Windows Expert Jumps Ship

An anonymous reader writes to let us know that Scott Finnie, Computerworld's Windows expert, has given the final verdict to Windows after 3 months of using a Mac. And the verdict is: "Sayonara." Finnie is known to readers here for his many reviews of Vista as it progressed to release. Quoting: "If you give the Mac three months, as I did, you won't go back either. The hardest part is paying for it — everything after that gets easier and easier. Perhaps fittingly, it took me the full three-month trial period to pay off my expensive MacBook Pro. But the darn thing is worth every penny."

Comments

Lots of folks making the switch

[BWJones]

There are some issues certainly of migrating from one platform to any other platform, but it has been interesting to see a number of long time Windows users in hard core sciences with entrenched work flows that made them very dependent upon Windows to make the switch. When I joined the current group I was in, I essentially catalyzed a complete switch of our lab that is now percolating to many other labs in the group. These switchers have not and are not switching because I kept hitting them over the head with how great the platform is. Rather, they kept seeing the amazing presentations I gave with the help of apps like Keynote, or how easy it was to host a number of high traffic websites from a single OS X machine (including my blog), our lab site, and Webvision among a number of others. Or even how easy it was for me to replace an SGI, a Windows machine and a older Mac with a single incredibly powerful workstation running OS X. The new MacPros are one of the most amazingly powerful systems for the dollar that I've ever used making scientific calculations quick and easy.

Re:Lots of folks making the switch

[Pentavirate]

People have different preferences. That's what makes the free market work. Thank goodness we have choices!

Re:Lots of folks making the switch

[hollywoodb]

Many of the labs around my university's campus use Mac machines, but they're greatly outnumbered by cheap Dell and Gateway systems. Most of the Mac systems are older eMacs. I often see the PCs sitting there with a piece of paper taped to the screen with something along the lines of "Sorry, this computer is down for maintenance". I have yet to see that on a Mac system. When I asked why there are fewer Mac systems on campus I was told it is cheaper to replace the PCs when the upgrade cycle rolls around. I have no problem believing that, but I'm willing to bet that nobody is keeping track of downtime and man hours required to keep the PCs operational between upgrade cycles when they calculate the cost of their Mac vs their PC systems.

Personally, I'm a linux user across all my systems. I'm fully aware that most of my friends and family are not prepared to be running linux or *BSD as their main OS, but I did manage to convert one of my longtime Windows-using cousins to a MacBook. He's never been happier. Strangely neither he nor I have managed to convince anyone else in our circles to switch from Windows/PC. Hell, I can't even convince some people to try OpenOffice.org before they go drop a couple c-notes on the latest Microsoft Office.

Maybe I'm a crummy salesman, or perhaps my message would be taken with more interest if I had a black turtleneck and white earbuds. Either way I wish people would stop calling me because their crummy greeting card creation program quit printing a certain color, or their crummy spyware software won't remove a certain portion of spyware.

Re:Lots of folks making the switch

[Simon Garlick]

I, on the other hand, have no need for the sheer horsepower of a Mac Pro. So when I dumped my Windows machines a couple of months ago, I got Mac Mini for my desktop and a Macbook for my laptop. Couldn't be happier.

Re:Lots of folks making the switch

[Flavio]

People have different preferences. That's what makes the free market work.

Exactly, and this is why a lot less people should be using Windows. As long as Windows is shipped with computers and people have to pay the Microsoft tax, there isn't a free market to speak of.

Most Windows users didn't choose a Microsoft operating system, so their preferences weren't a factor.

Re:Lots of folks making the switch

[DWIM]

As long as Windows is shipped with computers and people have to pay the Microsoft tax, there isn't a free market to speak of.

Are you implying that you can buy a Mac that is not bundled with an OS? Seriously, I don't know. Is that true?

Regardless, the parent topic demonstrates there is a free market. You can buy a personal computer w/o Windows on it. Mac owners do it all the time.

Re:Lots of folks making the switch

[Nerftoe]

Bryan,

Trying to help out here... Your server performance would be much better if:

1) ..you do not have 3 1/2 MB of images on the landing page of your blog
2) ..you do not host any mission critical website on the same server as site mentioned in point 1 above.
3) ..you do not post your mission critical websites on slashdot.

Hope this helps.. please be more careful in the future.

Re:Lots of folks making the switch

[Flavio]

"Microsoft Tax?" What do you expect?

I expect to go to any computer retailer and be able to buy a computer without Windows pre-installed. That's all I want -- I don't dispute anything you wrote.

It's apples own fault that more people don't pick it up. If Dell were able to sell a PC and offer the users the choice of OSX or Windows...I bet with Apple's marketing you'd get LOADS of people adopting it for the first time.

Yeah, but that's just the thing. Microsoft isn't pleased when vendors start selling machines without Windows (or worse, with Linux). Dell and IBM get away with this on a limited basis, but even then it's tricky.

Re:Lots of folks making the switch

[Buran]

"You can pay $1300 for a mac"

I see the $1300-$1500 figure quoted a lot, but it's just plain wrong -- the actual cost is about half of what people think it is. I can get a Mac Mini for $579 (since I work at a university) and the general-public cost is around $600 or a little more. That's actually less than what I've been quoting people lately who ask me to put a decent gaming PC together for them on newegg (I build wishlists and email them to the "clients" who ask for my recommendations).

