apple, so I’m waiting for then.
JMR
I’m glad to see a fellow photographer moving over to Mac- it really is the ONLY machine to handle images.
My boss uses top of the range Sony Vaio stuff and in a thoroughly unscientific test, we put the same image (500mb) on both machines on CS (again both machines) opened the image and clicked rotate clockwise 90degrees at the same time. My ibook G4 133mhz 1gb ram rotated in about 8 seconds. We restarted his machine after 15minutes and the image neve did rotate. HOWEVER, this bs about Macs being unfaultable is wearing soo thin.
I had a case open with Mac customer service for 6 months after first refusing to replace a broken combo drive on a 9 month old machine. They eventually replaced it after trying to wriggle out of it.
The replacement, the above mentioned ibook G4, lasted 18 months before dying one day (battery and video card).
I replaced it with shiny macbook pro (intel) and the first one lasted 6 days (faulty trackpad) and the replacement to that has already had a new powerpack (day 1) and the keyboard is bent “cosmetic”!
Apps that I have used happily for years crash – refuse to open, and when they do they don’t handle the files that they used to.
My crash reporter has given out more email in 3 weeks than my previous machine did in 18months. And to cap it all, my battery has done 38 cycles in 17 days (not unusual – check system profiler -) and even MAC say its down to 90% after 300 cycles. I guess that means its shot by summer, whoever mentioned build quality?.. my arse, all my friends and colleagues P.C.s are still working [badly, but] fine.
As for networking with PC’s it’s why the ads make made laugh so much. I know Mac and my boss knows PC’s and we can get them to pass files to each other, but thats it. It’s certainly not networking. As for the ‘new digital camera just bought in Japan?’ What utter crap, it even cant communicate with the new smart phone bought in the UK! made long after Tiger came out.
But that problem which Thomas had with his Dell, one press doesn’t wake it up but two… yeah, I have exactly the same problem with this PowerBook Pro.
I like Mac, I’ve been using them since ’93; 7 different machines in total I could never go to windows, its gibberish to me. But I don’t love mac.
Mac is the only machine for a serious photographer, I know thats true because if there was another serious platform… I would switch immediately.
I love my macs … and unfortunately, I have to use PC’s at work. The PC’s seem a little clumsy to use for me- which is probably another way of saying that the Mac seems very easy to use and intuitive to me. I really just wanted to weigh in on the price issue: I think current day Macs are fairly and honestly priced. PC’s, to me, are deceptively underpriced because they advertise low but when you actually configure a system that you really want, then they are, at best, comparable to a Mac. I honestly think that Bill Gates and Microsoft are evil because they treat computer users like they are idiots. Apple and Steve Jobs seem to understand what computing really is all about: simplicity, ease of use and putting you in control of your computer experience so you can be productive.
I think a lot of people using PC’s are kinda trapped into using them because of the larger installed base. That’s why I hope and pray that the Apple/Mac marketshare continues to grow and accelerate so that the “goodness” can be shared by all that really want it but are, as I said, trapped. Let’s hope Apple keeps getting it right …
Congratulations!
Sometimes it is difficult to give up ignorance, let’s admit it, MS’s dominance is primarily due to the lack of fully informed choices. You will find that all of that crow the ignoramy will make you eat actually taste good deep fried.
Mac isn’t a hippy run co-op, you stupid evangelicals. They are in it for profit just as much as Microsoft.
By preaching “MAC IS FOR CREATIVE PEOPLE, WINDOWS IS FOR SPREADSHEETS”, all you’ve proven is how gullible you are to all of Apple’s marketing campaigns that say nearly the exact same thing.
When it’s all said and done, they are computers. Windows, UNIX, Linux, Mac, whatever. They are all prone to viruses, crashes, hardware failures, trouble with peripherals, pretty much any trouble that a computer can face.
I use Windows because I can run all of my graphics software on it, most of which has never been ported to another OS, and I don’t like answering to an all knowing authority to get my computer (or anything else for that matter) fixed. I don’t think that the hardware warrants the price, and I’ve had nothing but bad luck with iPods (I went through 7 shuffles, 5 of which didn’t work out of the box, the other two died within months). My computer was $800, built by myself, and it’s a fucking powerhouse. A similar performing Mac would be more than $1,500. So what am I paying for? The OS?
I’ve seen several sentiments here along the lines of “I used to hate apple snobs that went on about their computers, but now I am one”. I’ll let you in on something: that doesn’t make you any less annoying than other people that are borderline assholes about what kind of computer you prefer. Out of all of the operating systems out there, the only advocates I have ever seen be publicly insulting to other users are Mac evangelicals. I feel embarrassed for you.
you might try loading osx86 on your dell – more info at osx86.org
i feel (just a little) bad for stealing osx so i have made up for it by buying a few osx apps like 02m to get all my outlook email into Mail.
if you want to know how does osx run on a 490 usd pc..
Have a look..
http://www.geekpatrol.ca/browse/2006/?view&id;=10870
CPU Intel Pentium D 2.66GHz @ 3.32GHz [SSE3/PAE/XD/EM64T/DualCore] L2 Cache 1024K RAM Used 715.0MB/1.0GB Virtual 33.47M/128.00M Disk Used 41.31GB/120.04GB Display GeForce 6500 [128 MB/CI/QE] 1280×1024@75Hz OS: Mac OS X 10.4.8 (8L2127) Kernel: Darwin 8.8.1
Good on you – you’ll never look back!
