Making the Move from PC to MAC

I've been a long time PC enthusiast.  I've owned a windows machine since I was very young (back in the days of the 386 processors, when 25 mb was a large amount of data).  I'm not claiming to be an OG programmer, but I have been a computer power user since my early days, and a PC enthusiast.

I remember the days of the original Macintosh's, playing Glider 4.0 on a brick of a machine that looked like I could fit 20 or so modern macbooks inside it.  I didn't own one, because I didn't want to.  I had my big desktop, which was a tower almost half as tall as I was at the time.  That tower was SMOKIN fast, although I only used it to play video games or complete an occasional homework assignment.  Back in those days windows was loaded on about 7 mini(lol)-floppy drives, that had to be inserted 1 at a time.  Actually getting the computer to work was a nightmare half the time.  Windows 3.1 was decently user friendly but you had to know DOS to get the computer working half of the time.  I was around the age of 8 so that was a tough one for me.

Anyways, enough about the good 'ole days.  As time progressed one thing was fairy apparent.  All the popular applications were only available on PC.  All the awesome video games were only available on PC too.  On top of that, the PCs were wildly customizable when compared to a MAC.  I had the choice over what motherboard I wanted to purchase to go with my custom graphics card, ridiculously expensive ram, and of course the sound card.

MAC seemed doomed in the world of personal computers.  Needless to say, I was a die-hard PC fan (despite the blue screens and the constant crashes).

Things have taken a big turn since those days. The MAC OS is down linux based, their processors are intel based and most programs are available on OSX and windows. On top of that, the OS is now linux based which offers some decided performance advantages. They have really refined their name for reliability, and high quality products.

To be honest, I would not have switched to MAC had I not gotten an appropriate bonus to be able to afford it, although I had been wanting to switch for a while.

The OS is extremely easy to use, and is one of the main reasons I switched it he first place. It is very light on resources and has allowed me to utilize programs like Ableton Live without blowing up my CPU. Additionally, the MAC OS is completely based on linux, which has been very good for me. I deal with linux server's all day long, so this has been a great change from PC.

The change itself took a while to get used to. I had been using Windows for my entire life, so the change was expected to be a little rough. Honestly, it was much less rough than I had expected. The biggest deal was getting used to the nuances of the OS, and getting used to the lack of screen management shortcuts that Windows 7 came with, although that can be remedied with programs that allow you to use similar shortcuts.

Once I had modified my settings and gotten used to the MAC OS I realized it was elegantly simple to use. I can leave programs open without worrying if they're going to eat up my RAM usage, or slow down my operating system, which is fantastic. I've only had to reboot my MAC a few times since buying it (usually during updates, which I'm going to do shortly after finishing this hub).

As of right now, I have had my MAC for a little over 9 months, and I don't think I will be switching back to PC any time soon. This machine is fantastic. Additionally, I had purchased my Macbook just before the new ones came out. I mailed, and they paid to have my macbook shipped back to me, so they could send me the new version of the macbook pro. Apple support has made a fan for life out of me.