Vista, Leopard, or both?

I haven't upgraded to Vista yet.

It's not that I'm not eager to use Vista, I'm just not eager to have to go through the head-ache of updating my laptop. I will admit that I've been a bit slower since quite a few of my hard-core developer friends have re-installed XP recently.

Part of the problem is my Lenovo T60 laptop is nearing its end of life. I just upgraded the RAM only to find out that the Lenovo/ThinkPad chipset only will recognize 3GB of memory.

The other choice that's holding me back is Apple. A lot of my friends/co-workers are buying Mac Books and well, I'm jealous. Scott bought a Mac Book Pro and runs Vista natively (and says it is the best computer he has ever bought). Jason has a Mac Book Pro and runs VM Ware, and also swears by it.

Here is why I'm jealous:

  1. Cleanliness. There are no stickers and random junk stuck all over the laptop. Have you gone to Best Buy or another electronics store and looked at all the crap that OEM's stick on your laptop? My Lenovo has 3 stickers: Graphics by ATI; Intel Centrino; Microsoft Windows XP. The Microsoft one was the worst. After about 5 months I now just have a shiny silver spot on the keyboard (the image wore off).
  2. It's a work of art, seriously. The Mac Book just looks awesome. It's small, very well engineered, and is much thinner than other laptops I've looked at. I've got to admit a large part of the appeal is the hardware itself.
  3. Ready for something new. Maybe it's the geek in me, but I'm ready to try something new. The Apple OS, Leopard, looks really clean. That and I just love my iPod and if the experience is in any way similar...
  4. Parallels. I really like the idea that I could run both a Windows OS and the Apple OS together. Not just together but literally integrated together. That just looks cool.
  5. Media. I'm finding myself doing more and more with media such as photos and videos. The tools on my PC feel clumsy whereas my Apple friends seem to manage media with ease.
  6. Just about everything I do is on the web. The only non-web applications I use and depend on are: Microsoft Office; QuickBooks; and all development tools. In other words, get me FireFox and there's a 99% chance I'm happy.

Here is why I'm on the fence:

  1. Time. The time required to learn something new (right now) just seems like it would ultimately be unproductive considering everything else I want to do. Plus if I'm going to put the time into it I might as well just install Vista.
  2. Email client. My Apple friends complain vocally about using Entourage (Microsoft Outlook for Mac). I literally live day and night in email. A bad email client is a big negative - of course I would probably be running parallels or VM Ware anyhow.
  3. Presenting. I do a lot of presenting and I know a few friends have struggled with presenting on the Mac Books from Parallels. Maybe I'm wrong, but this one is a show-stopper for me.

I haven't made up my mind yet. But everyday I'm pestering Jason with questions about his Mac Book. He even wrote up a post recently for "Mac Converts."

Published Friday, November 02, 2007 11:00 PM by Rob Howard
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Comments

# Apple Ipod, Ipod Nano and Ipod Video News » Vista, Leopard, or both?

Saturday, November 03, 2007 1:12 AM by Apple Ipod, Ipod Nano and Ipod Video News » Vista, Leopard, or both?

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# Apple Blog » Vista, Leopard, or both?

Saturday, November 03, 2007 1:12 AM by Apple Blog » Vista, Leopard, or both?

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# re: Vista, Leopard, or both?

Saturday, November 03, 2007 1:52 AM by Russ Nemhauser

Hi Rob,

I can offer you three replies to the three bullets you mentioned about being "on the fence". I would also like to say that iWork 08 (which is $79) contains Pages and Numbers, both of which are capable of reading Office 2007 file formats (and exporting them as well).

1. Time to learn something new. I submit that because you will frequently be using Windows in a VM or even natively, the impact of this particular thing is VERY low. You can learn as you go. And with regard to photos, music, video, etc. - that stuff is actually FUN to learn on the Mac. And you can learn it all while you have Visual Studio open compiling a build of Community Server.