I read your aticle this morning. I own three secondhand G3 apples. I have hassled with the PC and spent enough money to buy a brand new Power Mac. I am using my G3 to store pictures and run my Quicken checkbook program. I run Appleworks for my personal diary. One thing I noticed about Macintosh is when you get something for it, it either works or it dosn’t. None of this sometimes it works Sometimes not. One final note. The Macintosh is like an old pair of boots. The more worn out they get, the more comfortable the feel.
Mac’s / OS X’s dirty little secret
Hi there, I understand exactly what you are feeling. I’m currently using a PC at home and a Mac at work. And I’ll buy a new MacBook for my home this christmas.
The only thing that annoys me, is that a lot of web pages don’t work propperly when surfed with Safari/Firefox on OS X. Being the single most important use of a computer theses days, “Compatible” Web surfing can not be underestimated.
I wish Apple/Firefox would make a [enable IE-compatability]-button in Safari/Firefox.
The Mac not being 100% compatible with the internet is currently the biggest problem with Mac. And nobody seems to be adressing (or speaking about) the problem.
I’m switching anyway though 🙂
Super Thomas!
I am a converted too, it has been a year for me now, after being a Network Administrator on the Windows Environment for over 8 years, I sold my HP laptop to buy a new one, in the gap I borrowed my girlfriends Mac…
Wow!!
What a Machine, What an Operating System…
Bye bye windows…
Wheater it is hardware of software, The Mac Rocks!
Yet I still bought a Windows Laptop… A week after I couldn´t stand it any longer… it was painful to use windows after indulging on OS X.
And hey, to all this Windows PC “Engineers” if you feel so good about your selves because you can either assamble a pc or troubleshoot windows all the time… well enjoy your slavery!
When you buy a Mac you truly feel saved. and free again.
But perhaps the best of buying a Mac is that none of my money will go to Bill´s gates pocket.
Nick in Japan
I used a Mac in Uni 20 years ago because of the student discounts (wow it was big). After graduating, I
travelled around the world and met my wife, a sweet Japanese girl. Got married 16 years ago and moved to
Japan. What with setting up home and having kids, we did not have the money to buy a computer, but as the kids got older and started to use computers at school
we realised that we had to buy one. For two reasons we decided on a PC…. 1) they are used in schools 2) they are cheap here in Japan. So we started with Windows 98. Having no choice I had to get use to it. Later moving upto XP. Well this was OK until this spring when our daughter entered junior high school…. a 13 year old with lots of new friends ment that I had little to no access to the computer. I decided to buy a new computer….a lap top…. so off Iwent to the local store. With so many choices I decided to test run the new black MacBook… WOW…I said to myself, Macs got so much bettter and do not seem like a pain in the butt like windows.
OXTiger is so clear no searching in menues, just look at the bottom of the screen or click on APPLICATIONS. Also Mac is great because we can operate in both English and Japanese operating systems. I have even resently convinced my Father in law (74)to start using a computer. He was afraid of our PC , but can work with a Mac. He enjoys looking up history on the internet. The greatest thing about Mac is APERTURE 1.5, I love this. As an ametuer photographer, this pro tool helps me make great pics, without loosing the original bad pics for future reference or comparisons. A true converted Mac fan.
happy Birthday buddy !
Since the Intel Macs now also run Windows, there really is no reason to buy PCs – other than wanting to build a computer yourself as a hobbyist, or being too poor to buy a Mac.
It’s fantastic to be able to run Windows Apps in a virtual environment such as Parallels Desktop. For games, just boot into Boot Camp.
With an Intel Mac, one can run practically all software – which one cannot do with a PC.
Additionally, it just works.
No Viruses on Mac OS X. Just that extra peace of mind on Mac.
With Windows, you always have other software – not you – running the show – to keep things going – such as antivirus software, etc.
Well, i got my first mac 1 year ago a nice and sleek iBook G4 and compared to my older 64-bit Compaq running Windows and Linux was a huge improvement in both battery life and usability. And for a student battery life is a huge thing. Not to mention that it weighted half compared to the Compaq. And 3 weeks ago i decided to sell my iBook and get a new MacBook Pro C2D. And man am I happy with it. And yes both of them “Just Work !”. Not to mention that run Windows XP within OSX using Parallels desktop and it runs super smooth. All i am waiting for now is the Leopard.
So, who are the true “brainwashed”?
Oh, Jesus H. Christ. I guess you must have been starved for comments to rehash the Oldest Known Troll in Internet History, “Mac Zealotry/Conversion”. Surely you could have gone out and taken pictures of FBI agents coming out of their office in order to get yourself harrassed, then spam boingboing with the link of your hilarious hijinx… What’s the matter, dude? You getting bored with being “oppressed”?
Well, my only experience of macs was with the very first one – I ddn’t like it – so stayed with windows – then finally took the plunge 18 months ago with a G5 and never looked back. But what I want to say is this: I am working on a building site right now and these guys keep cutting the power without warning – every time the power comes back I just switch the mac back on and guess what? – it just starts up again with no hassle, no rebuilding of files, no blue screen – nothing! Now I’m just about to replace my ageing Sony laptop with a macbook – can’t wait.
I have a number of questions to you folks. But first, my background…
My first computer was a IIe. I was a poor dog in NYC, and IBM would not give me credit to get a PC Jr, but the apple folks allowed me to take one home that day.
That alone made me a bigot back then.
