One Month Windows Saga: Not All That Bad
- 2008.03.04
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Around three weeks ago, Low End Mac published a column of mine detailing my month-long switch to PCs and Windows. It was somewhat of a success; after all, what more controversial topic could be found to post on a Macintosh website?
This piece concludes that journey.
I caved in and managed to obtain a new (to me) Macintosh. (I'm now on an Intel Mac and loving it.) I had to negotiate with different people for four days, but here it is.
To begin with, I will talk about how I managed to survive using Windoze (Yay! Back to calling it that!) for an entire month. My next column will be a review of the Macintosh I got, a barely used 2.2 GHz black MacBook with 1 GB RAM, a 160 GB hard drive, and Leopard.
How I Coped with Windoze
In a world full of wonderful Apple products, it's rather hard to imagine someone voluntarily using Windows, assuming they are well informed. However, I did do such a thing.
To give my readers a quick refresher course on what I used for this little experiment, here is the rundown: As my main machine, I used a Lenovo/IBM ThinkPad T60, which is a Core Duo at 2.0 GHz with 1 GB RAM and a 100 GB hard drive. It was running Windows XP Professional. I used Microsoft Office 2007 for school work, iTunes for listening to music, and Mozilla Firefox for Web browsing. Pidgin was my application of choice for instant messaging using both Jabber and AIM.
As I said in my previous column, there were several Macintosh applications that I could not live without. They included Skitch, for easy image manipulation; iChat, for stupidly easy direct IMs; and Camino. Love ya all.
To avoid completely repeating myself, I'll tell you how the rest went. Overall, it wasn't really that bad. Screenshots in Windows are a pain in the neck, for sure. You have to press the key, open Paint, paste it, and then save it - as a bitmap - to your hard drive.
One thing I did like about the whole experience was how snappy everything was, excluding boot times.
I mostly used the ThinkPad on a laptop stand with a Logitech MX Revolution mouse attached. Setting up the MX was a huge pain. It took me a half hour to get it working, because you had to download a 60 MB file to install the "connection utility". On the other hand, once all of my hardware was up and running, it was smooth sailing.
One thing I love about Mac OS X that I didn't find in Windows is the cheesy slogan: It just works. The third-party hardware and software I purchase for my Mac don't need additional drivers.
For example, a Microsoft Bluetooth mouse I found laying around my room was too old to support computers with built-in Bluetooth. It had a gigantic USB dongle to allow wireless connectivity. When I attached it to my Mac, it recognized the mouse. I ran the Bluetooth setup utility, and the mouse was working perfectly, within two minutes.
To be completely honest, the whole Windows experience wasn't all
that bad. The reason why this article is so brief is because there is
almost nothing to conclude. The experiment did help me realize how
lucky I am to be a member of the Macintosh community. It is helpful,
informative, and supportive, something Windows users cannot say about
their user/support base. 
Benjamin Zalutsky is a recent Mac convert.
Recent No Windows for Me Columns
- How a heavily upgraded Power Mac G4 pulled me back from the Dark Side, 06.23. Seduced by a quad-core Windows gaming rig, it was a 9-year-old Power Mac that brought him back to the Mac.
- The black MacBook is a gem of a notebook, 03.06. Apple's MacBook is fast, has great battery life, and is pretty well designed.
- A month with Windows: One Apple fanboy's experiment, 02.12. Is the Mac really that much better than Windows? To find out, this Apple lover is spending a month with Windows XP and a couple of PC notebook.
- More in the No Windows for Me index.
Recent Content on Low End Mac
- Mac Pro overclocking, Windependence with Darwine, Blu-ray for Macs, and more, Mac News Review, 07.04. Also more on running Leopard on non-Apple hardware, Ubuntu on a Mac mini, the first autofocus webcam with Zeiss optics for Macs, and more.
- Wouldn't life be great with an iSlate?, John Hatchett, Recycled Computing, 07.04. PDAs and smartphones are too small for some tasks, full-fledged Tablet PCs are overkill, and ebook readers are too limited. Apple has the tech to own this niche.
- Mac of the Day: 'WallStreet' PowerBook G3, May 1998 - WallStreet offered 3 screen sizes and CPU speeds from 233 to 292 MHz.
- List of the Day: System 6 is the email list for those who choose System 6.
- The Macintosh Portable started a notebook revolution, Carl Nygren, Classic Macs in the Intel Age, 07.03. Before Apple introduced the Mac Portable, notebook computers were text-based and ran MS-DOS. Ever since, graphical interfaces have been the norm for laptops.
- More links in our archive.
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