Been assimilated... going with Apple 'puters

[JodyH]

It's time to replace my aging fleet of Windows home computers.
The old Dell XP desktop just isn't cutting it anymore and something is making the hard drive work constantly (probably something downloaded by the wife or the 9 year old).
The wifes Dell Win7 laptop is still working fine and she'll still use it for work.
My Dell laptop had Win7 take a crap on it so I installed Linux Ubuntu on it and it's just about perfect... until you come across some annoying Linux glitch that forces you into the hell that is "Terminal".
I ordered up a iMac for the family machine and a 13" MacBook Air as my travel companion.
I'll probably still use the Ubuntu machine for my home net surfing.
I'm tired of tinkering with settings and downloading drivers constantly and just want things to work (like an appliance) and be secure/virus free despite my wife and 9 year old's best attempts to compromise the system.
So what kind of transition am I looking at switching from being a long time Windows user (been using it since 3.0) to using Mac Os X?
Good bad ugly?

[_JD_]

It's time to replace my aging fleet of Windows home computers.
The old Dell XP desktop just isn't cutting it anymore and something is making the hard drive work constantly (probably something downloaded by the wife or the 9 year old).
The wifes Dell Win7 laptop is still working fine and she'll still use it for work.
My Dell laptop had Win7 take a crap on it so I installed Linux Ubuntu on it and it's just about perfect... until you come across some annoying Linux glitch that forces you into the hell that is "Terminal".
I ordered up a iMac for the family machine and a 13" MacBook Air as my travel companion.
I'll probably still use the Ubuntu machine for my home net surfing.
I'm tired of tinkering with settings and downloading drivers constantly and just want things to work (like an appliance) and be secure/virus free despite my wife and 9 year old's best attempts to compromise the system.
So what kind of transition am I looking at switching from being a long time Windows user (been using it since 3.0) to using Mac Os X?
Good bad ugly?

It shouldn't be that bad. I only go back to Windows 95 but I still have to do some work in DOS and I've adapted to Mac OS X pretty well. The biggest thing that bothers me is that with the I-Photo application you can't just go moving pictures around without totally screwing up the library...so I don't use I photo and still arrange them in directories etc.

Is there a Mac store anywhere near you? If so you can actually go in and take a little intro class etc.

[Seven_Sicks_Two]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJmrRpPWj4M

But seriously, the switch was pretty painless for me. Although this may have something to do with the fact that I wasn't exactly a whiz at running a Windows based machine. I'm typing this on an approx. 4 year old Macbook that I haven't had any issues with. Take that for what it's worth.

[Josh Runkle]

I am SOOOOOO happy I made the switch. It took me about 2 days of playing with stuff to figure it out, but honestly, it's MUCH simpler and easier to do stuff on. I'm the kind of person who likes to press click and do something.

[jlw]

My last PC laptop lasted exactly one year and 15 days and crashed in the middle of a major project. I jumped in the truck, went to the Mac store, and haven't looked back. I have replaced all personal computing and communicating devices with Apple products and have been very pleased.

[t1tan]

Apple software is pretty self-explanatory and very intuitive, at least I find it to be in my experience. I'm confident your transition will be a smooth one.

I always grew up on PCs, heavy into PC gaming and still do builds for myself and friends, but wanting a laptop I could not find anything worth a damn. Anything I gave a chance running Windows constantly needed maintenance, removal of proprietary software the manufactures add that eat up resources, etc etc.

My first Mac was the first MacBook Air off the truck in my area and it was great in all aspects, build quality and software. Once the iPad came out I felt I had no need for the Air and the iPad would be sufficient. Ended up selling the Air, bought an iMac and iPad, an ideal combination for me. Now with iCloud, everything I do between my devices is always easily accessed between my iMac, iPad 2 and iPhone 4[5 Pre-ordered], all being backed up my my Time Capsule. If Apple doesn't have the solution for you software wise, I've always found a well made 3rd party application to suffice, but usually Apple is good about recognizing users needs and including items in later software revisions rendering the 3rd party apps unnecessary.


I still use PCs but it is limited to gaming as everything I need and want, OSX and my iOS devices take care of my needs. Although I do have a Bootcamp partition installed on my iMac with a severely stripped down version of Windows 7 Basic so that I can run PC only gaming titles through Steam(generally I do run these titles on my PC, being that it is hooked up to my TV, Diablo III is impressive on a big screen).

[Vinh]

Jody,

I don't know if you have used Macs before, but if not, you are in for a very rude awakening.

I am a former computer science guy that as of two weeks ago decided to try a MacBook Pro after my Dell was decapitated.

