Mac owners..a couple of questions

I just got a mac Air 11.6 inch (first Mac since 1984 when my first computer was a Mac 512) and find that the more I use it the more I love it.  Have been thinking about getting a Mac for awhile (don't ask me why!) and I really liked the Mac Air 11.6 because it is real light and just a bit bigger than the ipad. I liked the idea of having a real lightweight laptop for a change and also if I go researching my genealogy it will be nice to travel real light.  Even though it has 128GB hard drive, I am using an external drive so I am okay with the low memory on it which was a concern for me. One thing I like is you can run windows on it along with the Mac platform. One program built in to the Mac is called Boot Camp which does this. There are two others Parallels and Fusion, you can get depending on how and if you want to run windows.  

One thing, there is a kindle book called A Newbie Guide to switching  to the Mac by Travis Hunter. It is the $2.99 one. GET IT!! It really explains what the Mac terms is for a PC terms and what the differences are.  I found it to be a great help, for example the author lists what the PC word/command is and next to it is the Mac word/command.   It really demystified the Mac/PC thing. Sort of like having an aha moment!

And loading new apps from the Mac app store is sweet and easy like getting apps from the itunes store. No fooling with cds and doing the install yourself, it does it automatically.  Also you don't need an anti-virus program as the Macs do not get viruses etc. There is someone who is sending around an email in different forms telling you to buy a virus program DO NOT do anything with it as it is a virus/malware itself.

There are two negative things I have found:

1. For some reason the kindle app for Mac I downloaded to my Mac  is slow and tends to stop. It is slow as well. I am not sure what the problem is on mine Since I just did it I am going to uninstall it and try again.  I am not too concerned since I have my kindle and ipad which I do reading on. However because I am taking it with me on the trip I thought it would be nice to have a few books on it.

2. There are two genealogy programs offered for the Mac and Legacy is not one of them.  I have not figured out how to get my Legacy program to play nice with the Mac.

Bottom line, I may end up totally switching over to the Mac in the near future. But I am keeping my PC so having the two different platforms is actually nice.

First off, a Windows XP PC is three major Windows versions back, and so will basically have problems with LOTS of modern products and services (after XP came Vista, then after that, Windows 7). Go back three major releases of OS X or Linux and you'll see similar problems with those too.

I used Macs exclusively between 1988 and around 2001, then switched to Windows because the Mac had lost all its advantages and then some by then.

(but don't get me wrong; I think ALL the top three computer operating systems suck big-time in many ways: Windows, OS X, and Ubuntu Linux; it's just that the least worst all around for me seems to be Windows 7)

Although I've not had a personal Mac since around 2001, I remain way too familiar with the latest OS X and related items due to family and friends bringing them to me to fix when they break (I've also written an online OS X troubleshooting guide as a reference for myself and others in such matters).

Every modern Mac owner I personally know frequently has to suffer with iTunes/apps updates of their Macs and/or iPads which seem to take forever, and often hang up for some reason, never getting completed.

I can also tell you that way back in my own Mac days, I really dreaded it whenever it became necessary to download a big package from Apple's own servers, as they were always slow as the hills. So I would go to great lengths to avoid it.

I admit I have no experience with iTunes on my PC by which to compare to the Mac owner experiences, though.

Guido Henkel said:

I have never understood why people tried to run Windows software on a Mac. To me the whole point was to get away form all that broken and bloated software. I have never let any Microsoft software even come anywhere near my Mac. The Microsoft Office trial version was the first thing I deleted form the machine when I got it.

I found that virtually any application - games excepted - that I needed existed on the Mac also, only better usually, and cheaper.

Click to expand...

The reason why is not everyone has all the software they need available on Mac. I do research for a living and several of my statistical analysis software packages I use regularly are Windows only. Some of the big ones are on both platforms, but lots of the smaller ones are not.

Also, I have to use MS Office as I co-author a lot of papers with other professors and graduate students and they're all using MS Office. So it's not worth the headache to deal with formatting problems that come up when converting back and forth between Word and other word processing programs (tend to wreck things like tables, figures, equations etc.

That said, I do agree that I don't see why people in my shoes bother switching to Mac. If you need Windows only software, it's easier to stick with a Windows PC vs. bothering with Mac and hassling with Boot Camp etc.

But most people aren't using specialty software anyway, and can painlessly switch to Mac. It's just tougher for those like me who are locked into a PC workflow and work at home a ton (as much or more than I work in the office) as we need full compatibility of files to do collaborative work with colleagues who are on PCs and need access to windows only software packages etc.

Well, mooshie78, XP didn't seem very well supported to me by Microsoft itself, the last time it blew up on me (I stuck with it as long as I possibly could, as I didn't want to have to buy a new PC). The main indicator of this was in previous blow up cases I'd been able to reinstall the OS from CD, then Microsoft would supply the 3 big SP updates online. That last time though, Microsoft refused, leaving me high and dry. Apparently because of the new OS they were rolling out.

That refusal caused me all sorts of other problems, which I finagled workarounds to, but still I kept suffering so many other problems in the aftermath of MS refusing to update it anymore than I finally gave in and bought a new machine.

But I also have to admit the ancient hardware/software combo I was using XP in had been getting increasingly difficult to live with for a long time, even before the blow up. Especially in regards to internet use, which is a critical function these days. The extremely lengthy boots and restarts were also wearing on me. As were the crashes. All BEFORE the final meltdown, from which it never truly recovered.

The Windows 7 PC with which I replaced it has so far been immensely better; so much better, that had I known how vastly improved my experience would be, I would have exited my XP machine a lot earlier.

I've personally had zero problems with Windows 7.  Has yet to freeze or crash in a year or so of using it.  No driver problems etc.  

XP I had some freezes and crashes, but most of that was spyware related as I had crappy virus protection at the time--had no problems after getting away from using the crappy McAffee program the university provided.

If I had regular problems with Windows I'd be pissed off about it for sure, but I don't and have had especially few since switching to Windows 7 so I don't have many complaints about it personally.  Other's of course may have different experiences.

But anyway, I hate how passionate/fanboyish people are about this stuff.  They're just computers, use what works for you and shut the heck up about what others use. 

I use PCs as it's what I've always used, and I couldn't switch to Mac now for the work related reasons I outlined above.  The OS may be better, but it's useless when I need Windows to run the programs I have to use for work.  I have no loyalty to Windows. It's just what I know and have to use for work.  If something better comes out that runs all the software I need and lets me work collaboratively with all my colleagues with no compatibility issues I'll happily make a switch.

Anyway, it's silly to have loyalty to any corporation.  Microsoft, Apple, Amazon are all just big, greedy corporations that care about nothing but getting as much of our hard-earned money as they can.  I'll never waste any energy being loyal to any of them or defending them etc.  I'll spend my energy equally disliking them and begrudgingly giving them some of my money from time to time!