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Well it has been a couple of months now since I have switched from using a PC Notebook to a 17″ Mac Book Pro and things are still going well. As I mentioned before I used to be a die hard Mac fanatic about 10 years ago but switched to PCs due to the lack of decent software on the Macs at the time. My recent switch back had to do with my desire to pick the right tool for the new media and technology development I currently do. As promised, here are my top of the head observations over the past two months.

• When I bought the Mac I knew I was going to be running certain PC software and games. I started to go down the path of using Parallels but found that transferring my XP license off my existing notebook would basically make it impossible for me to sell it as a low end PC. After a month I broke down and bought CrossOver instead. CrossOver is the OSX port of WINE which does not require that you have a full version of XP/Vista to run your software. You will need a Mac with an Intel chip to run the software properly. All of my PC games run flawlessly under it and most of my PC software runs as well. Unless you absolutely need XP on your machine for some obscure reason like your network doesn’t play well with Macs, I would opt for CrossOver first for any windows software emulation.
• I am just amazed by how much free software is out there to help make a transition between PC and Mac easy. I did break down and buy some tools I use all the time like the Adobe Suites. However, things like NeoOffice, FireFox, AppFresh, QuickSilver, and TweetDeck have become invaluable tools. Even the free Apple software like Safari, Mail, and GarageBand have revolutionized how I use the notebook.
• One thing I forgot about Macs and missed was that things just work. I plug a microphone in, it recognizes it and records from it. I plug a camera in, it finds it and lets me control it from the software. I want to record a video, iSight comes on with the mic and just records without a loss. On the PC side you can make things work but it takes time and is never 100%.
• My co-workers often complained about how they HAD to be PC based for all of the development they do. After a bit of searching I found that the Mac could do all of the things my PC could do for development and more. It was just a matter of taking the time to seek out a solution for a specific problem. For example, I thought I would be totally at a loss for remote desktop connections to PCs until I found that Microsoft wrote a RDC client for OSX. It’s not widely publicized but if you look for it, you can find it. Major problem solved.
• Web development is like night and day. On the PC I got into the habit of developing code and pushing it to a testing server. On the Mac, everything was not only included but pre-installed. Apache, PHP, Virtual Hosting. All on my box and ready to roll. The only thing I needed to add was MySQL and that was very easy. Granted I will need to break some old development habits but given the fact I can now test and code anywhere without having to be dependant on a connection is just amazing.
• Slowly over this time I have noticed something very significant for me. I haven’t turned on my notebook in the past 2 months at all except to transfer a file or two. I am significantly using my desktop PC less and less. The Mac has actually help me do things like rebuild my 9000 song music collection, clean out software I don’t use, and make it easier for me to backup my work and life.

Do I regret the purchase? Absolutely not! Apple has come a long way to address software, hardware, and just confidence concerns. Under Steve Jobs this company has finally moved forward enough to really be the company they always should have been. I understand why so many people are converting now. This is one seriously sexy and powerful piece of kit. Apple also puts so much information online and makes it so easy to just find things like software and solutions that I can’t imagine going back to the “pay for everything” world of PCs. And it looks like things are only going to get better with the Apple announcements tomorrow.

I do need to break some old habits like calling it a Mac when I am talking about OSX. I also know I am grossly underusing the machine’s true power. But that will come with more time. I am just incredibly happy with this rather expensive purchase and can see getting a lot of use out of this machine for a very long time.

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Many many moons ago when I was in college in high school I got my first exposure to Macintosh. Our school was lucky enough to get a grant from New York State and our school picked Apple as the provider of choice for all our computer labs. The Macintosh Classic confused me at first and the lab teacher thought I may break it for not being “trained” how to use it. A thought that amuses me to no end even to this day seeing how my school let me take a TRS-80 II home when i was in Junior High.

I won’t say that I fell in love with the Mac at that point because it wasn’t until my mom helped me buy a Classic II for college that I grew to just enjoy it. Easy to use, portable for moves, powerful, and connected with ease. My love grew with my understanding of the system so much that when I went to work for Computing Services at the university my areas of expertise for support were the CMS Based Mainframes and Macintosh systems. Many would say they are polar opposites in the computing work but I knew better than to classify any computing system to people.

As I left college my Macs came with me. Classic giving away to an LC II, LC II giving away to a Power Macintosh. Then something happened. I took a good long look at my Mac and came to a hard decision. While I still loved the system, I couldn’t find software for it. That’s not to say it wasn’t there but I hated the feeling that I couldn’t walk into the local computer store, pick up software, and just install it on my Mac. Remember, this is pre-1998. No Apple Store, no deal to put Mac products in CompUSA, no Steve Jobs. I wanted to game more and work more and the Mac was just not where it was at.

I made the shift, turned in my Apple stickers, got my tatoo removed and bought my first PC. It was fun, crazy, and a bit of a relief. I bought software galore. Fell in love with PC gaming (specifically Grim Fandango) and enjoyed being able to just pick up software and go. A couple of years later I built my first desktop PC and have upgraded it to the current machine I use. But something about Mac has always lingered for me.

That something is the hardware. It has always just worked. Plugin a camera, Mac recognizes it. No drivers, software, or fuss. Need to sample video? Plug and play without needing to do massive configuration. Wanna make a radio show? Plug in a mic and start recording. That is something the PC side of me has never been able to fully achieve. I have produced full radio shows on the PC but to get it to the point of quality production is always a pain. Then if I author a DVD, I have to reconfigure all my audio hardware to shift back to radio production. Not so on the Mac side.

Recently through the shifts that Jobs has implemented, the Mac has one again become the powerhouse of a machine it always should have been. Software is more prevalent and true windows/Mac OS compatibility has been achieved. While still pricey, the Mac is worth every dollar and has a high resale value even after five years. Cross machine folks like myself can choose where they want to be at any time (BSD, Mac, Windows, etc). Acceptance in the mainstream has also resurfaced and developers are adopting the open mentality that is driving Apple.

So last night I bit the $2K bullet and bought a MacBook Pro to rejoin the cult. The PC desktop isn’t going anywhere but the PC notebook and I will be parting ways. It won’t be a sad goodbye because all the PC goodness will be transfered to the Mac and will live on. This kind of full circle is good for me to reassess what places computers hold in my life. Maybe I will go back to serious video production. Maybe programming in open source realms will happen more. Maybe I will just pet the 17″ inch monitor and coo “pretty”.

In any case, it’s nice to feel like I am coming home to Mac and Apple. We both seem to have tread down the path of growing up into what we should have always been. Hopefully my old friend and I will meet and create some more while sharing the things we have learned along the way.

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