Another Satisified Switcher

[gbchriste]

After umpteen years as a PC user I took the plunge and bought a 24" iMac. Loving it so far!!! I can't totally abandon Bill Gates because I do Windows software development for a living and my company also relies heavily on MS Office for proposal and tech writing. I tried handling some of our more complex documents in both MS Office 2008 for Mac and iWork Pages, but both were less than 100% compatible in handling some of the more complex document features.

So the first thing I did out of the box was load up VMWare Fusion and create an MS XP virtual machine. XP in 512MB of RAM in a virtual machine on iMac is actually running as good as or better than XP natively on most other boxes I've ever seen. Got all of my MS Office, Visual Studio and database tools right there when I need them, but otherwise am happy as clam to be exploring the wonderful world of Mac.

As happy as I am with the purchase, I did almost immediately disprove the notion that Mac OS "never crashes". I downloaded the trail version of iWork and as soon as I tried to view one of the video tutorials the entire system froze up at a blank gray screen. Then to my utter panic would not restart, even with a hard power reset. But the boot up failure looked eeirly similar to a "no OS partition" response you'd typically see on a Windows box. On a whim, I pulled the plug on a USB hard drive that I had attached to transfer files over from my PC and did another restart and sure enough, it came right up. So it seems as if the Mac was possibly trying to boot off of the USB drive.

I'm still learning the Mac way of doing business but so far I think this is going to be a wonderful experience.

 

[IMcD23]

to choose what partition u boot up to, you hold the option key right when you turn it on, you can change it once you boot up by going into sys prefrences and startup disk. hope it helps and glad u like the mac!

 

[kkat69]

I'm still learning the Mac way of doing business but so far I think this is going to be a wonderful experience.

Welcome!!!

I'm a recent switcher from Aug last year shortly after the Alum iMacs came out.

Been watching Apple for a LONG time, even loved using the IIc's at school (bringing copies of donkey kong to play in the library of my elemen school) and finally made the switch last year.

I can't abandon windows either since I am a .Net developer, but at home I certainly have control over what we use.

My wife is a recent switcher as of Thxgiving of last year and she's 100% happy.

My kids don't want to use their Dell's and would much rather use daddy's computer or mommy's computer so they'll be switching xmas as each of them (my 6yr old daugher and 5yr old son) will be getting iMacs.

My 13yr old son couldn't care less as long as he can play BF2142, WoW, Quake etc. All of which can be done on mac. Beyond that he has no preference.

My Mom is a recent switcher as well, I got her a MB a few weeks ago and so far she's in love with it.

Being in IT I still have a need for Windows, so I parallels. I am getting better at running 'compatible' software to exchange things between my realm and the others in my office. It's a challenge but one that's been overcome.

 

[gbchriste]

to choose what partition u boot up to, you hold the option key right when you turn it on, you can change it once you boot up by going into sys prefrences and startup disk. hope it helps and glad u like the mac!

Didn't want to go the Boot Camp route and have to boot to one or the other. I much prefer to have my XP OS available if needed without having to restart the system. However, VMWare Fusion does let you select a Boot Camp partition to use as a virtual machine so I may end up creating a Boot Camp partition after all and run it most of the time as virtual machine from within Mac OS but still have the option to run XP natively as the primary OS if I need to.

gbchriste

 

[gixxerfool]

Im new to macs also. I remember the IIe my brother had and the ones I used in school also. Had a PC for the past few years, got tired of chasing spyware and viruses and constantly needing hardware updates. I bought my Mini superdrive 3 weeks ago and with the exception of trying to find stuff in my HDD I love this macheen! I wont go back and dont have any reason too.

 

[gbchriste]

I can't abandon windows either since I am a .Net developer, but at home I certainly have control over what we use...Being in IT I still have a need for Windows, so I parallels. I am getting better at running 'compatible' software to exchange things between my realm and the others in my office. It's a challenge but one that's been overcome.

Likewise. I'm an ASP.Net developer. I stood up my VS2008 and SQL Express environment in my Fusion virtual machine and it's running beautifully even in the "measly" 512MB of RAM I allocated for it. I will be upping the Mac RAM to 4GB and will increase the virtual machine available RAM at that time.

I'm also dealing with some of the cross over challenges but so far nothing has been insurmountable. I shelled out $40 for Paragon's NTFS on Mac driver so I could seemlessly read/write all of the external drives (both thumb and cable connect) that I use to transport work files around on and I need a better image editor that Mac's iPhoto. I'm looking at the GIMP open source program but will probably end up getting Photoshop Elements.

But all in all I'm looking forward to an outstanding and enjoyable experience.

gbchriste

 

[kkat69]

Im new to macs also. I remember the IIe my brother had and the ones I used in school also. Had a PC for the past few years, got tired of chasing spyware and viruses and constantly needing hardware updates. I bought my Mini superdrive 3 weeks ago and with the exception of trying to find stuff in my HDD I love this macheen! I wont go back and dont have any reason too.

Finding things is the one thing I probably like the most out of OSX. Most of the files and folder you really don't even need or shouldn't be in.

Everything you ever need is mostly under your main user folder.
Documents, Pictures, etc.

Some say they mimic the "My Documents" folder, but in here it seems more organized and easier to get to.

No more "Program Files" then sift through folders that may or may not make sense (applications using their company name as folder which at times can be cryptic). Applications and easy .app files

I'm really happy and the only thing I dread about going to work and using my dell laptop is that it's a DELL laptop. Otherwise I handle just fine with both but found my new home in OSX.

 

[kabunaru]

Welcome to the Mac side. Enjoy your Mac.