Working with the Internet my entire adult life, I’ve mostly seen Macs as a source of irritation. I’ll be working on a website and the designer gives me a bunch of files without file extensions and I have to spend half an hour working out what application will load them, or I’ll be adding two days extra development time to a project as I debug the CSS so that the site will display on IE.
Actually the largest source of irritation is file endings. I co-write the B3ta Newsletter with my friend David Stevenson, a keen Mac user, and the endless ‘fixing the line endings’ and ‘removing the curly quotes’ as we exchange drafts on email has driven me to distraction.
And yet, two weeks ago, I bought a Mac. Why?
I needed a laptop for my wife to do a bit of email, as my other PC laptop is heavy, it’s often unavailable as I’ve left it in the office.
The secret reason was a bit more boys-toys: “working out how how to use a Mac will be something to geek out on over a dull weekend.”
Scooted about on eBay and found I could buy a 2005 12″ Powerbook at around £550. As these retail new at over £1000, it felt like a bargain.
And I’ll tell you something. Over the last two weeks I’ve fallen in love with my Mac, I’ve turned into a Mac bore. So I figure I’ll just get it over and done with quickly, and instead of winding up all my PC friends by phoning them up one by one, I’ll just write something and let them ignore it in one easy go.
Ten reasons I love my Mac
- The 12″ powerbook is so small I can carry it on the tube without my shoulder hurting.
- Battery life. I get 3 to 4 hrs, meaning I can actually use it for a solid bit of work without plugging it in. Unlike my Compaq which lasts about 1 hr before plaintively bleeping that it needs more juice.
- Having a Mac is like moving to America. Everything is basically the same as the UK, but assuming you can afford it, stuff just works better.
- Tight iLife / iWorks integration. I am so in love with it. For example:
- iPhoto. This weekend a friend and her baby popped over. I took a few snaps and dropped them into a slideshow complete with a Madonna backing track via iTunes. She thought I was a genius and couldn’t believe I’d managed to achieve all that whilst holding down a conversation about prams.
- Mac users are better looking. I took my wife to the Apple store so I could buy a laptop bag and she said, “Gosh. I should send my single friends here. They could pull.” As compared to the time I dragged her to the computer fair off Tottenham Crt Rd, “These people smell. Can we leave?”
- Built-in bluetooth. I transfered my photos off my phone with no faffing about, unlike my PC where I visited a shop, bought a USB dongle and then spent two hours fighting with passkeys trying to get everything to talk to each other.
- Talking point. Last week I was working in a new office full of PC users. Everyone wanted to come over and talk to the Mac user and see how life was different on the other side. It’s a bit like being the token gay in the office. Although as I use a PC at home, it’s probably more like being secretly bisexual.
- I was up and running within minutes. I thought I’d be all twat-fingered and not being able to get stuff to work. On the day my Mac turned-up, I managed to use it to build a quick messageboard / blog website for a friend. It wasn’t any easier, but the fact that it wasn’t any harder than normal means that there’s no reason not to use a Mac as the main tool of my trade.
- It’s so small and shiny.
Ten things that have annoyed me
- No # key. I had to Google to find out how to add a hash to a document. And yet Apple think that I need a § key? Who the hell needs that?
- Bouncy dock items. It’s like having a unruly child with Attention Deficit Disorder. Yes MSN, I can see you’ve managed to sign yourself out, but why do have to keep pestering me until I get clicky on your ass?
- Line endings. Gah. All my posts on Yahoo-groups appear to have random carriage returns placed halfway through sentences. It’s making my emails look retarded.
- Smug friends, who on telling them I really like my Mac, launch into a “I’ve been using a Mac since 1984. Windows is rubbish” zealotry.
- Right click! Yes I know Windows people laugh at Macs for the right click issue, and then Mac people go, “A-ha! But you can plug in a two button one if you like.” But I don’t want to plug in a second mouse – it’s a laptop – I’m currently typing this on my lap. Where would the mouse go? On my knee?
- That six months ago I didn’t tell my mum to buy one and she’s stuck with a PC which she finds tricky to use.
