chicus.com
have your sliced bread and eat it too.
The Switch
Dec 13, 2009
This is my first post...no, not in two months, though I guess that is true. This is my first post from my Mac. Huzzah.
I made the switch after much contemplation on Black Friday. Apple had a deal and my hope was to parlay their special with my corporate discount. It didn't work as such but I made the switch regardless.
It wasn't an easy decision for two primary reasons. Most notably, the price. Macs are still more expensive than their Windows-running counterparts. It really left me conflicted, I am kind of a cheap-ass. A second and lesser reason was the comfort I had with the freeware/old software I had for my PC. I could swiftly install all the software I was used to, with the exception of Office, for which I lost the install disk some time ago.
As my circa-2005 laptop slowly ground to a halt I knew I had to find a replacement. The comfort choice would be a faster PC laptop (than my existing) running Windows 7 and moving/installing my existing software over. However, the ones I looked at left me wanting something more. That something was UNIX.
I wanted integrated UNIX support for one primary reason, to develop this site and other applications locally. When developing on my PC I was forced to write, save, and upload the file, then refresh in a web browser. It wasn't the worst scenario in the world but it was cumbersome, especially when my 'office' at the back of the house gets a pretty lousy internet connection. Sure, I could have installed apache, php, and mysql on a PC but it wasn't running natively as it does on a UNIX box. I also heavily considered an OS-free machine which would allow me to install the Linux version of my liking and the server software mentioned previously. However, I frankly didn't want the responsibility of having no support staff to fall back on should I need it.
Finally, I have been using my Mac at work much more than I had been and I just really like the OS. The trackpad has some fun new features (drag 3 fingers to the left and it takes you back a page while browsing the web, 3 right take you forward), Expose is brilliant for clearing or organizing the desktop, and searching for files and applications is so easy.
I'm not an Apple fanboy, I openly admit their shortcomings (Hello iPhone, welcome to the 21st century with cut and paste in 2009!) and have seen them on this machine (you can't turn off the startup sound without installing a 3rd party app) but all in all, it's slick. So after about 6 weeks of hemming and hawing I took the plunge and am very happy I did.
Anyhow, Merry Christmas. My gift to you is writing again!
Glad to have you back!!
Thanks, it's good to be back.
I've actually tried to not think about how much more it cost but I'd say in the neighborhood of $700 more after my discount.
However, even now when doing that comparison I just can't get excited about any of the PCs I see. For a similar size (15+inch) they are much more boxy and bulkier. I'm very satisfied with my choice and for the satisfaction I feel justified in spending extra. That feeling doesn't come naturally to me so I take it as a sign I made the right choice!
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welcome back. curious how much more you spent on the mac in comparison to a similarly spec'd pc.