Windows convert
Some comments. First, this is my first post on this board. I've been a die hard Microsoft user since DOS! I used Macs in grade school and high school (PowerMac first introduced my senior year). I always hated them. Programmed in BASIC and Pascal. Hated the OS and didn't care for the hardware. Went to college and really got into Windows (95), was a beta tester. It was such a leap over 3.1
Always hated Netscape and when IE 2 came out, I made the switch. Been using IE since then, all the way up to 6. I majored in MIS and upon graduation, went to work in an IT department supporting Windows mostly. We have UNIX and Mac, but I never wanted anything to do with them. I spearheaded the charge to Windows 2000 from a mixture of 95 and mostly NT 4. I still believe Windows 2000 to be the best OS ever built. Anyway, when Windows XP came out, I evaluated it for the company and personally. Quickly came to the conclusion that Microsoft dropped the ball BIG TIME! Win XP is a step or two back from Win 2000 in terms of performance, reliability, compatibility, and stability. Visually, it's cluttered and not very elegant. Also hate Office XP too, for what it's worth. Just really bad bloatware. So when the iMac was released, I couldn't help but pay attention. It is the most gorgeous computer I've ever seen! That made me want to take a look at OS X. I remember when OS X was released last year, but other than the dock and aqua, wasn't really interested. So I went to our graphic department and borrowed one of their dual 500 G4 towers. Writing on it now
Loaded up OS X.1 WITHOUT 9! Been using my Mac as my primary machine for about 3 weeks now and I gotta say the user experience is so advanced compared to Windows. Graphically, no OS compares! It is rock solid and, on my system, pretty quick. I have MS Office v.X on here and I like it better than on Windows! Not too bloated and the interface is nicely integrated with OS X. The graphing capabilities rock. After using IE 5.1 for a week, really didn't like it. I've since downloaded OmniWeb 4 and it's great! Also, I really like AppleScript, that is some powerful sh*t. I've totally consumed myself in OS X for these past 3 weeks and have decided to sell my new P4 system and buy 2 Macs. Love the iMac and want it downstairs to surf the web and manage my digital hub (connect to my stereo as a preamp). Also waiting for the G5 tower to be released. iMovie is one of the coolest apps I've ever seen and iPhoto makes my life a little easier. I love photography and have tons of pics that I always have had major problems on my PC and would like to get into basic movie editing after playing with iMovie. So a convert Apple has won.
I still think Apple has a far way to go. Here are some observations. OS X needs to be able to work effortlessly with Windows. Just basic file sharing over a network would get the job done. Used DAVE, didn't like it, uninstalled it. Hardware needs to come down just a tad. The G4 iMac is properly priced, but the towers are a rip off. Need to be reduced across the board by ~20%. Software is ridiculously expensive. The biggest problem I foresee with switching to a Mac is it will cost me so much more. Don't know if I can do that. Just basic, non-MS software is too expensive. I do like the fact that Apple doesn't always build backward compatibility in, but the hardware seems to be outdated too quickly. It looks like their hardware cycles are every 3-6 months. And after 2 years, u are forced to buy new hardware. That's too soon, one area where Apple could really stick it to MS is if their hardware lasted longer. I'm waiting to see the G5, but the hardware needs to be a little better. Needs a faster FSB and should adopt RDRAM memory. RDRAM would provide such benefit to Macs! It is built for multimedia and there is no price difference anymore. Those are my main questions/comments to Apple.
In summary, I am now moved over to supporting our Mac users and am waning off Windows pretty quickly. My main task right now is figuring a way to upgrade all users to X without loading OS 9.2 on there. Still need Photoshop 7 and Fireworks for OS X, then we're golden. I used to be that guy who would rip on Mac users! Never could understand why anyone would use a Mac, now I know. Still don't like anything prior to OS X, but X is just bomb! I'm a businessman, born and bred business all my life. As I'm sure you all know, there's no Apple in business. So I'm now quite the outcast, but I'm planning on starting a business and, if I can, will implement OS X as our standard.
Best Regards,
Adam