Windows vs Mac: Detailed Experiment

[abenzick]

So, I'm a long time Windows user who has never owned a Mac. I've set out to find out what the Mac is all about and if the saying of "It just works." really holds true. Start at the beginning and follow my journey into the world of Apple.

http://macmyth.blogspot.com/

 

[Cromulent]

Just make sure you have Universal versions of all your applications.

Office 2004 and Photoshop Elements as far as I know run in emulation mode on Intel Macs because they have not been updated yet to run on the new Macs.

 

[savar]

So, I'm a long time Windows user who has never owned a Mac. I've set out to find out what the Mac is all about and if the saying of "It just works." really holds true. Start at the beginning and follow my journey into the world of Apple.

http://macmyth.blogspot.com/

You'll probably never come back and read this thread again since you signed up just to post your blog's URL, but here's some feedback.

1) Outlook on Mac is nothing like Outlook on Windows. Don't set yourself up for disappointment thinking it is. It's unethical that MS even gave the two products the same name. In fact there's nothing like Outlook for Windows on the Mac AFAIK.

2) Similarly, Mac Quicken is nothing like Windows Quicken. Again, its a crime against humanity that Intuit named the products the same exact thing...they are different products. I've not used MS Money, but again, Mac Quicken is going to be a big disappointment.

3) I love iPhoto, but I don't know how much power you're looking for. iPhoto really only lets you crop and adjust the contrast/exposure/saturation/whathaveyou...its definitely not a photo editor. Just a nice way to organize photos, plus most other Mac apps will be able to read your library directly (really nice integration).

4) This probably isn't the goal of your experiment, but I am convinced that if you use Windows on a regular basis there will be some needs that just can't be met on your Mac. I've used Macs most of my life, but after I started working with Windows more and more (for my job) I found some applications that I just can't live without (PSPad, Putty, gchat, quicken). So I bought VMWare Fusion and Windows XP and I run it side-by-side with Mac OS when I want to use those apps.

It's tough to quit cold turkey.

 

[clevin]

1. title should be windows vs OSX, since macs run windows too.

2. too many comparison here. mostly useless and biased towards one or the other (since this is Mac R, so we know there's more good words for OSX). I would just say... go check movement in market share...

 

[Cromulent]

4) This probably isn't the goal of your experiment, but I am convinced that if you use Windows on a regular basis there will be some needs that just can't be met on your Mac. I've used Macs most of my life, but after I started working with Windows more and more (for my job) I found some applications that I just can't live without (PSPad, Putty, gchat, quicken). So I bought VMWare Fusion and Windows XP and I run it side-by-side with Mac OS when I want to use those apps.

Why do you miss Putty when you are using a Mac? Mac OS X is Unix so has SSH built right in, just load up Terminal and type "ssh server address". Problem solved. Same with telnet too.

 

[clevin]

Why do you miss Putty when you are using a Mac? Mac OS X is Unix so has SSH built right in, just load up Terminal and type "ssh server address". Problem solved. Same with telnet too.

when users are all that high tech level......

 

[Cromulent]

when users are all that high tech level......

The interface is exactly the same as Putty when you actually start using it, i.e a command line. There is no difference at all between the two. I have used Putty in the past.

 

[mkrishnan]

Good luck with your experiment ... just to clarify a minor point and assuage any concerns....

Remote Desktop
I use Windows Remote Desktop client frequently to control a remote server. Microsoft has a beta version of the client out now for the Mac which will allow me to accomplish the same tasks.

MS released a beta recently of a *new* version of the client. The previous version (which works just fine, although the beta is much nicer) has been around for several years. I switched over to the beta, nonetheless, and I don't see anything about it so far that is not production ready. The nicest things about the beta are that it can dynamically switch between windowed and fullscreen modes (and unlike the Windows version, AFAIK, it can do dynamic rendering in the windowed mode so you can see the full screen if you wish), and that it plays nicely with Expose (this was a very minor nuisance before).

Anyway, good luck with your project.

 

[abenzick]

1) Outlook on Mac is nothing like Outlook on Windows. Don't set yourself up for disappointment thinking it is. It's unethical that MS even gave the two products the same name. In fact there's nothing like Outlook for Windows on the Mac AFAIK.

