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started messing around with photography, graphics and video editing - came time to buy my own computer -- had a friend who was into and and recommended i get a mac, i said -- sure why not --- i will never look back
 
i finally broke down and bought an iPod last summer... ever since then I have wanted a Mac, but I just cant afford it right now... hopefully around Christmas or the first of the year (after MWSF) I will get rid of my windows-book.
 
interesting topic, made me think back a bit.

sometime in Jan 2003 i was trying to decipher a very cryptic windows (i think win 2K) error message by googling it , and came across the website http://www.xvsxp.com by Dan Pouliot and spent the subsequent couple of days there. I was so impressed that I donated $5 at his site.

Somehow during those days I also came into macrumors (i think he referred it someplace), and was hooked with this community. After 6 months of agonizing over cost / usability / work needs (only windows) / etc, bought my iMac, and the only regret has been, why so late!
 
I was like a lot of users....my first computer ever was an Apple IIe (and my brother had a Apple IIc). But, the waves of IBM-clones convinced my parents to go Windows in the early 90s..and that was the end of Apples.

When I got into college, and I had saved up for a new computer....I went back to Apple. My first Mac was the Indigo iMac DV.

What actually got me interested in the Mac again was the release of OS X. (The very first beta for OS X was coming out). I was so tired of having an OS (Windows) that was in my face, prone to virueses and security issues, and always had problems...it was inevitable that I had to use the restore CDs on the Windows computer once or twice a year.

And, I've never looked back...never had an issue with the Mac...ever. (except now I have an eMac and hoping to upgrade to iMac G5 in the next few months. :)
 
i got a mac a couple of months back, ive been with pcs for as long as i can remember, i generally build my own PCs, overclock them and just use it for mostly gaming and websurfing. Loved that i could overclock them, but hated windows for its instability and constant updating, trojins day after day, my browser being highjacked constantly (no i dont surf porn, but my parents somehow love to stumble onto those sites). so i decided to get a mac, hoping it was better, and you know what, it wasnt, it blew windows away, i dont ever have to worry about people hackin my pb, or sites high jacking safari. stability i must say is about 95% better than windows, i do get crashes but never out of the blue, speaking of blue you will never get the "blue screen of death" as suppose to windows. so i made the switch completely, cost me a bit but worth it in the end.
 
Super analysis approach....

For me I had always used Macs at school. But we always had a PC at home. For a while I looked at Macs as Kiddie and not really powerful enough. About 6 or so years ago, I thought to myself, hey why don't I like Macs. Really, why don't I like them. So I started doing research. I read up on the technical aspects of the mac as an architecture, reviews,forums,various whitepapers/blackpapers(arstechnica.com),strengths,weaknesses, and I observed flame wars of people on boards fighting over the pros and cons. Plus in my work I used PC's and from a geek stand point, and a technology stand point, I started really analyzing what about the Windows environment and the system architecture was so attractive. Essentially, I started doing heavy research on system architecture, and for me I convinced myself that Macs had an overall stronger system architecture hardware wise and software wise. From then on I had nothing but respect for Macs. But I would acutally have to venture to say earlier on I knew something was up probably about 7 years ago. I started preferring macs to PC's in school. I found that the Macs in our school's computer labs always worked while the PC's always had problems. So I actually started preferring the company of macs earlier on. After all that, and figuring out for myself that Macs were awesome, I was in the dilemma of not being able to afford one. So after about 5-7 years, I am now able to afford one, and its coming this week. ;)
 
RacerX said:
... Everyone in the Math and Physics departments used Macs or Suns or SGIs or NeXTs. Those were computers. The only time I ever saw a PC was on the desk of secretaries ...

Haha, now you're talking my language :D

I used Macs in art school where we had the at the time, state-of-the-art B&W G3 towers. With 768 RAM & 8.6 they really used to cook! I remember using Illustrator, Photoshop, Flash, Netscape and sometimes Premiere all at the same time without a hitch (still love OS 8.6.)

I had a pc at home though; no money for a Mac. I wanted a Wallstreet, Lombard or Pismo but at the time they were all way out of budget for me. Had to settle for Toshiba (which served me well for about 5 years. Not bad for a Pentium 100.)

After I saw the cool dock in OS X (especially the magnification) I really wanted to try it. About 2 months later, the new white iBooks were released and I bought one.

Since then (2001) I've added so many new machines it's not funny. I have looked back, but only looked ;)
 
I finally switched about 5 months ago - would've been sooner, but I didn't have the money.

It had nothing to do with advertising. We have PCs and Macs at work, so I was accustomed to both. I liked the fact that there were so many fewer problems with the Macs, but didn't like OS9's interface at all. When I saw OSX for the first time summer 2003, I fell in love. After that, it was only a matter of time/budget.

Now my 17" PB and my 40G iPod are my favorite toys. And I got rid of Windows on my home PC and installed Linux before my 12-yr-old inherited it.
 
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