I have 24 years of IT professional experience today. Up to 1990, I owned 3 macs. However, along the way I shed my apples ways. I moved into the PC world because of the software availability; because of the programming tools; because of the direct experience using it at home that could make me $$$$; because of the price of peripherals and computer parts; because I could build my own PC from the best and cheapest parts on the market; beccause I could hack it; and so on.
The most important thing that made me switch was I really noticed was the reverse prejudice and reification that i saw:
The old view was:
o IBM people dress alike.
o IBM people talk alike.
o IBM people dont have an imagination but are derivitive and delusional.
The new view is:
o Apple people dress alike (in black or in tshirts and baseball caps).
o Apple people talk alike (“welcome to the dark side, Dude. Pleeze get this F(@* AH teenager away from me!)
o Apple people dont have an imagination but are derivitive and delusional (really what is “new” about FREEBSD and windows frameworks?).
So where are we?
I believe in free will with technology. You should buy the most flexible and powerful technology for your needs regardless of vendor or school of thought. And you should be willing to change whenever you feel there is a technological need to move on.
So where does that leave me?
I am VERY seriously considering a Macbook Pro. Why? I add it up the main points:
o FREEBSD Unix base allows me to have an operating system aligned with what I deal with in the server world w/o having something hoggy like LINUX on my prime laptop. And who needs VISTA pigs on a laptop?
o A “reasonable” amount of software on the market (I mean really, what commercial software IS there on LINUX? And what do I really need outside of a good commercial office product? Mass Games???)
o The ability to use something like Parallels.com for some MS software that I would like to run (such as the open source chess software I use).
o Ease of ordering. I look at the apple site and I don’t see a TON of screens like at dell asking me to choose all these crappy software products to preinstall and screw up my computer, and other peripherals that I have NO need for. Simple ordering – clean machine. Dell AGGG!
All the other marketing points a BS for me. The underlying hardware is all made by the same Taiwanese companies that you can find in other machines. I DO use my computers for music. I have two windowz servers for samples and two DAWS, and my experience is that there is nothing cool or different about Apple in Audio.
So now my main questions:
How do you feel the chichi MacBook Pro 17″ 7200 RPM 3G memory would hold up to the rigors of travel and as someones main computer, compared to something like a high end XPS Dell that is pretty much shatter proof? I’ve had my share of chichi VAIO’s to know the keyboards are the first to go etc..
Should we wait for Spring 2007 when Apple releases their new OS and possibly new hardware offerings, possibly reduce their current costs…or should we try and get a tax break this year?
Congrats Thomas on your excellent choice. I am so free to put a link to your story from my photography blog at http://www.bettenhaussen.com
Regards from the Netherlands
What can I say? Welcome! Thank you for trusting your tekkie and for following your heart.
You are most welcome among all of us that already “love” our Macs. Frankly we find it hard to understand why anyone would usa anything else today…
Good Luck, may the force be with you…
Just wanted to mention that my experience is nearly identiical to Thomas’, including having previously used Macs (up to a powerPC 66 model) moved over to PC workstations by falling victim to the dominant paradigm, and then, after becoming so frustrated as a notebook-based computer user, switching to the MacBook Pro last may. I’m a scientist, and many specialty applications I need are PC only, but the use of Parallels software to have a windows XP environment nested within my Mac OS X has solved those problems pretty well. Can only encourage others to make the leap–you won’t regret it
I just wanted to add a few comments about my new 17″ MacBook Pro.
I also just converted to the Mac Religion. I am keeping my Dell hidden under the desk. My life partner still laughs at me. (he is a PC user). He thinks I am trying to be a Born again teenager. When I use my Mac I am like a teenager again. It makes me feel young to keep learn a different way of doing things. This morning however he gave me a sign language expletive when I old him that I had timed the startup on my MacBook Pro. From the time I pushed the power button until I was ready to surf/check mail, just under 35 seconds! He hits the power button on his pc laptop, makes a pot of coffee, brushes his teeth, finds his glasses and walks around looking for his cigarettes, finds an ashtray all while waiting for his login screen to load. Every couple of days he is defraging, scannng for viruses, removing adware. I do not miss having to clean house on my PC.
The only reason I keep my PC in such close proximity (under the desk) is because I have a few Real Estate- work related programs and sites that are not Mac friendly and according to the techs at these sites will never be Mac friendly.
By the time anyone scrolls down to this comment they will already be on their way to the Apple Store to buy a new Mac.
You will if you want to feel young, hip and sexy again, if you want an intelligent “19 year old” to hang out with, get a Mac.
Remember, 35 seconds can be ecstasy.
“When I would edit photos on it and then upload them the color would be all wrong.”
Dude – that ain´t the computer; that´s your software and you don´t know how to use it properly.
I have been a mac user for over 15 years. I love my macs as much as the next guy, but I still need to keep some PCs around for testing etc. I have a nice little sandbox where everyone plays well together… Mac OS 9, OS X, windows 98, 2000, Xp…. I’ll alwyas embrace both major platforms, however, the mac is the more solid platform. in my opinion its worth the price, every penny.
once you go mac you never go back
Howdy. Im back form the apple store where I had to see for myself parallels in action.
Incredible stuff. The performance and resolution of XP was fantastic. I could not tell the difference in performance. IN maximized windowz mode I couldnt tell it was a different computer
The memory footprint for OSX was impressive. Looking at the background processes, I hardly saw anything runnning.
I was a programmer for 23 years and have had to use Windows at work since 88. The only computers I’ve ever paid my own money for are Macs – first bought in ’84 when it was obvious that the Mac was the future of computing there and then.
