Replaced my PC at work with a Mac

I switched to a Mac at home. I was fairly neutral about the switch, but now like it.

The PC's at work are dogs. Despite lots of spyware protection and registry cleaning, it was a pain to them running at top speed which wasn't very fast anyway. So I decided to conduct an experiment. I bought two Macs as testers.

Installed VM Fusion. It now runs the Windows programs I had to have far faster than before. Copying over the whole PC to a virtual machine was so easy I thought it must be some type of dream. It seems wrong to run Microsoft Dynamics on a Mac, but it feels so good. I'm even able to run really old Windows apps for which I no longer have the diskettes.

The person who created VM Fusion should be paid a fortune by Apple.

Waiting for a faster T1 line at the end of the month. I will be able to goof off at work at twice the speed.

I'm sure Wagsy will let me know I could have gotten a '94 era PC for $60 and save 95+% and could be running Dos programs, too.

He has seen the light! (Organ music playing)

Had Macs in the office since I opened in 1993. Tech support costs $0 for about 15 Macs at any given time, never been down.

1 Dell PC to run special software since 1997. Tech support costs about $8000 with days of downtime.

I think I'll take a good look at VM Fusion and be free at last.

He has seen the light! (Organ music playing)

Quickly, let's get black turtle necks and birks to make it official

I think I'll take a good look at VM Fusion and be free at last.

I run Parallels (and have for about 3 years now since my first Intel Mac) and it works very well for the couple of apps I use. Though I run Version 3 but heard some rumblings 4 is not quite as good? But since both run about $75 ish or so, not a huge deal.

Quickly, let's get black turtle necks and birks to make it official

 

 

 

 

I run Parallels (and have for about 3 years now since my first Intel Mac) and it works very well for the couple of apps I use. Though I run Version 3 but heard some rumblings 4 is not quite as good? But since both run about $75 ish or so, not a huge deal.

I would like to run Parallels but the printing support from the only program I regularly use (Suunto dive computer software) won't print from it. I think we will try VM fusion and see how it goes.

Bill

Congratulations on you new purchase.

My Thoughts.......

PC's need to be set up correct to get them to run correct, most folks do not do this hence have problems.

They are very easy to keep clean for free without using any $$$ commercial virus or bug programs that want to run all the time.

Computer shops and IT folks want to sell you the commercial ones because they want to make money.

Commercial ones like Nortons are viruses in themselves and are the cause of half the problems.

Wags -

What free anti-virus and anti-spyware software do you recommend? (seriously, i'm interested)

I usually install some combination of AVG Free and Lavasoft Ad-Aware on my friends' machines. But most people need SOMETHING, and it has to run SOMETIMES, and that makes the hard disk spin and slows down your machine. Oh, and I usually reinstall windows to get rid of the gigabytes of crap that comes with the machine.

Cor, want to share your most recent Lenovo experience?

I consider myself to be a computer expert, and even I have had my share of viruses on the PC. Usually, they were the result of a combination of events (e.g. I am installing XP on a new computer and a dumbass friend friends a virus into the firewall before I can update it), but it did require work to keep my machine running smoothly.

I found that I had to re-install Windows every year in order to keep my machine running quickly. Of course, I am they type who installs updates and new software all the time, so I may not be a typical use case. But I have kept my Macs at least 2x the time I would keep a Windows box without upgrading it (3 years vs 18 months).

Parallels has coherence mode and VM Ware won't even see my Windows partition (non-Bootcamp).

The best windoze setup is one that has no access to the outside world... a Sadhu who never sees the Ganges! Then it works.

I must say that with my EFIx and Psystar machines running as cheap backup servers, Mac OSX isn't really optimized. The machine still doesn't take advantage of the faster bus or memory.

Both platforms will always have their uses. Platform exclusive apps make it that way. Even CS4 is still much faster on Windoze 64 than OSX... so having a windoze box for crunching out work is a great idea. But like Eric and Wags say, it needs paring down setup and no internet access. Until Cocoa Snow Leopard and the optimized apps come out later this year, this sort of pingpong bouncing around is just how it is.

O dear........ suppose one should make a new topic post as this is the wrong place to chat about stuff like that.

Lavasoft use to be a great program but they have bogged it down now.

Actually I need a MAC as I have some little MAC programs that need to be tested and compiled on a MAC.

Have to look into dual boot for VISTA or something.

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=30271

I have been using a custom PCs now for 8 yrs. I have someone that I know build them up for me. They never crash, have not failed me yet, and cost a fraction of what a MAC cost. I too own a MAC, I will never go back to them.

I have several buds that swear by them (Macs), so I hope you had a better experience than I did!! I think I am the only artist that I know that says PC rules LOL. I am weird like that.

Best of Luck!!!!

All is not perfect. The second machine with VMFusion didn't do so well. It has crashed and burned. When installing the VM Tools, drivers wouldn't load. Following the manual installation notes didn't work. The PC VM worked but with some annoying problems. Trying to re-install VM Tools caused XP to crash permanently. Tech support will get back to me within 30 hours.

I'm now thinking if the PC migration thing doesn't sail without a hitch, it may be better to do it the hard way.

Its nice to read the article you post. I liked it.

It took me a while too but soon you'll wonder why it took you so long. They are so much better