Ok, my story. I don't have any big, bad, terrible experiences with Windows per say.
The first mention of ever getting a Mac came from my wife. About 2-3yrs out of the blue one day she said "I want a Mac." She is always one to want to break from the norm, and this didn't surprise me. She's not very computer savy so I knew she knew nothing about them. I mean she could get around ok in XP, but she didn't know where most of the settings were, how to changed them, what to do if she ran acrossed a problem, that kind of thing.
My reaction was "Pfft, what do you want a Mac for? They are over priced and over hyped by fanboys." Her reply "I don't know, I just do." Well that's not exactly a convincing argument to get me to even consider it.
I didn't know anyone that had a Mac so I had 0 experience with them. I had seen them at Compusa and maybe clicked around a bit to see what it was like. But it was more out of odd curiosity, like staring at a circus sideshow freak just because. I had no interest.
When the first mac mini came out, about 2yrs ago I think it was, at that point I developed a small spark of interest. I toyed with the idea of getting one just to see what it was like. I think the cheap version was only $399 which wasn't a big investment. I actually went to an Apple store with a small possibility I might buy one. Well about 5min in the store and I was thinking "what am I doing here?? Why do I want this??" I left and that spark died.
So fast forward to this past May 06. My "newest" built-by-me pc was going on 3.5yrs old. It was still on its initial install of XP and had begun to choke up a little bit. Boot up, when I had to, was very slow. I would get unexpected errors from time to time, programs increasingly not responding, that kind of thing. Really nothing that a fresh install couldn't clear up. But with the computers age I was ready to get something new. I was really past the build-your-own stage. It was fun and interesting the first 3 or 4 times, but I didn't feel like it.
I had heard of the new Intel Macs. At that point there was no Bootcamp and getting XP to run on there was a fairly complex process, not something I had much desire to try. But then Bootcamp came out and my interest was peaked like it had been stuck with a straight pin.
I had for a while still harbored some desire "just to try a Mac to see what OSX was like." But now, with the ability to run XP natively on a Mac it did make some real sense to get one. I could use XP still, but boot into OSX and fiddle around at my leisure.
So I settled on a mini core duo. H
I had to get the one with the superdrive as I needed dvd burning ability. I have to tell you, the $799 price tag was still a bit hard to overcome. That would buy a heckuva lot of PC hardware.
So I go back to the Apple store again, this time maybe 50/50 I was going to buy. I clicked around on one, not really knowing what I was looking for or doing. I then asked one of the sales guys "Do you have Bootcamp running XP on any of these?" He tells me no, and I said "hmm, ok." I turn around and leave with the "what am I doing in here looking at Macs" thought in my head for the 2nd time in my life.
My desire for the mini really took a nosedive when I walked out. But, a few weeks go buy and I become interested again. I end up at a Frys and to my luck I guess you could say, a guy comes over to ask me if I need help and he just happens to be a longtime Mac user. So we talked for a few and I said I was really interested but I still didn't know if this was for me. I ask my wife "what should I do?" The longer I thought about this the less likely I was to buy it. She said "just get it." So I turned, and knowing if I just didn't go for it, I never would. So I said "I'll take it."
Now my intention was to, that night, put XP on there. I got home, got it unpacked. Wow, this thing was tiny. Holy cow, this thing is whisper quiet. Very unlike my last custom built rig which, if you put wings on the side, probably could have flown with all the fans inside.
I then decided "maybe I should just wait a day or two before I put XP on." Give (ie - force) myself some time to learn OSX a bit.
Well days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and I've never done Bootcamp. I did buy Parallels when it was 49.99, before the price increase, but I've booted into XP 3 times only. And the first time was just the novelty to see it working. So only 2 times have I booted into XP to actually do something. And it wasn't anything big. I probably shut it down 10min after I started it up.
So that's my story. I will say initially I wasn't blown away by OSX, and I'm still not. But I have grown to appreciate it more and more with passing time. Windows, when I'm on it now (oldest boy still uses it) seems a bit archaic.
Brevity is not my strong suite sorry to say. Oh, and after the mini I got the wife a Macbook a month later, and just bought the younger kids an iMac G3 DV SE to use to play on the internet.