I stopped work this Feb’ but recently took on a contract job just having to clean up and re-install Windows onto a bunch of PCs. Well, after having to do this to about 5 PCs I just thought “I can’t believe people can go through this without being paid!”. I was being paid and it was winding me up something terrible.
As someone said succintly years back; Using a PC is like going on a business trip. Using a Mac is like going on holiday.
And yes, Macs, like anything made by humans go wrong and/or break. But Macs in my experience do it a lot less than PCs. I’m sorry to hear that someone on here had a really troublesome iPod. I bought mine 6 months after they came out. It’s a 5GB iPod!! It’s been dropped onto the pavement 3 times. I threw my coat (containing my iPod) out of a loft 20′ down onto the floor below – when I pulled it out of the pocket the centre button and volume/scroll wheel had both come off. I pushed them back in, pressed the buttons and off it went. I’ve replaced the battery myself and it’s still running as sweet as ever.
And as for the 20″ Intel iMac on which I’m writing this – it’s a delight. And people who say “yes, but cut the aesthetic/feel factor, how functional is it?” are missing the point. The two come together. And aesthetics are important to the human soul, having something beautifully crafted to use that does what you need is so much more enjoyable than something on which you save £200 but irritates you in myriad small ways for every year thereafter. It’s why we enjoy a beautiful building, painting, clothing, tables and so on. You don’t look at the Sistine Chapel and say, “Well, it would have been finished a lot earlier and cheaper if he hadn’t spent all that time painting the ceiling!”.
You have to actually +use+ a Mac to understand this fully. Not for a 5 minute play in a shop though. Find a friend who has one, and just really do stuff for an hour or two. Then see how you feel about it all.
But being content with what you have, whether PC (inc Linux) or Mac is the main thing.
1. Macs are not immune to problems. They are much better, though. They use the same components that PCs use. Apple doesn’t make much of their hardware any more. China makes most of it. Apple will fix things as soon as they can, which at times seems to take forever. The sudden shutdowns are resolved, as an example. Nonetheless, I do recommend AppleCare (extended warranty).
2. The OS can get wigged out over many updates BUT, it’s always quite painless to fix. You just reinstall the OS using the Archive and Install option. That will, as it sounds, set aside the existing OS and optionally transfer the settings, which I recommend. You NEVER have to reinstall any Apps unless they install extensions and even those can be copied over from the archive.
3. There are tons of very informative sites for Macs. Macfixit.com (use macsurfer.com as a link into it, which is an interesting site onto itself for us fanboys). xlr8yourmac.com is pretty interesting though you could put yourself into pain as that pushes the envelope (some untested stuff by Apple, but can be handy). There are some good pricing sites too, dealmac.com, pricegrabber.com, etc. Macsurfer.com has links at the bottom of some good ones.
4. Oh yeah, there’s soooo much power with the Unix layer. Really amazing things there. DOS/Command line always aspired for that but never scratched the surface.
5. As of now, I run without anti- anything. No spyware stuff (cookies can still be a “spyware” thing though), no anti-virus. This is changing now that Apple is challenging virus writers with their ads. If you choose to go my route, keep informed and updated. Sadly, I’ve not heard of any good Antivirus software. Norton/Symantec seems to cause more problems than it solves.
6. BootCamp for games. Parallels for everything else. (Crossover is FREE but runs very few apps. It’s based on Wine.)
7. Apple did NOT copy Windows so don’t try to use it like that (though some features did creep in): a) copy files on the same disk by holding down option and dragging. Make an alias (win:shortcut) by holding option and command (clover/apple key). And, the 31 char file limit only applies to really old software. You can always change the filename after it is saved and then open it in the app (which will open with the name then # and numbers after it which is a hack to indicate to the filesystem what the real file is so don’t remove it). b) MacBooks and some PB’s can context-click by tapping the trackpad with two fingers (best apart from each other). c) MacOS X multitasks MUCH better. d) You MUST have at least 1G RAM to run MS Office or other large Rosetta/Classic applications. Otherwise, it will thrash. e) Windows does a lousy job of drag-and-drop support. Works quite well on a Mac and would help that 40 chart copy immensely. f) Pages definitely has issues, but inflexible is not one of them. Start with a blank document and be amazed though like many Apple software products, the power is in there but you have to find it (look at the inspectors). They also do things a little differently which may be due to software patents/copyrights. g) Apple had full power management LONG before ACPI. h) Apps can and will crash. Nothing on the horizon I know of is going to prevent that. Good apps might never crash. The OS never should crash except: Bad hardware will cause horrible problems and is the cause for most or all system wide problems, too. OS X is VERY picky about its RAM, which must be flawless as they max the performance. i) I like that the move keys (arrows with modifiers like command, etc) are not next to the delete key, which is destructive! j) Apple spells out exactly what phones they support within the OS (iSync) on their site. They haven’t updated that list in quite a while. You can get a third party piece of glueware depending no the model from, I think, markspace. OS X will also print to SMB printers and interface with Active Directory. What other PC networking do you need? k) Any OS X browser will likely never support ActiveX as that is a portal to the entire Windows OS. IE is very nonstandard. Firefox on Windoze doesn’t support ActiveX though that’s probably by choice due to the security risks. Many sites rave about Safari’s suppport for standard code. So, likely, it’s the website. You might get sites to work using IE in Crossover…
8. Schultz: all manufacturers have specs governing dead pixels. In your case, you have a dead sub-pixel. See if you can take it in and show someone as the color and location ought to get some attention BUT before you do, try gently rubbing a SOFT, damp (NOT dripping) clean cloth on the screen in a circle around the pixel. It may revive it.
