I have recently switched to the Mac world after having spent about 15 years working exclusively with PCs with all sorts of Windows OS, from 3.11 and Windows 95 up to Windows Vista, which in my opinion is the worst  OS Microsoft ever came up with. I have always been reluctant about the switchover, although many people around me were enjoying their time working with a Mac while I was struggling getting rid of viruses, malware, trojans, worms, updating corrupted system files, spending hours in forums trying to learn from other people who were getting the same error message(s), running registry and hard drive defragmentations or when nothing of all that would work, getting to many people’s biggest nightmare: back up all the files (using linux), format the drive and reinstall windows, install the drivers for all the devices, re-install all the programs I needed and so on…

During those 15 years I have spent days and days of work trying to resurrect a windows machine without loosing any data or at least using as less as I possibly could. I can’t recall the times friends of mine were phoning me up, being desperate as their PC was displaying blue screens of death, or would not start up just hours or days before an important meeting or deadline. Some casual pc users have even got into the world of metaphysics in order to make their computers boot again, by talking to them as if they were their kids and try to make peace with them again so the would start up. From my experience, 80%-90% of the time I had to resolve a pc issue, the problem was software-related and not a hardware one.

And then one day I came to the big realisation that the main argument of all pc users that pcs are far cheaper than macs, is not  true at all! The problem is that people generally consider up-front costs instead of the long-term ones. However, looking at the long-term ones macs work out cheaper than PCs and this is why:

• Macs do not suffer from viruses, trojans, worms etc as much as windows-based machines do, so there is no additional cost for anti-viruses, anti-malware, firewalls etc.

• Macs do not suffer from overtime hard drive fragmentations, so users do not need to purchase any kind of tune-up utilities.

• Macs do not use any sort of registry for their applications so users do not need to spend any money on registry cleaning and defragmentation tools. There is no deterioration overtime that windows users accept as indispensable and ‘normal’.

• Macs OS X is very stable, rarely hangs or freezes and there is no need to re-install it ever, unless the hard drive breaks down.

• It is unlikely you will lose data, which many PC users take for granted, no matter how long you use your computer.

• On a Mac you will save hours and hours of work, by not having to deal with how you could make your computer perform as it used to be when you first bought it, or trying to get rid of a virus or recovering from a system failure etc. All those hours are worth some money too…

In a way, Microsoft has offered work indirectly to many IT people because of their poor OSs but the questions is whether this was deliberate or not. Would all those 3d party applications and tools (such as antiviruses and system enhancement utilities ) exist if their OS did not have so many weaknesses? Also, wouldn’t it be great if all those IT experts would dedicate their time in more creative and challenging activities rather than wasting their time trying to resove a widnows system failure? Macs simply do what any computer should do: they just work! Therefore, in the long term, owing a Mac rather than a PC is a much better investment, worth the higher up-front cost as macs also have a higher resale value.

By no means I claim that Macs are flawless; they aren’t. But there are some very strong  arguments about their quality, performance and stability that cannot be overlooked. There is no wonder most web professionals use Macs, rather than windows-based machines. However, casual computer users could benefit too, if they overcome the myth that Macs are far more expensive.

Typically I have been a cautious upgrader, and enjoy mocking my colleagues when they trash their trusty systems in favour of the latest and greatest OS release. With the arrival of Leopard, however, I happened to have “broken-in” a new copy for a client who had moved from Windows XP (hoorah). Needless to say I was envious from the word go, and came back to my office to proclaim that we should upgrade now.

The differences (between Tiger and Leopard) are, at first, quite subtle, but the more I use it the happier I am that I upgraded. Some of the gems I have appreciated so far:

Finder. The finder window has a useful sidebar that groups things nicely together – nothing to get too excited about yet, but OK. However when I later wanted to send a photo to a friend, I discovered that the “Attach file” finder window had a new section called “Media” down at the bottom….. this had 3 links – Movies, Music and Photos which were all very neatly linked to the respective programs for that type of media, so I found the pictures from the iPhoto “Kids, Summer 2007″ roll in no time. Lovely.

Spaces. Having no extra desktop real estate, and having been used to a Linux desktop, I was no stranger to the concept of Spaces (multiple virtual desktops) – but God love them, Apple have done it so well it makes you weep. Press F8 (always learn your keyboard shortcuts!) and you get the flattened out view of all your “Spaces” from which you can pick an application and drag it to any other desktop you like. The fact that Exposé even works on this screen, is just the icing on the cake.

Time Machine. Due to the hype before launch, I promised myself I would get too excited by Time Machine – it’s just backup after all managed with something akin to LVM snapshots, so what’s the big deal. Well there is no big deal, but at home (on the Mac-Mini) my daughter managed to drag one of my work folders to the Trash and empty the Trash shortly after (she’s 4 and swears she didn’t know!). Fortunately I had just bought an Iomega drive (such a good pal for the mini btw) and thought that I might as well activate TM to see what it was like. So I pressed the button, then got the Doctor Who style space time line, went back a few days, found the folder and it was back. This is not really rocket science but, as ever, the implementation leaves you feeling warm and fuzzy inside.

Having been a Windows sysadmin in the past, the upgrade process was always something that was agonised over and planned and scheduled and downtimed etc etc etc. Nothing as whimsical as “ooh it looks soooo nice” would persuade me to upgrade any of my clients’ PC’s, let alone my own. But I changed my Tiger stripes for Leopard Spots with reckless abandon as was rewarded with a machine that I love even more than the last one.