I Love My Mac!

[miseldine]

As a long time Windows user, I slowly got more and more peeved at the performance of my supposedly super-fast, state of the art Sony Vaio. I'm a PhD researcher, and so I have a whole bunch of applications running at once when compiling a report or paper. Endnote, numerous instances of Acrobat, a few copies of Word, and a dozen browser screens, and some music, were enough to grind my Vaio to a halt.

I just can't say how much easier the whole process of researching is when using a Mac. I want something from the machine, it does it instantly. No waiting for the hard drive to thrash around, no need to put up with slow application starts, or software crashes. With a Mac, when I have an idea, I can write it down instantly, not get frustrated anymore. I can't say how much this has eased the whole burden of writing.

I've now sold my Vaio, and I've bought an iMac to complement my Powerbook. I wouldn't hesistate to recommend Apple's to anyone who does any type of research, or just wants to have a bit of fun out of their machine.

Thanks to all the Macrumor members who answered my questions before I switched, and keeping up such a valuable resource for those who still have a foot in the Windows world. Keep it up!

 

[wdlove]

What sort of research are you doing? I know that Apple has been actively to to enter the scientific arena. You should send your switch story into Apple, they just might post in on their site.

http://www.apple.com/switch/stories/08/

 

[miseldine]

I'm a breast cancer researcher, but in computer science rather than any particular medical sense with test tubes and the like.

I might very well submit something to Apple, cheers for the link!

 

[leekohler]

Good for you! Yet another happy Mac switcher. Congrats.

 

[DJY]

Glad to hear your story mate!
I also was a huge convert last year!

Which version of Endnote are you running?
I use a 1.5GHz PB running Tiger... and didn't think Endnote had been updated for Tiger yet? Must admit though I was only looking ernestly for a week or so after the Tiger release.

 

[acedickson]

Congratulations on your switch! I'd also like to thank you for doing the research you do.

What iMac did you buy?

 

[SilverLight]

i just switched my self and iv already switched one friend, another is about to and ive made a dozen windows users respect macs so yea they are superior in every way. i now laugh at how behind windows users are

 

[ksz]

...I want something from the machine, it does it instantly. No waiting for the hard drive to thrash around, no need to put up with slow application starts, or software crashes. With a Mac, when I have an idea, I can write it down instantly, not get frustrated anymore. I can't say how much this has eased the whole burden of writing.

I have a foot in the Windows world and have also noticed the simply egregious performance of the file system (NTFS) when arbitrating between concurrent processes. Let a single process access the hard drive and performance is good, but once two, three, and more processes begin to contend for disk I/O, all hell breaks loose. I started with 512MB of memory and, without exaggeration, the system crawled -- windows were being painted one raster line at a time and the disk light would remain solid for minutes as the system was so heavily bogged down with no more than 5 apps with small documents. I increased the memory to 2GB and system performance improved *dramatically* but disk multitasking is still horrendous.

Other gripes:

System often says "insufficient windows resources available to complete this task" when trying to Hibernate.

Restore from Hibernate is rarely flawless; after hibernating two or three times in a row, it becomes necessary to reboot.

My bluetooth mouse is not consistently recognized after hibernate and standby. I have to turn the mouse off and on, which would not be so bad except that it does not have a power button. So I am routinely removing and inserting the battery.


I wish, however, that Mac OS had Hibernate (a fully working implementation).

 

[miseldine]

Glad to hear your story mate!
I also was a huge convert last year!

Which version of Endnote are you running?
I use a 1.5GHz PB running Tiger... and didn't think Endnote had been updated for Tiger yet? Must admit though I was only looking ernestly for a week or so after the Tiger release.

Hi there,

I use EndNote 8.0 which I got off the University. Works perfectly for me on Tiger, and integrates completely into Word 2004. Haven't had it fall over once.

Cheers for all your comments, just goes to show how friendly the Mac community is