Posted on 08/16/2008 11:35:17 PM PDT by Swordmaker
I'm now just past the six month mark since tentatively purchasing my first Mac and beginning to switch away from Windows. At the time I bought my MacBook I had a number of machines in the house, all running either Windows or Ubuntu. What I've tried to do on this blog is provide a kind of running commentary on switching, hitting on some of the challenges I've encountered, the native Mac applications I've found and the general feelings I've had about making the switch.
What I find interesting after 6 months is the impact buying that little MacBook had not only on the way I handle my personal computing but to a large degree the influence it has had on the way I do my development work. You see after I bought the MacBook I found myself doing more and more with it. I had a Windows XP development / gaming rig parked directly in front of me but I was constantly sliding my hands over to the MacBook.
My entire development platform—at the time Visual Studio—was completely set up and I had my after-market libraries installed and was using it to build my next online service business. Even with all of my development experience being Windows based I constantly found myself pushing away from my XP system and over to the MacBook. This was not helping my productivity, at least on the development front.
I rationalized that if I bought a Mac Pro that I could install VMware Fusion on it and use that as my primary development platform. I was obviously hooked on OS X and the idea of having a machine with 8 cores and 12GB of RAM running it was pretty cool. I bought the Mac Pro, placed it in the position of being my primary workstation (pushing the Windows XP machine off to the side) and I was off and running.
I was quickly able to get the Mac Pro up and running with Windows XP and my development environment in a VMware Fusion instance. With a couple of minor exceptions it worked great, providing me with everything I needed to build my web based solutions just as I had been on my native Windows XP machine.
Not long after all this I started to look at Ruby on Rails as an option for development, something that would serve as a replacement for my Visual Studio environment. Why? Much like with Windows itself, I had been doing the same kind of development for a very long time. Given the recent sale of my last company I have the luxury of defining fully the tools I could use to build my next generation of products and I wanted to see if there was an easier way to build Web 2.0-like web applications.
Though it took me a month of getting up to speed on Ruby on Rails I found it to be a fantastic platform for building what I needed to create. With a very English-like language, an extensive library of free plugins, nice Ajax support built in and the ability to get a basic application framework up and running in a matter of hours, RoR was exactly what I was looking for. In two short months I've made far more progress than I did in the 4+ months I spent building my solution in VS .NET / C#.
On top of all that, it turns out most of the core Ruby on Rails guys are Mac people too. OS X already comes with RoR and the fact that I could use TextMate, easily one of the best programming editors I have ever experienced, was a huge plus.
I suddenly found myself using my Macs exclusively. I wasn't even firing up the Windows XP instance because I only needed it for Visual Studio. The Windows XP gaming rig was powered down and resting in the corner, serving mostly as a device to crack my knee on if I swiveled my chair too quickly. Fortunately I was able to find a buyer for it, leaving me without any native Windows hardware (well, my wife and son are still using XP).
Selling the XP rig gave me the money to purchase a MacBook Pro, giving the MacBook to my youngest daughter. She couldn't be happier ditching the Dell she had for it and is constantly using the machine. Photo Booth alone has provided her with endless amounts of fun and she's using the iSight camera to do video chats with her cousin in California.
Then, suddenly, the iPhone became part of our digital lives. When Sprint dropped the ball and our service failed miserably I bit the bullet and bought my wife and I both a couple of iPhones. It's been a fantastic device and my phone reception (contrary to many reports I've read) has been excellent. The best part of getting the iPhone though was watching my non-technical wife not only use it but embrace it completely. Between pulling down her e-mail and doing some web browsing while out shopping, I was shocked by how quickly she took to it. This from a woman that had up to this point in time never sent a single text message. She sends text messages regularly now with our daughters.
She now finally wants a Mac of her own and is going to get one for her birthday next month. I'll be writing about how she adapts to using it as well. Now that summer is winding down and our extended vacations are coming to an end I'll have a little more time to commit to blogging.
My best “guess” is well over $2000. That is the Apple way. High prices sold with a “wow” factor.
You can’t use that argument. Bill Gates is one of the planet’s premier leftists. He gives away hundreds of millions to leftist causes. Its a wash between Bill and Steve. Everybody knows this. Why are you trying to pretend otherwise?
Is it because you are stuck with an inferior OS?
Maybe a generalization but I still hold on to the typical Apple user of the mid to late 90’s stereotype. A lot of things have changed since then but a lot has stayed the same. You go to Ringling Art School and all the liberal art freaks use them. It’s like a disease.
I have done that very thing. I have a 20" iMac and have taken it with me across practically the entire southern United States on our summer vacation this past June (I even had it set up while we were at Disneyworld so I could do photo editing at the end of each day). We also had my mother's laptop which we brought because we thought it might be easier to "lug around". It did not even get taken out of the travel case for the duration of the trip. My mother was impressed and thinks she might like to have a mac.
Thu, 17 Jan 2008 21:20:00 UTC
People who prefer Apple's Macintosh computers over PCs have long been considered to be on the artsy, hip end of the personality spectrum -- (WE SHALL CALL THESE PEOPLE LIBERALS) and now a study proves that "Mac people" indeed are more liberal and open-minded than average folks.
According to Mindset Media, people who purchase Macs fall into what the branding company calls the "Openness 5" personality category -- which means they are more liberal, less modest and more assured of their own superiority than the population at large. Mindset Media helps companies with strong brands develop ads targeted to people based on personality traits or people's "mindsets," and does research to that effect.