While it is true that a Mac Mini is not a good choice for running games as it's not upgradable and doesn't have a great video card, it is also true that it's great for what most people use a computer for -- web, email, and sometimes organizing photos, music, and videos.

$600-700ish for a brand new shiny Mac that won't have all the security problems of Windows is not a bad deal. Not at all.

Besides, didn't Slashdot complain once that Apple didn't have a $500-$700 system available? Now that they do, people STILL complain. You just can't make anyone happy around here.

Re:Lots of folks making the switch

[BWJones]

Thanks Nerftoe,

Yeah, I'm not too worried about this as I've been moving mission critical functions off of this server and it is now principally hosting the low traffic lab site and my (much higher traffic) blog. The performance is also actually pretty good and I've had a bit of fun watching loads in the past when an article has been linked on BoingBoing or one of the other higher volume sites. It also turns out that available bandwidth is the biggest factor in performance as the graphics intensive Webvision site used to be hosted on an old 233 Mhz G3 iMac and it could sustain loads of up to 200k visits from unique visitors per day. At least that was the highest load I ever saw on that machine. It is now being hosted on a Mac Mini and the content is being made freely available to any and all interested parties, so traffic on that can only do Webvision and our lab site good in terms of ranking and such, especially given our move into certain scientific areas like metabolomics.

What I got irritated about was the DOS attack that appeared to start quickly on a couple of the servers, only to terminate soon after my posting about the attack. It was not terribly well coordinated and appeared to be coming from two IPs only, but it still gets under ones skin a bit. No real damage was done and the machines were able to continue serving up their goodness, so it will likely not be escalated.

Thanks for the feedback though and best regards,

Bryan aka BWJones

Re:Lots of folks making the switch

[Gerald]

You can pay $1300 for a mac...or you can spend $700 for a PC. Which do you THINK parents are going to buy?

The "cool" one.

Re:Lots of folks making the switch

[umdenken]

"Microsoft Tax?" What do you expect? In order to use OSX you have to own apple hardware. Parents buying computers for their kids for college/hs are going to care about one thing: Price.

You can pay $1300 for a mac...or you can spend $700 for a PC. Which do you THINK parents are going to buy? Parents aside, what do you think MOST people are going to go with.

No, I think this is way over-simplified. You can't just reduce everything down to the price of computer A and the price of computer B. There are a lot of different kinds of people out there, shopping in different markets:

IMO, the Apples are priced VERY competitively - they're clearly high-quality machines, and they compete in the Sony Vaio and Lenovo Thinkpad market. THAT'S how the computers need to be evaluated.

The people who are out shopping for the $450 laptops on sale at Fry's aren't going to even consider the Vaio's either.

Re:Lots of folks making the switch

[Iamthefallen]

Funny, when configuring a Mac I don't see an option to select an O/S other than Mac OS X, how do I avoid the Apple tax?

Re:Lots of folks making the switch

[OmegaBlac]

As opposed to the time the average Windows user spends installing antivirus, antispyware, a personal firewall, dozens of patches, and three sets of activation. Then after all that, they finally can get down to crawling the web to download their apps, run in thru the antivirus or inserting CD/DVDs in and out to install all their software. I'll take the Free and free Linux/BSD any day of the week.

Re:Lots of folks making the switch

[be-fan]

I think the problem most Slashdotters have is that they can't conceive of building the type of machines Apple sells. You can get a 20" iMac with a 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo and 1GB of memory for $1500. You can get a roughly comparable Dell Dimension E520 for $850. But it's not really "comparable". It comes with a 1.8 GHz processor with 2MB of cache, instead of the 2.16 GHz with 4MB. It comes with DDR2-533, instead of DDR2-667. It has no DVD burner, a GeForce 7300LE, and a 17" display.

You can't even configure that machine to be comparable to the iMac. To get in the same ballpark, you've got to jump up to an XPS 410, up the CPU to 2.13 GHz, add the 2007WFP and the Radeon 1300 Pro. Now you're at $1487, and you still have half the cache, a slower graphics card, no firewire, no wi-fi, no bluetooth, no webcam, and no remote. And it'll still take up much more space in your office!

So yes, even with the Intel Macs, you can get machines cheaper than what Apple well sell them for. However, it's no surprise you can get a cheaper machine with lesser hardware! However, if you try to match the basic specs, and a couple of the accessories (ie: no consumer machine today should ship without wifi!) you're not going to save a lot of money over the Mac.

Re:Lots of folks making the switch

[be-fan]

That's an important point. I move pretty regularly between Linux and OS X, and I shopped around for a bit to find a PC laptop comparable to my MacBook. They're really hard to find. Sony sells a nice Vaio (C190) that has similar specs, but also costs about the same. And if you want to go into ThinkPad territory, be prepared to pay a whole lot more.

Sure you can buy a laptop for way cheaper than the $1100 Apple is charging for its low-end MacBook. But how many of those have Core 2 CPUs? And if its so over-priced, why is Dell charging $1000 for machines with almost exactly the same specs*?

*) Not to mention an inferior LCD panel!

Re:Lots of folks making the switch

[grcumb]

It's tricky to sell machines without an OS because MS have some kind of conspiracy going, not because consumers generally just want the machine to come with the current Windows OS?

