The Mac won me over — long time Windows user after a month of Mac only use

The Feld Report ^ | August 3rd, 2010 | Brad Feld

[Swordmaker]

On June 20th, I declared that I was going to try A Month of Mac.  I took my Macbook Pro (an older model from about 18 months ago) up to Alaska, left my Lenovo x300 in Boulder, and went native Mac.

I’m typing this on my brand new spiffy MacBook Pro 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7 with 8GB RAM, with a 500GB solid state hard drive.  I can’t figure out why I’ve been so stubborn about really switching to the Mac.  This is a beautiful computer.

The key to this switch was that the native mac apps (Mail, iCal, and Address Book) sync seamlessly with Exchange.  So I don’t have to deal with the abortion that is Entourage but at the same time I don’t have to mess around with our email server and impact everyone else in our organization.  That’s sweet.  I had a feeling this would work this time since it works flawlessly on my iPhone and iPad, and it did.  The only thing missing is Tasks, but I started using Evernote instead which actually worked even better than the Outlook Task manager.

So – no Parallels or Fusion – I don’t even have a Windows image on this machine at this point.  I didn’t use Windows a single time in the last month and now that I’ve rewired my brain for Mac shortcut keys I think it’d be a pretty amusing thing to watch.

I’ve found peace and happiness with iWork as a replacement for Microsoft Office – it’s more than adequate for what I do.  MarsEdit is a spectacular blog post editor, Chrome works happily on the Mac as does Skype and TweetDeck, and Adium replaced Digsby.  Pogoplug works just like it did before – all my files are where I want them to be.  Best of all, my iPhone actually does what it’s supposed to with iTunes.

Did I say that this is a beautiful piece of hardware?  Sleep mode – check.  Flawless super high resolution screen – check.  Super fast everything – check.  Find a piece of software you want to play around with – download and run.

The most remarkable thing was the transfer of all my data, applications, and settings from my old MacBook Pro to my new MacBook Pro.  I connected them by Firewire.  I restarted my old MacBook and held down the T key.  After the transfer started, I went and had a meeting for a hour.  I came back and my new Mac was set up exactly like my old Mac.  Perfect.

Ross – you owe me $100.

Brad Feld is a managing director at Foundry Group who lives in Boulder, Color\ado. He invests in software and Internet companies around the US, runs marathons and reads a lot.

[Chipper]

Do you blame the mortgage companies for people buying more house than they could afford? Were they “brainwashed” into owning a $500K house on a $40K salary?

[TheStickman]

Thanks for the info :)

[dennisw]

Build a Cheap Hackintosh - MOBO/CPU/VIDEO for $124 shipped! Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L and Pentium E5200 Dual-Core RETAIL combo ($106 FS), PNY 8500GT Video Card ($17.99 AR/Bing)-——>>>>>>

If you go through with that you should buy rev 1 of that motherboard on ebay. Rev 1 has compatible onboard Ethernet. If you buy rev 2 you will have to buy an Ethernet card because the onboard one is a hassle to deal with in OSX

[dennisw]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=13-128-357&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=100&SelectedRating=-1&PurchaseMark=&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&Keywords=%28keywords%29&Page=1

If you search for “OSX” within these 500+ reviews you will see what others have used to build hackintoshs......such as-—>>>

Pros: I gotten this mobo at christmas to specifically run Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Windows 7. It runs Snow Leo great and I’m using a Pentium Dual Core which works great too.

System
2.57 Ghz Pentium Dual Core
Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L
Nvidia GeForce 9400 GT 1GB
320GB SATA HDD
2GB Ram

Cons: N/A

[dennisw]

Apple does not have to extort money from buyers. Instead Apple uses peer pressure to program children and teenagers to extort money from their parents to buy “cool” Apple laptops and peripheral junks such as ipods, etc. Parents are driven crazy. They are extorted into buying overpriced Jobsian junks for their brats instead of generic MP3 players and generic smartphones

[13foxtrot]

I agree that for reading, and for generating original PDFs OS X does just fine out of the box.

I use Adobe Acrobat Standard to manipulate existing PDFs.

It is useful for assembling/combining documents, adding stamps/watermarks such as ‘confidential’ to the doc, overlaying text (typewriter tool), and removing pages.

Adobe Acrobat Pro is available for Mac’s but it costs $400+.

[Sir_Ed]

Y’know, I gotta say, Sword...that’s the best explanation for touch-screen devices not using Flash that I’ve read.

I use Flash a lot here, but I usually get the spinning beach ball until the resources clear...

See ya’,

Ed

[TheStickman]

Thanks much!!!

[TXnMA]

"It is useful for assembling/combining documents, adding stamps/watermarks such as ‘confidential’ to the doc, overlaying text (typewriter tool), and removing pages."

OK -- I never missed Acrobat because I use a general-purpose graphics engine/image processor for those functions.

IMHO, paying more than the cost of good graphics software for Acrobat just to hack PDFs makes as much sense as buying a Wang "Word Processor" -- when full-function computers and WP software were available for less $$$.

[Sir_Ed]

A better example would be a guy who walks into a car dealership, sees the Hyundais and Kias, and decides he wants the best model he can buy, and goes to a Porsche dealership.

