Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Mac People: Photo management software?

I was hoping that it wouldn't come to that. In most forums it would be a near certainty. We're a bit more civilized around here (I think).

I will remain firmly entrenched with one foot in the Microsoft morass; I write C# code, maintain VB6, and manage Microsoft SQL Servers for a living. So there's no escaping that. I have no real qualms about Microsoft either. I'm certainly not a M$ hater. I often defend their practices to my anti-M$ colleagues.

But in my home life, I'm looking for a change. The Mac is a refreshing change.

And besides, I don't really see what ammunition the Anti-Mac crowd has these days, since all modern Macs can run XP/Vista natively through Boot Camp. I mean, it's not a VM, it *is* Windows. And it works (from my meager experience) quite well. Case-in-point, my wife's secondary work machine is a c2007 Macbook Pro. Last one before the unibody Macs. It's a Core2Duo 2.2, 2GB ram, 5400rpm HD, w/ 256mb nVidia 8600GT discrete graphics. My Dell is a Core2Duo 2.0, 2GB Ram, 7200rpm HD, w/ 256mb 8600GT discrete graphics. Eerily similar.

In my pre-purchase tinkering, I put Bootcamp + XP on it and installed a couple of my current favorite games (Supreme Commander & Sins of a Solar Empire). Both games ran more smoothly on the MBP+Bootcamp+XP than they did on my Dell 1520. I'm sure the difference was probably a 6-month old Vista install on the 1520 vs. a clean XP on the MBP. But the point is, since the hardware is functionally the same, a Mac is going to be able to run Windows at least as well as a comparable PC of similar hardware specs.

And as for the 'Macs are overpriced' argument. I agree. They are. I've spent a lot of time building machines in the past few months. The MBP I bought was originally about $1,000 more expensive than an equivalent HP or Dell. That's not insignificant.

But as I was once told by an ex-Apple Store employee, the trick to buying a Mac is to buy a 'refurbished' one from Apple directly. So that's what I did. As soon as the 'new' MB's were announced at WWDC '09 last week, many 'old' MB's hit the refurb store. So my 'new' MBP is of the previous generation - previous as in superseded last week. So I don't get the non-removable (ick) 7-hour battery nor the built-in SD slot. Oh drat. But I do have an ExpressCard slot, which is more useful to me than the SD slot. Otherwise it's the same as the 'new' ones. But what I did get is a savings of *over* $1,000 on its price from two weeks ago. And as far as I can tell, it's never been used. No scuffs, no scratches, no key wear, no trackpad wear. It even smells like new electronics. Compared to the refurb Dell notebooks that I've personally witnessed that did look like someone had used them for a short time - crumbs or a hair in the keyboard, or a scuff mark on a corner or two.

The fact is, I had built several mid-high end Dell and HP machines of identical hardware specs as I was deciding what to do. The best prices I could come up with on a Dell/HP was $100-$200 cheaper than what I paid for the MBP. Yes, still slightly cheaper. But the all-aluminum chassis design and overall 'feel' of the MBP is easily worth that premium. And all that is before any discussion/argument over whether OSX is better than XP/Vista.

So again, I don't get the anti-Mac sentiment, other than fear of the unknown/unfamiliar.