3 Macs in 7 months. Not too bad.
The first mention of ever getting a Mac came from my wife. About 2-3yrs out of the blue one day she said "I want a Mac." She is always one to want to break from the norm, and this didn't surprise me. She's not very computer savy so I knew she knew nothing about them. I mean she could get around ok in XP, but she didn't know where most of the settings were, how to changed them, what to do if she ran acrossed a problem, that kind of thing.
My reaction was "Pfft, what do you want a Mac for? They are over priced and over hyped by fanboys." Her reply "I don't know, I just do." Well that's not exactly a convincing argument to get me to even consider it.
I didn't know anyone that had a Mac so I had 0 experience with them. I had seen them at Compusa and maybe clicked around a bit to see what it was like. But it was more out of odd curiosity, like staring at a circus sideshow freak just because. I had no interest.
When the first mac mini came out, about 2yrs ago I think it was, at that point I developed a small spark of interest. I toyed with the idea of getting one just to see what it was like. I think the cheap version was only $399 which wasn't a big investment. I actually went to an Apple store with a small possibility I might buy one. Well about 5min in the store and I was thinking "what am I doing here?? Why do I want this??" I left and that spark died.
So fast forward to this past May 06. My "newest" built-by-me pc was going on 3.5yrs old. It was still on its initial install of XP and had begun to choke up a little bit. Boot up, when I had to, was very slow. I would get unexpected errors from time to time, programs increasingly not responding, that kind of thing. Really nothing that a fresh install couldn't clear up. But with the computers age I was ready to get something new. I was really past the build-your-own stage. It was fun and interesting the first 3 or 4 times, but I didn't feel like it.
I had heard of the new Intel Macs. At that point there was no Bootcamp and getting XP to run on there was a fairly complex process, not something I had much desire to try. But then Bootcamp came out and my interest was peaked like it had been stuck with a straight pin.
I had for a while still harbored some desire "just to try a Mac to see what OSX was like." But now, with the ability to run XP natively on a Mac it did make some real sense to get one. I could use XP still, but boot into OSX and fiddle around at my leisure.
So I settled on a mini core duo. H
I had to get the one with the superdrive as I needed dvd burning ability. I have to tell you, the $799 price tag was still a bit hard to overcome. That would buy a heckuva lot of PC hardware.
So I go back to the Apple store again, this time maybe 50/50 I was going to buy. I clicked around on one, not really knowing what I was looking for or doing. I then asked one of the sales guys "Do you have Bootcamp running XP on any of these?" He tells me no, and I said "hmm, ok." I turn around and leave with the "what am I doing in here looking at Macs" thought in my head for the 2nd time in my life.
My desire for the mini really took a nosedive when I walked out. But, a few weeks go buy and I become interested again. I end up at a Frys and to my luck I guess you could say, a guy comes over to ask me if I need help and he just happens to be a longtime Mac user. So we talked for a few and I said I was really interested but I still didn't know if this was for me. I ask my wife "what should I do?" The longer I thought about this the less likely I was to buy it. She said "just get it." So I turned, and knowing if I just didn't go for it, I never would. So I said "I'll take it."
Now my intention was to, that night, put XP on there. I got home, got it unpacked. Wow, this thing was tiny. Holy cow, this thing is whisper quiet. Very unlike my last custom built rig which, if you put wings on the side, probably could have flown with all the fans inside.
I then decided "maybe I should just wait a day or two before I put XP on." Give (ie - force) myself some time to learn OSX a bit.
Well days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and I've never done Bootcamp. I did buy Parallels when it was 49.99, before the price increase, but I've booted into XP 3 times only. And the first time was just the novelty to see it working. So only 2 times have I booted into XP to actually do something. And it wasn't anything big. I probably shut it down 10min after I started it up.
So that's my story. I will say initially I wasn't blown away by OSX, and I'm still not. But I have grown to appreciate it more and more with passing time. Windows, when I'm on it now (oldest boy still uses it) seems a bit archaic.
Brevity is not my strong suite sorry to say. Oh, and after the mini I got the wife a Macbook a month later, and just bought the younger kids an iMac G3 DV SE to use to play on the internet.
3 Macs in 7 months. Not too bad.
