In the third installment of a series in which longtime Windows expert Scot Finnie gave Apple’s Mac a three-month trial as his primary machine for work and home use, Finnie writes, “Bye-bye Windows! My three-month Macintosh trial has ended, but my permanent gig with the Mac is just getting started. Apple’s MacBook Pro and Mac OS X are now my computer and operating system of choice.”
Finnie writes, “If you give the Mac three months, as I did, you won’t go back either. The hardest part is paying for it — everything after that gets easier and easier. Perhaps fittingly, it took me the full three-month trial period to pay off my expensive MacBook Pro. But the darn thing is worth every penny.”
“After hundreds of hours testing Windows Vista during its extensive beta cycle, last year I found myself wondering if it would turn out to be the best operating system choice for most people. That’s when I decided to give Mac OS X a fair shake. In early November I began a total-immersion trial of the Macintosh,” Finnie writes.
Finnie writes, “After living with the Mac for three months and comparing it to my Vista experiences, the choice is crystal clear. I’ve struggled to sort out my gut feeling about Windows Vista, but the value and advantage of the Mac and OS X are difficult to miss. While I continue to work with Windows XP and Vista on a number of other machines, I am now recommending the Macintosh for business and home users.”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Welcome, Scot! May your switch from Windows to Mac inspire many others to give superior personal computing a try!
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Scott Finnie for years has been one of the biggest proponents of Doze around, on the order of Thurrott. This is a tremendous change on the part of one of Doze’s “brightest stars”.
Yeah, this is WALTER!!!!
O.K. That does feel pretty good. Who’s next?
Thorin:
Sent Scot the URL for ShinyWhiteBox, iShowU software. Works great for me.
Scot will discover that the software search is part of the Mac experience – so many people spending so much time to deliver solutions for next to nothing.
And for the poster moaning about his Mac experience (“I Just Don’t See It”) as a comment to Scot’s article: Add too much software to any computer and you’ll have problems – electronic constipation. Didn’t know whether to _ or go blind.
…but his search for Mac software goes on… – and what a tedious read his 5-page article is!
…Doesn’t he just need command-shift-3 and Photoshop, or am I crazy…? You’re not crazy, he wants it do do command-shift-3 and Photoshop and AppleScript and ftp and BBEdit and write the whole article for him too. In html. The kind of software he dreams about is the kind of software everyone dreams about, from professional pornographers to hackers: a one-step solution to his very personal, particularly complex needs. When software becomes that bloated, it becomes less capable at individual tasks. At that time, developers start asking for significant upgrade fees; typically, consumers balk and decide to pirate it instead…and the long slide down starts.
Lucky bastard. It’s like having sex for the first time (well ok not quite). I’ve been a Mac user since System 7. Maybe I should give Vista a 3 month trial, which I’m quite willing to do. But it will be on a Mac not a PC.
dd,
Patches, we don’t need no stinking patches. Seriously I’ve never once bothered with security updates and the like. My firwall is wide open (p2p reasons) sharing of all kinds is pretty much turned on. I’ve been a sitting duck for years. No one has ever once come knocking.
Nicely said Less is More!
Using a computer is about using your imagination and creativity to do things efficiently. He is looking for Microsoft style bloatware, tries to do everything, mostly badly…
Your monicker says it very clearly.. Less really is MORE!
‘Yeah, this is HUGH!!!! Someone switched!!!!! A clear sign MS is finished!!!! WOOOO HOOOO Steve!!!!!
Windows guy—California pubic school. Hugh indeed!
Pubic school indeed! Maybe a bit of eh… humidity … wouldn’t be out of place, ron.
Hi
I think the Mac OS X is the better than Windows Vista! Or Am I wrong? I will get the imac and Macbook I Sill got the ibook. I never stop use the Mac ibook! And my pc xp is very very slow!
Best To All.
From
Karl
I don’t get the guy. I read all his three articles and he seems to be a very bad journalist/writer/researcher. What is the point of his articles? His experience is not applicable to 99% of potential switchers. He has very refined needs. No wonder he has problems with his 1,500 [sic!] Eudora mailboxes and over 500 mail-filtering rules. He is a geek and an ultimate geek to add. He has those niche applications he learned to use a long time ago and cannot let go of them and learn something new (like he cannot let go of all this mail and keeps in 1,500 mailboxes). He needs a change in attidute and the way he deals with information.
I read that article since I am switching myself, but there is nothing in there that I could apply to my situation, nothing, nada. Well, maybe a point he makes about Kingston memory for Mac.
He was just for too long on the Windows side and learned the wrong habbits. I have just read Pogue’s Mac OS X Missing Manual and I would recommend it to everyone thinking about switching. There you have all the information an average person needs.
My 2 cents.
WOW – yes VISTA is creating the WOW factor as potential buyers are looking at OSX and finding the WOW that VISTA isn’t delivering
“Maybe mac fan is identifying himself as Hugh and he was excited about it.”
Mac Fan is a Windows fanboy and intended to be sarcastic. Hence the misspelling, the capitalizations, and the multiple exclamation marks.
But the giveaway that tells us we’re dealing with such a creature here is the phrase “someone switched”.
But, of course, he’s way off the mark. It _isn’t_ just “someone”. It’s Scot Finnie. And Scot writes about computers for a living. As paul Graham said recently:
“All the computer people use Macs or Linux now. Windows is for grandmas, like Macs used to be in the 90s. So not only does the desktop no longer matter, no one who cares about computers uses Microsoft’s anyway.”
http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html
No one cares about computers uses Microsoft’s anyway.
That’s the point. Scot’s merely another illustration of someone who “cares about computers” not having much time for Windows.
It’s an interesting phenomenon.