That's exactly correct. I'm surprised you would act incredulous, because the fact of Microsoft's abuse of its monopoly position has been clearly documented in a court of law. One of the things it did in the normal course of its business was to tell manufacturers that they could sell Windows only, or not at all.

Re:Lots of folks making the switch

[drsmithy]

I think the problem most Slashdotters have is that they can't conceive of building the type of machines Apple sells.

No, the problem is that most Slashdotters - indeed, most "enthusiasts" - want a machine Apple refuses to sell: a single processor box without an integrated LCD, a replacable video card (plus another vacant x16 slot, even with only x8 signalling) and room for two 3.5" hard disks. In fact, I suspect most would be happy with just having a replacable video card and no integrated LCD (I certainly would). So - depending on your perspective - either a headless iMac (which people have been clamouring for since the original iMac was released) or a "Mini Mac Pro".

There are 2 - 4 gaping holes in Apple's product lineup. This is one (or two, depending) of them.

You can't even configure that machine to be comparable to the iMac. To get in the same ballpark, you've got to jump up to an XPS 410, up the CPU to 2.13 GHz, add the 2007WFP and the Radeon 1300 Pro. Now you're at $1487, and you still have half the cache, a slower graphics card, no firewire, no wi-fi, no bluetooth, no webcam, and no remote. And it'll still take up much more space in your office!

An E520 upgraded to these specs is $1229. While it _does_ lack some features the iMac has, on the flipside you have a machine with infinitely more expandability. This may or may not be important to you - but if it is, the iMac simply cannot deliver, nor can any Apple machine until you hit the $2000+ Mac Pro.

This is the problem Apple has. In the tiny niche that their hardware targets, it's a fairly good deal - but if you have needs that are even slightly outside that niche, Apple has nothing for you.

However, if you try to match the basic specs, and a couple of the accessories (ie: no consumer machine today should ship without wifi!) you're not going to save a lot of money over the Mac.

Again, you may or may not "save a lot of money". If you want a machine that's good for gaming, for example, nothing Apple has really delivers until you hit the Mac Pro - a $2200ish minimum buy-in (and that's without a screen). So, yes, while you might get roughly the same PC as an iMac for roughly the same cost, when you want to upgrade the video card 12 months down the track to play new games, on a PC it's a few hundreds dollars worth of upgrade, on the iMac it's impossible (without buying whatever the latest iMac is).

(I would also argue that there's no reason whatsoever for compulsory wifi on non-laptop computers.)

Re:Lots of folks making the switch

[maztuhblastah]

It's tricky to sell machines without an OS because MS have some kind of conspiracy going, not because consumers generally just want the machine to come with the current Windows OS?

Not to sound like a smart-ass, but... yes. One of the things that has come to light (in court, actually) is that Microsoft will actively raise the price of Windows for OEM's who sell computers without an OS, and will threaten to refuse to sell Windows to OEM's that wish to ship other OS's in anything more than trivial quantities. This is one of the things that BeOS ran up against -- they almost worked out a deal with Toshiba (IIRC), to include BeOS alongside Windows. Microsoft told Toshiba that if they did that, they would be unable to purchase Windows licenses. Toshiba (or whoever it was, I can't remember for certain) then had to drop BeOS.

Re:Lots of folks making the switch

[JackieBrown]

Sorry, but the average Windows user does not purchase a full copy of Norton in my experience. They let the it expire and wonder why 4 month later their PC is running slower.

Re:Lots of folks making the switch

[Beer_Smurf]

Yes but your $300.00 PC does NOT come with a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate and the Mac Mini does come with a full version of OSX.

Re:Lots of folks making the switch

[zeno_2]

Another thing they would do is if lets say Dell sold a machine without Windows, they would have to pay Microsoft for a copy of Windows anyway.

Re:Lots of folks making the switch

[saleenS281]

If it were profitable you would find just that. It's called free market. Start your own company and start selling computers without windows installed. If there is a demand you'll make a boatload of money ;) I think you'll find as most retailers have, the demand is exactly 0.

Re:Lots of folks making the switch

[Strudelkugel]

I expect to go to any computer retailer and be able to buy a computer without Windows pre-installed. That's all I want -- I don't dispute anything you wrote.

I just don't understand this argument. I've been buying whitebox PCs for years. I even bought a whitebox laptop. No one forces anyone to buy an OS with a PC, except for Apple. (BTW, I own an iMac.) Sure, the large vendors may make it tricky to buy a system without Windows, but there is a simple answer: Buy from a whitebox vendor, usually a local PC store.

If you don't like burgers, go to a sushi joint. There may be more burger places than sushi restaurants, but don't claim everyone is forced to eat burgers.

Re:Lots of folks making the switch

[7Prime]

Actually, this is EXACTLY what Apple was exploring in the mid-90s that almost made them go under... the 5-billion different option lineup. Where I do agree they have a few major holes in their lineup (I'm currently in the market for a new mac, and I really would like a mid-range stand-alone, myself, so I can undertsand the frustration), it's simply that those holes need to be filled, NOT that their whole business strategy is wrong. On the contrary, from a marketing standpoint, what they're doing is common sense: they're establishing a few base models with descreate name-recognition that they can advertise without spewing out a bunch of forgetable spec numbers.

