What made you switch? - Page 4

:shrug: They're too long for me to take the time to actually read through them, but they seem pretty in depth.

oh they are for sure.. it's a standard rule of thumb that the gov't is 10-15 years ahead of crypto stuff in the private sector. AES has an estimated shelflife of 20 years now... so you got about 5 not enough for the statute of limitations to run out on any "nefarious" activity. Once you step up to 256 bit you should be good for a while.

As far as the other stuff, they just assemble a guide baed on other experts.. i think most of that stuff is good..

the biggest and best thing you can do on ANY system with ANY os, is not run daily as administrator.

Switched to windows XP august 2002. Bought my iBook August 2003. Windows PC broke june 2004. I enjoy the power and options of the x86 platform, but some of the things windows did drove me up the wall.

needed a laptop and had wanted to try a mac for quite awhile. bought an ibook 12" and travel with it constantly and love it! still use win2k at home mostly.

It doesn't matter what I use, its all the same. I currently have an Acer8104, Apple PowerBook Ti 15.2" (800Mhz), HP ZD7000. The acer runs XPSP2 + Blackbox, The Apple runs OSX 10.2.x + X11 + Blackbox, The HP runs Ubuntu Linux + Blackbox.

They all run python 2.4, OOo, Java 1.4.x, Gimp, Abiword, Gvim, OpenSSH, Unison, and a whole slew of OSS software. They all potentially could run World of Warcraft, although the XPSP2 PC gets the nod for gaming.

I switched when the first Powerbook G3 came out some years back because I wanted to move away from a WinTel world. Unfortunately the office I work in, like most offices, forced me to use Office to share document files, so I didn't completely escape.. (don't use Outlook though, since I can POP the Exchange server..)

It's been a cool platform but I'm itching to move to x86/Linux now.. Anyway our IT department has gotten used to Macs now, so I figure it's time for me to switch again..

i gt that itch recently.. not real happy that i did switch.. looking to switch back now.. hence the sony going up for sale.

Mail in 10.3 can talk to an Entourage server. Calendar requests go to iCal. Or you can use Entourage out of Office 2004 with Exchange support.

Pages opens Word documents, and Keynote opens Powerpoint documents. No Apple solution for dealing with Excel, and no way at all to deal with Access though.

You're right. In case anyone was curious, Exchange support in Apple software has been coming along nicely. You can use Apple Mail to talk to Exchange servers natively (I think it's MAPI), and their Address Book application can talk to the Exchange servers too. My problem has been if anyone sent me a meeting maker in Outlook. When I configured Mail to use an Exchange server, it left the meeting maker emails in my inbox on the Exchange server. When I switched Mail to using POP with the Exchange server, it now downloaded the emails as normal emails with a single attachment, which when double-clicked would open iCal and put the meeting into my iCal calendar. Kind of a manual process. I never did figure out how to do it automatically when Mail was natively talking to the Exchange server.

I was being a little too glib when I said I POP our Exchange server. I actually used Eudora forever until Exchange support for Mail came out, and then I switched to Apple Mail (which anyone could use either with POP or IMAP to talk to an Exchange server too) to finally talk native to our Exchange server. I was able to fully automate my meeting maker situation with an external application from a little UK company called Snerdware. Their Groupcal provides seamless integration with Exchange meeting makers now, so I basically use Mail/iCal at work where everyone else uses Outlook, and noone is the wiser.. (Snerdware's AddressX is also better Exchange integration for the Address Book application too.)

Finally there are apps that can read, and supposedly now write, Microsoft Office format files, not just Apple's Pages and Keynote, but you can also go open source on the Mac and use OpenOffice, or AbiWord, Gnumeric, etc. My problem is that I have to send stuff (mostly Powerpoint with some Word) back to Windows users in the office, and I've never really tested out the two way conversion of these apps. I just got the most recent iWork (Pages and Keynote 2.0), so maybe I can start tinkering with Keynote again and see if once I either edit an existing Powerpoint presentation in Keynote, or create one in Keynote and then save as Powerpoint, I an send it to a fellow Windows users and have them NOT notice anything unusual..

The one big Microsoft Office hole for Mac native apps, as you pointed out is Excel, (not so important for me), but there is Gnumerica on the Mac through Fink, and one that won't affect as many switchers, Visio, (unfortunately important in network design, which I need). Omnigraffle Pro can read and write Visio XML files, but not native Visio. And again when you think about this kind of stuff, you unfortunately need to think about making things as transparent to your Windows colleagues as possible. So I asked a co-worker to convert some of his Visio stuff to XML and send it to me, but apparently it's a pain.. So natively being able to read and write these types of data files, would let me invisibly use my Mac

Anyway... I hope noone minded the little side trip to the overall thread discussion, but it's kind of a "switching" related tangent.. Switching in a Microsoft Office is very doable today, just mind the bumps..

I haven't switched, but I thought about it. Apple needs to seriously upgrade its laptop hardware (notably the processor speed, standard RAM and GPU) and lower the price into the "mildly affordable" range. Do that, and I'd switch almost immediatly. As it is, I can get a pc laptop that's nearly twice as powerful for what I'd pay for a mac laptop.

good point. as soon as apple:
1) makes prices more reasonable
2) upgrades base config hardware
and 3) allows for a bit more freedom

i am sure more people would be interested in the mac platform.

Yeah those are my only complaints about Apple, I feel too restricted on a Mac. But I also haven't used it for very long. I look forward to receiving my 14" ibook tomorrow to learn how everything works!

restrictive because they tie their os in with their own hardware? that is WHY it works better.

The powerbooks DO need a speed boost.. namely dual core g4 or single g5 processors, and they are a *bit* more expensive than the pc counterparts.. but you really can't compare a powerbook to a dell, you really have to compare it to a company like IBM, which makes some apple powerbooks look INEXPENSIVE.

There are a reason some companies can charge more and flourish.. and why some *cough dell* hve to constantly lesen their manufacturing costs and bargain basement deal them out.

Support is one of those main considerations.

Furhtermore - abf - people are already interestedin apple, not sure if you know but their marketshare is increasing steadily.

I switched to apple and switched back. Powerbook, specifically.
Elegant design, nice looks, built well. But I just felt that the customizability was lacking. And the relative dearth of software, b/c I'm fond of downloading neat little utilities and such. And the lack of a right click mouse button was way more annoying. Mainly the lack of total tweaking that windows gives you if you so desire to tinker around. I also felt that for what you get the apple was overpriced. I have the same issues with the ipod b/c I don't think it's for tinkerers. I'm one of those who'd like to have a customizable EQ, display the bitrate, not lose the album title, etc. I felt those two experiences have made me think Apple is simpler to use but b/c there aren't as many features. I'd give my mom and apple, and my sister. But not me. I also used to think their lcd's really were better, but now I know better. They look better, but the panel is the same as Dell's.