Unabashed Apple Fanboy Post [INFOGRAPHIC]

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Windows 7 - NEW!

[BIAS DISCLAIMER: I'm a newly minted Mac fanboy - but until a month ago I used the PC as my primary platform for 12 years]

So, with great fanfare Microsoft "introduced" Windows 7 yesterday. They did all kinds of live promotions (including teaming up with Burger King in Japan to offer a 7 patty whopper [via Engadget]).

Windows 7 reviews are all over the web - so I 'll leave you do the digging - but even noted Mac-bigot Walt Mossberg seems to like it.

NEW! Sucks less than Vista!

NEW! No more annoying dialogs every 3 seconds!

NEW! Only 4 minutes to boot!

NEW! Now your printers might even work!

NEW! Now has LESS bundled applications - because, hey, who needs Mail, Calendar, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, and Address Book anyway?

So, this is the Vista that was supposed to be, but never was. Of course, as with any Microsoft OS upgrade, you'll need either new hardware, or need to shell out to increase your RAM, hard drive and graphics card if your hardware is greater than 2-3 years old.

Oh, and one more thing: if you're on XP (and who isn't?) - there's one more little thing you'll have to do to upgrade to Windows 7: fully backup your hard drive, wipe the contents, and re-install everything.

Really.

Not kidding.

NICE! Yeah, sure, let me just tell my mom (who was going to pay BestBuy $50 to re-install Skype for her) how to backup all her data, make a list of the installed applications (and their updates), her settings, preferences, bookmarks, and email - then wipe her drive, then have her (simply!) re-download, install and configure all her applications and data on a brand-new interface where nothing is familiar.

Sure, no problem. Piece of cake.

I've done re-format, re-install many, many times before (as I think 98.754% of everyone whose used Windows for more than 4 years) - and it just plain sucks. It takes about 2-3 full DAYS to restore everything and get it where you were before.

Backing up data, downloading apps (because all those CDs you have for 32-bit apps are now 100% USELESS), installing apps, restarting 20 times because certain programs write to the registry, creating new folders, moving pictures, migrating your iTunes library, etc.

If you're going to go through that much of a cluster - I have a better idea. DUMP Windows completely.

I'm serious.

Either just keep XP for the next 3 years - or buy a new machine with Windows 7 already installed... better yet get off the Microsoft bandwagon and just buy a Mac. Yes, the Mac is more expensive. Yes, you can get a no-name PC laptop for $500 (or even a brand-name at $650).

Yes, the Mac has OS updates and upgrades just like Windows; yes, the Mac has security updates (albeit 700 times less frequently) ... BUT - at least with the Mac - you'll want to poke your eyes out about 98% less.

• I'm done with "patch Tuesdays";
• I'm done with stupid security and firewall settings that are so restrictive you can't install software or get anything to work without having to Google for 30 minutes to figure out how to do it;
• I'm done with cryptic error messages that don't offer any hope of you actually figuring out what the hell is actually wrong so you can fix it;
• I'm done with the need to reformat and re-install all my stuff - EVER!

So, is Windows 7 the spawn of the devil? No, probably not. It's probably a really useful and good update to the aging XP.

However, I'll never know... I'll be be on my Mac trying to get Snow Leopard to work with SVN...

Mac - I'm Lovin' It!

I've only been using my Mac for two days - and let me just say this: I'm so happy I could just scream!

The performance is incredible. Apps that launch like dogs on my XP-based PC simply appear in 1-2 seconds. A reboot (yes, I did one - just to time it) - 25 seconds from off to fully up and running - versus 8 MINUTES on my PC.

Plugged in my Dell monitor - WHAM - it just appears. At the right resolution.

Plugged in my USB headset - WHAM - it just works.

Plugged in an external windows-formatted USB drive - WHAM - recognized it instantly.

Plugged in a Windows 1 TB external drive for the Time Machine backups - and it asked if I wanted to use it for Time Machine backups? Yes. Needs to be re-formatted - proceed? Ummmm... what?? Oh crap - this is going to take forever, but yeah, OK, go ahead... WHAM 12 SECONDS later the backup is starting.

Auto-discovery of my PC - including all my share folders - WHAM - instantly.

iTunes-dedicated keys on the keyboard for prev/next/play/pause - CHECK.

Mac Mail program - setup and checking 5 accounts - CHECK.

iChat instantly setup - and now I can send media effortlessly and do group chats with zero effort - CHECK.

Skype set - and the machine actually remains responsive even with 10 programs running - CHECK.

