PC vs. Mac

[49er]

 Those of you that have the Apple iMac with the SD card reader, don't do what I did. I inserted (with out looking) an SD card in the DVD slot which is directly above the SD slot! It took a bit of head scratching but I fashioned a "hook" out of a thin piece of wire and pulled out the SD Card. No damage done to either the card or the DVD RW device. Whew! Note to Apple engineers.... Slots should be on opposite sides of machine:-)

John

[Markbhai]

I am not even sure I could move if I wanted to.

I have been a PC user since they were invented and am a typical teckie.  I can't do most things I want to on a mac, My company VPN wont work, niether does Sage (i believe), I cant run my (propper) VOIP system on a mac (I have a Linux system for this so not Windoze), niether would my email server.  Since most things I do use a computer for wont work on a mac, I have tended to stay away.

I got an IPAD2 for Christmas and I am sorry to say it bored me!  I gave it away to the brother in law who seems to keep it in a cupboard!!

Maybe some other day.

Mark

[mdsalemi]

I am not even sure I could move if I wanted to.

I have been a PC user since they were invented and am a typical teckie.  I can't do most things I want to on a mac, My company VPN wont work, niether does Sage (i believe), I cant run my (propper) VOIP system on a mac (I have a Linux system for this so not Windoze), niether would my email server.  Since most things I do use a computer for wont work on a mac, I have tended to stay away.

I got an IPAD2 for Christmas and I am sorry to say it bored me!  I gave it away to the brother in law who seems to keep it in a cupboard!!

Maybe some other day.

Mark

Mark--

I'm no expert, but would offer that some things you say are probably just not correct.

Access to email is pretty universal on a Mac.  You can use web-based mail; IMAP or POP3, right out of the box.  While not as universally deployed in corporations as PCs, I'm sure there might be some other protocols implemented I just don't know about.  If your email needs are so esoteric that web, POP or IMAP won't work, well one day you might have problems with a Win based system too.
VOIP?  There certainly are plenty of VOIP applications for Macs.  Maybe they are not the ones you are familiar with, but there are plenty.
Most mainstream independent applications are available in both Mac and PC versions, more now than ever before.  Microsoft Office; Adobe Products; plenty of browsers.  Yes, there are plenty of legacy applications not working on a Mac, and many engineering applications I'm told, too.  But mainstream usage of a desktop computer--for word processing, design, photo work, music, video, and web browsing is very universal today.
Sure, there are plenty of applications (such as Sage's ACT!) that are legacy and not developed for multiple platforms.  There is a program called Parallels, and others like it that run many (there are probably some that won't work) Windows applications.  My own Macintosh has a separate hard drive that will, if I choose, boot up to a clean copy of Windows7.  So, for those times when I have to run a Windows program, I have a way to do it.  I set this up and have not used it, but it is there.

I moved to the Macintosh because I was tired of system crashes, constant updates that bogged down the system, virus issues. etc.  I bought a 6-year old Mac, reconfigured it with a few modern tweaks, and it is solid as a rock.  Even when I play with Windows on another machine I'm reminded of why I switched.

I've used both PC's and Macs since day one of each.  For many years, PC's were it for me.  Not any more. If nothing you do is available on a Mac, then stick with PCs.

[Markbhai]

Hi Michael.

I should probably have explained better, the Email and VOIP I refer to are my 'semi' commercial servers I use.  The VOIP system hosts 20 phones and handles inbound call queues etc as well as voice recording facilities...all handled from a Pentium 2 PC.

I do agree that Windows has a terrible habit of crashing if you let the PC get bogged down, but love the fact that everyting I want to do I can do.  Its true all of the main stream stuff is available but there are too many things I just cant do on a Mac.

I would love to change over, but the support isn't there yet.

M

[mdsalemi]

Hi Michael.

I should probably have explained better, the Email and VOIP I refer to are my 'semi' commercial servers I use.  The VOIP system hosts 20 phones and handles inbound call queues etc as well as voice recording facilities...all handled from a Pentium 2 PC.

I do agree that Windows has a terrible habit of crashing if you let the PC get bogged down, but love the fact that everyting I want to do I can do.  Its true all of the main stream stuff is available but there are too many things I just cant do on a Mac.

I would love to change over, but the support isn't there yet.

M

I am laughing now.  You have a serious legacy system there!  The Mac equivalent of a pentium 2 was abandoned eons ago.  I don't think any supported windows operating system is even supported on that hardware.

[twistedtree]

For what it's worth, the whole legacy windows app thing is what kept me from switching until recently.  VMWare was the key for me.  It simply sucked the brains out of my PC into a virtual PC running on the Mac.  I have about a 1/2 dozen windows-only apps that I still run this way.  ArcGIS, Autocad, Visio, and Visual Basic and other compilers for tools I've written over the years to name a few.  It works very well and doesn't require reboots like parallels or other dual boot solutions - everything runs at the same time.  The net result is that I now only have to suffer through windows when absolutely necessary, and I can do it without owning another computer dedicated to the task.

[mdsalemi]

Mark's situation is a bit unique.  Pentium IIs are ancient; you quite literally cannot even give these machines away.  They were only made for 2 years (1997-1999).  That does not make them bad at all--he's running some clearly specific legacy applications that work well.  If they work well on an inexpensive machine there is NO reason to change.  The Windows that ran well on them--(relatively speaking) was Windows 98 and XP.  Neither are supported any longer. 

While I am not an early adopter that has to have the absolute latest and greatest and fastest (read that: most expensive) there is something to be said, for operations and security, to running at least supported software and operating systems.  When I left the printing equipment business years ago, I had many leftover minicomputer and IBM PS/2 parts, both relatively useless in the mainstream.  Eventually I found some dealers supplying niche markets of some ATM's and older CAT scan machines that used the parts, and was able to eventually get rid of it all.  Warehouse was broom-clean when I was done.

We all talk about security issues in Windows--but Microsoft's latest windows version is actually pretty secure, and their MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials) that is free runs relatively silently, quietly, and unobtrusively in the background compared to MacAfee or Symantec on a Vista or XP based machine.  But the biggest Windows headache is all these ancient (in age and security) legacy systems out there that people don't give up. It's Microsoft's own fault for charging so much for an update.  The people that went from XP to Vista, for example, really felt screwed.  So, you would have to allow them a little hesitancy when moving from Vista to Win7, and paying $125 to do so.  Screw me once, shame on you.  Screw me twice, shame on me.  Apple charges only a nominal fee for a system upgrade with no complex licensing scheme.  I offered my OSX Lion upgrade stick to my neighbor, who declined.  So, failure to update is not just for Windows users...it is human nature.

Peter, what VMWare product are you using?  I assume you have one that runs on your Macintosh to allow you to run a Windows based program.  I went to the VMware website, and couldn't understand most of it...tell me the product and I'll research it for an upcoming project I have a need for, running Sage ACT on my Mac...

[twistedtree]

Michael,

The  VMware product that runs on a Mac is called Fusion.  It's available for free for 30 days, and a permanent license is about $80.

My only real complaint with it is that it's a CPU pig even when sitting idle, and battery life goes to hell real fast.  The solution is to "suspend" the virtual PC when not in use.  It's the moral equivalent to hibernating and takes well under a minute to do.

[mdsalemi]

Thanks--I'll check it out.  I'm tethered to 110VAC and don't use batteries in my Mac (not a laptop) so maybe that won't be an issue.