Windows Vista is many years delayed. It has arrived. I have not used it. I hear it does very neat things. Many of which I have concluded have existed on the new Mac OSX for as many years as Vista has been delayed. Hmmm.
So, just yesterday a colleague of mine was telling me a story about setting up his girlfriend's new Vista computer (he advised getting a Mac). He went to migrate her data from her old computer to her new one. This, of course, is a task that gets everyone nervous. How long will it take? Will I get everything? My email? And so on.
He went on and on. To sum it up he said that he tried to connect the old computer as a hard drive to do a sort of drag-n-drop. The new computer would not recognize the old computer. At the time I spoke to him he had spent a handful of hours and had not figured it out. This person by the way easily gets around Windows, Linux and languages like Perl, C, PHP, Java.
I rudely suggested she get a Mac and he said, "Preaching to the choir; don't get me started". I did not want to get him started.
I relayed my story of transferring my data from my Mac OSX Powerbook to a new MacBook Pro (Dual Intel processors -- sames a most Windows computers). I told him it took about 10 minutes of reading instructions and about 50 minutes while the transfer took place when I watched a movie with my kids. When I rebooted my Mac I immediately went to email and my email downloaded from my ISP. All my data was there: preferences, files, everything. Even my keychain data (password vault used by MacOSX) was preserved without fault. It has been 4 months now and the only problem I can speak of is that sometimes programs like my Web browser do not automatically lookup my passwords in keychain and it asks for my approval. Not a big deal.
Also, I have Parallels on my computer which allows me to run WIndows XP and associated programs like unique Windows programs for accounting, security network connections like Nortel Networks Contivity VPN client. I can run it "parallel" with Mac OSX without interrupting my Mac OS or the network connection. It is parallel.
It is wonderful.
Are you looking for arguments to stay with your Windows computer? I can hear it now, "Mac's cost more". I am sorry to say this is no longer an argument. Macs come with what you need, integrated. Many windows computers do not come with such items and you then have to purchase them later and deal with the issues of installation and incompatibility. After all this out of pocket cost and effort, Windows computers cost the same or more. Walter Mossberg has written countless articles in the Wall Street Journal doing such comparisons and regularly states that the Mac is a better deal on all fronts. I should also mention he was not always a Mac fan. About 7 years ago he called a spade a spade and took Windows and Mac OS to task where appropriate. He still does this. He is fair.
The answer is, "Go Mac".
PS If you made it this far and do not what the "!=" means, it means "not equal to" and is a programming convention. Just a bit of geek for you ;)