Photos imported into iPhoto (from the PC) - and it recognizing faces of people in pictures and allows me to change the orientation by turning my fingers on the glass trackpad - CHECK.

With the great suggestions from fellow Mac folks on Facebook and comments from yesterday's story - I got loaded up with some nifty (and free) utilities and programs. I even got OpenOffice 3.0 up and running with ZERO problems - and used it to create some documents - that I copied to my PC and opened with ZERO problems.

The next OS update is coming out Friday - and even though Apple will still charge me $29 for the upgrade (bless their little revenue-generating hearts) - I'll do it to get a true 64-bit OS - so it will go even FASTER (if that's possible).

The crappiest part of the setup so far was finding and downloading and installing the HP drivers for my Officejet printer... but even that was no more difficult than doing it on a PC.

I hear people bitching about how much more expensive the Macs are than PCs. This is true. They are more expensive - but THEY WORK! I'll bet that if you added up all the time you spent SCREWING with your PC, downloading and restarting after patch Tuesday, in trying to get peripherals to work, in just the general care and feeding of your PC - it's WAY more expensive than the $1,000 difference in up-front price.

I'm researching Mac alternatives to Illustrator and Photoshop (that can read the .ai and .psd files)... so if you are using something you like - leave a comment and let me know!

Hell Freezes Over...

OK - it's official. I'm now a Mac.

I'm writing this entry from my brand-spanking-new 15" MacBook Pro. 

Really. I just got it. Like an hour ago.

Those of you who have had the courage to read this rant for long enough know that I started out as a die-hard Mac fanatic. I was the typical Mac fanboy - long before the word existed.

I would even spell Windoze wrong and made fun of all those people who used it.

Then, I became a PC.

Why? Well, all of my customers had dumped the Mac and had gone with Windows - and when you're focusing on integrating desktop databases with SQL - you had better get yourself a Windoze box (still the case today).

Then, I don't know what happened... I slowly actually became that PC guy in the Apple ads.

I started to think PCs as more capable than Macs (at least in some areas) - and I just accepted the complete B.S. patches and upgrades as a way of life. I just grew to accept the 5-8 MINUTE boot times, the crappy auto-restarts, the sheer insecurity and fragility of the Windows OS as a fact of life...

Well - that's past. I've been ranting about how much Windoze sucks for so long - that it was time to either put up or shut up (or both). So, I literally arrived back from Australia less than 5 hours ago - and I dragged my jet-lagged ass to the Apple Store in Thousand Oaks.

I had my MacBook, mini-DVI-VGA adapter (for my 26" Dell monitor), a neoprene cover and I was out the door in less than 15 minutes.

I got home, unpacked the box, entered the WEP address of my router to get on the Internet - and that's it folks... done deal.

I've downloaded Firefox, and I'm now downloading the 650+ MB of updates to the OS (no worse than the typical MS patch cycle!). But the thing about this Mac is that (so far) everything just works.

I'm still getting used to the glass trackpad and the 20 finger gestures - but everything else is pretty natural. I've configured some settings, changed the dock location and size - and have started to hit my favorite websites and store them as bookmarks, etc.

I can't tell you the number of times I've reformatted my PC hard drive over the years - and have had to "start from scratch" like this. Only - this time - if I need to transfer stuff to a new Mac it will just do it for me automatically.

What's the fate of my trusty (albeit slow) Dell D430 laptop? Well, for the time being it will be my trusty companion until I get all the stuff off of it, and have a chance to re-buy all my favorite software for the Mac (assuming I can get all my favorite software on a Mac)...

So, we'll see. I'm sure I'll have to use the PC for some stuff - and it will be a great testing machine for all the Servoy development work I'm doing - but, starting today - the Mac will be my primary platform.

Considering the last time I had a Mac as my primary platform - OS 9 was all the rage - there will be a learning curve, to be sure... and I also have to now go and read all the online sites that I've never really cared about (Mac-centric ones) to see what all the best goodies are... but all-in-all I'm excited about the process of becoming a Mac again.

If you have suggestions for your favorite Mac utilities and stuff - let me know...

I'm Bob Cusick... and I'm a Mac...

Happy Birthday Mac!

I can't believe that it was 25 years ago to the day that the Macintosh first hit the streets - it seems like it was just yesterday. Gosh, I'm getting old! I haven't always been a PC guy. If you take a look through some of the old blog posts - you'll see that I was quite the Mac fanboy (and vehement "Windoze" hater) back then.

I remember my first encounter with a Mac... (insert Wayne's World flashback here)

Back in the heady days of 1985 I was working at a company that designed swimming pool heaters. At the time I was a mechanical engineer... ummm... ok, ok, so I was just a drafting puke... ANYWAY - my job was to sit a huge E-sized drafting table and create and update sheet metal drawings as needed.

