Comments on: I Bought a Mac – The Story

By: GingerNinja

GingerNinja — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:26:27 +0000

Hi

Loved reading your story.

I've been using PC's for work since Win3.11/DOS6.22 and owned one since 1995 when I got a Pentium with Win95 on it. I've always been sceptical of Mac's and actually hated the PowerPC's I had to support in the IT lab I worked in during '95-'97 as I found them clunky and a pain.

My world view started changing when I tried using a Dock with my Windows XP machine a few years ago (so Jaguar / Panther time) and started hunting for better icons and a better GUI style than the teletubby look of XP. Reading comics such as AppleGeeks and other "noise" from the net about the great love for Macs only served to picque my interest over the last 2 years.

Ignoring my iPod Video for now as my ove for iTunes and the iPod don't really count in my opinion, my seduction to the Dark Side started when I got the iPhone 3G on its release after drooling over it for the prior 6 months - always holding out from getting the 1st gen as I felt certain that the next one was due "any time now". I love the interface and the clean lines and how everything is so much more polished and gorgeous than my SPV C600 Windows Smartphone which was clunky as hell by comparison with frequent reboots.

I fully stepped onto the path when I got a geek booty call from some close friends. He had a XP laptop full of her stuff (she's an illustrator) that needed transferring to her G5 Mac (I think that's what it is - plastic tower thingy!). I followed a 5 step process from a Mac networking website which saw me connect then via a cross-over cable in about 5 minutes. Everthing was logical and easy to find and I finally went "wow". My friend asked how I had got on an couple of hours later to be told that I had downloaded all the updated drivers for her printer/scanner that she couldn't get to work, had updated the OS and moved all her documents to the correct locations. She was amazed as I hadn't really touched a Mac before and was more propficient than her in a very small amount of time.

Where am I now? Busily saving up for a laptop - a MacBook to be preceise. I figured I can either get Windows because I know it and deal with the huge changes that Vista brings or I can go for the 80% of what I need in one gorgeous box solution that is a Mac. In fact, right now I am looking at several second hand ones on eBay as the market is flooded with them after everyone appears to have upgraded to the Alu MacBooks.

I'll be installed XP on my MacBook for MS Money but otherwise I hope to fully migrate. My wife and kids will keep using my old PC - as will I for games as it is a fast gaming rig - but I hope to make the jump soon.

TTFN

By: Robert Scoble: “I Love My New Mac”

Robert Scoble: “I Love My New Mac” — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 00:13:22 +0000

[...] I find extreme pleasure in finding out that he too has joined the ranks of those of us who “jumped in fully clothed.” Welcome to the party Robert, I hope you have as much fun as I’m having – [...]

By: Brent

Brent — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 13:32:48 +0000

Thanks for your story! It’s alway great to hear other’s stories as well. As far as the mailing list… I only send out a few mailings each month. not that many at all. Just top stories, posters, comments and eventually, special offers and stuff like that. I don’t like being bombarded with email just as much as the next guy, so I will be trying to keep it under control. As always, suggestions and ideas are accepted anytime. Thanks for stopping by!

Brent

By: Johnny B

Johnny B — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 11:11:28 +0000

Brent,
I just stumbled across your site and read your switching story, I like it. I’m sure your already pretty proficient in running a Mac.
I’m 50 with no kids and taught (read tortured) myself in 1999 to run a laptop running W98SE. It was pure hell for about 4 years and I would actually have some anxiety whenever I had anything important or new to do. I had all the problems that everyone else has had with Windows and due to my curious nature add a few more to that list.
I think of a computer as a household appliance/business tool and expect them to work, reliably for many years without acting up, even once. If your refrigerator ran like a Windows box, would keep it and or buy one like it and keep replacing your valuable food?
I bought a 17″ fp iMac back in May of 2003 from a 60ish couple who had it for less than 2 weeks and couldn’t or didn’t want to learn a new OS. They paid $2300 for it and they also bought Office-Mac for over $300. They sold it to me for $1000 and thanked me and wished me luck.
I took it home and within 20 minutes I was feeling great and actually doing things very easily. I got Missing Manuals’ OS X Second Edition “Jaguar” manual with the machine and have found it to be a valuable resource http://missingmanuals.com/.
I have since upgraded to Tiger and bought Missing Manuals Tiger edition as well as several fruit-flavored iMacs, a couple for my home network and the rest I either sold, loaned or gave away to friends who all love them.
I assume you know you can run Windows on a separate partion on your HD. Well enjoy it, I know I’ll always have Macs. You probably will too.

I may opt to join your mailing list. Would you mind telling me how many messages are generated on an average day?

Thanks,
Johnny B.
iMac therefore I am

By: zmacman

zmacman — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 19:20:36 +0000

Yo Brent… so glad to hear that you have moved over to Mac. Back in ‘99, I broke down and bought a PowerMac G4 to ‘just’ do audio recording on OS9 for a demo project I was working on. I was like you too, stuck in the PC world and had a unjustified, uninformed view toward Apple. I’ve been a network admin for PCs for many years and love going home to my mac to really de-stress and be creative.

I remember the day that I installed OSX 10.0 (beta) and it was like being a kid in a candy store… and I’m still that way today. It never gets old!

Looking forward to contributing!
Tom (zmacman)

By: Alan

Alan — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 16:01:41 +0000

I bought a mac in 1999 and its still in the family happily running OS9.1 and OSX public beta! (for nostalgia reasons) I remember the excitement when my Blueberry imac arrived and I wasn’t let down – became an instant Mac convert and 8 years and several macs on still love using my macs especially after working all day with XP.

Here’s a link to some opensource software I found recently http://www.opensourcemac.org/

Keep up the good work

By: The BAM Report

The BAM Report — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 06:32:49 +0000

[...] I Bought a Mac – The Story [...]

By: Brent

Brent — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 07:45:30 +0000

Thank you! I’d love to know where you’re from (if you don’t mind) can I subscribe to your feed, if you have one? (Honestly, I think I’m addicted to feed reading)

Thanks for stopping by!

Brent

By: tim

tim — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 06:10:29 +0000

Well done sir.
I have always used macs except for a brief dark period of about 3 months when we were renetworking my house, and pcs were to be used to make things “easier”. Working with windows for that three months was damn near unbearable. Constantly having to restart and reboot. I thought that it couldnt be as bad as they all said but it was. so of course i was back on a mac in no time, and now all the friends that used to argue that pc is better cant even use a pc now that they have used mac for about a month.
bravo
-tim

By: Brent

Brent — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 22:04:01 +0000

Thanks for stopping by. I checked out your site… thanks for the link

Brent