This is going to be LONG

Feel free to completely ignore this whole statement. This is just me trying to free myself, and this seemed like a good outlet ;D

So yea, I've been in the IT industry for over 10 years, mostly on Windows and some unix platforms. Needless to say, I can almost make Windows sit up and dance.

But.

Like myself, I think you're going to start seeing more and more switchers. In fact, I think this may account for Apple recently grabbing more desktop percentages in the industry.. but the big switch-maker is your best friend: Vista.

You see, I gave it a chance.. I really did. But after I installed SP1, and had to activate, by phone, for the fourth time, I thought to myself 'man, this is freakin' asinine'.

And it's not just Vista. The new Office is a mess, and I don't think it's getting enough credit. The ribbon is horrible. I mean, if they had introduced it in batches, over time, it wouldn't have been so hard to get used to. And don't even get me started on how much MS Word by itself costs!

So anyways, I was talking to one of our guys at work that takes care of the Mac systems. He was in the middle of a Leopard upgrade, and I commented that I couldn't imagine what the product key looks like for Leopard. He said.. you know where this is going.. 'there isn't one'.

*** Mate!

Activation? Bugger off!

So I started looking into the whole mac scene. The first thing I learned was that you all aren't nearly as elitist as I was lead to believe. At least, no more than people on my side of the isle. Now, keep in mind that until recently I hadn't actually used a Mac since.. I dunno, OS 8.xx. But I always thought OSX looked slick.

So anyways, I did.. stuff *wink wink*. Man, I was floored! I mean, even with half the OS not working properly this thing was slick! It's like.. if you're a PC person, you think of a computer as a tool. A tool for productivity, a tool for gaming, whatever. It's a utensil. Messing around with a Mac OS, however, was more like a canvas! You actually WANT to use the OS, rather than just move it off to the side and just get where you're going.

So anyways, that's my story. I got a taste of it, and like a bad 80s song I can't get it out of my head. Right now I'm trying to decide between a Mac Pro or a MBP, cause I needs my gaming. Bugger off, Virii! Bugger off, malware! Bugger off, activation! Now if only i didn't have to support them

Lastly, amongst all the other thoughts, there's this one: Apple needs to make a mini version of OS X. Just something small, either web based or a tiny .exe. A LOT of people have simply never even touched it, and I think that's why the Mac isn't catching on even quicker. I mean, get them hooked on the OS, then they can cruise Apple's website and see 'hey, they DO make a system for under 1g'. So kids, get out there and talk your XP friends into upgrading to Vista!

fin

About your MBP or Mac Pro. Do you travel/move around a lot/have a need to carry a computer with you? If yes, MBP. If you just sit at your house for games, Mac Pro with boot camp would work great Faster processor and all that fun jazz! Welcome to M-F! And you are always welcome to ask any questions to these nice wonderful helpful people to help your switch go better!

P.S. There is a "search" function to look up things that may have already been answered

Good Day!
-Connor

belunos said:

. . . Apple needs to make a mini version of OS X. Just something small. . . .

Click to expand...

Too late. There's the iPhone. Check out this Jan. 2007 article.

Welcome to Mac Forums)

On what to get, it depends if you want portability or not.

I love what you said..agrees

Bugger off, Virii! Bugger off, malware! Bugger off, activation!

Click to expand...

Brown Study said:

Too late. There's the iPhone.

Click to expand...

You beat me to it!;D

My own title, VISTA IS EVIL ! (From a long time WIndows user)

I have 5 desktop WIndows machines, the most powerful one I have, an AMD Opteron 180 with 2Gb RAM and a GeForce 8600 GTS (which started life as a HP Media Center PC, Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 1Gb RAM and built in video) came with XP MEdia Center Edition 2005, I figured a while back, upgrade it to Vista Home Premium, big mistake, problems from every which way while XP purred, them came a benchmark us PC users LOVE, 3D Mark 2001, well the upgraded (hardware wsie) only hit a mere 20,000 3D Marks under Vista HP, Unacceptable I said and after some thought, I grabbed the restore DVDs and brought the HP base back down to XP MCE.....got all my stuff back in it, ran that exact same benchmark on the exact same hardware, only difference, the OS, 32,000 3D Marks.....and less hassles.....Microsoft NEEDS to fix Vista big time. And yes, I"m using my Macs more and more, not a complete switcher but heck, Leopard sure is nifty and it runs like stink on the eMacs !