My boss at the time was sort of anal-retental and was very, very proud of the fact that he had a "two year backlog" of change orders waiting to be processed. Let's just say he was WAY into "job security."

My friend (who got me the job) was a graphic designer (and an aspiring cartoonist) who somehow talked his boss into letting him have this new Macintosh "personal computer." He immediately started doing all of the wiring drawings using MacPaint (yes, on the original 512 Mac with a SINGLE floppy that you had to swap out with the "system" disk to save the data!).

He was able to save loads of time - because 95% of wiring drawings are identical. He could just "save as" and create about 5-10 TIMES more drawings in a single day. The productivity was amazing. He would then print it out on the dot matrix ImageWriter (braaaawat...braaaawt....braaaawt - sounds coming out of his office all day).

I was intrigued - and he taught me how to use the thing (although I'm more autistic than artistic) - and pretty soon we would take our lunch huddled around the glow of that tiny black and white screen with that really, really klunky keyboard (with the HUGE keys!) and we had a blast.

At the time, in my own department we used a "dumb terminal" to do all the change orders. This was the classic "green screen" AS400 setup. I was an expert at tab-tab-tab-F12-F8-tab-enter way of computing.

This went on for about 18 months.

When Apple came out with the first expandable model - the IIcx - of course my friend was able to get one along with the LaserWriter Pro - the original laser printer.

I had seen the future.

I did a proposal - written on my lunch breaks - using MacWrite and illustrated using the "new" hot vector drawing program MacDraw - and made a business case for why we should ditch the manual-drawing-erasing-blueprint-copying-filing method and just "go digital." Our parts were not rocket science - they were squares, rectantgles and minor variations with holes and vents in them - a PERFECT match for this new digital technology.

Changes were a snap, and (so I thought) - we could plow through all that backlog in less than 4 months - and the system would pay for itself in less than 12 months. I knew this would drive my boss crazy - so I "pulled a Bob" and just went over his head to his boss (the VP of Operations).

I scheduled a meeting, made my pitch... and... they didn't do it. In fact, my boss called me in an accused me of going after his job. I literally quit on the spot and walked out (the only time in my life that I've done that).

After that, I bought my own Mac (SE30 with DUAL floppies and a whopping 20 MEGAbyte hard drive! "I'll never run out of storage EVER!"). Then I eventually moved on to the IIcx, then the infamous "pizza box" Performa line, and so on and so on. I did everything on the Mac.

I had my first graphic design company and used Illustrator 1.0 to draw realistic, shaded technical illustrations, I used PageMaker to make catalogs and ads and manuals. I was one of the AppleScript addicts - and had macros that I used with QuicKeys to automate every single action (and interaction) that I ever needed. I became somewhat of an expert in all things Mac - and I became one of Apple's biggest evangelists - all the way up to System 9.

Then all my customers stopped using Macs and were all using PCs running Windows 3.1 - and their software just didn't work with mine. So, I grudgingly bought my first Dell... and as I used the Mac less and less I sort of "fell out of love" with it. I became less of a Mac bigot and although I didn't "love" my PC - at least I could get the same versions of software that my customers were using and continue doing business.

Of course we all know the "rest" of the story - the way Apple has come out with great hardware, updated their software to OS X, etc. etc. They are starting to make inroads back into corporate america with people hooked not on OSX, but on iTunes and the iPod and the iPhone.

Does this mean that I'll give up my Dell notebook and Windows XP? Actually.... maybe. I'll wait-and-see how Windoze 7 pans out, but I have a sneaky suspicion that my next notebook will not be running Windows - and may just include an all-white piece of fruit on the lid.

There Is No "Apple Tax"

Call it sour grapes, call it a 5 year old "nuh uh" argument - but just yesterday Microsoft was again banging the "Apple Tax" drum - saying that people who buy Macs are basically being ripped off. Here's a snippet from a ComputerWorld article:

Microsoft Corp. yesterday again pushed its claim that consumers pay an "Apple tax" when they buy Mac hardware rather than PCs running the Windows operating system.

In an e-mail to reporters Monday, Microsoft repeated the argument it first made last October, a day before rival Apple Inc. was slated to make a major product announcement. The next day, Apple unveiled new MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks.

Microsoft again pitted Mac prices against similarly configured Windows PCs from the likes of Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. Not surprisingly, Microsoft's comparisons put Apple's hardware at a disadvantage, with the "tax" ranging from 16%, or $100, for the entry-level Mac Mini to 25%, or $300, for the lowest-priced iMac desktop.