9. Apple’s hardware is as cheap as Dell’s for the same features (in the USA, sadly). The Mac Pro is cheaper. If you want a cheap PC with TONS of crap loaded on it and older hardware, don’t look for that from Apple. You really tend to get what you pay for in this case with one exception. Apple doesn’t sell a consumer or prosumer grade computer with slots.
I use Windoze at work (I’m forced; using it now in fact) and consider myself a power user in both. Windoze as survival, Mac for the joy of it. I sincerely hope that I was informative and not a snob.
Welcome to the machine…
One of the thing many people moving to the Mac are amazed to discover is how many apps are available. So much FUD has been planted for so many years. Most of the open source stuff is there, but so are a lot of really cool Mac only apps. I encourage you to spend a little time to check some of them out.
There are more comprehensive lists, but here is a nice little site that has links to a bunch of common open source Macintosh apps you may wish to try.
http://www.opensourcemac.org/
Welcome
My sister converted me to Apple 3 years ago with an iMac, so in May I invested in a 17inch MacBook Pro. I recently brought my baby with me on a photo weekend with a couple of friends. While they were uploading their cards for hours in the evening, I had uploaded in the back of the van within minutes. Its that fast! I got to play with my HDR software, while they owwed and ahhhed waiting for their images to upload. Sickened, I think is one of the words that was used in the evenings!! I love this computer so much, you’ve no idea….I’ve taken it with me to New York and then home to Ireland when we visited in the summer. It travels really well in the Tamrac CyberPro Express, fits in the over head bins. Enjoy!!
Delphine
I absolutely love my 15.4″ macbook pro. My only complaint is the heat issue. actually, you may not believe this, but recently its gotten so bad that the casing of my notebook has started to warp. My CD slot is bent out of shape and the surface of the notebook is bending upward. I checked my battery serial and its not under recall… I dont know what to do! Any ideas? you can email me at djtharp@bsu.edu
Wow. I, too, just bought a Mac last week after using PCs since my 80286. My Mac friends aren’t even happy that I’ve switched, they’re angry. They think I should apologize to the entire Mac community for all the abuse and derision I’ve heaped on Maccers. I’m much more concerned about my PC friends who feel abandoned. Sorry to all of you.
I’m already cheesed off that I can’t “boot camp” into my Macbook with the XP Upgrade disk. Seriously, who the hell has the full installation disk?? And after two days of “zero hassle, zero installation” my network printer is still not hooked up. That said, I feel like I’ve gone from a dysfunctional family to one that is genuinely nice. Not phony smile nice, but just thoughtful. With Windows it’s always, “When you’re looking at folders in explorer, why the FUCK can’t you add a New Folder with the right click? Has one of you actually USED your OS?”
I got a Mac because I’m just tired. Tired of how much hassle I’ve had to go through to get anything done. I have boxes of videos waiting to be edited because on my PC it was an endless amount of hardware and software tinkering. After awhile it seems like every software or OS update is not an advance but about fixing something that’s messed up in Windows.
Now what to do with this pile of parts filling up the closet.
I see some people griping about the need to control-click for contextual menus. I have a Mac Mini with a standard Apple keyboard and a cute little macally ice mouse. It has a right click button, like a PC and it works! No more control-click necessary. It even has a clickable scroll wheel. Works well for me.
I couldn’t agree more ! I was basically in the same position. I had been using a Dell PC for my studio for the last three years, networked with an old Gateway and two Epson printers. I could never obtain a good, dependable color profile on my two Samsung flat monitors. Last April I noticed some other pro photographers using MacBooks. I jumped-in with the purchase of a MacBook Pro 17″ and I haven’t regretted the purchase yet. In fact, I prefer to do all of my photo editing work on my MacBook Pro, using both Photoshop CS2 and Aperture, and simply use my PC’s for storage. I love my MacBook Pro and I consider it one of my top three tools of the trade along with my Canon 1D Mark 2 and my Alien Bees strobes. The versatility, ease-of-use, dependability has no match.
Been working on computers since 1978, all types, all OSs. I spend all day, every day supporting Dell PCs – I get paid very well to manage the problems created by incompatible drivers, security updates, usb drives, viruses, etc. And when the day is done I love going home to my Mac…
I use a mac at work and a PC at home, and I like them both, for the same reason: the mac is idiot-proof. That’s great at work, where I just need to get my job done, and where other, less computer-savvy folks frequently use my machine. The macs bounce back. My custom-built PC at home does not bounce back. It would cry if I did to it what my coworkers do to their office macs. But because it can be tweaked, I can get it to do awesome things, especially for gaming. The car tinkerer analogy was exactly right. My work mac is a late-model minivan with a good crash-test rating. My home PC is a classic muscle car. It can be tricky to keep it performing optimally, but when it does, it’s sure worth it. But I wouldn’t take it on a roadtrip.
10 years in PC support, 4 years as a Windows network admin (and prior to that 7 years as a VMS system admin), once I left the Windows tech support field and became a developer I thought to myself “what have I learned?”. The answer surprised me: I don’t want one of those things at home.
I bought my first Mac. Want to know a secret? It just works. And works. And works. And…
Try the Bluetooth Mighty Mouse. It’s the bomb!
I use Mac to edit video and manage my music and my life in my home studio. At work we still keep PC’s and it is making me insane. Even my G4 can work almost as fast as I think, and my Final Cut Pro takes half the time and half the clicks that the “industry standard” Avid does.
