A Giant Step for Clactonian

[Clactonian]

The PC has gone the Mac has arrived. Standing at the foot of a learning curve, it's a clear view to be sure, but it's too early to judge the steepness of the incline.

[Donald]

Weekly progress reports on tasks achieved are to be on the desk by 5pm each Friday!

Have fun.

[Katy Noelle]

I hope that it is, indeed, like walking on the moon! Best wishes and peace.... no matter what new thing we're learning with a computer, there always comes a point where we need peeeeeaaaccccce! Fun!

[Clactonian]

Weekly progress reports on tasks achieved are to be on the desk by 5pm each Friday!
Have fun.

Can I be excused this week please sir? It is the Air Show this week and I have a stand to man.

[Loose Canon]

Congratulations, Mike!

I think your learning curve will be not be so steep, and your rewards will certainly offset any of said incline. I will go out on the proverbial limb here and predict that you are going to enjoy your decision.

Best of luck, sir, and above all, have fun!

[speedneeder]

The PC has gone the Mac has arrived.

Mike, I've been debating doing that myself. Keep us updated on your experience

[Ricco]

I promise I don't get any commissions from apple (I wish I did) - but Macs are far and away better than any PC. I made the jump years ago and never looked back.

Apart from the intuitive nature they are very stable. I've had my Mac for at least 4 years and it has seized or crashed probably less than 10 times. Compare that to my work PC which has issues any other day.

[Colin Southern]

Compare that to my work PC which has issues any other day.

In the vast majority of cases, PC instability is caused by a hardware fault, or unsigned (read "unverified" / "poorly tested") drivers. I run all of my clients on good-quality hardware, and in all honesty, forced restarts are a pretty rare event (I might add that I have to restart my iPhone far more often).

I'm not trying to knock Macs - heck, I'll probably by an Apple laptop myself next time just for the heck of it (in the family we have 3 iPhones - 2 iPods - 2 iPads - and 1 Apple TV) - but it does make me smile when people try to convince me that programs like Photoshop "just work better on a Mac", when in reality, they work exactly the same on either platform (apart from alt/option and control/command key differences)

[Clactonian]

Mike, I've been debating doing that myself. Keep us updated on your experience

OK, so let's start at the beginning. I was running a PC with 'Vista' and it was a nightmare, so anything more modern is going to be an improvement.
I'm also a sucker for clean, minimalist design (love B & O stuff but can't afford it). Even the box that the iMac arrived in got me salivating. The packaging so simple but effective. Slide open the keyboard box and there's a glossy little instruction manual with just one word on the cover .. 'Hello'. That's cool, I'm hooked.
Set up was pretty straightforward and would have been even easier if I'd read the manual!!
First impressions .. screen beautiful and I'm not troubled by any reflections in the glossy finish; tiny keyboard is the best I have ever used and very quick for typing; touch pad surprisingly useful, particularly for browsing the web and files; the jury is out on the magic mouse which I find too flat and light, but will no doubt get used to.
The OS is pretty intuitive. I just need to get my head around the terminology. The file system is not that different, just accessed in a different way.
Lightroom and Elements look the same other than the top menu bar.
I connected my external hard drive, where I store my photos, and it just worked.
So far then, it's great to look at, fast, and easy to use. Just different. If it proves to be reliable then I have a winner and I'll be pleased I made the switch.
Time to get out and take some photographs!!

[speedneeder]

Good for you Mike. I agree, it's time to take some photographs!
Colin, I'm in the same boat as you I guess, in a household of 4, we have 4 iPods and an iPhone and they all work wonderfully. I guess that's why I was considering an iMac. Years and years ago I owned and used a Mac LC and loved it. However, they just cost more, and as a starving college student I made the switch to PC. I have never owned a PC that I loved for it's stability, lack of viruses, or it's user interface. Apple has a great knack for 'intuitive' interfaces IMO.
Oh, and as Mike recently observed, they do have the cool factor going for them too

[Colin Southern]

Colin, I'm in the same boat as you I guess, in a household of 4, we have 4 iPods and an iPhone and they all work wonderfully. I guess that's why I was considering an iMac. Years and years ago I owned and used a Mac LC and loved it. However, they just cost more, and as a starving college student I made the switch to PC. I have never owned a PC that I loved for it's stability, lack of viruses, or it's user interface. Apple has a great knack for 'intuitive' interfaces IMO.
Oh, and as Mike recently observed, they do have the cool factor going for them too

Hi Brian,

I think my biggest observation is that many many users tend to be more fanatical than religious extreemists! ( ), whereas the reality as I see it is that basically one is buying software, and the hardware is just the "box" that the software comes in.

