Once you go Mac

Sep 16th 2007 6:45PM

I sold and bought my first PC a long, long time ago. Back in the late 80s I owned a Mac, I think it was a Mac2. I honestly thought there would never come a time where I would buy a Mac. Ever.

Then I upgraded my PC to Vista. What a disaster. I had grown accustomed to my PC freezing every now and then. Enter Vista and my PC was frozen more often than it was working. The biggest culprit was MicroSoft Outlook.

The application has to have a memory leak. I could follow memory numbers as they grew and grew. Then as my email was downloading, the rules would stop working and everything went straight to my inbox. Spam and all.

When you get as many emails as I do. Thats a problem. When it also causes the system to freeze, its more than just a problem.

My first step was to get a copy of CPU Magazine with Vista tricks. The tricks helped. Everything froze or crashed less often. Significantly less often. But the annoyance factor was beyond belief. I dont run any special applications. I run outlook, Office and firefox. Thats it.

I had gotten to the point where I was embarrassed to be a PC owner. The thought of someone calling me and asking me to go to my computer to find something was paralyzing (ok, not that bad, but it sounded cool writing it).

This wasnt just a problem on my Desktop, it was a problem on my laptop with Vista as well.

So a few months ago I made the executive decision to buy a MacBook to replace my laptop.

I haven’t looked back.

Its not that there arent hassles with the Mac. There are two. One there isnt a version of Outlook for the Mac. As someone who has more than 10 years and gigabytes worth of emails in multiple outlook files, the concept of exporting and importing wont fly. So i am keeping my PC Desktop purely to download my emails into Outlook so I have a master database. But I only do so after deleting unimportant emails from the server using my Macbook.

The 2nd problem is the lack of the right mouse click. I know its a Mac thing to only have one button, but its a hassle. Sure there are work arounds, none of which are quick and easy for a longtime PC user.

Both of these are easily offset by 3 simple Mac elements that make me very happy.

First is that when I close my MacBook without turning it off, it doesn’t lose power. It can sit there for hours and then work when I open it up.

The 2nd is that it rarely freezes up. Maybe 3 or 4 times in months.

Finally, i LOVE the fact that it boots up in 1/1000000000 of the time it takes my PC. It probably will add years to my life .. (ok an exaggeration).

Im not an Apple fanboy, but I love me some MacBook

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229 Comments »

  1. Macs are pretty sweet…haven\’t owned one myself but plan on it soon. Little pricey but probably worth it.

    Comment by Electronics Reviews — September 16, 2007 @ 7:16 pm

  2. Two comments:

    1. The Outlook equivalent on the Mac is Entourage, and it is part of the Mac version of Microsoft Office. You should be able to move all your email over to it relatively easily.

    2. As for the \”lack of right click\” and there being no easy workarounds, that\’s not even close to being true. The two finger tap method is very simple, especially if you are already used to two finger scrolling.

    Comment by Oliver Dueck — September 16, 2007 @ 7:22 pm

  3. You can right-click on a MacBook–it\’s just disabled by default. To enable it, go to the \”System Preferences,\” and then \”Keyboard & Mouse.\” Click on the \”Trackpad\” button and check the box for the \”Tap trackpad using two fingers for secondary click.\” So then it\’s tapping with one finger for left click, and two fingers for right click.. After a day it will be second nature. (And if you use an external mouse, then the right-click on the mouse works just like normal.)

    Comment by Brian Madden — September 16, 2007 @ 7:25 pm

  4. I can\’t speak to Outlook, but I just use a wireless 2-button mouse with my laptop (and desktops for that matter). It\’s a little extra money but well worth it.

    Comment by Collin Brooke — September 16, 2007 @ 7:30 pm

  5. Hi Mark: Love the blog, and happy to hear about your \”Mac-quisition.\” I echo the comments about Entourage - lots more coming on that front with the next version of Office for Mac (January 2008).

    Also, I use a Logitech MX Revolution mouse at work. It\’s wireless, and has a little USB plugin for the \”receiver\” end of the device. Hides nicely behind my Apple Cinema display. I mention this because it has multiple buttons, and they may to the Mac right-click. All in all, I like it better than Apple\’s Mighty Mouse.

