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After Three Months On The Mac, What's Really Being Used
Why One Veteran Power User Switched to a Mac After 20 Years Of Windows PC
Blogger Greg Wilson is a veteran of more than two decades on Windows who recently become a Mac switcher, at least partly, and is finding life on a MacBook Pro running Leopard pretty sweet.
Greg explains:
I've been a Microsoft Windows fan since 1987.... I pride myself on my deep understanding of Windows and have mastered tweaking everything from network settings (MTU, TCP-Window, etc.) to maximize high-speed broadband, to customizing cache settings to maximize I/O performance. I can fix nearly any Windows-related problem you can throw at me. This familiarity has given me great comfort over the years.....
During the past 15 years, I've consistently made fun of anyone around me that uses a Mac and brushed them off as a "non-serious computer user". I made exceptions in this humor for artists and writers but everyone else was fair game!
Recently, I started noticing some of my friends defecting to the Mac, including friends that are extremely technical and very hard-core software developers. This opened my mind a bit and got me exploring. Meanwhile, I continued to get frustrated by little things in Windows and found myself asking the following questions version after version:
Why does it take so long for Windows to boot?
Why does the boot duration increase over ....
Why do most serious Windows users accept the fact that at least once a year (more often for some of us), it's necessary to do a complete re-install of Windows to regain performance and stability? (I call this a Windows enema!)
Why does my machine work one day but have problems the next day with NO software changes....
Why does it take so long to shutdown Windows?.....
Why does standby not work consistently?....
Why did 64-bit take so long!?...
I could go on and on…. device driver crap, conflicts, corrupt registry, adware, random blue screens, blah blah blah....
After several more months of investigating and interviewing friends, I took the plunge. I was comforted by the fact that underneath the slick Mac OS exterior was real Unix….including Perl, Vim, bash, X11, etc....
I heard from numerous friends and co-workers that Macs never need rebooting, are always fast, never get a virus, never lockup, etc.....
....I then ordered my new machine, a fully loaded MacBook Pro with 4GB of memory, 200GB 7200RPM drive, Mac OS X Leopard, extra battery, etc.....
All was not instant sweetness and light however, and Greg's experiences are testimony to the fact that there are some obstacles to scale for longtime Windows users making the transition to the Mac. Indeed, it's probably more difficult to adapt for a Windows power-user who has developed a streamlined set of work habits using lots of shortcuts, than for a casual Windows user who mainly relies on GUI features and controls.
Greg found that Apple's "Switch 101" page at http://www.apple.com/support/switch101 and David Pogue's excellent "Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual Leopard Edition" very helpful, advising Windows users not to even try to switch without the Pogue book.
However, now that he's up to speed, Greg found that he is even more productive on the Mac than he had been on Windows, taking about two weeks to acclimatize. His favorite features are the keyboard, the Multi-Touch trackpad, the "incredible" LED screen, having 4GB of addressable memory, fast boot time and shutdown time Sleep actually works on the Mac, battery life, the MagSafe adapter, easy bootable drive cloning, Spaces, Exposé, the "fantastic" NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT, slick software install and uninstall.... all good stuff that Mac users tend to take too much for granted.
Things Greg doesn't like are that MS Entourage for the Mac isn't as much to his taste as Windows Outlook, a poverty of user controls with Time Machine, comparative sluggishness in Microsoft Excel 2008 when moving from cell to cell, which all seems relatively minor compared with that long list of advantages.
This is an interesting and dispassionate chronicle of one dyed-in-the-wool Windows power user giving the Mac a fair and honest trial and ending up liking it.
For the full commentary visit here:
http://gregorywilson.wordpress.com/2008/04/30/why-i-switched-to-a-mac-after-20-years-of-windows/
After Three Months On The Mac, What's Really Being Used
Blogger and Mac switcher David Alison says:
One of the goals I have with this blog is to give you some perspective on how my experience with a Mac changes over time. Today it's been exactly 3 months since I bought the MacBook and over that time I've played with what seems like hundreds of applications, though only a few of them have actually stuck. I did the same thing after I had the MacBook for 3 weeks and it's changed a bit since then.
So here is a list of the applications I use heavily on my Macs. Note that since I have a Mac Pro as my primary desktop I use a slightly different mix of applications on it than I do on my MacBook, which is now my meetings / travel machine.
Safari
1Password
Adium
VMware Fusion
iPhoto
TextMate
iTunes
Microsoft Office
iStat Menus
Cyberduck
Gmail Notifier
So there you have the applications I currently use every day, all the time. There are lots of other features that I use too (like Time Machine, Spaces, Spotlight, Preview, etc), but I really think of those as OS X features.
It's interesting how individual users' experience of the Mac universe can be so different. Among those eleven applications David has listed as his production stalwarts, the only two that I use myself: Safari and iTunes, and that carried over to David's list of second-string apps. as well.
For the full commentary visit here:
http://www.davidalison.com/2008/05/after-three-months-whats-really-being.html
Charles W. Moore
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