What they have is a hierarchical lineup. When you get down to it, there are quite a few different computers to choose from: 2 Minis, 4 iMacs, 3 MacBooks, 3 MacBook Pros, and then the built-to-order Mac Pros. That's a lot of options, but from an ease of naming standpoint, there are only 5 discreate lines. Getting rid of the criptic numbered-names was the best thing that happened to Apple.

There are a couple things they could do to gain a few % more market share, although it might lose them money: take the minis down a notch to $400, $500, and $600, and create a headless line in the $1000-$1500 range (this would directly compete with the iMac line, but it might entice a few people onboard who are looking for lower-priced, expandable systems). It really bothered me when they desolved their $500 line, but I'm sure their marketting anylists found that it was more profitable to do so.

Putting in a lower-end "built-to-order" jeapordizes their model recognition. Undoubtedly, MANY people would go on and hand-pick their specs. And then you have a bunch of computers that look the same, but function differently, and create no differentiating model recognition. Model recognition is one of the most important aspects of marketting, and Apple are doing everything they can to hold on to that.

The bottom line is that Apple aren't low in market share due to their product line, or even their pricing (seriously, the $300-$500 PC market isn't really that substantial), it's due to tradition, stigma, and fear of change. People are used to Windows and some even equate user-friendliness to being "hippy-dippy" or "wussy". Another big one is that many corporations strike up deals with Microsoft. I work for clear channel. It's gotten so bad that if there's a microsoft version of a type of application, we are FORCED to use it. Litterally, it is AGAINST POLICY to use Firefox (I got chewed out for downloading it), because they've struck a deal with Microsoft, and in return, they get software that allows them to track employee's internet habits. It's really creepy out there, and some of the reasoning is extremely fucked up, but Microsoft has made it VERY difficult for people involved in corporations to switch away from them.

Re:Lots of folks making the switch

[TimTheFoolMan]

With "Sure, the large vendors may make it tricky to buy a system without Windows...," you made the parent's point.

If I want to buy a name-brand box (so I can get the benefit of support for hardware issues, or so I can keep a consistent hardware platform across my company), it's very, very hard to do this. There are channels, but Microsoft has made sure that they are not well publicized, and has slapped the hands of vendors who have not played according to the rules (by bumping up the license fees, or put clauses in the license agreements to the same effect).

When you say "No one forces anyone to buy an OS with a PC...," the answer is what about the major PC manufacturers? For all intents and purposes, they do exactly that.

Tim

Re:Lots of folks making the switch

[Darby]

Who still uses wired ethernet in their house?

People who like to be able to watch multiple TV shows captured in 2GB/hour MPEG2 on different frontends simultaneously ( let alone people with HD ) while still having plenty of bandwidth left over for traffic to the firewall for internet traffic as well as various other LAN traffic with zero stuttering.

And you call yourself a geek ;-)

Re:Lots of folks making the switch

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Exactly.

I used to build custom rigs at a gaming store. Sometimes I'd offer to install a dual-boot of Linux (Ubuntu) for people when I got to talking to them and of the ones who said "yes", most came back to ask questions on how to work something in Ubuntu - which means they were using it! If I had to guess, of the people I installed Ubuntu for, fully 70 to 80 percent would come back having tried it to talk to me (or would call). A lot of people who never knew there was anything other than windows, are very happy to be without it now. Eventually I stopped advertising it because my boss pulled me aside and told me "we don't make money selling linux" when we got a customer asking about buying a laptop sans the windows and with that african program (Ubuntu) instead - of course our laptops come packaged with windows from our supplier - so that wasn't easy to explain to him. Plus the store was really marketed towards gaming (the premise of me being hired was that I win all the local lans and have street cred) and me pushing an operating system that doesn't natively allow gaming wasn't helping (I dual boot XP/Ubuntu).

What's more, a lot of our money comes from fixing comps when they go wrong (we sell comps cheap to create repeat customers), so pushing a system that isn't gonna get itself full of spyware and reformat itself, or malfunction and "shutdown the internet" or just not work - isn't good for business.

That's what your really fighting here, it's not just in Microsofts interest to have everyone using Windows, it's in the interest of every support or service related employee of the entire computer industry - no one makes money from selling Linux, and only Apple makes money from pushing Apple. Every computer professional the majority of people have direct access to, is going to tell them to buy Windows (to the exclusion of everything else, including me - even though I'm a firm Linux advocate).

So yes, there is a conspiracy - and it's not created by microsoft shelling out big bucks to the entire industry to buy off the mouths of every professional - it's created by a need of every professional to make a living, and many of us do that via software for the windows platform, selling computers (bundled with windows so they break and we make money fixing them), games (what I consider to be the critical windows monopoly).

If your goal is to end this tyranny of the OS, I have put a lot of thought into it - and I will say that the most critical market to convert is the gamers - if you turn games over to Apple and Linux you will turn over the vanguard of high end computers. Not only are they the most avid non-computer-literate computer-user group, they use the most cutting edge gear - which means that family house hold computers are typically former gaming rigs that are now out of date. The web browsing machine in the kitchen of every household was the gaming rig of the 90's passed up for the new one in Billys room upstairs. In 5-10 years time, it will be the one upstairs that ends up in the kitchen - and if the one upstairs were a linux box? They'd just have to get used to not having to reboot their computer every couple hours because it starts going to slow and not having to close popups all the time or deal with half a dozen spyware programs popping up to ethnically cleanse their computer.