Mac is, without a doubt, a better user experience. It works better. The interface is always intuitive. Even in an application like PhotoShop, it just works better on a Mac. Example: When I create a new document in PhotoShop, I set my canvas with, hit tab and set the height. In Windows, I have to hit tab twice. Might not sound like much, but it is very annoying. Oh, and the GUI in the Avid has tiny buttons, but FCP seems to already know what my next move is going to be.
I bought my iMac Intel 17” 4 months ago.
That was the 1st time I started using Mac.
I found out that it was really GOOD.
It starts faster than Windows, it is Virus Proof, It runs applications faster than windows (except for programs that I hardly use or Graphics programs such as Photoshop).
Since it’s virus proof, I’ve been helping my teachers to detect whether there is any virus/worms “hiding” in their pendrive.
As I did that, I tend to find out more about viruses and what are the symptoms (how to tell if there is a virus inside a PC’s system or Pendrive)
The good thing about it is that I can jsut straight away remove the virus by simply deleting it.
The speakers provided with this machine is simply EXCElLENT.
The sound quality is better than my friend’s external speaker (which cost around RM 200).
With they help of my widgets, all I have to do is just play the song and click F12 (Daskboard), and it (the widgets) automatically finds my lyrics and album art.
Although not all songs’ lyrics are avaliable.
But even so, I just have to click on “Search on Google” button on my widget and all the links appear.
Simple as that.
Making photo albums has never been easier with iPhoto.
I just drag and drop my photos into the lower pane and that’s it.
A .pdf Book is formed.
I use it to create my school events in a PDF format to hand it out to teachers and friends.
And now, I can run both Mac and Windows my using Boot Camp and Parallels.
Windows Vista copycats a lot from Mac (e.g. Widgets is known as Gadget, Flip 3D is like Mac’s task switch, even the folder icons are almost the same)
What else can I elaborate more?
Microsoft is not that creative than Apple.
Having a Mac its simply the best of both worlds.
The system is MUCH MORE STABLE compared to Windows as it doesn’t crash often.
It’s easy to use once you get the hang of it.
It’s true as the saying: IT JUST WORKS.
And I NEVER regretted of purchasing a Mac.
I had the same experience, forced to use PCs in 1989 at work, made the switch back to Mac in 96 and haven’t look back. What a relief. But here’s the kicker. Just got promoted at my company and my new boss, jackass, insists that I use a Dell, despite my bitter protests. The thing sucks, it’s a piece of crap and the software DOES NOT work! Mine also refuses to start up properly. I have to “start it up” three to four times each morning before it actually turns on. I am actually looking for another job partly, mostly because of this.
I am definitely NOT alone….!
I just switched myself, as soo as the new C2D Macbook Pro was released. I was also fortunate enough to be one of the lucky three people who had preordered a 17″ MBP C2D at the Brandon, Fla CompUSA store to get one of the first three they got into the store right after the 17s were shipped.
I LOVE IT…LOL
I had been using a custom built 17″ Xtreme Notebooks (Clevo) Nova 906V Accelerator with the AMD FX60 dual core processor, 64 bit, Vista ready, 2 GB RAM, 200GB of twin drives in RAID 0 configuration with Windows XP Pro and dual DVD opical drives. I am offering that one FOR SALE to any die hard PC user for $5K USD or more via bid on eBay. If anyone is interested you may email me at rev.walter.dow(at)mac.com and I will send you details.
Meanwhile, I am absolutely enjoying my “Switch to a Mac”
Hi there Thomas, I too have made the switch, but to a MAC Pro, beefed the baby to the hilt and it’s runs like a charm.
I used to write .net apps using a HP Compaq which was ok, but then I just got fed up of it crashing all the time and having to install drivers as you mentioned. Don’t get me wrong, I still need to use windows from a commercial point of view, but, and here is the but, I run this all through my mac using Parallels desktop – would you believe I have had not one crash to-date, not a sniff – Off course you would.
Looking forward to the new release of Intel software from Adobe, then I can ditch MS for good.
Happy Macing 🙂
“If you are a stats person SPSS doesn’t function correctly and is unsupported.”
If you’re a “stats person”, why do you use SPSS? It’s so ass backward and limited, it’s useless. It can’t handle more than two factors in a mixed model ANOVA, it’s linear regression is extremely limited; you can’t do hierarchical linear modeling, you can’t do repeated measures analysis with categorical outcomes, you can’t do so much with it.
Dude, get a clue. If you’re going to do real statistics, dump the SPSS kool-aid, their crappy support, their overpricing, their draconian licensing schemes, and use either MATLAB or R or S+ You’re a stats person? I have to laugh!!!
Your just on the begging of a new dawn… To see the true colors that your canon camera is capable of with such clearity is a pure joy. Its about time to come to the other side. I too have switched last year from my PC which I was so and I mean so so fed up with! and all of the sudden surfing the web felt so warm and fuzzy and safe again.. Congradulations. Were are you located in San Francisco? I am in the Valley.
My mother-in-law wanted to to buy a computer last year. She rang up the Dell 1-800 number and got put through to what sounded like an asian call centre. When she asked to find out more information about the computers they had for sale they told her to “go online and see the website”. The fact that she didn’t have a computer didn’t seem to resonate with them.
The next day she went to an Apple Store and got what she need plus a bunch of complementary tuition and phone support.