    Comment by Steve Baranski — September 16, 2007 @ 7:30 pm

  6. Uhh, doesn\’t the Mac Mighty Mouse detect right and left clicks?
    http://www.apple.com/mightymouse/

    and logitech etc make third party two-button Mac mice… for a while now.

    I use a logitech deal that has like 5 buttons you can preset.. Hope that addresses issue #2

    Comment by Michael Byrne — September 16, 2007 @ 7:34 pm

  7. The Mighty Mouse has right click if you want to use a USB mouse or the wireless Bluetooth version; if you don\’t want to use an external mouse, use the two-finger click on the trackpad; Entourage is closest to Outlook equivalent, and it\’s not hard to transfer your mail over - lots of programs and websites, etc. that walk you through it. I would never buy a PC again as it stands right now…

    Comment by Graham Brown — September 16, 2007 @ 7:40 pm

  8. Sir, there is an option on MacBooks (and MacBook Pros) which allows you to access a \”right-click\” menu by simply tapping on your trackpad with two fingers, rather than one. If it is not currently enabled for you, click on the Apple Logo in the top left area of your screen, followed by a click on System Preferences. Within that menu is an area for your Keyboard & Mouse options. Head on within that, and there should be a multitude of various options for your trackpad. As my laptop is currently not with me, I cannot relay the exact wording of the options, but there should be a checkbox for an option which allows for right-click via two-finger-tap. Look around within the trackpad options while you\’re there, as you\’ll see a fairly complete listing of various efficient button combinations for a variety of helpful actions, one of which being the ability to zoom in on an area of your screen.

    Thought I\’d at least alleviate one of your issues, since I knew an intuitive answer. As for your e-mail issue…Eesh. No simple solutions there, if the whole importing process is out of the question.

    Comment by Amin Issa — September 16, 2007 @ 7:42 pm

  9. I love my macbook pro. I haven\’t rebooted in over 30 days and everything is working great!

    Comment by Mitch — September 16, 2007 @ 7:47 pm

  10. It seems I was a little late to the party during the typing of my response, haha. At least you can verify by the number of comments, the two-finger-tap is convenient and seamless.

    Just to clarify Oliver Dueck\’s suggestion on the e-mail issue: Unless something has changed extremely recently, Entourage is unable to natively read Outlook Personal Folder files and cannot read archived emails without first re-importing them back into the main database, so you would still be stuck with the same predicament you have now.

    Comment by Amin Issa — September 16, 2007 @ 7:48 pm

  11. Mark, get a two-button mouse. I use the Logitech bluetooth two-button mouse. It \”just works.\” Nothing to it. http://tinyurl.com/3xagcl

    Comment by Dave Winer — September 16, 2007 @ 7:51 pm

  12. Once you go Mac, you never go bac. (hmmm…not an entirely bad slogan!)

    Nice call, Mark. Have been a Mac guy myself for about the last half decade or so, and there is indeed no going back. Am typing on a G$ Powerbook as we speak, andd though i appreciate the superior quality, would never consider myself an Apple fanboy either.

    Don\’t even own an iPod.

    But I just wanted to take a sec to talk quickly about remarkable things to tell your grandkids, as you mentioned in your Dancing w/Stars/Meaning of Life commentary…

    1) Imagine telling \’em about the World Series titles you won for your homwtown team, which you successfully resurrected and turned into a competitor in a single off-season. Imagine telling \’em about going to-to-toe with Steinbrenner, and getting the best of him and him $200 million squad. That\’s a tory.

    And 2) Imagine telling em\’ how you helped mix up the American politcial landscape in what turned out to be the most critical election of any of our lifetimes–\’08… Or how you helped open the eyes of the American populace and made helped make sure we gave it our best shot with our best candidates. That\’d be a nice change, huh?

    Except, when it was all said & done, you wouldn\’t have to tell your kids about that… They\’d read it in their history books

    Later m. Take er easy in TX.