What do you use for your primary mail client. I have been really happy with Outlook 2007 on the PC. Will the native Apple mail client be sufficient?

2) Similarly, Mac Quicken is nothing like Windows Quicken. Again, its a crime against humanity that Intuit named the products the same exact thing...they are different products. I've not used MS Money, but again, Mac Quicken is going to be a big disappointment.

I've heard this from several sources. Darn. Any suggestions on a replacement?

3) I love iPhoto, but I don't know how much power you're looking for. iPhoto really only lets you crop and adjust the contrast/exposure/saturation/whathaveyou...its definitely not a photo editor. Just a nice way to organize photos, plus most other Mac apps will be able to read your library directly (really nice integration).

I am NOT an artistic person. I'm a coder. I know what loks good but I fail at the finer points of image creation. My main use will be resizing and touching up family photos and organizing things from my digital camera. Mainly, cropping, red-eye reduction and minor touch-ups. iPhoto might just do the trick.

4) This probably isn't the goal of your experiment, but I am convinced that if you use Windows on a regular basis there will be some needs that just can't be met on your Mac. I've used Macs most of my life, but after I started working with Windows more and more (for my job) I found some applications that I just can't live without (PSPad, Putty, gchat, quicken). So I bought VMWare Fusion and Windows XP and I run it side-by-side with Mac OS when I want to use those apps.

I am definately factoring that in. There are going to be times where I need to edit an Access DB and rebooting the whole machine into Windows will be a pain. I definately need to research Fusion or Parallels.

 

[ChrisA]

So, I'm a long time Windows user who has never owned a Mac. I've set out to find out what the Mac is all about and if the saying of "It just works." really holds true. Start at the beginning and follow my journey into the world of Apple.

http://macmyth.blogspot.com/

1) Yes MS does make "office" for the mac. But checkout "open office". It's free and does a few things MS Office can't like run native on Intel macs and it has a database component.

2) You say you use Access. Do you need to use Microsoft format files or do you just need to store data? If you are locked into MS' files then only MS Access will be able to read and write them. If ot there are more free DBMS solutions then you ever could have time to elavulate. Most come from UNIX and have been made to run on the Mac

3) Photo editing. Iphoto is good for organization and you can edit the images with either "Elements" or Gimp. Like Open Ofic, Gimp is both Intel native and free.

4) there are some commercial products but look at GNU cash http://www.gnucash.org/ This is free and Open Source.

Buy a copy of VMWare Fusion. install it on the Mac
Next download a copy of VMWare "converter" from the VMWare web site. (It's free) Run "converter" on your old PC. This will clone the PC and create a Virtual PC with all your data files and programs and the Windows OS Your Windows activation key is transfered too.). Install this VM on the Mac. Now you can run the old PC on the new hardware and even the placement of the desktop icons will be exactly the same. After this reformat the PC's hard drive give the old PC away.

VMWare's "converter" makes the transition very easy.

 

[Eraserhead]

The interface is exactly the same as Putty when you actually start using it, i.e a command line. There is no difference at all between the two. I have used Putty in the past.

I totally agree, Putty is far more annoying, also the Mac has many of the Unix tools built in, so you may not need to use a remote machine at all.

 

[filmgirl]

What do you use for your primary mail client. I have been really happy with Outlook 2007 on the PC. Will the native Apple mail client be sufficient?

As a recent switcher (though I have used Macs for years and years - I've always had PCs as my primary home computer), this has been the only area I've been kind of disappointed with OS X/Mac, like at all. Apple Mail is better than Entourage in Office '04 (which is just too old to be useful for more than just Excel stuff, because Numbers '08 sucks if you are trying to enter in long/complicated strings), but I still don't love it. Plus, because I was using Outlook '07 before switching, my PST files won't open using the old Outlook 2001 converter, which effectively locks me out of all my data - and I have multiple PST files that are over 500 megabytes. I mean, I essentially have every piece of e-mail from August 2000 to two weeks ago in those files, the pre-August 2000 mailboxes got lost when I accidentally backed up the wrong directory after a particularly heinous Windows ME experience (worst. operating. system. ever.) -- but I haven't found a way to natively access them on the mac.