So-called Openness 5 types tend to seek rich, varied and novel experiences, according to the company, and believe that imagination and intellectual curiosity are as important to life as more rational or pragmatic endeavors. They also are receptive to their own inner feelings and may experience life with more emotional intensity.
The company uses Nielsen Online's panel for the Mac mindset study, the results of which are based on responses from 7,500 participants.
It's no great secret that Macs have always been popular with creative types -- (NOT TO BE MISTAKEN, THIS MEANS LIBERAL) the computers have been the mainstay of creative agencies and video- and sound-editing houses for years. This probably has as much to do with the fact that Apple and partners have delivered popular software for graphic and multimedia designers and artists as it does with the contemporary industrial design Macs have long reflected.
MacBook Pro user Reatha Braxton said much of the Mac mindset stems from how Apple has projected the image of its products through advertising -- natch, as she runs her own New York-based media planning and buying agency, Braxton Strategic Group.
"The whole [Mac] package -- the advertising, the design, the whole image of that is creativity," (AN IMAGE I FIND ARROGANT, SMARMY AND LIBERAL) she said. Braxton, who has been in the advertising business for more than 20 years, said Macs were almost exclusively used in ad agencies, from the people designing the ads to top executives like "the CFO to the CEO."
As for the idea that Mac users possess an air of superiority, Braxton was less inclined to agree. She said that Macs actually have a pragmatic draw for their faithful because "most smart people who use Macs will tell you they are smarter machines than PCs, (AND THAT MAC USERS ARE SMARTER THAN PC USERS) and they want to take advantage of that."
Still, Braxton did acknowledge that the idea of using the PC "alternative" has an element of cool factor that lures creative types to use Macs over more run-of-the-mill PCs. "It's cooler not to be a lemming," (CALLING WINDOWS USERS LEMMINGS ISNT AN AIR OF SUPERIORITY..., HMMMM, TALK ABOUT HYPOCRISY) she said.
Igor Berstein, a computer programmer for a Web-based startup in New York, also agreed there is a Mac mindset, but he doesn't think he necessarily fits into it. He started using his MacBook Pro because, with the Unix base of the OS starting with Mac OS X, it was more convenient for him as a Linux user than a PC was.
But "since Apple thinks a lot about aesthetics, style-oriented people go for [Macs]," Berstein said. Macs also are more expensive than PCs, so people in the middle-class or upper-class who have accumulated a certain amount of wealth are mostly likely the people who can afford them, he said.
Berstein also noted that people who care more about brands are also more likely to purchase Macs over PCs. While the term "PC" refers to a computer architecture tied to more than one vendor, Macs are a subbrand tied to the strong Apple brand -- which to some is a catalyst for purchasing a Mac in and of itself, he said.
The SMP version of F@H will install easily on a MAC and will blow away similar Windows systems. I have pretty much given up trying to install SMP F@H onto my Vista system.
So, all of you fellas with these new fancy MAcs, please consider installing Folding@home onto your system, and donate your unused computer cycles to basic medical research.
Yes, you will make a difference in research into Alzheimer's Disease, Huntington's Disease and Parkinson's Disease, and many many more.
The latest F@H thread is here if you want more details or need assistance:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2063306/posts
Please go here to download the program:
http://folding.stanford.edu/English/Download
Remember, its Team 36120. Many thanks to all!
< /thread hijack>
LOL!
No one can refute the record of last 18 years of MS trying to look like Mac on the screen. When windows came out, I remember the IBM t-shirts. I’ve Become Mac.
For the vast majority of users a computer is for email, web browsing and probably speaking to friends via web cam. Downloading music and burning cd’s are also popular. Doing this I see no value in a machine costing 4 times as much and offering things I have no need for.
It’s like buying a Ferrari to toot around town and go to the market with.
ITOOALOOP
(in the opinion of a lot of other programmers)
I remember hearing recently about problems scaling Ruby. You can write your own app and make it scalable, but if the platform itself isn't scalable you're kinda screwed until those who own the platform get in gear.
I believe there's a new one coming out, completely rewritten to take advantage of Leopard.
Doing this I see tremendous value in a machine that makes all that extremely seamless with complete interoperability between those functions. Nothing out there compares to iChat for talking via web cam, and it's done with the integrated web cam. That web cam will also take snap shots that you can drag to your emails (no saving files, just drag from PhotoBooth to your email). The music/CD thing is of course brain-dead easy with iTunes.
The up-and-running time with a Mac is far lower than for a PC.
They’d better make the process of converting the data from one to the other a whole lot easier/better.
About 8 months ago, I switched from Mac to a Dell running Linux/Windows. I boot Windows to do a few things, but work in Linux most of the time. This set-up work fine for me.
I miss my Mac a little; I’d used them for many years, but replacing the last one was not worth the cost/risk, seeing as how Apple’s customer service has become hit-and-miss.
I wish the author good luck, and hope he never needs a repair. Macs work fine until they break/ I found that the repair nightmare was simply not worth the hassle.
Everything you say is possible albeit with a different name, with HP and other PC’s
You might want to take a look at the benchmarks. It’s taking a THREE core AMD Phenom X3 to just get CLOSE to a crippled econo-version Core 2 Duo.
http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=751
And the C2D is cheaper.
Also, I wouldn’t want a processor from a company that’s quite probably going out of business in the next couple of years - AMD is doing some desperate re-org... which looks exactly like what Cyrix did. We all know what happened to *them*.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.