melaus

I was a diehard Windows user. I downloaded nearly all applications that I had come across, and tested out all anti-virus software available back in the days -both legal and illegal software. I still remember that I had to reinstall the OS nearly every month, so to keep it smooth and to remove those deadly virus. Those anti-virus software would always provide the best solution to remove a virus or Trojan —reinstall Windows.

Those days were exciting and adventurous, as that computer was not to facilitate work, but to create trouble, so that you would just spend the whole day, even sacrificing sleeping time to do all the installations. It was stupid, but I enjoyed those days.

I came in touch with Mac one time when I had my haircut in a salon. It was either an iBook or MacBook, but one thing I was sure is that it ran the IBM PowerPC processor. The interface was tremendous. I was totally stunned, and played around and launched nearly all applications I could find on that computer. It was an all-new experience that made a great impression on me. I knew at then my next computer would be a Mac.

Things went out as I expected. I got a chance to own a Mac. Prior to owning a Mac, I did much research online. I read through all articles I could find and even those official guides to Mac. I enjoyed every one of them. I had not seen such a beautiful computer, both the hardware and the software. That was my start with a Mac. By the way, if you have ever thought that there are no applications on the Mac OS platform and that you cannot play games, and if this is your reason of not getting a Mac, it is because you have done no research and do not even know what a Mac is. Do not get it.

I had not a friend near me used a Mac when I first got my hands with my beloved MacBook 2.0GHz. It was an all-new experience that I would never forget. You could never imagine how exciting and wonderful it is to just feel the power of the Mac OS, and you would simply be totally poisoned by the absolutely amazing appearance and appreciating the design effort that Jony Ive’s team has put in.

Later on, many of my friends got their hands on a Mac and they all love it. There are always misconceptions that Mac are very difficult to use, and there are only a limited scope of applications that can work on a Mac. I could not understand where they got this fundamentally wrong idea. I could name all applications that can replace those you use on your PC. Adium for MSN, Seashore or Paintbrush as Paint, Safari as Internet Explorer, iTunes and QuickTime Player as Windows Media Player, Mail as Outlook Express, Transmission as BitTorrent, iMovie as a million times better replacement for Windows Movie Maker, Garageband to create music and podcasts, iPhoto to manage and edit your photos, Preview to open image files and PDFs, iWork Suite as Microsoft Office (or Microsoft Office for Mac, if you really want a Microsoft Software)… And, there are a lot of applications that you could not find a replacement on Windows —Picturesque, Cha-Ching, Dictionary (built-in dictionary application), Misu, Prizmo, Process, xScope, ScreenShade, Slife, The Unarchiver, and more. I could keep the list going on and on.

The Mac OS X also help you to finish up stuffs in the fastest way. A 20-step process on Windows could be done within clicks on a Mac —adding a printer to your computer, for example. This is what a Mac is, and this is just going to change you, your thinking algorithm and working principles dramatically, in a good way.

I just love the way a Mac could make me feel home and the way I could get things done. If you have ever seen a presentation done by me, you will find out how easy you could create a presentation and how easy you could achieve perfection —remember the presentation I did in one lunch time, the English one.


Alan