My Switching Experience

Joined
Dec 22, 2006
Messages
71
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1
Points
8
Location
Winston-Salem, NC
Your Mac's Specs
Macbook 2ghz, 1gb RAM, 80gb HD
Prior to the week before Christmas, the last time I used a Mac was in 1994. My university was a Mac campus, so I purchased a second hand Mac II, but it never became my primary computer for whatever reason. Since then, the company I worked for wrote PC software for the citrus industry in Florida, so they supplied my PCs.

Last year, I went back to school at the Divinity School at Wake Forest University. (Wake is an IBM Campus, all undergrads are issued Thinkpads as a part of their tuition; graduate students (like me) are not a part of this program.) I continued to use a Windows based laptop as my primary computer. When I went back to school, I realized that there is a big difference between being a computer technician and a computer user. As a computer user, I wanted to turn my computer on and have it work; I didn't want to have to tweak drivers or take the time to figure out why a particular program wasn't working. The last straw for me was when I needed to watch a DVD for class on my laptop, and the playback quality was so jittery I couldn't watch it. So, I started looking at Macs.

The PC laptop I was using had several problems that were going to cost more than the computer was worth, so I decided it was time to get a new computer. There was nothing holding me to the PC World, so I decided my next PC would be a Mac. The week before Christmas, I went to the Apple store in Charlotte, NC and purchased a new MacBook. If the crowd in this store was any indication, Apple had a great Christmas; both iPods and Macs were selling VERY well.

So, here are my impressions so far. After reading some of the stories of the first MacBooks (heat, random shutdowns, etc.) I was a little bit hesitant. Well, let me say that I have not experienced any of these problems. I regularly use the computer on my lap, and it does not get any hotter than my PC did. I am the most impressed with the hardware itself. It is so well designed. I have had two computers that had pins in the AC connection break, which will not happen with the MacBook. I know keyboards are a very subjective thing, but I REALLY like the keyboard on the MacBook. It looks great, and it types great. Everyone who sees this computer loves the way it looks and wants to get one for themselves.

I am very impressed with how easy OS X is to use. Once I figured out some of the differences between OS X and Windows, it has become second nature. As a computer user, I appreciate the ease of installing and uninstalling (AppZapper is a great program) programs, even updating programs is simple, just answer yes when the system asks if you want to upgrade. Once I figured out how to move my applications folder to the dock, I was completely statisfied with my user interface.

On my PC, I used Firefox as my primary browser, which I continue to use on the Mac. I was pleasantly surprised at how much faster Firefox loaded on the Mac. Most of the extensions I ran on my PC run without issue on the Mac. I have tried the other browsers and use them on occassion, but I find that I cannot live without some of my Firefox extension.

I used OpenOffice on my PC for much of my word processing, so I am using NeoOffice on my Mac. I have not used it enough to see if it will work for me for my day to day needs. I liked what I was reading about the new version of Pages in iWork '07, so I am hoping that NeoOffice will work for me at least until that is available. (I was really hoping that date was going to be today.)

I am still looking for programs that do what IrfanView did for me in Windows. I do a little bit of web work, and IrfanView was so fast and efficient for that kind of work. Gimp can do what it did, but it is not nearly as easy to use.

This is probably much more than you wanted to know, but overall I am extremely happy with my decision to switch to Mac.
 
Joined
Jan 9, 2007
Messages
44
Reaction score
4
Points
8
Location
nyc
Your Mac's Specs
2.33 20" imac 2g ram.
me too. i know i shouldnt have waited this long. and its only just begun.
 
Joined
Dec 17, 2006
Messages
1,035
Reaction score
57
Points
48
Location
The beautiful Northwest
Your Mac's Specs
imac 20" 216 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 1GBSDRAM, 250 GB hd, Airport Extreme, Bluetooth 2.0
It's been one month and I have NO regrets. I love this Mac, it's a real pleasure!! I say too...welcome to Mac.
 

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