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My First Mac

Switching to Mac Tripled My Productivity

- 2007.12.03

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This nine-year Windows user finally got fed up losing work and time to Win98/XP plus countless hours on tech support. I was a freelance graphic designer at the time and knew every "serious" artist used Mac. I went to the local CompUSA, plunked down $1,200, and got a just-off-the-truck iMac DV 400. The 'Jelly Bean', as my folks called it.

After spending another $2k on switching over applications (Photoshop, Quark, etc.), I got to work. Within two weeks, I saw a marked productivity improvement.

My iMac ran Mac OS 9.0.2 at the time, and it never locked up and never crashed. I never lost work. By the end of the year, I had made three times as much money with my iMac as I could have managed with my top-of-the-line Windows PC.

I had also saved a small fortune by not having to upgrade anything. I basically couldn't, aside from RAM. Everything worked as advertised. No frustration. No more ulcers.

From then on, I've stuck with Mac. The iMac gave way to a Sawtooth 450, a white iBook G4, a Mac mini, and finally the best workhorse I've ever owned, my Dual 1 GHz Quicksilver.

I've learned a few things about the Mac during that time: there are things Macs are better suited for - and things the Windows crowd does well. For print and video production, Mac all the way. No question. But for general office and web design, I found the PC to be best suited - so much so that I recently purchased a Toshiba laptop with Vista and Office 2007. It's kinda funny . . . I'm finally happy with a Windows PC. I can get my work done. And quickly.

But it ain't touching my real work. Never.

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