Thus, I am just using Parallels and Outlook '07 as my primary mail client. VMWare would work too (or Boot Camp - though that doesn't really work for a integrated option, meaning, you want to be in OS X but actually check your mail) - and so far, this is working out pretty well. I hope that Office '08 will have PST support (if it is Universal Binary, there is no reason it shouldn't) and that the mail client will be along the lines of Outlook '07 so I can just have everything in house. Definitely try out Fusion or Parallels (or both) -- I've been super-impressed with Parallels (though I'm not using the latest beta -- just 4060 or whatever the last official update is) but have heard great things about Fusion too.

Best of luck! A lot of things do, "just work" (I was pretty psyched that my 3 year old HP All-in-One was immediately recognized as soon as I plugged it in -- including the OCR support -- and I was able to avoid the 200 megs of BS HP software that Windows always requires me to load), but there are some things you'll need to fiddle with. However, since you are a coder - it shouldn't be that difficult a transition.

 

[kiwi-in-uk]

As a recent switcher (though I have used Macs for years and years - I've always had PCs as my primary home computer), this has been the only area I've been kind of disappointed with OS X/Mac, like at all. Apple Mail is better than Entourage in Office '04 (which is just too old to be useful for more than just Excel stuff, because Numbers '08 sucks if you are trying to enter in long/complicated strings), but I still don't love it. Plus, because I was using Outlook '07 before switching, my PST files won't open using the old Outlook 2001 converter, which effectively locks me out of all my data - and I have multiple PST files that are over 500 megabytes. I mean, I essentially have every piece of e-mail from August 2000 to two weeks ago in those files, the pre-August 2000 mailboxes got lost when I accidentally backed up the wrong directory after a particularly heinous Windows ME experience (worst. operating. system. ever.) -- but I haven't found a way to natively access them on the mac.

I don't know whether there is a way to convert Outlook '07
PST, but I took the plunge with 3GB of Outlook '03 mailboxes (via Outlook Express and IMAP) and now use Mail exclusively. Mail and Address Book don't suit everyone but they meet my needs and I have the benefit of all old mail being indexed by Spotlight, which is important to me.

 

[WannaGoMac]

As a recent switcher (though I have used Macs for years and years - I've always had PCs as my primary home computer), this has been the only area I've been kind of disappointed with OS X/Mac, like at all. Apple Mail is better than Entourage in Office '04 (which is just too old to be useful for more than just Excel stuff, because Numbers '08 sucks if you are trying to enter in long/complicated strings), but I still don't love it. Plus, because I was using Outlook '07 before switching, my PST files won't open using the old Outlook 2001 converter, which effectively locks me out of all my data - and I have multiple PST files that are over 500 megabytes. I mean, I essentially have every piece of e-mail from August 2000 to two weeks ago in those files, the pre-August 2000 mailboxes got lost when I accidentally backed up the wrong directory after a particularly heinous Windows ME experience (worst. operating. system. ever.) -- but I haven't found a way to natively access them on the mac.

Thus, I am just using Parallels and Outlook '07 as my primary mail client. VMWare would work too (or Boot Camp - though that doesn't really work for a integrated option, meaning, you want to be in OS X but actually check your mail) - and so far, this is working out pretty well. I hope that Office '08 will have PST support (if it is Universal Binary, there is no reason it shouldn't) and that the mail client will be along the lines of Outlook '07 so I can just have everything in house. Definitely try out Fusion or Parallels (or both) -- I've been super-impressed with Parallels (though I'm not using the latest beta -- just 4060 or whatever the last official update is) but have heard great things about Fusion too.

Best of luck! A lot of things do, "just work" (I was pretty psyched that my 3 year old HP All-in-One was immediately recognized as soon as I plugged it in -- including the OCR support -- and I was able to avoid the 200 megs of BS HP software that Windows always requires me to load), but there are some things you'll need to fiddle with. However, since you are a coder - it shouldn't be that difficult a transition.

Why don't you just import your data into Thunderbird, and then into Mac Mail?
Or, just buy for $10 that Outlook mail converter and convert all your data into Mac formats (mbox etc).