    DS

    p.s. saw HDNet lampooned on SNL last nite… First sign that they\’re a little concerned, I\’d say…

    Comment by Dixon — September 16, 2007 @ 7:58 pm

  13. I\’m sure HP will enjoy reading this post after they used you in their commerical ; ) Although your issue is with Vista so they shouldn\’t be too miffed.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVyofNRyGzA

    Comment by Mason — September 16, 2007 @ 8:00 pm

  14. I guess I get to be the resident linux geek, but to me that\’s the best solution to solving the Windows mess without spending an arm and a leg on a Mac (which, of course, is not a problem at all for you). I\’m not anti-Microsoft by any means, I\’m not a fanboy, but it\’s become entirely too difficult to run a Windows system \”cleanly\”. I do still have to use it for work, though, because of Oracle, and Outlook is a heck of a program. At home I use Evolution and it\’s a fairly nice clone. It\’s not as polished as Outlook, but then again I don\’t have 10 years worth of email to worry about.

    Comment by Matthew — September 16, 2007 @ 8:01 pm

  15. Yeah, I echo the sentiments above. But also, if you don\’t want to use Entourage, Mail is way better anyways. I went Mac about 5 years ago and got a Powerbook G4. I\’m still using it and it runs like a champ. My wife and I have an ongoing joke of how many PC\’s we will run through while having one Mac. We have had some given to us, some almost brand new, all newer than my Mac though and we are on our third PC. Unless someone develops something better than a Mac which is highly unlikely in the near future, I\’ll be a Mac guy for life.

    P. S. I also like right click\’s on the mouse, thank goodness Steve Job\’s conceded a small bit of his pride and got a right click mouse rocking. But don\’t tell him, I\’ve had a Microsoft mouse for 5 years now (the longest running Microsoft product I have that works, but I did get it before the right click apple mouse came out) Peace.

    Comment by Ross Middleton — September 16, 2007 @ 8:11 pm

  16. Entourage is pretty good, especially if you\’re using Exchange as your mail server, but not perfect. Hopefully Office 08 will offer a better alternative.

    As for the right mouse button. I switched to a Mac a few years ago and couldn\’t ever imagine going back, but having the right click disabled by default is very lame, as is the fact that the single mouse button is so big on the MacBook — and pro — but there\’s no right click button. Personally I use the tap to click anyways, but still, it\’d be nice if I didn\’t have to hear everyone complain — including my wife.

    Comment by Ben Drawbaugh — September 16, 2007 @ 8:14 pm

  17. The fact that mac users are so smug.

    Nice entry though, especially the title. Holy cow, MC.

    Comment by Chris Johnson — September 16, 2007 @ 8:17 pm

  18. I think microsoft adds these problems on purpose to make money selling the solution. Macs are pretty much problem free.

    Comment by Kevin — September 16, 2007 @ 8:39 pm

  19. Don\’t listen to what they say…Mac does have a right click. When you are clicking on something, just hold \”ctrl\” and click on something. All of your right click options will be there!

    Comment by Jesse Moffat — September 16, 2007 @ 8:48 pm

  20. I had a similar experience about 2 years ago and now can\’t stand even testing out web designd on a PC.

    With email, I actually found that MS Outlook couldn\’t handle it all so I had all these unused archives from years ago. On the Mac I was able to import ALL of my email from 15 years using Emailchemy and have access to all this stuff I had forgotten existed.

    Apple Mail is an excellent program as well.

    Comment by Narendra — September 16, 2007 @ 8:49 pm

  21. Hey Mark - There is a very easy way to right click on the macbook. The easiest way I found is you can set the trackpad to right click when you have 2 fingers on the trackpad. You can also set it to scroll windows when you use 2 fingers moving side-to-side or top-to-bottom. I actually find this method much better than any pc laptop i have used. I am a long time pc usr and still use a windows machie everyday - the problem is that I look forward to shutting it down each day so I can go home and use my mac. btw - these settings can be found in system preferences - keyboard and mouse - trackpad.

    Comment by chris — September 16, 2007 @ 9:05 pm

  22. I actually work on both Mac and PC and can verify that Mac is a far superior product. I don\’t think I\’ve ever heard an argument the other way around. There must be some truth to the superiority of the Mac way.