I had a similar experience... I never gave a mac much thought.. After my Dell laptopo burned a motherboard in just over a yr, I bought a bottom line Toshiba laptop,, all I could afford at the time... It works alright, not great..After my laptop started running like crap for no reason at all (no malware, nor spyware, I started saying my next computer would be an apple, never thining I could afford one..One day while visiting boston, my fiance and I decided to check out the apple store as we were bored and walking by it.. upon playing with the very first one I touched, I fell in love.. We spent over an hour playing with all different macs, but the imac kept catching my eye.. We finally left the store, and boston, and after a week, I still couldnt stop thinking about it, so I finally went online to the apple store, and bought myself a 20" 2.4 ghz with a 320g hd.. The great guys at apple sent me a 20" 2.4 ghz with a 460g hd.. Nice folks.. I am never looking back to pc's. My laptop collects dust now, and is only used if I am going somewhere.. I love leopard, and everything about this imac.. Great decision!!

My last PC laptop (now ceded to my wife as an upgrade) was an Acer Travelmate (top of the range business traveller etc etc). At the time it was the LAST laptop to be 'doing' XP Professional (in my opinion, the best of breed and pretty stable and reliable). Interesting now that some PC OEM's are re-offering 'down-grade' (oh really?) to XP Pro FROM Vista.

I saw the problems a friend was having with early Vista and then 'pounced' on the Acer before it disappeared.

For all the reasons this thread was opened I am now happily getting to grips with this 'bottom-of-the-range' MacBook Pro. It runs XP Pro (via Parallels - couldn't really get to grips with Boot Camp) in a virtual machine at just about the same speed my Acer did!

In native Mac programmes it moves like greased weasel sh*t.

Oh . . . welcome and enjoy. I really LIKE this machine AND its OS. It's brought FUN back into the equation.

This site has been a life-saver because, in fairness, Macs DO have a completely different way of doing things which, initially, mystified me, but I am getting there. Vive le difference!

A Mac Pro just so you can play games is over kill. I'd build a custom PC with XP (while you can still get it). Then buy an appropriate Mac for everything else.

If you do buy a Mac Pro, pay close attention to the video card options. You'll likely want a build to order with an upgraded card.

I agree a mac pro isn't needed except the visual and graphics hardcore. I recommend to all my friends that just need a working computer either a iMac or Mackbook and spend $400 on a PS3 or 360 for gaming.


I bought a macbook just as something portable and a month later my main PC is packed away in the closet and I now don't have wires all over from my PC.

Wireless + Macbook + PS3 + 360 == me very happy

And the best part of it all is I am now retired from all my phone calls from friends asking me to fix their PC's because I just say "don't do windows anymore"
;D

Thank you, Microsoft!

Welcome to M-F! Vista pushed me over the line, as well. The problems I encountered with my Vista machine ended up being the infamous 'straw that broke the camel's back'. It only took that machine two months to push me into switching! But I should thank Microsoft ... I've never been happier with a computer than I am now!

Gbeav said:

... And the best part of it all is I am now retired from all my phone calls from friends asking me to fix their PC's because I just say "don't do windows anymore"
;D

Click to expand...

Guess that's what I need to start doing. Taking 2 windows systems back to friends today. Of course they don't keep track of, and couldn't find their install disks. One of them took about 16 hrs to eliminate all the viruses and adware junk on their system. It took the record for all the boxes I have ever worked on. The other was free of any viruses (well, except for AO*) and only minimal spyware, but took over 8 minutes to boot.

Did realize while working on them, that after a little over a year with my MBP, have forgotten half the stuff you need to know to keep XP running at a top notch pace. And realized, I don't really want to remember all that stuff.
And why should I need to spend a 1/4 of my time on my computer tweaking it?

I am a gamer from way back (longer than most of the folks on these forums have been around). Have built all my own gaming rigs since the intro of '95. Early last year, it was time to build a new rig again. And I really wanted it to be a Mac Pro. But as a gamer, hardware enthusiast, overclocker, tweaker; it really needed to be a Win machine so I could pick all my own hardware.

With all the research I do prior to building a system, it can take a couple of months to put together my parts list. During the time of putting that list together, I realized I had not touched my Win machine once during that entire period. Well, if I can go 2 months without even touching the best PC I had ever owned prior to my MBP, had to ask myself if I really needed that new gaming rig or not.