I spent 350 buck on a used eMac on eBay recently. It has outperformed any PC I’ve ever owned. I will never go back. Thanks you Satan!….I mean…steve jobs…
A decade ago, had no respect for Macs, primarily because they seemed “dumbed-down” – it was hard to “get under the hood” and tinker with things, the design philosophy seemed intent on keeping the user at arm’s length. It seemed difficult to be a “power user’ of a Macintosh. I’d grown up exposed to CP/M, Unix, DOS, and even TRS-DOS. A decade ago, I was a die-hard Amiga zealot, and you’d get it away from me only wen you pried it from my cold, dead hands.
Then Commodore-Amiga imploded. I held on for a long time, but eventually the computing world started to pass me by and I saw things I wanted to do -like play with this new “world wide web” layer of the internet that everyone was talking about, not to mention play the games, use the tools and experiment with the media that everyone else was playing with, using, or experimenting with- that I couldn’t.
Around then, I started working at a job that was a 100% Mac shop. I was dismayed at first, but I gradually came to realize that the OS had improved quite a bit (this was in the 7.6 days) since I’d last played with it, so I learned. And it got better.
With each passing major version release, the user experience improved significantly. The number of clever little features that would appeal to anyone who aspired to becoming a “power user” increased. The stability improved. And what impressed me most of all, was that through three major release versions, the systems got FASTER, not slower, even running on the same machine! (assuming you had plenty of RAM)
Windows couldn’t say that. And I’d never really had much respect for Windows either.
When 10.0.1 came out, it was abysmal, and the paradigm shift was wrenching. But it got better too. By 10.1, it was at least usable, although I spent most of my time in Classic (9.x)
By 10.2, it was downright slick and spiffy, and I started to migrate to OS X. I haven’t even loaded Classic Mode in two years.
I have a different job now, and we just got bought by Microsoft, so I have no choice but to work with Windows on a daily basis. I’ve applied myself in the same way I did when I migrated from the Amiga to the Macintosh, trying to learn its idiosyncrasies and secrets, trying to become a power user. And I have found that it’s not possible to the same degree as it is on the Mac.
I routinely find myself asking the help desk or my Window-savvy co-workers, “how do I do yadda-yadda?” And invariably, the answers I get take one of three forms:
1) “Easy! Just follow these three or four simple steps!” (when the same task takes only one or two steps on the Mac.)
2) “What do you mean? You can’t do that in Windows!”
3) “Oh, you need a third-party piece of software to do that.”
And don’t even get me started on stability, security, or ease of troubleshooting!
No operating system is perfect. No hardware is perfect. But I find that I have fewer problems with the Mac OS _and_ Apple hardware than with Windows boxes, and when I do have problems, they are always easier to fix on the Mac than they are on the Windows boxes.
Hi Thomas!
Your story reminded me a couple of years back when I opted out from the Windows world and started a ‘fresh, intimate love-affair’ with Mac. Until to this day I kept questioning myself why on earth I didn’t took the move earlier? Whatever it is, welcome to the realm of the few lots that thinks different.
It’s like trading in the old family Dodge that leaked oil and needed work every week to a brand new Aston-Martin Vanquish complete with a built in pit crew and a hot, perky redhead.
Welcome to the good life
I switched to a Mac mini a few months ago. I was so amazed by how easy (and yet powerful) everything was that I decided to get myself a Mac Pro. I never missed anything about PCs, and I never looked back at my old one.
I switched to a Mac mini a few months ago. I was so amazed by how easy (and yet powerful) everything was that I decided to get myself a Mac Pro. I never missed anything about PCs, and I never looked back at my old one.
“Simplicity is of infinite beauty.”
Via Daring Fireball:
“What I take away from stories like this is not “Hey, it’s great to see another PC user switch to the Mac.” What I take away is that he ought to feel like a jerk for having mocked Macs and Mac users for 15 years, because he would have been just as happy if he’d switched earlier.”
I’ve been a Mac user in some form or another since 1989. I’ve used and owned PC’s in that time as well. What I always find silly is how people who’ve never used Macs bash them.
Apple has built a company on superior user experience. Call it religion if you’d like.
Companies like Apple, Harley Davidson and Club Med are so driven to provide the “complete experience” that they are the ones who have “raving fans” for customers.
As long as Apple continues to churn out cutting edge products that can provide the “experience” its customers want, they will be considered an innovator and leader.
The day Apple forgets who they are and what their customers want, they become just another company, like Dell.
Thomas, as a Mac Specialist at the very store you got you MBP from, I say “Welcome!” If you’re back in at all over Christmas, ask for Steve – I missed meeting you at Diggnation #50 but would love to give you some insider OS X tips and talk cameras if I’m at work.
-steve
http://flickr.com/people/presta
http://adjectiveanimal.com
I’m a Mac user who couldn’t think of being forced to use a PC full time, but the tone of your post is a tad over the top. Some of the “problems” you had with your PC will happen with your Mac — it’s not perfect. You sound a little bipolar, and I half expect a expletive-filled, what-a-piece-of-shit, Jobs-is-a-Nazi, I-lost-my-data, f***ing-fanboys post from you in six months. You need to manage your expectations. But if you do that, yes, the Mac is great!
And the insistence of mac-click instead of right-click is annoying as hell.
um, use a mouse. after so many years with windows, you probably have one or two. you can right click all you want with those.
man, I didn’t know about the right-click trick for the red-underlined words from the spell checker. That’s great! 🙂 thanks!
I think I must’ve bought a dud.