Generally those who own Macs like to think they're so much more stable than PCs, whereas the reality is that - barring for the most part hardware errors - both platforms these days are very stable. Some like to say that Apple hardware is superior because Apple control the quality -- and yet my first iPhone was on it's way back to them within the first 72 hours of me getting it (and they don't do forward replacements even though I had an AppleCare warranty -- so I had to buy another one and they eventually credited the old one). Bottom line there is their hardware is good quality -- but PC owners have the choice of good quality hardware too -- it's just not the cheapest, which is what a lot of people end up buying ("you get what you pay for" comes to mind). I buy good quality PC hardware, and it'd not uncommon for it to provide good service to the customer for 5 to 7 years (some over 10). I've serviced and supported PCs all my life (my first one was a genuine IBM that cost $28000 including interest - 256k ram - twin floppy drives (hard drives for PCs weren't invented yet) - and ironically, I ran my business in space leased from the local Apple dealers (boy did we have some fun conversations!). In those days, it was pretty common for them to have to reboot a Mac about once a day, whereas Windows NT was always pretty stable, although the Mac's GUI was certainly nicer in those days. So in all fairness to PCs, I'd say that in terms of stability, the Mac has finally caught up. I'll tell you something else too -- you REALLY don't want to buy things like replacement Apple Mac motherboards out of warranty -- they used to be something like 5 times the cost of a PC equivalent (and I suspect probably still are).

In terms of viruses - yes - a lot more (the vast majority in fact) are targeted at PCs (nothing more than virus writing vermin wanting the best "bang for their buck") - it's not because Macs are more secure per se, just the opposite in fact - in summaries of security vulnerabilities found - in the 12 months since the release of Vista (uhgh!) something like 3 times as many vulnerabilities were found in the equivalent MacOS at the time, and it took on average 3 times as long for Apple to plug them. In reality, Mac security is more "security by obscurity", which I find fairly scary (kinda like saying "we don't need to lock our doors when we go out because we live in the country"). These days most ISPs do a darn fine job of filtering out viruses, so the primary attack surface has now shifted to infected webservers -- and as a rule, they tend to be the ones associated with sex sites and other sites of ill repute -- one would be very unlucky to catch a virus from "normal" sites. And that aside, most viruses are easily dealt to by keeping ones PC fully patched (something Microsoft does every week) ("Patch Tuesday" we call it), and on top of that, a good anti-virus program is pretty transparent and does a good job. Personally, viruses for me just aren't an issue; I don't have to worry about them or even think of them.

In terms of interfaces -- yes, Apple do a very nice job (especially on the likes of iPhones) - with regards to Macs - yet it's great (very whiz/bang), but I don't see it as adding any aditional functionality over Windows 7 (which is the OS that Vista SHOULD HAVE been) (Vista was a bit of a dog -- simply because of it's resource demands) - for me, an OS is there to run a file system and support applications - on a mac you click on Photoshop and it starts - on a PC you click on Photoshop and it starts - on a Mac you click file -> open and it opens - on a PC you click File -> open and it opens ... no difference really.

As I say -- nothing against Macs -- probably buy one myself sometime just for fun -- but I think the person who wrote the follow, probably summed it up best ...

... PCs aren't as bad as Mac users make out, and Macs aren't as great as Mac users make out. In my eyes, they're just a computer, not a religious experience

Just my 10c worth anyway

[Clactonian]

Colin you are absolutely right it is only a box full of electronics. Buy well and with a fair wind you should have no trouble whatever the make or OS.
We are back to the Canon, Nikon arguments here, which was not my intention.
I have had a PC since they first hit the streets, and all have served me well. I did find Vista a pain as I had one of the very first editions which had all sorts of glitches.
With retirement immanent and no need to have a business compatible machine I just thought I have a change. Time will tell if it's been a wise move particularly as I have the Lion OS pre-loaded which again is hot off the conveyor belt, and if you read the various forum, has its own share of problems.
So lets keep the arguments down chaps, it's a pointless exercise!!
Back to photography eh.

[speedneeder]

I agree, let's go take some photos!

[Colin Southern]

Hi Mike,

No worries - not arguing anyway, I just like to add a touch of balance to some of the "evangelism" posts (where the Mac / Nikon / whatever seems to have almost been elevated to an object of worship - and here to save the world from the evils of Windows / Canon / whatever).

On to far more important things ... Who can tell me how to change the sound my calendar alerts make on my iPhone, or delete an imported calendar entry!

[Clactonian]

On to far more important things ... Who can tell me how to change the sound my calendar alerts make on my iPhone, or delete an imported calendar entry!

Sorry Colin I'm an Android person .... now we could discuss the pros and cons ... no forget it!!

[Harpo]

Mike, if you live near an Apple store, take advantage of the classes they offer. When my Dad got his Mac a year ago after looking at mine, he took the classes and it accelerated his learning curve.

[Colin Southern]

Sorry Colin I'm an Android person .... now we could discuss the pros and cons ... no forget it!!

I'd live to debate the relative merits of my wonderful iPhone -v- Android ... but first, can I borrow your new Apple hat whilst I stand on my soap box?

[MauriceFH]

A new "PC" will not improve your photography! It will, of course, trigger you into work that may prove the oposite - such is life. Let us see the images you produce as a result of the change.

[Clactonian]

A new "PC" will not improve your photography! It will, of course, trigger you into work that may prove the oposite - such is life. Let us see the images you produce as a result of the change.

No suggestion of that or any illusions. Just as Colin said, it's a box of electronics and will have no more affect on my photographic skills as would the purchase of a D3x.