Windows to Mac

When asked the “are you a Mac or a PC?” question, I have always been a PC person. I’ve been a PC geek since the 1980s when I was building batch file menus to load my DOS applications and tweaking my conventional memory to allow me to play games with just 640k of RAM. Windows was a natural progression and, a couple of decades on, I found myself working as an IT consultant building Windows based networks for my clients.

Despite my Windows techie credentials, I can´t deny having my head turned by Apple. I don´t think anyone can deny the shiny appeal of Apple´s computers. Recently I gave into temptation. I am typing this post on the backlit keyboard of my sparkling new MacBook Pro. “Shame on you,” says the IT consultant part of my brain.

It´s happened to me before. About 5 years ago, while I was working freelance in London, I purchased one of the very first white Macbooks. It was like an ill-judged affair. Lots of lust and excitement at the beginning, followed by regret, self loathing and recrimination. A melted power supply, a keyboard destroyed by the smallest drip of wine, all coupled with the fact that my work at the time meant I was running Windows on it in Bootcamp 90% of the time and rarely even going near Mac OSX. This brief dalliance led to me, for a time, becoming a committed Apple hater.

The desirable MacBook Pro

Let´s just call all of that water under the bridge for now. I already feel like a sell-out for buying another one, but I do have some excuses. My requirements in a PC are very different now. I am only looking after Windows networks part time, and the rest of my working life is spent on more creative work, including web design, writing, blogging and digital DJing. You see? I now fit the creative-type Mac demographic. I feel no guilt for retreading this path….

So, what´s this blog all about? Well, before I purchased this MacBook Pro, I spent hours reading reviews and forums, like all good geeks, and doing detailed research. The forums are littered with Apple and Windows fanboys, and there is very little in the way of truly unbiased objective criticism. So, I figured I would create a true and honest account of my experiences in trying out a move from “being a PC” to “being a Mac.”

There are still a few applications which I absolutely have to have Windows for, so, to that end, I am also installing Parallels Desktop so I can have Windows 7 running as a virtual machine on my new laptop, so you can expect to read plenty about my experiences of that setup as well. To give the Mac a proper assessment though, I intend to do as much as possible within Mac OSX, including using the Mail app for my mail and Pages and Numbers for writing and number crunching in place of my usual Microsoft Office applications.

At this stage I have no preconceptions whatsoever. I have already tried and rejected a switch to the world of Mac once, so it could happen again. But, with more time on my hands this time round, I do intend to make a full effort to learn the intricacies of Mac OSX, rather than assuming it isn´t as good as Windows simply because I don´t know my way around it so well.

I don´t know when I will come to a conclusion, or even if I will simply end up concluding that running both operating systems in parallel is the best thing for me. Time will tell, and hopefully my experiences will be interesting as the blog “grows organically.” See, I´m already sounding like a Mac user

Image credits: Header Image eguldry About Image Adria Richards

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