- Fn / Ctrl / Alt / Option / Windows – between the Mac and the PC there are five keys that work as shortcut modifiers. How on earth am I meant to switch between the two machines and know which ones to press? Cut and paste is the worst. On the PC it’s Ctrl C whilst the Mac it’s Apple C. And the Apple key is in the same place as the ALT key on the PC. Gah, it’s slowing me down. Roll on magic keyboards of the future with mini LCDs in each key.
- You know what? I can’t find ten things that annoy me about the Mac. I’ve been racking my brains and there’s no more. In fact, I’m writing this within a web browser and I’ve just realised that there is a spellcheck built into Safari. How cool is that? Not only is it cool, it’s the same spellcheck that works in Textedit and Pages so any words I add to the dictionary are available in all aps. God damn it, I love my Mac. It’s giving me the horn.
End bit
So the question is… Do I replace my desktop with a Mac? Oh gawd, I really want to say yes, but I haven’t really got the spare cash at the moment, but every fiber in my body is going, “yes! never use a PC again. Windows is rubbish.”
And incase you’re wondering. No, my wife can’t have my lovely Mac. She can have the (actually much higher specced) PC laptop that’s currently sitting unloved on the floor.
But I’ll tell you something about this ’switch’ business. Ex-smokers are always the most irritating type of non-smoker. Are ex-PC users the most boring type of Mac user? Er.. I suspect they are, so if you see me knocking about, remind me to shut up about Macs.
shit, a fourth one. but i’m logging off after this seriously.
… not being able to play videos on a projector etc. It’s just a matter of how you do the settings. Certainly if it’s using an Intel series graphics chip, it can only display on one screen – but it’s not locked to which one it uses. Switch from using “display clone” from the laptop screen to the projector, to using it as an “extended desktop” (this will also allow you to better suit the screen resolution to each device). I’ve just checked this by setting the laptop up with the external monitor, and in extended desktop mode I can play a video and move the player from one to the other. It plays fine on both, but if set to straddle across, the one with less than 50% of the video just has a black panel (the video’s still playing full screen on the external monitor while i type this in the laptop screen). If it was simply cloning one to the other, there would at best be arsing about setting the projector as “primary” rather than the laptop (so you get the black panel internally but the video still plays on the projector), at worst total failure. Again, it’s all about using it properly.
The point abou getting excited over a ford mondeo… well, its about how you view it. Are you going to have an Alfa that you trick out and “pimp”, or a sturdy workhorse that’s boring but gets you to work every day? And what of the Mondeo ST24? I’d have one of those in a shot.
So long as the software i’m using isn’t a pile of pants – and often even when it is – I’ve had windows systems run for ages, days, weeks at a time, particularly when on a major P2P binge. They certainly last longer than certain workplace Solaris Unix machines I could mention. Even my old 98 box was generally quite reliable (even against 9x’s intrinsic resource leaks) but not really economical to leave on, though I did so for a while with Folding@Home. Previously the laptop has run for about a virtual month without being properly shut down (hibernating, standby etc – part of why I’ve switched to a portable is to reduce the overall energy use in my life e.g. 9 watts instead of a couple hundred); now I’ve got Folding finally reinstalled on here I’ll get to see how stable it can be running at full whack (20 or 30 watts max) for weeks on end.
One surprising thing I found – Firefox can really upset your system. It chows down on resources like a complete bastard. Opera is much kinder; hell, even IE is, if you don’t mind the security holes. And if you go overboard with the tabs and overload your physical and virtual memory, you can save your session and shut off the program, with a few moments grace to hit stop-all and close a few tabs when re-opening, saving your ass from operating system armageddon. Again, proper choice of programs which won’t destroy the machine; the Solaris box being another example of this, as even it’s Unixosity wasn’t immune to some of the bugs in the thrown-together medical imaging applications we had to use.
I suppose it all adds up to just another windows user banging on a diatribe and a defence of why they use the system, but i don’t see why mac users get so hung up on us doing so… Many of the reasons given in the post directly complaining of this were actually fairly valid, rather than blind denials. Don’t be so swift to tar us all with the same brush and we’ll do you the same favour. After all, Mac was the original highly popular GUI home computer, why else would there be a reputation for snobbishness unless it had been earnt?
