Hello everyone,
Discussing the shortcomings and benefits of the Windows (PC) and Mac operating systems is guaranteed to evoke strong feelings and passionate responses from both bands. Today a great interview: Houston Chronicle techblogger Dwight Silverman asked Golam Ragib (a Mac user since 2005) why he decided to go back to using a Windows PC after his initial switch to the Mac.
Dwight asked Golam four key questions. Below are the four questions and a short excerpt from Golan’s answer to each. The original post in it’s entirety can be found here. Good stuff!!
Q. Had you used Windows before using a Mac? If so, what versions, and when and why did you switch to the Mac?
I have used Windows from Windows 95 through to Windows XP. That would be 95, 98, ME, 2000 and XP.
The extra MHz (Windows) weren’t worth it. You needed all that and more to keep the PC running along with all the bloatware included by the OEM, the antivirus and anti-spyware and what not. Moreover, the bundled software is often crippled – trialware or limited-functionality. You had to get the “premium” version to get any work done. You add up all the expenses, and the cost of the PC and of the Mac were comparable. The only difference was that in the PC world, you would pay that in installments at unexpected times. In the Mac world, you pay all that cost upfront.
Q.Why go back to Windows?
I switched from Windows to Mac because the PC was interrupting my workflow, and now the Mac is doing the same. I have a pretty recent MacBook, a speced-out 13″ purchased in May 2009. Till the upgrade to Snow Leopard, it was just fine, no complaints. With Snow Leopard, it’s a disaster. I reinstalled Snow Leopard on bare hard drives at least 3 times with the same results. I had two options: downgrade to Leopard (gasp), or switch to Windows (GASP).
Microsoft fixed a lot of issues I was having with Windows with Windows Vista SP2 and Windows 7 (as long as you got a machine with sufficient horsepower).
Q. Have you encountered any issues that made switching to Win7 difficult?
Hardware aside, lets get to software. I listen to a lot of audio, mostly podcasts and audiobooks. On the Mac, I used iTunes and it was fine. On the PC, iTunes is a disaster. And Steve Jobs (I had to call his name again, sorry) calls Adobe lazy? … Moreover, moving between computers since the dawn of time, I finally ran out of audible.com licenses for computers. The MacBook I have is the last living machine I have that is authorized to play my audiobooks from audible.com. I am dubbing my 200+ audiobooks to get rid of the DRM. Not ideal, perfect or efficient, but the method is effective. A few more months to go. It’s very tempting to grab the torrents of the audiobooks I have.
Q. What do you think is better about Windows 7 than the Mac OS? Anything Mac OS X does that you wish Win7 would do?
The one thing where both fail is that I use the 64-bit version of Windows 7 (again because using the 32-bit version would just waste of hardware. I have 8GB RAM on my MacBook and Sony VAIO). FWIW, I might even just use Ubuntu. Point is that I still keep a netbook with XP on it because it’s easier to flash devices (phones, MIDs, etc.) on 32-bit XP platform than 64-bit Win7 because of driver-signing issues with the 64-bit kernel. You can’t get even that far on Mac OS or Ubuntu for most devices. … What I need to do my work in is a machine running XP (it doesn’t work in a VM, I’ve tried that), and a machine with lots of MHz and RAM. Choices were Mac OS or Windows 7. I switched.
Also add the window-management issue I discussed above.
One outstanding issue we have is audiobook management. I hate iTunes.
Q. What kind of reaction have you gotten from Mac-owning friends to your switching to Win7?
At first they thought I was nuts. Then the no-multitasking, no-VoIP-over-3G and Google Voice thing happened on the iPhone, followed by the “Adobe is lazy” incident, and finally the HTC lawsuit. No sane person wants to be a slave to Steve Jobs. His Reality-Distortion-Field has been shattered by his very own actions and decisions. We reacted when Microsoft and Intel were discussing the whole Palladium and TPM thing, and Apple should not get a free pass. They are not the little guy, they are just pretending to be the little guy. Hey, they just said they were the largest mobile devices company … They are not small anymore. Steve Jobs is a preschooler who wants to get away with bad behavior because he wants everybody to believe he is still a toddler.
Professor Randy says: Many people have good reasons for switching from Windows to Mac, but there are also many people with equally good reasons for going from Apple to Microsoft! Consider your needs along with the pros and cons of each platform and you’ll know what to do!!
