So, I was in the midst of writing what I thought to be a meaningful article (which will get posted… eventually) when I came across several Mac vs. PC articles on none other than AOL News today. I enjoy reading those types of articles because sometimes they make interesting points from an PC user perspective that I may have a difficult time conceptualizing. Such was not the case with this articles, and here is why…
This article, which isn’t too bad, is by Michael Tolosa over at AOL Shopping. He eventually concludes that Macs are superior products, but has a few shaky arguments in favor of PC along the way.
This laptop acts as my remote machine for work. Unfortunately, the tools I use for work are not supported by the Mac operating system or the Safari web browser.
Sounds like your company’s system was one of those olde fashioned, designed-for-IE type applications. You can’t blame Apple for poor software decisions made by your employer. There are many viable browser alternatives to Safari on Mac including the venerable Firefox, Camino, Opera, and more. If your company software isn’t supported on any of them, might be time to fire up Boot Camp or VMWare. Oh wait…
The way I got around this was by installing a Windows partition on my Mac, where I could install all the Windows programs I needed and access them for work. One downside to installing a Windows partition on your Mac, is it can take up to 32GB of hard drive space.
If I may borrow a popular internet meme: You’re doing it wrong. You can scale the size of a Boot Camp partition to any size you like, and some slipstreamed versions of XP I’ve encountered only require about 700MB total. If you’re only using Windows for a few programs and Internet Explorer, you shouldn’t need to partition more than 4GB.
…many of the software utilities you use on a daily basis aren’t available in Mac versions. And even if they are available on the Mac, they’re usually limited in functionality compared to the more robust and fully-developed Windows versions. For instance, the AIM client for Mac is less functional than the Windows version. Other utilities (like FTP clients, bit torrent clients, etc.) rarely come in two versions. You’ll have to find completely different Mac products to complete these daily tasks.
Fancy that! When I switch operating systems I can’t bring my programs with me! This part of the article here seemed like a bit of filler, truth be told. AIM for Mac hasn’t been updated in years, that’s why Apple throws in it’s own great little chat client called iChat. If you’re not happy with iChat, a quick Google search for “mac IM program” will direct you to Adium (which actually ranks higher than AIM in the results), a great open source instant messaging client. Two FTP clients off the top of my head that come in both Mac and Windows flavors are the open source Filezilla and GlobalScape’s CuteFTP. The official Bittorrent client is multiplatform, too, and another quick “Mac bittorrent” search will yield results for Transmission, which is comparable to uTorrent in features and functionality.
One thing you won’t ever get on a Mac is a version of Internet Explorer.
Oh really? No shit. Thank God.
The other big difference between buying a Mac laptop and a PC laptop is price. The Mac will cost roughly twice as much as a PC.
I went to Apple’s Online Store and Dell’s Online Store. I then selected the higher-end white MacBook, which starts at $1299 and has a 13.3″ screen, 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM, and a 160GB hard drive. Then I went to Dell’s site and selected the 13.3″ XPS M1330 and matched the specs. The XPS ended up costing $1,174. So while the Apple is a bit more expensive, it’s nowhere near twice as much. You can buy a machine that’s half as good for half the price, though.
In conclusion, I believe Mr. Tolosa was a little lazy in regards to some research about the Macintosh platform, but I won’t hold that against him since he finishes with the line:
Once you switch to a Mac, you’ll never go back.
So little to say and so much time… Here goes something….
My name is Andrew to everyone who knows me and nothing to the people who don’t. I rarely feel inclined to write about myself and this small text blurb is no exception. I’m a film maker, of sorts. A designer, of sorts. A musician, of sorts. A photographer, of sorts. An armada of etceteras march behind these four generals.
The point I’m trying to make is that I enjoy art in all of it’s forms, and try my best to creatively express myself in every medium I take a liking towards. As always, things like life get in the way of being a non-stop idea factory, but that life is something that I’m thoroughly enjoying at the moment.
It consists of my beautiful girlfriend who I am very much in love with, a job that pays me well to do work that I would otherwise be doing for free, and a family and friends that I wouldn’t trade the world for. It’s safe to assume that I’m walking on air/over water/atop mountain peaks (pick one… hell, pick all three).