I have always been a PC guy. Even worked for IBM a while back. While I don't LOVE Apple like so many, I will say there hardware is impressive. My 5(going on 6) year old used MacBook is faster than my two year old Windows 7 machine, and just about on par with my sister's brand new 2 day old HP with Win7. The MacBook seemed to be a little faster even.

The biggest reason to get a MacBook in our industry IMHO is to learn it inside and out. As time goes on, more and more of our clients are going Mac. In fact, they are going full Apple Eco system as I believe Stamp put it in another thread. I knew very little about Macs a year ago, but now feel confident that I can go into a client house and setup and fix just about any issue they have.

I will say that if you are going to run Windows in Parellels, make sure you have plenty of RAM. My machine maxes out at 3GB and it's not enough. Parallels itself uses a ton of memory, so by the time you open a couple programs you have used it all up. I did have a Mac Mini before the MacBook that had 8 GB, and it worked fine.

If someone in our industry can't figure out how to use a Macbook relatively quickly, they need to find a new line of work. Honestly.

Rename that Ernie with technology that's no better than old, and, as presented, is worse, and I'm with you.


I want to be able to position the cursor exactly. If one swipe of a, what, 4" wide pad moves all the way across a 12" wide screen, then to put the cursor within 1/8" of where you want it, you have to swipe to within 1/24," about 40 thousandths of an inch. Yes, you can back up, too, but you have to be more precise.

And I've never seen a computer set up so that a full swipe goes all the way. Usually it's three or four swipes to get all across, and people usually stop before they get to the edge of the pad; nobody wants to swipe across the computer itself!


You've definitely got me there!


Why? You don't need to move the cursor around?


My fingers usually rest on the keys, and you've got it -- I use hot keys. I open Quickbooks by typing Ctrl-Alt-Q. I take it you mouse over to the desktop icon, left click, mouse to the Quickbooks icon, then left click. That's four operations where you watch the screen while I type one multiple set of keys without looking. Maybe the difference is that I type and you hunt and peck?

What is your term of relatively quickly? A half hour? Maybe an hour? Would that be enough time? I ask because if you have not used a Mac, or have barely used one and you find yourself in a customers house working on a job where some problem arises with the install related to the Mac, or the customer asks you to take a look, can you sit down having never used one and correct the problem? The answer may be yes, but how long will it take? Going in with a working knowledge of the Mac OS will greatly help you and speed things up. How often do we put together systems using equipment we are familiar with because of the fact that we KNOW what we can do with it and we can do it quickly? Same principal.

I will also say that the company that I worked with before I started my own company had ~9 employees at any given time, plus 2 bosses. Of those 11 people, I was the only one that knew anything about computers. No one else could even install a router. I thought it was pretty bad to be involved with a tech company and be so computer illiterate, but there are plenty out there.

Im referring to someone a few posts back talking about the Mac learning curve. Yeah, I think it may take a day or two to feel comfortable working on a Mac for someone moving from PC's. But if someone who integrates technology for a living doesn't purchase a mac because of a perceived "learning curve", then maybe they would be better off selling meat door to door.

Everyone likes different things. Mac's aren't for everyone, but difficult to learn and operate they are not.

Very much agreed. I switched over to Mac 5 years ago after using PCs for many years...since the commodore 64. Took me about 2 days to be in full control of it and any differences that existed. You just have to want to and be open to change. If you think the red eraser is more powerful of a cursor and control solution you've been smoking some serious IBM weed.

Sorry I would have posted quicker but it took me 16 swipes across the pad plus a couple back swipes because I over-shot to finally get to the 'Post Response' button.

Ok so let me get this straight. 90% of the software that you guys use is windows based and yet you are recommending the use of hardware that has to be put into a special mode in order to use the software that you use the most.
This sounds like a lot of kool aid drinking and denial as to what is the most practical solution.
Once again I will point out that if apple was so much better as everyone claims then more fortune 500 companies would switch, but the reality is that they are not better. They are different.
Do they have cooler product for home use? Yes. Does this automatically make them better for business? No.

Most companies make their IT purchasing decisions based on cost. Apple is going to lose that battle every time. But their growth rate in the enterprise market is impressive.

[Link: blogs.forrester.com]

[Link: mactrast.com]

If you want to solely run Windows environment on your Mac, that entirely doable. I know plenty of people who do that. Just set bootcamp to boot into windows exclusively.

"Special Mode"? It's a feature. Not a hack. Bootcamp allows you to either run a Windows environment or a Mac OS. As for parallels/vmware, it's phenomenal software that lets me run windows and mac programs right next to each other.

I would almost guarantee that if we both boot from cold, I would be in Simpl Windows on my mac way before you on your windows pc, and that's with my "special mode" using parallels.