Switching to Wintel Mac

To give you some background, Klaus is something of a geek. Or more politely, a tech genius. He hand-coded the entire AME Info site, then re-hand-coded the entire site some time later when we switched to CSS. Klaus can program and script and use arcane things like the DOS prompt and Linux. About the only thing outside Klaus's experience was the brave new world of Apple.

So it was not really that surprising, especially given OS X's reputation as the user-friendliest operating system, that Klaus figured out how to use his iMac straight out of the box. But his reaction to the whole Mac experience did come as both a shock and a delight to me as (formerly) the only Mac user in AME Info.

Perhaps the best way to reveal it is via the MSN conversations we had over the course of time. This was what Klaus said on the very first day he got his iMac:

Sunday 14 October 2006
Klaus (22:53:31): I installed bootcamp and WinXp as well - truth is I have never seen Windows run that well

And just one day later:

Sunday 15 October 2006
Klaus (21:40:38): well I have not booted my Mac in Windows today

Many of the AME Info staff telework, or work in remote offices, so instant messaging such as MSN and Google Talk is a vital means of communication for us. More often than not, Klaus and I use it to discuss tech issues or news, and when Klaus was taking the first bites of his new Apple, it was a useful channel to pass on some basic tips and tricks. Here's Klaus discovering that you can take a partial screenshot in OS X, which gets saved as a .png image on the desktop.

Klaus (22:22:40): AWESOME! Apple+shift+4
Lisa (22:23:07): do they have that for Windows?
Klaus (22:23:12): nope

Text clippings were also a revelation to Klaus: with OS X, you can highlight text and/or images, and "pull" it to the desktop. It creates a drag-and-droppable clippings file which can be pulled back into any type of file: a Word document, an email, a chat window, even text or URL fields on a website.

Just a week after buying his iMac, Klaus was already getting the itch to get an even better Mac. He originally chose the consumer-end iMac as he was not expecting it to become a serious work machine, but as seen above, it became his primary computer within hours of getting it out of the box. A Mac Book Pro started to look tempting (oh for the joys of being a CEO with a generous personal budget for tech and gadgets):

Sunday 22nd October 2006
Klaus (16:12:29): yes I can imagine - anyways I think I'll stay with the iMac for now anyways - it is not like it is slow
Klaus (16:14:50): my only concern is if the hard disk dies or something minor breaks then I have to send the whole machine - with MacPro just can just change the disk etc

Within a month, Klaus's Apple appreciation had progressed to a point where Bill Gates was reaching for a handkerchief to mop his tears, as Steve Jobs gets ready to order a second corporate jet:

Sunday 12 November 2006
Klaus (16:12:37): it is really quick - not hanging like Outlook -- in fact today I have not used Windows at all - first time ever
Klaus (16:13:00): I have removed bootcamp since
Klaus (16:15:10): I have a Parallels installation with WinXP which I used for access to the office - but after I got Entourage up and running last night and a nice FTP app - and then Terminal -
Klaus (16:09:16): it is really terrible in a sense - growing to become such an anti-MS guy these days
Lisa (16:09:54): do you wish you had switched earlier?!
Klaus (16:09:55):I got myself a lot of small cool apps to make my Mac life easier and it is just a pleasure really

The iMac's stability was another revelation. By this stage Klaus had fallen in love with OS X's geeky Terminal application, which allows users to interact with their Mac through a UNIX command line interface. He was also sending me tips on how to use it:

Klaus (16:24:48): btw - from terminal:
Klaus-iMac:~ imac24$ uptime
16:24 up 14 days, 17:09, 2 users, load averages: 0.11 0.22 0.21
Klaus-iMac:~ imac24$
Klaus (16:25:07): cool huh!
Klaus (16:25:45): and I have been throwing applications at it - removed and been running a ton of strange things - and no boot
Klaus (16:32:23): in the same period (14 days) I have booted my Dubai machine at least 10 times - and all it is doing is running Outlook!



Of course, we could now upgrade our text communication to audio and even video chat. We successfully managed to get my creaking Powerbook in a one-way video chat with Klaus's iMac with its built-in iSight webcam. Both computers have built-in microphones, so we could hear one another and I could see Klaus in crystal clear quality. Klaus also sent some "artistic" images of himself from Apple's Photobooth application which you can see above: just another of the fun but also useful features of the OS X.4 Tiger operating system.

As Klaus's switch became complete, I asked him if the anti-Mac myths - for example that Apple's OS is unstable, that it's slow, that it isn't compatible with anything - now annoy him? His response:

"Not really - as long as I have seen the light - if people want to suffer - let them. Thanks for getting me on to Mac - it will probably add a few years to my life in the end."