I swapped from a 6 year old Sony Vaio Pentium III running XP Pro to a 17″ Macbook Pro. I can’t believe it doesn’t feel any faster than my old machine.
As for OSX, it’s so annoying:
1. the ctrl key functionality that’s consistent in Windows seems to be arbitrarily spread between ctrl and option key in OSX depending on the app.
2. using Mail, if you’re writing an email then accidentally click outside the window, you have to minimise loads of windows to get back to where you are (as opposed to having a taskbar)
3. applications don’t close when you hit the x on a window.
4. no right click without a mouse
5. endless “rainbow wheels” when using Macromedia software (I thought Macs are designers’ tools of choice?)
6. finder is just awful compared to windows explorer
I could go on…
I’m going to download Bootcamp and use it as a windows machine but I feel really duped by the apple marketing machine … and £1800 poorer.
Wish I’d bought another Vaio
I had similar problems as you described with my Dell Latitude notebook and Windows 2000. But I stuck with it for years, because I *despised* Mac OS 9 and earlier releases. When OS 10.3 “Panther” released, I was ripe for a change. I took the plunge and bought a 17″ PowerBook G4, not knowing whether I’d love it or hate it. A month later, my sentiment could be summarized as “You’ll have to wrestle it from my cold dead arms!” I’ve since upgraded to OS X 10.4 “Tiger” (and replaced my original G4 with the final generation PowerBook). I enjoy it more than any consumer product I’ve ever owned!
Incidentally, the magnetic plug is designed to break away should you ever trip on the cord. I herewith confess (publicly for the first time) that I accidentally yanked my Dell off the coffee table when I got up from the sofa and didn’t realize the cord had wrapped around my ankle. My Dell bit the dust. I got Mac. And we lived happily ever after.
Yeah! My feelings were the same as yours when I bought my Mac! It just works! So sexy! I think that we’re so accustomed with errors and crashes in windows (not talking about the mono-task like) that we start to think that its the way! No way! =)
Congratulations!
Yes! We’ve got another one!! Be on the lookout for a sneaky man in sunglasses.. he will be delivering your directions to the secret meeting.
I used to be a die-hard PC guy. Then I went to college. It’s not college that changed my opinion, but the job that I got at college. I become a IT Tech for the college and worked with both Macs and PCs. I ended up having to troubleshoot one Mac for every 20 PCs that failed. And setting things up on the Mac was a snap compared to the PC.
That summer I sold my PC and bought an iMac G5. I haven’t looked back since. I now have that iMac, a Mac Pro, and a Dell that I don’t like to use.
OMG, I’ve just become your #1 digital junkie fan, you are EXACTLY what I’ve been looking for–I’m looking forward to keeping up w/ what’s new.
So cool, love it, Great informative site, Thanks TH.
I’m working on starting an internet radio show [not even sure where I’m going to host it yet], any other advice on resources I should check into?!
P.s. I’ve been dieing to go MAC–first chance I get I’ll have one too. I’m up to my neck in lost patience w/ all the errors, etc I get. BIG WASTE of time is all PC/Windows gives me. How’s anyone supposed to accomplish anything like that? Time counts man.
Been a Mac guy since 1985 and my best advice for you new guys is…
Always recommend Windows to your competition.
The OS should never crash?
hahahahahahaha
I’ve used everything under the sun, and a few things that never saw the light of day. Every OS Mac ever ran has crashed, including its *NIX variants although they are much better.
I hear ya bro. I have an iMac at home and carry my little MacBook everywhere. Once you go Mac, you never go back. I keep all the boxes. I love everything Mac. Switched over about 4 years ago, and now I hate to even touch PCs. They are trouble from the get.
Quote:
“Anonymous said…
I think I must’ve bought a dud.
As for OSX, it’s so annoying:
…..
2. using Mail, if you’re writing an email then accidentally click outside the window, you have to minimise loads of windows to get back to where you are (as opposed to having a taskbar)”
With respect, why wouldn’t you use Expose ? Or click on the Mail icon in the dock ? Or am I missing something…?
in the picture, there’s a macbook not a pro, is that right?
I was a diehard windows user too (Sounds horrible). I go my Macbook this year – because I could run Windows on it… Guess what- I rarely run Windows (Only when I have too… And yes, It’s a task). I have XP & Vista on my Mac- but Microsofts new pricing scheme (yes, scheme) for a few versions of Vista sucks. All I need to do for the Mac and get family pack licencing for out two Macs… And It does everthing I want for less money and hassle. Btw: I have been exiled by my friends that can’t see the light. Oh well, I still try to show them the truth!
As a long time (20 years) Macintosh user I have to say, you are not the only person I’ve met who has done as you did… Leaving the “dark side” of the pc world and stepping into the light by purchasing a Mac.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId;=9005712
Mac’s are elegant, fast and reliable. The fact is, as an artist, I wouldn’t have had any use for a pc back when I first got my Mac in 1987. Now as a author and still creating art, why would I ever want a pc?
I blew the power supply on my PowerMac G5 and sent it in for repair. As I live in Mexico, I know these things can take some time so I bought a MacMini to get me by. Cheap, less than $1,000 US and with a dual Intel 1.66 processor. I’m used to the big machines but, what a sweetheart this MacMini is. There’s no way to expand it so that kinda s**ks. But it’s fast, does everything I want it to do, makes no noise whatsoever, and is slightly larger than a small stack of CDs. I use it with my 22″ Apple Cinema Display. I know it never really “caught on” but I’d recommend the MacMini to any home user. It’s sweet!