Convert the gamers, and Windows will fall forever. Of course, MS is well aware of this - which is why there is DX, and good things like OpenGL get screwed over.

How do we convert gamers to Linux? There is only one viable solution - gamers will not accept Cedega as a permanent system for playing their games, they are high performance users - a few extra framerates is life or death when your in a CSS match. It has to come from the source - people need to know - and need to email/mail gaming companies, video card companies, anyone they can in the industry who will listen - and tell them something just as simple as - "I play these games of yours: , , , and I would appreciate if you would support

I still miss Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

I have had my Mac G5 for a year now. There are many things which still aren't quite "perfect" enough yet. I am waiting for OS X 10.5 (as I've never been around for a point release) to see if it is an upgrade.

For me I have one goal: Productivity. I'm am a network administrator for a enterprise company. I'm dripping in Windows but at home, I use a Mac. Why? Final Cut Pro and Aperture. That's it! I'm building my photography business and it's growing.

That said I still miss Windows for a few applications and MOSTLY for the keyboard commands (in the OS GUI). Window Key + R + cmd = CLI. On the Mac it's click or Apple + Space + Term + Click.

Lame.

I see Mac and Mac-like products taking over the home desktop. Not the OS but the "utility" aspect of it. iTV and the iPod are nice because they just sit there.

Microsoft can (and should) have the Enterprise desktops (for now).

Re:I still miss Windows

[Lightborn]

That said I still miss Windows for a few applications and MOSTLY for the keyboard commands (in the OS GUI). Window Key + R + cmd = CLI. On the Mac it's click or Apple + Space + Term + Click.

Command (Apple) + Enter tells Spotlight to open the Top Hit.

Re:I still miss Windows

[Fahrenheit 450]

Install Quicksilver. It' makes a world of difference -- soon you'll have a "Window Key + R"-esque experience for all of the apps on your machine.

Re:I still miss Windows

[NMerriam]

Or he could create a shortcut in Universal Access. Or make a service with a shortcut. Or make a QS shortcut. Or geez, just put the terminal on his dock if it's such a hassle.

Re:I still miss Windows

[NMerriam]

Quicksilver, makes launching apps/finding information insanely great and is completely customizable -- much more powerful than the default Spotlight interface. You could easily make a Windows-R shortcut to launch terminal, or you can enter terminal commands directly in the QS interface. QS can even access my bash history and rerun command lines that I ran manually from terminal.app two days ago.

There's also an app that adds a small terminal to every window on the system (can't think of the name of it at the moment, pretty sure it's on sourceforge).

I do wish there was an easier way to universally access all menus on OSX from the keyboard, the way that Alt does on Windows (there is keyboard access, but it's nowhere near as straightforward), but beyond that I've found the Mac to be ridiculously powerful in terms of keyboard use, even before I found QS.

a payment plan???

[User 956]

Perhaps fittingly, it took me the full three-month trial period to pay off my expensive MacBook Pro.

Jesus. Did he buy it from DeBeers, or something?

Re:a payment plan???

[Heir Of The Mess]

>Perhaps fittingly, it took me the full three-month trial period to pay off my expensive MacBook Pro.

Jesus. Did he buy it from DeBeers, or something?

Maybe the Mac he got came with a pound of coke and a lifetime porn subscription, which would explain why he had such a good time using it.

"Windows" versus "A Mac"?

[Wilson_6500]

I'm confused by this. You can run Windows on a Mac with Bootcamp, right?

I suppose what he or the summary meant to say is "PC versus Mac" or, probably, "Windows versus MacOS on a Mac." It's really fallacious to compare an operating system to a computing architecture. You Linux users out there should be angry, since it tacitly implies that the only thing a PC ever runs is Windows.

Personally, I'm a computer gamer. Much of my computer time is spent gaming, with the rest being internet browsing and completion of homework/programming/etc. I use a PC because I want the level of control this architecture provides over my components. I use Windows because, well, for most games I pretty much have to.

(Yes, techincally "PC" means a lot of things. I use the term PC out of convenience, which is probably ironic of me to say given what half of my post is complaining about.)

Re:"Windows" versus "A Mac"?

[gardyloo]

You Linux users out there should be angry

      Oh, we are. We're fucking enraged . We just don't know why.

Of course

[adambha]

Perhaps fittingly, it took me the full three-month trial period to pay off my expensive MacBook Pro. But the darn thing is worth every penny. Of course. Even Jim Allchin said, "I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft."

The market preference is shifting...

Use what you want ...

[Midnight Thunder]

Change if you want, stay if you want. I work on a Mac at home, an MS-Windows based PC at work and Linux my website. I like my Mac, but in a properly managed environment Windows does a good job too. I don't like the "I'm better than you attitude" coming from either side, use what you like and recognise each has its issue - like a significant other, you need decide what attracts you and which issues you can live with.

If I had to choose a new computer tomorrow it would be a Mac, but that's my preference and my choice.

--
If you use the Mac, my choice of apps: Adium, Delicious Library, Disco, TextWrangler, Transmit, Darwin Ports, Handbrake

Re:Use what you want ...

