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.
Funny about that.... I dropped my PowerBook off at the Apple Store for a bad optical drive (after 7 years of use) yesterday, and I’m going to pick it up today.
Not seeing the “repair nightmare”.
You’re missing my point. I email, come to FR and a few other forums, download and burn music, visit a few sports blogs and that’s it.
If my AMD processor sh*ts the bed, I will by another computer and another one after that and one more time and still be within the cost of one Apple.
Won’t work for any user that has an external speaker system connected (like me), unless they want to swap plugs every time they start and shutdown the computer.
Software solutions are much easier and less hassle.
I’ve run into that on clients’ machines when they do the conversion. Were you fully up-to-date on Quicken Windows, or were you a version or two behind?
“It’s like buying a Ferrari to toot around town and go to the market with.”
Not quite. It’s like buying a Honda Accord instead of a Ford Taurus. Sure, they’ll both get you there - but the Taurus will break down, need much maintenance, do strange things, and not be something you drive because you love the experience and want more fun - its because you have to drive it to get things done.
The Honda Accord will rarely break, doesn’t need much maintenance, won’t do weird things that the dealer can’t explain or fix, and will be quite fun to drive for what it is.
The parallels are exact - the Accord even cost more than the Taurus did at the end (before the 500 got renamed to the Taurus).
Paragraphs are our friends. Doesn’t your winders machine do paragraphs?
“On a Windows system, sooner or later you are gonna call me for help. That’s just the way it is.”
Yup, exactly the same thing I encounter (and say) as a consultant.
“BTW, that does bug me, that people end up knowing less about their systems. I have reconciled to it, just like I’ve decided that I can’t fight over useless multifunction phones.”
I know, but on the other hand, how good is it when a device *forces* you to know more about it? You can learn just as much about a Mac’s workings as a Windows box’s - but only the Mac doesn’t *force* you to learn more and lets you get the job done. If you boil it down to basics, a computer is (supposedly) a tool to allow you to complete various tasks. It is not supposed to ADD additional tasks or make it difficult - which is what Windows does.
Not really. For what you do, you could have bought a refurb Mac Mini for $499.
Macs typically have 8-year or longer productive service lives. Cheap Windows boxes typically die somewhere between 18 and 24 months.
I’m sure you can do the math on $300 every 2 years vice $500 every eight. But, if Windows Calc is broken on your computer, here’s how it goes:
PC purchase costs over 8 years: $1200, minimum.
Mac purchase cost over 8 years: $499.
Hm. For $1200, you could have had a 20” iMac, which would blow away your cheap PC *and* last longer.
Fully up to date on the Windows version.
That’s probably why. Despite the fact that Intuit has a guy on the Apple board, their Mac support has always lagged. Also, the latest version of Quicken Windows always has new features that make it a PITA to port data to the Mac version. You actually get better results in transferring data if you’re a version or two behind on Windows. Rather irritating.
As someone else noted, Intuit has promised to mend its ways and the new version is coming soon.
Thanks for the sentiments. If FR allowed editing of posts I’d fix it real quick. Sorry it was a little early in the morning and I hit post a little too hasty. Please forgive me.
$900 for a USED macbook? You got to be kidding me!@@@ 160gb HD? My Compaq cost me less than half of that and I bought it last year. I have a 160gb HD and I added a 320gb drive. All the upgrades and still less than $600...
I share your sentiments totally 101Voodoo.
Sounds like you did good woodman and you see through the bells and whistles of the overpriced macintosh.
Toyotas are higher priced and have higher resale values than Fords, too.
I wouldn’t buy a Compaq laptop if you paid me. Ever since the HP takeover, they’ve been nothing but problematic on average.
Again this sums up how the typical Apple user I meet are like. Sure there are exceptions but the majority are like this.
How much is that going to cost you? If that occured in one of my Windows machines and the item was under warranty I get a replacement and then (get ready for this) I change it myself. If it is not under warranty a call or internet order through NewEgg or some similar merchant will send out a replacement within 24 hours.
Try Firefox, I think you'll like it. It even runs under Winders.
I don’t know where you are going with that analogy but luck be a lady, but I actually own a 2000 Ford Taurus with 104k miles running strong. Ironically it was purchased 5 years ago when my ole Toyota Tercel died on me in West Palm Beach and I live on the other coast.
Oh, I could have bought the drive for $50 and installed it myself (I am an IT consultant), but I had other things to do. Total cost... about $150, including their labor.
Yes, you can buy the part yourself, take apart your Compaq, and put it in... but how much is your time worth? I dropped my laptop off at the Apple Store and then went to a client where I earned $150/hr. I didn’t have to wait over the entire weekend to get a new drive, either - which you cannot do with any other major PC vendor.
It’s a matter of priorities.
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