So, was Ferry Porsche a con man because he built a better car, and people chose to buy it over Kias and Hyundais?

By the way, another benefit of Macs? At this studio we have two Sony Vaios, one Dell, one 15 year old Mac Quadra, one 10 year old Mac 604e, one Mac G4, one Mac G5 duo, one Mac G5 quadra, and out of all those machines the PC’s have needed repairs once every year to two years, and have needed to be cleaned of virii or otherwise scrubbed of malware, whereas ALL the Macs are still running, and have never once had a problem with virii or malware.

We did have a motherboard problem with the liquid-cooled Mac G5 quadra which they repaired under warranty...

In short, Macs just WORK, and in a graphic arts/printing shop environment that’s job number 1.

Ed

[dennisw]

A better example would be a guy who walks into a car dealership, sees the Hyundais and Kias, and decides he wants the best model he can buy, and goes to a Porsche dealership.

If my needs are met by a Hyundai or a Toyota pickup truck I'm not going looking at Porches I cannot afford anyway. And if I can afford a Porche I will buy the Toyota instead and invest the difference 

I have never had any bad malware or viruses since 2002. I use Avira antivirus. Few weeks ago I had my one exception. I was attacked by AntiVir Pro spyware that I got from a hip-hop music site and I never go to such sites but I did and got that malware. I had to use malwarebytes scan to remove part of it and had to manually remove two registry items. That is one incident in 7 years which is good enough for me

[TXnMA]

I use Canvas X as my graphics workhorse (for cartography & technical illustration. (Unfortunately the company that created it was bought out by a bunch of Windows nerds -- and they decided to drop support for the Mac version..)

I haven't tried it out yet, but "DrawIt" is a $40.00 shareware package that has much of Canvas' basic functionality. If it will read and save PDFs, that's far more functionality than the PDF-only Adobe product - and you have a (vector + bitmap) graphics system to boot -- at one tenth (10%) of the cost...

[TXnMA]

I do enjoy the intelligent audience when I talk to myself -- but # 132 was intended for you folks... '-}

[13foxtrot]

Draw It looks cool. But I don’t do much (read:any) drawing/illustration. And, for the little graphic/image/photo processing I do I use gimp.

My legal practice requires oodles of bulk document processing - not so much creating individual PDF’s. (Creating usually by printing to PDF’s from OpenOffice or scanning)

[Chipper]

Again, these people aren’t responsible for making the decison to “give in” to their kids? It’s still a choice that someone makes. Nobody at Apple HQ is controlling anyone and making them buy an Apple.

[grwcfl537]

Would love to know what hardware you used to build your Hackintosh.

Gateway MT6841 laptop is running iAtkos v7(Mac OS X 10.5.7), installed on external 320G 5400RPM USB drive, RAM to 4G, screen is 15.4" 1280x800 on core duo T2400.

Desktop is homebuilt, core2duo E6700, 4G RAM, Intel965 MB, nVidia9800GTX, on board sound, 250GB internal SATA drive, Empire EFI installer with Snow Leopard 10.6, Apple 10.6.1, 10.6.2, 10.6.3 and 10.6.4 upgrades. Wanted to use vanilla install on laptop, but couldn't get it to play (probably too old and too many non-standard parts.)

Mel

[dennisw]

core2duo E6700...... What is the motherboard on that? thanks

[SunkenCiv]

I did not. Wanted to. My next Mac will be a Mac Mini (with SSD) hooked to the flat TV, turning on either when needed.

[dayglored]

Dennis, your argument about Apple brainwashing people falls apart as soon as you read the scores of surveys done over the past 8 years or so, of users of OS-X Macs, and users of Windows PCs, and so forth.

Mac owners are far and away the most satisfied group of computer owners in existence.

Apple enjoys top customer service ratings, year after year after year. The "will purchase another product from this company" scores are outstanding.

Now, you might call some percentage of Apple customers "deluded" or "brainwashed", but you can't claim that they all are.

If Apple's products were junk, they'd be out of business by now.

You're just throwing shit at a successful American business, for no discernible good reason. And you sound ever-more foolish each time.

There are certainly valid angles of attack on Apple, and you could take any one of those and run with it. But claiming that Apple is brainwashing the general public is just silly.

[Swordmaker]

Hemet California is the HQ of Scientology-——>>>

You know, dennis, I really don't care. But whether I should believe what has been told to me by a friend I've known for 54 years, who was a groom's man at my wedding, is a high mucky-muck in the Sea Organization of Scientology, married to a another high mucky-muck in the Sea Organization of Scientology, who has been a member of Scientology for 42 years, who travels extensively for Scientology, including to the Hemet Center, and lived in Clearwater and worked at the Clearwater Scientology headquarters until a year ago... or should I believe you, an anonymous internet personage hiding behind a pseudonym, who has claimed that he put together a CDO with NON-EXISTENT Apple Debt and Stock Warrants that he used to "earn" $50 million dollars by "shorting" (read scamming someone out of their money) and untruthfully claims that an upstanding American company scams its customers? What a dilemma... not.

I think it really doesn't matter. I don't care where Scientology cares to hang it's hat. What I think is absurd is your attempt to equate Apple to a quack religion (much as I love my buddy... I think his religion is twaddle).