[MBCook]

I agree. I've used all three for large periods, but my current computer is a Mac and when I replace it I intend to get another Mac. In general, I find it better than Windows. There are tons of little annoyances that I run into almost daily using my PC at work that I don't have when using my Mac. But I also like it for it's "best of both worlds" that it provides me. Commercial applications and an extremely polished UI in all places (where parts of Linux can get hairy, although it's gotten better), but the UNIX command line and GCC and all that for when I feel like fiddling low level/programming/etc. A real CLI that I can use (let's face it, the windows shell is ancient and pales compared to Bash. Maybe when Monad comes out).

These facts have provided me with great benefits besides my basic preference for the Mac. When I worked on my senior project (LAMP site) while my friends were testing on the test box the school was letting us use, I was able to run the whole thing on my laptop easily because all the components were already there and easily setup (where with Windows I would have had to download/install/configure each part). When I changed code I could test it instantly, no "copy to server, test, edit, copy" over the slow connection. I could work on it without an internet connection, or worrying about interfering with what my partners were working on (overwriting them).

The only "long-standing" problem I have with my Mac is the lack of big games, but I don't have a ton of time for them anymore anyway so my consoles work fine for that (although I miss a good game of CounterStrike, I'm on PPC so I can't run BootCamp).

Made such a change a long, long time ago

[TWX]

About ten years ago I switched from Windows to Linux. I was prompted to make this change by Microsoft's bundling IE 3.0 with Windows 95 OSR2.1 where it would start an installation of IE after the Windows installation concluded. It could be fairly easily cancelled by Ctrl-Alt-Del/End Task, but that one had to so was ridiculous.

Ditching Windows was a little hard as I used to play games, but I was reaching the point where gaming held little appeal for me anyway. Switching to a platform that ran for literally years on end without major crashes demonstrated the value of Linux, and obviously, the lack of worth to Windows.

Microsoft only holds its place because people are too timid to try something else. Apple's OS is slick. Linux has had windowmanagers that mimic the windows shell for many years. For people who don't play computer games it shouldn't be a big deal to switch.

Re:Made such a change a long, long time ago

[earthbound kid]

You stopped using Windows because they forced you to install a web browser?

If so then my question is what do you do now that the only OS that doesn't come with a web browser built-in is Abacus 1.0?

Seriously, MS has done a lot of crap things over the years, and it was harsh of them to make IE uninstallable, but bundling the browser with the OS? If you can bundle worthless stuff like solitaire with an OS and no one complains, I don't see how anyone can be upset about an OS coming packaged with the single most important piece of software for a modern computer. Seriously. I'm a proud Mac user, but I'll go to the mat for MS on this one: Bundling a web browser was the right thing to do. While strong arming OEMs into not including Netscape was evil, including IE was completely justified.

Re:Dell Laptop + Linux

[smash]

Whilst i'm a fan of free unix in general, and FreeBSD in particular (though I will use Linux on a desktop instead of FreeBSD if appropriate) - if you're buying a new PC and want proper support it's hard to go past apple at the moment. You don't have to resort to sorting out hardware compatibility issues yourself, you'll be able to run virtually any open-source software via the X11 compatibility and you get better commercial application support.

Is linux usable on the desktop? Certainly.

Can it hold a candle to OS/X in terms of polish and ease of use? Not yet. Is dell's hardware as aesthetically pleasing and stylish as Apple's? No way...

As a Windows/DOS user since the late 80s, and a Linux/BSD user since the mid 90s - my next computer is going to be a Mac.

Re:This is fantastic

[superpulpsicle]

A PC with linux can be built to far higher specification than a mac locked-in by proprietary Apple. It's crazy to think a USB cable is better if purchased from Apple because they charge you more. Let's not confuse hardware with software quality.

Re:This is fantastic

[Sam Ritchie]

Pro-linux I get, it's all about philosophy, but pro-apple, pro-microsoft, pro-nintendo, pro-proctor-and-gamble, I don't get - unless you're an employee or stockholder.

I'd call myself pro-Apple - I've been a Mac owner since '92 (and a user prior to that), I like and enjoy their products, and I'm happy to give them my hard-earned in exchange for new kit. Similarly, I'm 'pro-Nikon' since picking up my Dad's Nikonos fifteen years ago; even to the extent I'm willing to pay more for one than a comparable Canon. Just because you don't 'get' it doesn't mean loyalty to a company is irrational or misplaced. It's kind of like having a favourite sports team - there doesn't have to be a philosophical reason behind it.

Regarding the Slashdot coverage, I don't think it's necessarily all pro-Apple as much as pro-not-Microsoft. One day we'll reach a point where OS choice in the average school/home/work environment is not predestined. IMO, that's a good outcome for everyone (except MS stockholders & employees).

He's too kind to UAC...

[argent]

In the first article...

My assessment of UAC is that it's a good idea that is badly implemented, even after recent refinements. I think it will have the opposite of its intended effect on many Vista desktops, where it will deaden users to security risks by asking them too frequently whether they're sure an activity is something they really want to do or allow.

I disagree. It's a bad idea that's badly implemented... and it's not a new idea. Windows has been popping up "I'm about to do something that might be stupid, is that OK?" or "Which stupid mistake do you want me to make now?" dialogs for years now, and the biggest effect they have is to train people to automatically approve security dialogs. As a system administrator I had the same people come to me multiple times saying "Um, Peter, I just clicked 'open' on that popup again and I think I have a virus".