After all my attempts with various Linux flavors and now owning a Mac, I had already made the decision to never again purchase any peripheral hardware that was Windows only (you printer manufacturers and others take note). And I was having a great time playing WoW on my MBP. Plus, instead of having to go to the office and sitting at the opposite end of the house from my wife all the time, it was really nice sitting in the recliner watching the big screen with my computer. Plus, I could carry it to the back patio, to the bedroom and connect it to the 55" HDTV sitting in there, or even to the office and hook it up to my 26" monitor ... man, this freedom of movement was really nice. I love not being tied to a single location in the house any longer.

So, now the decision, what about my gaming? Step in PS3 or Xbox 360 which ever you prefer. They really have just about caught up to the capabilities of a top of the line PC now. Especially if you've got it hooked up to an HDTV. And the new MBP's have 512 MB Vram. No, it's not the best card out there, but it'll play any game you can put on it. And game developers, I put them on notice too. If you can only develop for one platform, guess you're not getting any of my money any longer either.

Lastly, belunos, welcome to the forum, you're not alone.

Welcome to the club! You are not alone in your opinion. I've been working with PCs and MS since way back in the late 1970s, and providing support for it since the early 1990s. Finally, there came a time when I had enough of Microsoft's inane policies and the garbage that they have started putting out recently. I made the switch this winter after working in a Microsoft environment longer than I can even remember. And I'm not looking back. My biggest objective now, (and this is highly depended on developer support), is to wean my machine of Microsoft products. Good example, on a PC system, Messenger is fairly decent, (highly bloated), but decent. Their version for Mac OS, however, has it's hands firmly tied behind it's back. Woefully inadequate, (gee... no surprise there). Office is just so-so IMO. And they have also partially crippled Entourage, (Mac OS version of Outlook). Well... from a business standpoint, I guess it makes sense... why produce something usable for your competitor?

In any case, I really like Mac OS environment. Clean, efficient, and once you find your way around, very easy and intuitive. And... you spend your time being productive, rather than spending your time maintaining your operating system.

Gbeav said:

And the best part of it all is I am now retired from all my phone calls from friends asking me to fix their PC's because I just say "don't do windows anymore"
;D

Click to expand...

I tried that! They say "just because you don't use windows any more doesn't mean you can't fix it".

PowerBookG4 said:

I tried that! They say "just because you don't use windows any more doesn't mean you can't fix it".

Click to expand...

Ha, my pc fixing days is over except for my brother and I've sold 2 imacs and 1 macbook for Apple. I do honestly tell people my door is closed unless it's Mac related because I don't mind learning.

Me too!

Long time PC/Windows user including building & supporting them and now a happy Mac Pro owner too. Got XP SP2 running on a Dual-Core setup with 2Gb of RAM and it runs really nicely. I use it for managing my music collection (iTunes is just too limited and I'm sold on Helium Music Manager). Everything else is moving to the Mac, so that's my photos/pictures, documents, web surfing, email, etc.

I did try Vista Ultimate on the PC for a good 3 months before going back to XP. I like the new interface, and as a media centre machine (my PC has a Freeview TV card in it) Vista is pretty much on the money, but there were too many issues elsewhere so I finally gave up.

Now if I could just get the rest of the family to move 'Mac-wards' then I could get my weekends back... instead of spending my free-time fixing their problems.

My other half is getting a MacBook Pro for Xmas to replace her ThinkPad... although she doesn't know it yet! ..unless she's reading this forum!!

rob.h said:

Now if I could just get the rest of the family to move 'Mac-wards' then I could get my weekends back... instead of spending my free-time fixing their problems.

Click to expand...

I find it hard to accept that a few of you actually waste your time fixing up others peoples Windows boxes over your weekends. Ouch!

I'll support my friends and family through tough times, but my limit is Windows support. If I can't answer a Windows question over the phone, I won't be the one to fix the issue. Luckily even this kind of request is rare. My Windows using friends who need help know to look elsewhere first. Mac requests for my help are are very rare so I'm usualy curious enough to try to help out.

For you who also don't want to be the Windows support person, I suggest you start telling your users that you have other plans. You don't even need to lie. Say you are going to enjoy your weekend, not spend it fixing yet another Windows problem.

Note that I don't exclude helping people learn applications, even it is on Windows. That is the difference of learning to use a tool, and supporting the structure that allows one to use the tools. You'll have to pay me, good money, to support the MS Windows structure.