Ha! That's really hilarious. Maybe Microsoft needs to look up the meaning of "tax" as defined they way we all think of a tax (from dictionary.com):

a sum of money demanded by a government for its support or for specific facilities or services, levied upon incomes, property, sales, etc.

Ummmm... yeah. The difference is - that in the entire marketplace - people CHOOSE to buy a Mac even though it's more expensive than a notebook (or desktop) with Windows on it. A tax - you have no option of paying (at least I don't). I pay property tax, sales tax, federal income tax, state income tax, gasoline tax, excise tax on my phones, etc. Here's another direct quote from Microsoft:

"Windows PCs are offering the best value on the market," she argued, "while Apple continues to impose high-price premiums on their Mac designs, offering only modest discounts of 5% to 10%."

Ummmm... yeah. PCs are definitely the best value on the market - as far as PRICE goes. How about features, not crashing as much, a unified and TRUE plug-and-play architecture, based on an open source OS, looks sexy and has easy-to-use software basis?

How about: NO. Sure, you can get a cheap computer running Windows - and it's going to be less expensive than buying a Mac. Or let's talk about the other Apple hardware: the iPhone or iPod. Seriously, does anyone here who reads this blog even KNOW anyone with a Zune?

You can make the same argument about the iPhone. Yeah, it's more expensive. Yeah, the AT&T plan is a bit on the "bend over" side - but have you actually USED one? I have. I'll never go back. Why? Because it's pretty, has a nice interface that's easy to use (even my WIFE can upload pictures to Facebook from it!).

I've played with a Blackberry Touch. I've played with the Google Andoid phone. I've played with many other phones with Windows operating systems - almost 100% of them have WAY better features than the iPhone (expandable memory, replaceable battery, cut and paste, removable flash card, 3+ megapixel cameras, built-in turn-by-turn GPS, etc). But, I don't really care. The most important thing for me is that the iPhone just works and it's actually useful for what I need it to do.

Period.

So while PCs may be a better value (and have the "cancer" called Vista loaded by default) are cheaper - I think you really do get what you pay for in this case. If all you're looking for is a bargain - then by all means buy a Windows PC. While you're at it, I bet you can also pick up a "fully loaded" 1969 VW Bug pretty cheap as well...

Apple's Recession Pricing

I tried - I really did. I wasn't going to blog about Apple today - but after I put out a "status update" on the social media sites that I wasn't going to blog - I got some Mac-type fans asking me to do so - so... here goes.

First of all - either Apple is unclenching a bit - or their security really sucks - because most of what they announced today was pre-announced by all the gadget sites last week (for a good view of the event today - check out Engadget's coverage).

They did a "refresh" of their entire laptop line - new MacBooks, new MacBook Pros, and a refresh of their 17 inch and 24 inch Cinema displays, and they're really, really proud of a new "unibody" construction process.

YAWN! There was one bright spot - they've replaced all the trackpad with a new, bigger, glass "touchpad" that is gesture-aware. This means that you can now give Apple "the finger" multiple times per day. But seriously, you can use 2, 3 or even 4 fingers to map gestures to common commands. And rather than having buttons to click - the hole trackpad is a button. I'm not sure how that will work with click and drag... but I have to assume they worked it out somehow.

They added a new NVIDIA graphics chip to increase graphics performance "...up to 6 times..." - and they knocked $100 off the low end MacBook.

Yeah, $100.

Everyone was hoping for $200 - to make the thing $899 - but I guess they really, really wanted that extra $100 per unit. It makes sense if you stock fell 40% in two weeks... but really - $100?

To be fair they knocked off $700 from the next-from-the-bottom MacBook - new price $1,299... but the one that people will actually want (with a bigger hard drive and backlit keyboard) is $1,599 - so, in reality, they only did a $200 cut there.

So, it's interesting. They've cut the price points a bit - but in my mind they should have cut them a bit more. If they could have hit the $899 level for the low end MacBook and then priced the next one at $1,199 and the "feature-packed" one at $1,499 - I think people would have just flocked to the stores.

It's only $100 per unit (and I don't know their costs on the thing - but I'm guessing they still have a pretty nice margin) - but the perception by consumers would finally be that Apple "gets it" when it comes to pricing.

As it is, at least they're consistent. They've trimmed a little bit of the price, but if you compare it to other hardware - and the new ultra-cheap "netbooks" - they're still in the elitist, don't-care-if-there's-a-recession, standard Apple pricing mode.

Which is good - if you're Apple.