Here's a helpful suggestion for developers. Anytime you're thinking of popping up a dialog like that, ask yourself "how can I make it so the user can *always* cancel the operation", and if there's a way... do that instead. For example, instead of asking the user "Should I automatically open this file you just downloaded in NEW-APPLICATION", consider the possibilities of not automatically opening files at all... give the user a better tool for managing downloads instead.

Oh, and Mac users shouldn't feel smug about this one.

Re:He's too kind to UAC...

[yakumo.unr]

IMHO most people mocking the 'muscle memory flaw of UAC' don't actually consider the real intention or application of it.

UAC is not 'the little poppup that says do you want to do this yes/no' it's the whole system behind it, and the entire reworking of how windows deals with user accounts.

Vista's been rebuilt to work properly as you would expect with non administrator level accounts. Applications should work without error from lower level accounts. People you do not trust to tinker freely with 100% of the entire system should not have administrator access, period.

the "yes/no" prompt ONLY appears as a warning for possibly hazardous actions, if you are logged in as an administrator.

If your logged in with a lower level account, you are required to authenticate the action with an admin level user & password a-la *nix.

For the first time with reason in Windows, as an admin, you should be wondering 'why on earth is X webtard still on an admin level account, he doesn't need that access, he's a security risk' not 'why is UAC so stupid'

Re:I recently switched

[wass]

XCode is about ten years behind Microsoft Visual Studio. Apple really needs a modern development enviornment

Care to elaborate a bit more on that?

Amen brother

[edwardpickman]

Long time user of PCs but there's no comparing the two. You get spoiled fast on a Mac. After reading a large number of reviews about Vista by pro Windows people ironically I'm afraid to buy a new machine. I hate XP because it's always harrassing me. Now I'm reading from people that didn't find XP a hassle that Vista is really bad about the constant prompting? Sorry but that's a massive productivity killer. Also most things don't have drivers yet. Yes I know they'll come out eventually but not overnight. Software was keeping me using Windows but I started researching Mac alternatives again. Final Cut Pro got me to buy a Mac. I think I can switch 90% of my operation to Mac and just keep one machine running Win 2000 for the softwares I can't live without. If most people tried the current Macs they'd switch. For a six year development cycle Vista is a joke. Apple is making more improvements in a single year and they get easier to use not more of a hassle.

Re:I recently switched

[filterban]

Ten years behind is a bit much. Did you use Visual Studio in 1997? I specifically remember it destroying more than a few projects on me. XCode (and friggin CodeWarrior) trump older Visual Studios easily. Current releases of Visual Studio are great from what I've heard. But I am productive in XCode and I am also productive in Eclipse (when it doesn't crash!) Personally, I love XCode's UI. What's your beef with it?

About drivers for specialized hardware?

[feranick]

Let's not forget one major thing: drivers. Macs gan be the best thing after chocolate. However if you use PCs for real experimental science, computers are supposed to gather data. Good luck finding drivers for specialized hardware for Macs. That is why many labs uses PCs. Luckily many drivers are available for Linux too. This unless you just run code or a website, of course. But then it's not a science lab anymore... ;-)

I'm a parent...

[Franklin Brauner]

...and I buy my kids Macs.
You see, I love my kids.
--
Franklin

Your quote:
You can pay $1300 for a mac...or you can spend $700 for a PC. Which do you THINK parents are going to buy?

A switcher

[PhotoGuy]

I've been using Windows from day 1, and seen the Mac as a curiosity. Being a hard core Unix junkie and developer, with the switch to OS X, my ears perked up for sure. The switch the Intel, even more so, so I picked up a Macbook. Well, baby, there's no looking back.

I only got the Macbook because it was a fast x86 machine that could run Windows (faster than most laptops, it turns out), and I had Parallels to run a virtualized Windows (Crossover and VMWare still suck on OS X, but won't before long I'm sure). But guess what? I haven't booted Parallels in a week, and probably won't for another month. Almost *everything* works under OS X. VLC Player filled in the "play windows media files" hole, which really was one of the last reasons to boot Windows. Good bye windows, and Sayonara indeed!

Yes, Jobs might be slightly evil ("Evil light, just one Calorie!" as Dr. Evil might say), but as compared to MS, he's freakin' Mother Theresa. (Oh wait, she was a little evil, too. But you know what I mean.) Even though Jobs obviously has Apple's shareholders' bottom line in mind, and embraces DRM, etc., etc., at least Apple shows a slight bit of respect for the consumer, while taking their money. MS is just stabbing in the dark, and nothing short of offensive in their business practices.

In short, I love my Mac. I'll develop on it, likely deploy on Linux (LAMP is LAMP, on OS X or Linux), while having a wonderful desktop to use in the meantime.

Re:This is fantastic

[willy_me]

WHY ARE PEOPLE SO PRO APPLE? ARE YOU THAT FUCKING STUPID? Pro-linux I get, it's all about philosophy, but pro-apple, pro-microsoft, pro-nintendo, pro-proctor-and-gamble, I don't get - unless you're an employee or stockholder.

