Are you a PC convert?
the topic of pc --> mac users seems to be pretty popular right now, so lets see how many long time windows users have converted recently. i'll start with me and my description. if applicable, reply with your's. hope this isn't too cheesy:
Name: Progmac Progestein
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Other Occupation: Windows Systems Administrator
Old System: university provided 1.4 ghz gateway wintel box. 128 ram. nothing else interesting about it.
Old System Comments: it was a 1.4 ghz, and i guess that is fast, but the thing ran like a piece of poo. My gf 500mhz Celeron with equal ram ran better. Figure that one out.
New System: 800 mhz 2002 quicksilver w/17" crt graphite studio monitor.
Reason for switching: tired of reformatting my crappy computers, get sick of seeing wintel boxes all day at work. Also I was (and am) confused about the inconsistancy of PCs with equal specifications. (One 1.2 ghz duron may run significantly better than another 1.2 ghz duron with same ram, etc.)
So that's my story. Reply please!
Name: Progmac Progestein
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Other Occupation: Windows Systems Administrator
Old System: university provided 1.4 ghz gateway wintel box. 128 ram. nothing else interesting about it.
Old System Comments: it was a 1.4 ghz, and i guess that is fast, but the thing ran like a piece of poo. My gf 500mhz Celeron with equal ram ran better. Figure that one out.
New System: 800 mhz 2002 quicksilver w/17" crt graphite studio monitor.
Reason for switching: tired of reformatting my crappy computers, get sick of seeing wintel boxes all day at work. Also I was (and am) confused about the inconsistancy of PCs with equal specifications. (One 1.2 ghz duron may run significantly better than another 1.2 ghz duron with same ram, etc.)
So that's my story. Reply please!
Comments
Age: 25
Occupation: Unix System Admin
Old System: Where do I start. 2 many to count
New System: ibook 600 combo (just to see if i liked this apple thingy), 800 superdrive iMac (yep i like this apple thingy) soon to be powerbook 800
Reason for switching: Got tired of trying to find the right version of linux that had a nice GUI. Red Hat is okay. Mandrake is probably the easiest to use (GUI that is)..and tried other flavors, slackware, FreeBSD, etc. But I wanted something that had a really nice GUI that my Fiance could use and that gave me the power of Unix and scripting. I will admit that I like NT 4 workstation and server....2000 advanced server has some really really neat tools, espcecially after they incorporated Terminal Server into the OS and XP is way better than 9x anything. However, none of them seem to have a personality and just aren't darn fun to work with...seems like work! My 2 cents
Age: 13
Occupation: Student
Old sys: Dell Latitude laptop
Comments: Ran like crap
Why I switched: Tired of the windows interface, what the f*ck is an illegal opperation , and hackers/viruses.
When: 1 1/2 years ago
[ 06-14-2002: Message edited by: CubeDude ]</p>
Name: Sizzle Chest
Age: 36
Occupation: IT Manager (NT and Unix)
Other Occupation: ambient record label owner
Old System: Many Windows PCs
Old System Comments: Every version of Win sucked rocks until Win2k, by which time I had already moved most of my activities over to the Mac in frustration. I still use a PC for a few things -- and of course use these machines at work all day.
New Systems: iBook 600 combo, Powermac G4 450 dual
Reason for switching: Built up a strong hatred of Windows over the years (though the fact that it's so high maintenance is keeping me indispensible at my day job), and had to buy a Mac (an el-cheapo closeout Performa 6200) because I started a record label and the package designs had to be submitted to the print people in Mac format. The rest is history!
If you had told me I was going to be a Mac obsessor back in 1999, I would've laughed my ass off at you. Funny how things change. I think it was OS X that did it for me. Sure, I had watched the QT movies, and read all about Darwin, Cocoa, and the like, but after finally USING it (edit: the Public Beta, which some fanatic employee was nice enough to install to the pleasure of passers-by) on an indigo iMac at the local Sears, I was pumped.
In May of 2001, I bought my first Mac: an iBook, with an AirPort card and base station. It was too slow for me. I sold the entire rig a week or so later to my best friend's mom for full price. She still uses it.
The past October, I grabbed myself a 466MHz PowerMac G4 and 15" Studio Display for $2000. It seemed like a good price, then, and it was certainly faster than the crappy iBook with the 66MHz system bus...
Now I need a PowerBook... let's see how far they've come by 2004 (just in time for my sophomore year in college). <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[No]" />
[ 06-14-2002: Message edited by: Jon Rubinstein ]</p>
The main reason i switched was that i really dont like windows and i dont want anything to do with the inconvienince involved with using linux. Since i switched i completely feel in love with my ibook 600. I spend a lot more time on the computer now and end up doing alot more than i used to.
currently i use my pIII450 for p2p programs like kazaa. Unfortunatley i still get stuck helping everyone in my family with thier silly pc problems, there is no escape.
Age: 33
Occupation: Graphic Designer
Other Occupation: AI Forums
Old System:486 DX2 66 Mhz
New System: QuickSilver 2001 Dual 800
Reason for switch: I was tired that all the works I do in PageMaker and CorelDRAW was not ok when i output them on an imagesetter. The service bureau was always laughing about PC so in 1993, a saturday morning, I buy my first mac. It was a PowerMac 7100/80 with a 17" Apple Display.