    Comment by Bob Wegener — September 16, 2007 @ 9:12 pm

  23. Bulletproof advice for any serious Outlook user thinking about switching to Mac from Windows:

    1) Do it. You\’ll be fine.
    2) DO NOT USE ENTOURAGE. Never ever ever. Anybody who says Entourage works well is not a serious Outlook user.
    3) If you must use Outlook, as so many of must, for compatibility with the enterprise, you should install XP under Parallels, and run Outlook there. Does it work well? No. It works the same as on your Windows box, which is rather badly, but it\’s still better than living with Windows year-round.

    Comment by foogert — September 16, 2007 @ 9:32 pm

  24. More and more I have been reading these stories. Even some of the biggest MS supporters that blog have purchased Mac\’s over the past year and a half. The simple fact is Apple makes the best PC\’s on the market. I do have both in my home as my wife refuses to switch from her Tablet PC. Even have Vista loaded on one. I like most of what I see but the driver issues keep me from upgrading all my PC\’s. As I built this machine myself. I just can not believe MS and what they have done with Vista they need to publicly get rid of some people to make a point.

    On a side note as a fellow Dallas area resident, I wanted to say hey neighbor.

    Comment by Corey McLaughlin — September 16, 2007 @ 9:41 pm

  25. More and more I have been reading these stories. Even some of the biggest MS supporters that blog have purchased Mac\’s over the past year and a half. The simple fact is Apple makes the best PC\’s on the market. I do have both in my home as my wife refuses to switch from her Tablet PC. Even have Vista loaded on one. I like most of what I see but the driver issues keep me from upgrading all my PC\’s. As I built this machine myself. I just can not believe MS and what they have done with Vista they need to publicly get rid of some people to make a point.

    On a side note as a fellow Dallas area resident, I wanted to say hey neighbor.

    Comment by Corey McLaughlin — September 16, 2007 @ 9:41 pm

  26. My solution to Vistaitis has been to keep XP and not upgrade, which is cheaper than Macification. But I also have an odd prejudice against Macs. I don\’t understand why, because they have been better machines for some time and I have naively waited for PCs to catch up.

    PS - you should test out Yahoo Mash - I\’d love to hear your take on how the Social Network space might shake out.

    Comment by Joe Duck — September 16, 2007 @ 9:52 pm

  27. I ditched Entourage for Mozilla Thunderbird. It\’s not Outlook, but it is MUCH better than the alternative. There\’s even a calendering plug in called Lightning that makes Thunderbird even closer to being a complete Outlook replacement. Only problem is the lack of good synch support for iPhones or other smartphones.

    Also, as noted above, an external 2-button mouse works just fine for right-click. I have a cheap Kensington that I prefer to the Mighty Mouse.

    Comment by rslux — September 16, 2007 @ 10:03 pm

  28. Mark, have you tried going into the trackpad preferences and turning on the 2 finger tap = right click option? It took me a few days to get used to, and now I\’m pissed when I use a non Mac laptop and try to right click that way.

    I do like apple\’s \’mail\’ application but I understand that it\’s not outlook even though I never truly cared for outlook.

    Comment by James Miller — September 16, 2007 @ 10:08 pm

  29. Hey Mark, Good to see you going on the light side of things for a blog or so. Im not a comp wiz by any means but never ever ever in my life have I seen an industry that is capable of bamboozling people into accepting the reply \” Turn it off and reboot it, It\’ll be ok then.\” I mean WTF!!!!? Can you imagine going to your fridge that you spent the same kind of money on and the food be warm and the manufacturer tell you that and you say \”Oh Ok, why didnt I think of that? Thanks for the tip.\” Or with your giant HDTV if it just goes like blank or anything along those lines. I have to say that the PC industry has the market cornered on BS when it comes to explaining or rectifying problems. Sure hope that Orange Juice is cold in the morning. Thanks for the thoughts

    Comment by Frankie from Lawnside — September 16, 2007 @ 10:09 pm

  30. Hello Mr. Cuban,
    I was curious if you\’d be using your MAC to make any deals to get a second season of The Black Donnellys put together to get some new episodes to put on my new Fav. station HDnet.
    Thanks,
    Jacob

    Comment by Jacob — September 16, 2007 @ 10:10 pm

  31. Everybody has shared (or is sharing) your experience with Windows based PC\’s and slowly everybody will see the light as well, and switch to a Mac. You did exaggerate on the loading time for Mac OS X compared to a Windows product………you need to eliminate one zero (1/100000000)—much more accurate). A sign of good engineering. Sorry Mr. Balmer!