2. Email client. I don't use Entourage. I think it's just a sub-par program. I use the built-in Mac Mail client (newly updated in Leopard) and it just blows Entourage for Mac AND Outlook 2007 out of the water, in my opinion. I used to think that having email, address book, and calendar all in one application was a good idea. But when I moved everything into Mac Mail, iCal, and Address Book I found after about 5 or 6 months that I actually PREFERRED not having it all in one big honkin' application. Mac Mail performs like lightening compared to Outlook 2007. And of course, it connects to Exchange.

3. Presenting is actually AWESOME on the Mac. I give talks too, and I use Keynote (not PowerPoint). I find Keynote to be vastly superior in all the ways that presentation software should be. There's about 3 minutes of a talk I gave in New York using Keynote at the following URL. When I want to do a demo, I simply APPLE+TAB to Visual Studio and I'm good to go. Check out www.facebook.com/.../video.php

You sound like you're at a good place - where you're ready to see what else is out there, and I'm telling you man - once you get past the transitional phase (where you'll often think to yourself, "God, I know how to do this in Windows!") you'll be really happy that you switched. And your desire to do more with media - just wait until you become familiar with iLife 08 and the Mac in general.

# re: Vista, Leopard, or both?

Saturday, November 03, 2007 1:10 PM by Rob Bazinet

Rob,

I have had the same issues as you do and bought a MacBook Pro and maxed it out.

I use VMWare Fusion which is a much better product than Parallels.  One reason is Fusion supports multicore, Parallels does not.  Secondly, I also use a desktop system running Vista and VMware.  I can create a VM on Vista on my desktop and copy it over to my MacBook Pro and use it there.  Doing development in a VM is nice and speedy on the Mac.

I don't use an Outlook type client on the Mac, I use Gmail for the most part and use Outlook web access to get to my Exchange server.  It's not the best way to access Exchange but it works.  I honestly like Gmail better.

I think a previous commenter solved some of the other issues you have.  The Mac really rocks, it is the BEST laptop I have ever owned.  Comparing a Dell to a Mac is like comparing a Chevette to a Lexus.

# re: Vista, Leopard, or both?

Sunday, November 04, 2007 12:26 PM by Sean Baugh

Both!

1. New Mac Office coming out in January - the actual application Office 2007 was modeled after (yes, the Mac version did inspire Office 2007, but is coming out later.)  Entourage should be much better in this version.  But, as mentioned, there are alternates - Mail, Outlook on the PC side, etc.  But, I will have to tell you, if you live and die via email, which I think you might, then this might be the biggest hurdle.

2. Keynote is vastly superior to Powerpoint in every way imaginable.

3. Numbers, from what I can tell by limited use, is also on par with, or even better than Excel.

4. Media - nothing beats it!

5. Time - you will find that the switch is much less dramatic than it appears. You will be up and running at full speed in no time - and you will NEVER look back :)

# re: Vista, Leopard, or both?

Sunday, November 04, 2007 5:29 PM by Scott Dockendorf

The 3.5 GB vs 4GB of memory is actually a limitation of the x86 hardware.  I ran into the same problem, as did Jeff Atwood - who posted about the issue..

www.codinghorror.com/.../000811.html

# MacBook Pro - first impressions

Monday, November 05, 2007 9:05 AM by Rob Howard's Blog

I picked up a 15" MacBook Pro on Sunday after struggling with this decision for about 8 weeks now

# MacBook Pro - first impressions

Monday, November 05, 2007 9:11 AM by Rob Howard

I picked up a 15" MacBook Pro on Sunday after struggling with this decision for about 8 weeks now

# re: Vista, Leopard, or both?

Monday, November 05, 2007 3:20 PM by Jeff

Now that you've made the leap, check out Keynote, part of the iWork '08 suite. I like it much better than PowerPoint. Also, Command-shift-4, drag a rectangle on screen, instant PNG screen shot.

# re: Vista, Leopard, or both?

Tuesday, November 06, 2007 10:41 AM by LTorres23

Since January 2005, I've been using only Macs at home, and PCs at Work. People thought that I was crazy... being a former MVP and Regional Director for Puerto Rico, what the hell I was doing with a Mac...? Today, it seems that the wave is producing more switchers among windows developers...