The first few days were so frustrating that it made me want to give up on technology altogether, buy an SR15, and go live in the woods. I find OS X 10.8.1 to be obtuse, unintuitive, and inefficient. You will still need to tinker with settings and will absolutely need some sort of anti-malware software, as Apple is quite lackadaisical with security. So much is hidden from the user that you will have to intimately reacquaint yourself with the Terminal. At this point in my life, I refuse to relearn command-line instructions so I have to simply go without any sort of intermediate/advanced functionality.

I cannot post my thoughts on Apple software, but I like the hardware, so in the end I kept the MacBook. I have come to accept that I paid big bucks for reduced productivity and security. I suppose as I grow older value has become less important.

[Tamara]

I used the same G3/466 iBook SE as my roadtrip computer from 2001, when I purchased it as a factory refurb, to earlier this year. I don't know how many twelve year old Wintel laptops are outside of landfills, let alone still usable for light-duty web surfing.

And although this is being typed on a Wintel tower, there's an eight-year-old G4/1.25 eMac sitting on the desk next to it that I still use as an iTunes server (for a three-year-old 5th generation iPod Nano.)

As long as you're not using it for cutting edge gaming or needing to have the latest programs or apps, Apple hardware and software is easy to use and incredibly long-lived.

[Carraway]

I use both. I use PCs for work and have a desktop, both Dells, but mainly use a Mac laptop. After some adjustment, switching isn't too difficult. In fact, I think Windows XP used a lot of Mac-like interfaces.

The adjustments depend on what kind of work you do. If you are used to Office, Mac has equivalents and Microsoft has a version of Office for Mac, but they are not as robust as the Windows versions and can get a little quirky. With my first Macbook, I bought Apple's office-like products but was't too impressed, so with my second, I've gone to Open Office, which is pretty good and free. For writing, however, I use Scrivener, which is now my favorite writing/organizing program. (It's here, if you're interested: http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php . There is a free trial, but I quickly bought it after seeing how well it functioned with how I work).

If you're looking to play games on the computer, the Mac selection isn't nearly what it is on a PC. (I don't really have games on the computers and just use a console for that).

The interface is a little different, but if you didn't have much trouble switching to XP, you should be fine. A couple of small things: when you hit the "x" on something, the window will close, but the program will stay active. If you want the program itself to end, you have to select "Quit." Also, while each program in Windows has a taskbar, Mac uses one at the top of the screen which changes for the current program.

Personally, I like using both. I decided on a Macbook when I needed a laptop and didn't want Vista, but I like having a Windows desktop available, mainly for Office, as well. I doubt I'll buy another Dell, however, and do not trust one without a backup drive constantly attached.

[JodyH]

For my office software I use Open Office on my Win machines and Libre Office on my Ubuntu machine.
They do everything I need, I am not a Excel/Word guru and still type with 2 fingers.

I no longer game on a PC. I do a few time wasters on my Droid tablet but that's it.

90% of the household computer use is internet surfing (forums for me, Facebook for the wife, Youtube for the 9 year old) and the occasional streaming movie.
The rest is picture storage/editing (currently use Gimp in Ubuntu), a few documents and presentations and that's about it.
The FaceTime camera/software will replace my Magic-Jack phone so my boy can "call" Mom on her iPhone/iPad when he gets home from school. He has a cell phone for real calls but the FaceTime/Magic-Jack is proof he's actually calling from the house.
I would have skipped the 13" MacBook Air and just did all my travelling with my 10" Droid Tablet, but the tablets still aren't up to the task of presentations on a big screen like in my CCW classes.
You still need a laptop for extended HDMI output, tablets just aren't stable and reliable enough yet for hours of use and multiple files types.
A laptop makes Powerpoint, .PDF, .JPG, .MP4, .DOC, hassle free to open and share.
The tablet does all that, but they still aren't ready for prime time in that area.

I gave up on being a computer "power user" several years ago.
Endlessly tweaking autoexec.bat and config.sys just to make the latest game run burned me out years ago and the few trips I've made into the Linux terminal reminded me how much tweaking sucks.
These days I want my computer to just be a fancy TV with a keyboard.

iMac for the family machine.
iPad2, iPhone4S and a Win7 Dell laptop for the wife.
Samsung Galaxy Tab2 7" for the 9 year old.
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Ubuntu laptop (desktop basically), MacBook Air, Droid Atrix HD for me.
Lenovo XP Pro laptop (damn corporate legacy software) and a Nexus 7" tablet for my work machines.

That should cover it, and I embrace diversity!
Equal opportunity for every OS to crash at my house.