    Comment by Nick — September 16, 2007 @ 10:16 pm

  32. Lost a lot cred with that article Mark.

    Comment by Wes — September 16, 2007 @ 10:26 pm

  33. I agree with most of that… a couple of annoyances for me include:

    Difficulty in maximising windows - I like windows to take up the full screen and I like to alt-tab between them. I HATE accidentally clicking outside a window when I want to scroll it.

    The right click - why can\’t you just give me two buttons? The two fingers on trackpad for MBP is annoying, and the right mouse click on Mighty Mouse is not 100% accurate. Also, Mighty Mouse middle mouse button hurts after awhile :)

    Best thing - all the nice efficient apps.

    Comment by James — September 16, 2007 @ 10:30 pm

  34. Mark,

    Sorry you\’ve been having so many problems with Vista. When you upgraded your PC to Vista, did you make sure you had updated to the latest BIOS first? I\’ve seen several instances where BIOS updates AFTER the upgrade make things worse, but if you upgrade to a Vista BIOS *before8 upgrading to Vista, then things tend to run much more smoothly.

    Also, if you just use Outlook and Safari, did you try reformatting yoru PC and doing a completely clean installation?

    Finally, I\’m sure you get a crapload of e-mail a day, and those huge Outlook files is what\’s killing you. Are you running Hosted Exchange? if not, you might want to check out companies like ASP-One. For $10 a month you get a bunch of e-mail space, and your Outlook rules can run on the server instead of as they are downloaded.

    For your e-mail archives, I recommend the \”7-6-6 rule\”: Every 7 days, archive anything older than 6 weeks into an archive folder that holds no more than 6 months of archived mail. And only have the most recent archive file loaded. If I need something older than that, I load up athat archive folder for only as long as I need it, and then close it.

    Using all these tips, my Outlooks runs *a lot* faster. The next time you\’re in town when the Suns play the Mavericks, drop me a line and I\’ll see if I can\’t give your Vista install an extra boost.

    Comment by Robert McLaws — September 16, 2007 @ 10:47 pm

  35. All my powerBook freezes seem to be related to an interrupted sleep state. For example, closing the lid, remembering something, then opening it again. Sometimes I then get a freeze.

    Usually when I close it again and wait for the sleep light to start breathing, I can then open it up and it wakes normally. Took me some months to figure this out.

    Comment by Dennis Chamberlin — September 16, 2007 @ 11:13 pm

  36. If you can just buy a 3rd party mouse than theres no real problem. My only real concerns about buying a mac are 1. How easy is it to learn for someone who has used windows all their life? 2. Whats their customer service like? After some disappointing experiences with Dell I find good customer service extremely important. (they used to be great now there as lousy as everyone else, IMO) My only other real problem is that they\’re more expensive than other pc\’s but if there are fewer hassles that are easier to relieve than i may make the switch in the coming months.

    Comment by j — September 16, 2007 @ 11:25 pm

  37. The right click thing\’s been covered. As for the e-mail issue, my solution\’s been to use IMAP and leave everything on the server. I can run any e-mail program I want, on any machine I want, without worrying about exporting or importing files.

    Comment by Colin Morton — September 16, 2007 @ 11:45 pm

  38. Mark,

    I have a new HD video camera arriving tomorrow and would love to sit down with you and ask you some questions about the experience. For instance, did you troubleshoot the issues on your previous PC yourself, have a staffer do it, or what? Did you bring in a trusted IT Pro or Partner to help figure out the issues? Im just curious how much time was spent trying to analyze the issues that led to your frustration with the PC and operating system. I would also like to know your thoughts on what we are doing right and wrong in regards to Windows Vista and the world of personal computing.