People are pro ---- because they found a product/company that they are happy with. They found something that makes their life better and are publicly stating this fact so that others may also benefit from the product/company. It doesn't matter what product or service they are talking about, the reasons are generally the same. The same applies when people are anti ----, just for different reasons. They got screwed over by a product/service and they are spreading the word so that others can avoid making the same mistakes that they made. It's basic human nature. Come to think of it, ants do the same thing. ;)

Do you realize how much it would suck if Apple completely took over the desktop market?

I agree with you completely and don't think anyone wants Apple to dominate the desktop market. But wouldn't it be great if they had a 20% market share? Now developers will think more about cross-platform compatibility. This would benefit everyone (Mac, Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD, - but not Microsoft).

I won't buy a Mac, ever. Quit trying to sell me one. I have no problems using a PC, and would rather keep my cash. I have no problems if you like your Mac, but seriously, GET OVER IT. It's really not that amazing or impressive to me.

Nobody is trying to make you buy a Mac - well, except maybe Apple. If you're happy then that's great. Personally, I'm hesitant recommending a Mac to most people for fear there is an application they can no longer run. But for certain people a Mac makes a lot of sense.

What people are trying to tell you is that, if you have the opportunity, you should give MacOS a try. And it takes more then a day so give it a couple of months. You will either think it is a waste of money and stick with Windows or you will have found a better way to get your work done. Either way, you would come out knowing more then when you started. People might not agree with your choice, but they will respect it.

Willy

Re:Not in my experience.

[Anonymous Coward]

I had to do a Mac port of an application I was working on about a year ago.

I needed to edit a plain text file on the Mac, and the editor that came with it would only save files to formats like html, rtf, etc. And .txt. Not that you were able to figure out how.

I don't know how to use old-school editors like EMACS And you're a developer?

Now, there probably is at least one free plain text editor for the Mac, but I couldn't find it after about an hour of searching That just means you suck at searching. Like, really suck.

Even after you pay the ridiculously high price for a Mac, you still have to pay for things (if you can find them at all) that are completely free on a Windows or Linux machine Oh good, a price troll. Because it's not like there's any overpriced shareware for Windows. And how could someone as helpless as you ever use Linux?

And then there are those ass-backwards and poorly documented resource bundles Apple's developer docs are a bit hard to navigate, I'll give you that.

And the fact that applications launched through the GUI have no current directory Yes they do.

Macs are fine if all you want to do is surf the web and listen to music, but for a developer, they're severely lacking You're either incompetent or a troll, but I can't quite decide which.

Transmissions from the UNIX Alliance...

[Digital_Mercenary]

-Episode 1

Y0d4- to >g4+35
Windows is the path to the dark side. Windows leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

-Episode 4

06iw4n- to >1uk3
I have something here for you. Your father wanted you to have this when you were old enough, but your uncle wouldn't allow it. He feared you might follow old 06iw4n on some damn fool idealistic crusade like your father did. It's your father's OSX. This is the weapon of a Computer User. Not as clumsy or as random as a Windows OS, but an elegant weapon for a more civilized age. For over a thousand generations, the Computer Users were the guardians of # and / in the Old Republic. Before the dark times, before the Empire.

Re:A BROKE Windows Expert?

[LibertineR]

Picture 7 years of college and graduate school, a career at Microsoft, then owning my own company.

Luck had nothing to do with it. I worked my ass off, and in America, anyone willing to do that can be successful.

ANYONE!

The ad that didn't make it

[Jesus_666]

We see A, a typical "I'm a Mac" guy and B, a typical "I'm a PC" guy.
A: "Hi, I'm a Mac expert."
B: "And I'm a Mac user."
A: "Shouldn't you be the PC expert?"
B: "Yeah, but I just switched."
A: "Well... They couldn't have made this ad any more blatant, could they?"
Steve Jobs (offscreen): "Shut up!"
A and B stand around a few seconds in uncomfortable silence.
A looks at B from the side.
A (mumbling): "There goes the neighbourhood."
B: "What did you say?"

"Apple. It's not just for us painfully hip elitists anymore and boy, are we pissed about it."



The sad part is that this actually fits the tone of the "I'm a Mac" ads rather well...

Not exactly...

[garote]

You stopped using Windows because they forced you to install a web browser?

Not exactly...:

Bundling a web browser was the right thing to do. While strong arming OEMs into not including Netscape was evil, including IE was completely justified.

I think the argument is, he stopped using Windows because they forced him to browse his local filesystem with the web browser.

(And all the atrocious hacks and spyware that engendered.)

Re:Doubtful.

[caluml]

Just installing an OS and then letting the machine run idle for a few hours doesn't strike me as a particularly good test; for good QC you'd want heavy processor usage and disk I/O, in order to make sure that everything gets correctly stressed. That implies some sort of special software (which needs to be deleted afterwards);

What you seek is installing Gentoo from the Live CD! Plenty of disk, network, and CPU activity there.

Doing things the hard way...

[thefinite]

Part of your comment reflects my experience with switchers. Many of them want to keep doing things the hard way. Installing an application by drag and drop just doesn't feel right when you have spent your computing life running installer programs. (Ditto for uninstalling, "I can just drag it to the trash!?!?! Are you crazy? What about the registry?")

Network settings, burning files to CD, and the list goes on. Between that and learning new keyboard shortcuts, most people have to learn new habits--usually a simpler way of doing things--but then they are hooked. The same appears to be true of the guy who wrote this article.