I did it!!!!

I bought myself a 17 inch MacBook Pro !!! WOOOHOOO I cannot wait til it gets here in 2-5 days I am absolutely psyched!!!

I have been a windows Network and System admin for 13 years, never owned a mac in my life. So this will be a first for me. We are working on getting our shop geared to be an Apple service center, so this is step one. Next month I go for my certs, step two.

I gotta say I am absolutely PSYCHED!!!!!!

That's excellent! Congrats. You'll love the new machine. I've only had my MacBook for a few weeks but find myself spending nearly all my time on it. My poor Windows and Linux machines are feeling left out.

Congrats to you!!!! Enjoy!

Thanks I am really excited. I have not been this excited since I ordered my Dell 1705 a couple years ago. According to my receipt, my laptop SHOULD get here around my birthday on the 3rd. I have been (as always) doing a lot of research into these machines and into OSX.

I have several clients whom use Macs on my doze networks, most of them have basically begged us to start supporting Apple as we are 2.5 hours away from the nearest service center. So off I go into a new adventure

Thanks,
Randy

Cool indeed and welcome

Being a designer who has used macs for ages, I am still intrigued why so many windows admins are becoming attracted to the mac.

Apart from the need to support macs, what really got you into wanting a mac

I know the IT guy where I work was very impressed with the new Xserve unit we got to serve our graphics department

Well the answer as to Why is a multipart answer.

First the Personal level.
On a personal level I was drawn to Apple because well, they are flat out sexy. The look, feel and build quality of them strikes me as nothing short of art. Also when Apple released these intel based Macs, that was the final factor. Being able to run Windows, OSX and Ubuntu all ont he same machine? Yep a winner. I do think they are a bit pricey for the performance, but I did pay $3500 for my last Dell Laptop.

On a professional level, I chose to buy a MBP for several reasons. I am a Windows Network/System, a Linux Admin, and a VAX Admin, so with OSX being UNIX based it seemed to be an obvious progression in my skill set. I also have had several clients come to me in the last few months begging me to start supporting Macs as they are switching to Mac rather than deal with Vista. (Never mind the fact they could still run XP) So again the choice to buy myself a MBP was obvious. Plus I constantly strive to upgrade my skillset. I can currently do just about any job in the PC world, from Desktop repair to multi domain management, from system and network design to building custom fan buses, cabling to security analysis. So now I am ready to add the Apple world to my skillset too. I already understand the hardware design and the principles of the OS.

This should be a fun ride in any case.
Randy

Thanks a lot for answering

At least I know there are dedicated tech types out there that want to expand their knowledge to as many fields as possible. I guess it comes down to these features:

Macs have a cool reputation, and that's a difficult thing for a tech company to create

Microsoft really dropped the ball with Vista, if they were a Football team they would be going from the Superbowl to the bottom of the league

Apple created a modern OS based on Unix and abandoned any attempt to keep patching their old os (9) to keep up

They moved to intel chips - bringing down the last barrier to any switcher

louishen said:

Thanks a lot for answering
Microsoft really dropped the ball with Vista, if they were a Football team they would be going from the Superbowl to the bottom of the league

Click to expand...

I think this is only part of the analogy. I would compare Microsoft to a Superbowl team yes, but the team would be a bunch of overpriced, over-hiped showoffs. They made it to the Superbowl only by sheer luck because their overall performance was mediocre at best. Furthermore, this is the team that takes top prize in the fan bandwagon department. Everyone is a Microsoft fan, just like everyone was a Colts fan a few years ago and everyone was a New England fan similarly.

I don't follow football a lot, so I could be a bit off on the timing of those two. Coming from having built/admin'd/owned Windoze systems for close to 2 decades, I recently made the switch myself. My attractions were that OS X is a Unix OS, and to be honest, I'm a Microsoft hater. I'm sure you couldn't tell from my above analogy.

Anyway, welcome into the fold. I hope you enjoy yours as much as I am enjoying mine.

I've been saying it for a while, Mac's biggest advertiser is Microsoft Vista.

I went to visit a company I've going to go work for this week and was surprised to see that everyone there was using Mac's. Over 50% of the company are on Mac's and they tell me this phenomenon just started within the last year. No one wanted to buy a new machine with Vista installed so people started ordering Mac's.

Their market share must be growing by leaps and bounds.

I'm a switcher... I got the bug 1.5 years ago and finally powered down my Dell 9100 for the final time a couple of weeks ago when my iMac came home with me.

louishen, no problem The whole reason I got into computers is because it would allow me to constantly better myself. I tend to get bored if I am not challenged, by constantly throwing myself into more and more technologies and mastering them, I keep myself occupied and out of trouble

Vista has helped to hurt MS and has sent several people to Apple. However, Vista will not be the death of MS, nor will it take Market share away from MS. Windows 9 is their next baby. Now if it fails as horribly as Vista, that just might be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Now, Apple has always been the lone wolf in the computer field. I do firmly believe that if Apple had decided to go with x86 architecture from the start, then OSX would currently be the top OS in the market, or close to it. I have always felt that ALL Linux needs to become the top OS is to be user friendly like doze is. I think OSX is as close as that gets currently.

Of coarse that is just my only slightly informed opinion.
Randy