Windows Vista: A Switcher's Perspective

Today Windows Vista has offically been released to the wild - or at least to businesses. This will be the first time that I witness the release of a new Windows Operating System without Windows being my primary, day-to-day OS and it has got me thinking.

I try my best not to be a Mac Zealot (although I'm sure that I am) - Windows did me well for many years but having seen the Mac way of living in the computing world - I'm not looking back.

I installed Windows Vista Beta 2 (Ultimate Edition) on one of my old desktops to get a taste for what was coming out of Redmond these days and found the experience a mixed bag. the first thing to strike me about the new Windows is that it is rather pretty - the transparencies look nice and the black coloured look and feel to the UI is far more stylish than the freaking TeleTubbie blue/green mess of Windows XP. However, this is nothing new - pretty transparencies are available in Linux distributions and, of course OS X.

Pretty pictures and colour schemes are worth nothing without an intuitive user interface. This is a difficult issue to be objective about - I've used Windows all my life and switched to using OS X as my primary OS earlier this year so I know how things work under XP and OSX. Any new OS takes a while to get used to (especially if you were adept at using the previous release). However, I can draw on my experience of how easy it was to switch from Windows XP to OS X. Switching to OS X was a doddle and, even fun, experience - it was cool to learn how Apple viewed the world. From the perspective of a OS X/Windows XP power user, I found found Vista a bit difficult. The paths of use that I am accustomed to with Windows XP are not there, but the OS is sufficiently similar for me to expect them to be. My absolute biggest gripe with the new UI is the lack of the 'List' view when looking at your filesystem - this alone is enough to put me off switching to Vista. I just don't understand why this has been removed (and if it exists in the newer releases, someone please tell me!).

Onto my next observation - Vista wants a lot of juice to run pretty. Fair enough, I was using the Ultimate Edition on a machine that is about 2 years old but the processing overhead needed to run these pretty transparencies is a bit of a joke. I can run Ubuntu on the same machine (with similar GUI prettys enabled) and the machine runs very fast. I just don't know where the extra processor power is going. Even my very old iMac G3 is able to handle most of OS X at a reasonable speed. I guess this could be due to my version being the Beta release but, having seen the system specs needed to run full Vista, I don't think that is the whole story.

I had some other teething problems but I put these down to the Beta nature of the release I was using - vista didn't recognise my Wireless Card. Also, the software Update feature had a tendency to bomb out. I can't really hold this against them though...unless I have the same problems on the production release.

The one thing I do still use Windows a lot for is as a living room PC - I think XP Media Center edition is a very tasty lil' program. However, I will not be upgrading my living room PC to Ultimate Vista for the simple reason that the new version of the Media Center software is not compatible with XP-based Media Center extenders. Having fought long and hard to get a U.S. Xbox and the U.S. Media Center software, I will not be decommissioning it to the bin for Vista. This does kinda grill me a bit, I can't believe that keeping a compatibility layer in Vista MCE could have been so difficult?

So, having played with Vista for a while, I guess my big question is - why should I upgrade? Besides the improved graphics, I couldn't see much here for me. Microsoft have touted security as being a good reason to switch but, when using my Mac, I've yet to encounter any security problems. Short of the pretty pictures, I don't see what is on offer (even to non-Mac users). Despite having taken 5 years to make, this seems more like a facelift rather than a new OS - it certainly not like the switch from 98 to XP (where MS-DOS was finally sent down stream) or the Apple switch from OS 9 to OS X. From what I can see,a similar comment can be made about OS X Leopard - there just doesn't appear to be that much new on offer. However, Leopard is going to be a darn sight cheaper than Vista and hasn't taken 5 years to make.

I have been quite hard on Vista - don't get me wrong, I don't think it is a step BACK from XP (an OS which I'm happy to work with) but it only seems to be a small shuffle forward...a small shuffle that will cost up to £224.99*

*price from amazon.co.uk

My introduction into the world of Apple technology

Hello! My name is Martin and I recently switched to using Apple Macs. My encounters with Apple technology started when I was a kid and my mum worked for the local university. My first encounter of software development was at 7 when I made a little game in Hypercard. My mum changed jobs and the Mac went byebye. I continued being interested in computing via Windows and enjoyed learning how to maintain and build Windows machines. I studied computing, psychology and Spanish at university where I next encountered the Mac. I have to say we didn't get on very well - my catch-phrase over my time using SPSS for my psych stats coursework was 'Fucking Macs!!!'. I then forgot about Macs for the next 2 years until they were brought to my attention via the iPod. I bought an iPod but didn't really experience the fabled Halo effect concerning their computers. However, the iPod DID make me aware of Apple again. I was later required to configure a Powerbook for a colleague of mine at work. It was then that I began to appreciate how good Macs were. Within a relatively short period of time, I had his machine doing all the basic tasks needed of the job and within about a month he was WIndows free. during that time I found his Mac to be a quick machine with an Operating System that was intuitive, clean, reliable and fun.

My birthday rolled around and my parents very kindly bought me a Mac Mini. I am a musician and was quite curious to try out some of the music tools available for the Mac like Garageband and Logic. This was it - I was sold. I was blown away by Garageband. Having used PC sequencers all my youth, I was a bit jaded because I had not found any tools that were powerful, reliable and easy to use. Cakewalk was pretty good but always crashed on me. I began recording music and fell in love.

Having had pleasant experiences at home, I wanted to return to working with a Mac in my professional life. In my time at this company I have brought to laptops to their knees. They would work fine at first but then, with time, they would get slower and slower because of what I can only term as 'Windows Bloat'. It's pretty well accepted that Windows PCs need rebuilds to keep them running tight but that is very disruptive in a professional environment. I don't load crap on my work PCs and always used anti-virus and anti-spyware but still found that my laps would eventually run like dogs. My first one (purchased 2004, with 1gb ram) now takes 10+minutes to load. I knew it was possible for it to do everything I needed at work but didn't have to use in the office!

That all changed about 1 month ago when I was given a Macbook by the company as they knew I was lusting for one.

So what do I want to do with this blog?

Well, I've learnt quite a bit over the last year about using Macs in the workplace (either via my own or by maintaining others) and I wanted to share the knowledge I have acquired. I am no guru but there are lots of little tidbits that I hope will be useful to people who have spent their life using Windows.

I want to make it clear that I am not a creative professional and use my Mac in a software testing organization. I hope to think that while I am very happy with my Mac, that I am not a zealot and still happily work with Windows. I have not qualms with Microsoft and hope that my opinions are relatively balanced. Insecure defence of myself over!

I hope you find something useful on this blog and I would really appreciate any additional input people can add to the topics I bring up.

Good luck in MacLand!
Martin BG