And all was running well with Illustrator 5.5 and XPress 3.32 on Mac OS 7.5.1 !
Since then I upgraded a little :
PowerMac 7600/120, 8500/150, 9600/350, Beige G3/300, Blue & White G3/350, G4/400, iBook Tangerine, G4 Dual 533, Ti 400, QuickSilver Dual 800 and an iBook 600... that's it.
OMG :eek: I forgot my 2 Cubes !!!
[ 06-14-2002: Message edited by: jeromba ]</p>
Age: 25
Occupation: (Currently)Freelance Multimedia Guy (Mostly on illustration stuff)
Other Occupation: AI Forums spammer
Systems that used to and currently (in bold) own :
Not much.....compare to Murbot
-386 SX
-Performa 5200
-Beige 266Mhz G3
-Yikes G4 400
-Sawtooth G4 450
-Mystic Dual 500 G4
-Dual GHz "SlowSilver" (tm)
-iMac DV SE
-MainStreet PowerBook G3
-Pismo PowerBook 400
-iBook DVD 600
- 200Mhz Pentium I PC
- 400Mhz Pentium II PC
- Athlon 950 (oc to 1.1GHz) PC
- 1.2 GHz Pentinum III PC
- Dual 1.2GHz Athlon PC with DDR
Reason for switch: Currently (will alway be) using both platforms. I don't think I can either say I "convert" or "switch"
[ 06-14-2002: Message edited by: Leonis ]</p>
Age: 27
Occupation: Ops Coordinator/corporate slave
Other Occupation: Wakeboard cinemetographer
Old System: 450Mhz HP Pavillion. Various computers at work and at my parents house
Old System Comments: None could hang with video editing and OSX kills any desires to use windows ever again even though I still have to at work.
New System: Dual 1gig PowerMac.
Reason for switching: Needed a reliable system for video editing without the hastle. Used a friends iMac to do a video and it worked with no hastle and the final nail in the windows coffin was OSX
Age: 24
Occupation: Graphic Artist/Web Designer
Other Occupation: Geek
Old System: 900Mhz Athlon TBird/Self Built
New System: iBook 700
Reason for switching: Needed a new challenge personally is what got me interested in Mac. OS X hooked me based on previous UNIX experience. Also, I needed a Mac for work since i'm doing Graphic Art, and Video Production now.
What brought me back into the fold? A combination of OS X and Final Cut Pro, with iTunes as the icing on the cake. After several years of struggling with Windows machines where I always felt like I was working around the restrictions of the OS, it's sooooo nice to use a computer that enhances my creative impulses rather than getting in the way of them.
I'm now the proud owner of a 667 Mhz G4 tower and a brand new PowerBook 800 Mhz. The only time I use my two year old Dell laptop anymore is when I need to configure my wireless base station (made by Cisco) or test some HTML that I created on the Mac.
And that former employer that switched from Mac to Windows? I hear through the grapevine that they just started allowing employees to purchase Macs again...
that my $1500.00 piece of crap cost gateway.inc around $200.00 to
make, I learned how to build my own PieceofCrap.
Sometime after I started helpingfriends with there pc trouble-shooting. After my free copy of Xp came out and I hacked it to pieces I was so fed up with the pc's and trying to maintain there ever increasing list of problems I sold both of them and and bought my ibook. And to think I still have'nt paid that company for that money i borrowed to buy that piece of garbage Gateway PC. <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
Mac users will always win, becuase pc users are dumb.
<img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
<strong>I was so fed up with the pc's and trying to maintain there ever increasing list of problems I sold both of them and and bought my ibook.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
This is the whole thing. Speaking from the perspective of the guy everyone calls to fix computers, build computers, fix windows or whatever, there reaches a point when it goes from fun/hobby to annoying/chore. For me, i reached this point about a year ago. I quit formatting and fixing my own windows machine all of the time, just because I got so sick of it. I've been a PC user for about 10 years, and have probably formatted my own machine 40 times. This is absurd!
Uh, yeah.
Linux is gaining marketshare each year, almost doubling each year. Even Wal*Mart sells Linux pre-loaded on PC systems now. But Linux has a long road to go before it can get the user friendliness of OSX or MacOS 9.X/8.X, etc.
Still <a href="http://www.winehq.org" target="_blank">WINE</a> is shaping up nicely for Linux.
Age: 17
Former Machine: IBM machine running DOS circa 1994
Job: Papa Johns Pizza <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
Current Machines In My House: iMac 800, iMac 450, G4 Cube 450, iBook 500 Combo, Titanium 500, Powermac Dual 800 w/ 17'' Apple display.
What Made Me Switch: The simple fact that DOS was **** , the fact that I use Windows 2000 every day in school administered by people that are supposedly professionals. My brother is also a big reason for our switching. My entire family sort of relies on us for computer know how and advice. My mom is a lawyor and therefore she needed that IBM trash to keep her law files on. Once we got our first Mac in 1995, a Performa of some kind, we were just delighted by the ease of use. Since then there has been no turning back.
My entire family uses Macs but it is only my brother and I who are really addicted. We are all happy and would never go back.
Windows is so bad. Nobody can say I am skewed because I have only used DOS because I use Win 2000 and have used XP and most of the other Windows OS's at my friends house or on my Mom's IBM Thinkpad. Windows Blows.?