I've switched

Something has come up and I need to get this off my chest…after twenty years in the Windows wilderness and several years of DOS before that, I’ve moved to Mac OSX. A few things led me to this turning point, so for those who are interested, the story goes something like this.

My last exposure to Mac was the original Mac 128Kb (black and white) model while I was at university. Our first year Computer Science lab was full of them so that we could learn how to program in Pascal. My initial impressions were quite favourable, and the whole windows, icons, mouse thing was a nice change from my previous text based screen experience with a number of older computers from my youth. I’m talking Tandy TRS80, Apple 2, Commodore VIC 20 and 64 and a smattering of other systems including CP/M and a little early MSDOS. I owned the VIC 20 and 64 myself at the time I first met the Mac, and was in the process of moving to Commodore’s latest, the Amiga, which also had the windows, icons, mouse thing happening. My Amiga was not quite as polished as the Mac, but it pushed the Mac to one side in my mind with its 4096 colour display(!) and amazing sound capabilities.

From there, I progressed back into MSDOS and then Windows 3.11 after purchasing my first decent desktop PC after I graduated. I went that way because Commodore had pretty much folded, and PCs were coming into vogue at work. I thought it best that I have the same option at home to refine my capabilities and be able to move files back and forth.

I’m an avid video gamer, so I worked my way through the landmark PC game titles, especially the first person shooters and followed Microsoft through the various Windows iterations. Along the way I got a taste for building my own machines, and embraced the new 3D graphics accelerator technologies as they came along, including the original 3dfx Voodoo 1 and then Voodoo 2 cards in SLI, running Quake at ridiculous frame rates without raising a sweat. I loved lugging this box to LAN parties most weekends, and hosting a few of my own. Later I also built a home theatre PC to play my media library on the big screen.

Ah, the memories.

During this period, Apple was not even a consideration. It didn’t support a lot of the software or hardware I was into at the time, and trying to migrate stuff from a Mac at home to PCs running MS Office at work and vice versa was something I just wasn't prepared to deal with.

There were times of course when Windows really annoyed me. Microsoft sometimes made things even worse by releasing versions that introduced more problems than they solved. (I’m looking at you Windows ME and to a lesser extent, Vista...) Thankfully however Microsoft would then redeem themselves with an excellent update, such as XP and then Windows 7. Most versions however, would suffer from that Windows malaise of gradually slowing down through the accumulation of "digital fluff" unless I was particularly careful with how I maintained the installation. Even then, it was not uncommon to give my PC a haircut every once in a while, which entailed formatting the hard disk and reinstalling from scratch. I got particularly good at it by using snapshot images, and could get a PC set up again with everything I needed back in place in no time. Later versions got better at dealing with the accumulating "digital fluff" issue, and I still am particularly impressed with the consistent solid performance of Windows 7. We are still running it at work, which is a good thing. Alas, Microsoft then decided to try and go touchy feely with Windows 8 and its update, Windows 8.1, but in my mind they have totally stuffed it. I hate the whole dual interface thing and how some applications run by default in the Modern/Metro UI and others from the desktop with little consideration for what the user might actually want or prefer at the time.

Over the years I got so frustrated with Windows' annoyances, that I dipped my toe in the Linux pool a few times. I tried Red Hat while I was working on a personal server project, and then later Mandrake. I tried old school with Debian, and more recently Ubuntu and Mint. I had no problem finding my way around Linux, but it just didn’t grab me. The immediate access to the power of the OS via the console was great, but it became a little too painful and fiddly at times, or there would be things that I still needed to do in Windows that was not so easily achieved in Linux, so I kept gravitating back.

Despite Windows 8/8.1 really testing my patience, I was planning to stick with it, but then fate served me an opportunity, one that I am now actually very grateful for.

My main home PC (a Sony Vaio i7 laptop) started becoming quite flaky. Every now and then, the SSD boot disk would indicate that the OS could not be found. I would reboot and it would then start up. This became a more regular thing, and as the computer is now just over two years old, it is out of warranty. I looked into possible repairs, but the cost was approaching that of a new PC. The Sony has been more than enough for my current needs but to be honest, I was never completely happy with it, and I particularly wasn’t enjoying working within Windows 8. Some of my main requirements now are around sorting and editing my photos, some basic home video production, maintaining my media library which lives on a separate NAS, web surfing, email and the occasional bit of word processing and spreadsheet work in Word and Excel. What happened with my gaming? I moved to consoles to get away from the constant PC upgrade cycle and dealing with driver updates etc, and haven’t looked back. ;-)

After backing up the contents of the Vaio via several boot attempts, I decided it was time for another PC, and that’s when it became interesting. I suddenly realised I don’t need to have PC gaming support, and everything I do now is supported by Mac OSX. It also dawned on me that Boot Camp would be my get out of jail card should I need to access something that is Windows only, or I could install a virtual machine which seemed to also work well based on my research. (I had dabbled with VMware while I was playing with Linux, and hardware and virtual machine performance have come a long way since then.)

The main remaining barrier for me was the entry price. The Apple devices are well built and generally have a quality feel quite unlike anything else, but there is the "Apple premium" you must pay for the privilege. I briefly contemplated building a Hackintosh, but was reluctant to work through that for my reintroduction to Apple. Eventually, after considering the price difference, but weighing up the included software functionality out of the box with the included iWork suite, I decided to have a go, and am typing this on my new MacBook Pro 13” 8/256 with Retina.

So far, I love it! The lightness of the Macbook Air and its incredible battery life nearly won me over, because I travel a lot, but one look at the Retina display, and I was hooked. The text on this thing is amazing. I was also after a little more RAM just to feel more confident that I had sufficient head room to do a little editing, which left me with the Pro.

Even with the additional performance and high resolution display, battery life is still more than enough, with all day operation without a charge being readily achievable for my working style. Performance is brisk, but I haven’t really pushed it yet. I might comment on performance again later when I do some more extensive video and photo work, particularly if any issues arise.

I have set up a small Windows 8.1 virtual machine using VMware Fusion as you can see in my screenshot above, and it works brilliantly so far. I normally run it as a separate full screen app and can move across to it with a simple swipe across my trackpad. I have setup just a basic installation with Office 2010 for emergency use only such as dealing with native Office documents from work if the need arises. My intention though is to stay in the world of OSX as much as I possibly can, and perhaps one day be able to remove the Windows installation due to a lack of use.

From here, I intend to blog occasionally about my experiences as a "switcher" after twenty odd years of Windows. I am sure there will be some minor frustrations and hopefully I can help other switchers avoid these who might also be considering Mac OSX as an alternative. 

If like me, you are contemplating moving to OSX after getting frustrated with Windows, I strongly suggest it based on my experience so far. It is easier than ever to make the switch thanks to Boot Camp and virtual machine software if you must still have Windows access. Apple have also come to the party with lower cost entry into OSX via the Mac Mini and lower end MacBooks. In the worst case, if you do invest in a Mac but find OSX simply isn't for you, you can always install and run Windows exclusively on the most recent Intel based Mac hardware, and avoid OSX altogether.

I'm not sure why you would though once you have a play around in OSX. My impressions are that it leaves Windows 8/8.1 for dead!

Later.