I also recognise the futility of replying to a 6-ish month old post, but hey… why the hell not. I’ve got a lot of built up internet constipation. Haven’t done board posting in far too long, meaning this sort of excessive nonsense occurs.
Cheers and goodnight. I think I’m going to watch the rest of the film that’s playing on the second monitor of my low-end-graphics Wintel PC Laptop :-)
[...] I came across a great post this morning from recent switcher Rob Manuel which is a very nicely written and amusing post about his switch where he concludes that the ex-PC user may well be to the Mac what an ex-smoker is to a non-smoker – The most irritating person in the room [...]
Glad you like your Mac, Rob. And yes, Mac users are better looking. This is because we’re so damn smug about it.
I’ve been using a mac since I was 3 years old *smug* although that was my dad’s doing…lucky you got the 12″Powerbook. I got the 13″ MacBook around september. had the logicboard replaced about 5 times in as many months, dog has bitten through the cable, latest firmware update killed it (again), some keys are bust, the front has gone funny colours and the inbuilt bluetooth has decided it no longer exists. didnt anyone tell them that 13 was an unlucky number?
oh, forgot this bit…the disk drive went bust. now all my music skips for some reason, and the lid is coming loose, half the programs dont work, fans got stuck one night and i though a plane was landing outside my bedroom and the keyboard is loud (not normally a problem, but i like to use it late at night (3am now) means mother insists on coming in and trying to take it away. and i dont like the glossy screen…i think thats all…for now…
To the person who said
“Mac has that really annoying ‘Eject’ button on the keyboard, forcing you to buy another Mac keyboard”
Is a prime example of those PC idiots who diss Macs without knowing what they are talking about.
The same brigade who claim there is no software for the Mac – again this is repeated rumour without actual investigation on those that claim this.
I find that many PC users who diss the Mac have never even used one, and those who diss the Mac who owned one 10 years ago have never used a recent one.
I mean comparing the Mac 10 years ago to a PC of today is like comparing Windows 3.1 or 95 to Windows XP ffs.
There are several ways you can eject a CD without the keyboard button. Idiiot.
There are also several games for the Mac including Age of Empires/Mythology/Sims collection/Star Wars collection/Battlefield collection/Call of Duty collection…I could go on!
Before any PC user comments on the negativity of owning a Mac, do me a favour – either use one for a while and then comment or do some research!
The only people worth listening too are those who are using or have used both platforms regularily – and yes, I have.
I got a Mac for the first time about 8 months ago. I actually got it because I was genuinely interested – genuinely interested in getting what I thought was just another shiny new toy to play around with. Talk about underestimation of the century!
I can’t believe how much I’ve fallen in love with this little iBook! Every time I touch my windows laptops (yes, I still have them – they have their uses) I feel like I’m Captain Caveman plunking away on a stone-age keyboard, waiting very long times for things to start up and very short times for things to crash.
Then there is the sheer volume of information on the internet about how to do things and how to tweak things and how to make magic with a mac! Mac users are proud of their investment and want to share their experiences, but I hardly ever see PC users writing anything positive about their PCs apart from their first post after they’ve just bought it, after which it’s all complaints and security issues, etc., etc. As far as I’m concerned, PC stands for “Pretty Crap”, but in this world we just have to live with them. Thank God MS foresaw the future when they decided to make their PCs “Preemptively Compatible”.
I started out wih PC’s in the Windows 95 days and have also bought used older Macs for the past few years. I tend to like Macs for their “coolness” factor. They have their own identity in a world of beige or black PC clones. However, I can build a new pretty much state of the art PC for the same price I can get a 6 year old Mac on eBay, so in the end I’ll still with mostly PC’s, but I have an old G3 iMac (Ruby) that I like to fire up once in a for something different.
For right clicking, just go into the mouse pref pane and select the “For secondary clicks place two fingers on the trackpad then click the button” option and it just works.