    I would also like to record what you like about the MacBook, OS X, and what applications you use. Let me know if you are interested.

    I would also be interested in interviewing other people on the same subject. I live in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex so feel free to contact me off my blog if you are interested. I believe Marks blog links my name to my blog.

    Best regards,

    Keith Combs
    Microsoft

    Comment by Keith Combs — September 16, 2007 @ 11:52 pm

  39. Mark, you are certainly too smart, and too well steeped in your own technical expertise for anyone to try and give you the typical Mac is better spiel, but all I can say is that the more you use it, and the more you extend your tool set further into the creative realm, the more you will bond with your Macbook in ways that could never be possible with a PC. I\’ve been a longtime enthusiastic Mac user, and never take debate that Mac or PC is better, especially since since the only thing that matters is how productive and happy the user is, but it certainly makes me smile to read your post.

    Comment by Michael Longfellow — September 17, 2007 @ 12:13 am

  40. Mark,

    Get the Logitech Marble USB mouse and it does have a right-click for use with the Mac.

    Also, sounds like you\’re storing more email than you need to. Take a look at my tutorial on creating an off-site email archives that is searchable. That way you can feel free to delete as much as you want from your computer, knowing that everything you send and receive is archived if you need to refer to it, but you keep your email program database file lean and mean so it runs fast with few problems or clogs.

    http://www.iadam.org/

    Finally, others have mentioned it, but Entourage is indeed a good program comparable to Outlook. Definitely worth exploring.

    Good luck,

    AB

    Comment by Adam Boettiger — September 17, 2007 @ 1:11 am

  41. Mark:

    Regarding email. Here\’s my emailing set-up:

    1. A Google Apps private domain email account.

    2. A dot Mac email account.

    3. I created a POP3 account within Apple Mail for my Google Apps email. I then downloaded 1,400 archived emails into Apple Mail.

    4. I then went into my Settings for Google Apps email and turned-off POP3 access and initiated Forwarding of my email directly to my dot Mac email address. I archive all emails in Google Apps.

    5. In my Apple Mail program I get an error icon saying that the server for Google Apps can\’t be reached. It doesn\’t matter because all my email goes into my dot Mac Inbox. By leaving my Google Apps email box \”active\” I now have the option of using that private email address as a return address when I write a new email (Hey Apple, please make the choice of Return Address a regular option).

    6. I do not use my dot Mac email address actively.

    7. I also have a @gmail.com email for any time I need to give an email out for signing-up for a service. This gmail account also forwards to my dot Mac Inbox within Apple Mail.

    8. By changing the View settings for the columns displayed inside Apple Mail you can put the To column in so that you can see which email account each email is from.

    9. I now have an IMAP email service.

    10. Perhaps the best part of using Apple Mail is that I can with a few clicks easily add names/emails from within Apple Mail to my Apple Address application.

    Good luck!

    Comment by Timothy Post — September 17, 2007 @ 1:19 am

  42. I\’ve been contemplating a Mac since they switched over to Intel processors, Apple makes such nice hardware! The only reservation I have is that one of the applications I use is not available for the Mac, which is SolidWorks. I Suppose I could install WinXP on a Mac also. Maybe my next laptop, which I will be due for in about a year, will be a Mac

    But actually I\’m pretty happy with my PC experience. I have a Gateway desktop that is now almost 6 years old. It is running Windows 2000. I use it as my main desktop machine and as a home server so it is up 24/7. I generally only re-boot it when I am forced to by Windows updates, which happens about once a month. I can not recall the last time I had a freeze requiring re-boot or a blue screen. I have a Dell laptop running Win2K. I\’ve had it for 1.5 years now and can only recall one or two blue screens in the entire time I\’ve owned it. I have had to reboot a hand full of timed due to applications hanging the machine, specifically web pages launching java or flash apps in Firefox that for some reason consume the entire processor, or large acrobat downloads in broswer windows that hang the browser. I also had a few hangs with Adobe Lightroom Beta, but it has been quite stable since V1.0.
    I also use a Dell desktop with Win2K at work. It is very stable also. Only misbehaving apps such as the antiquated Novel client my company uses and Solidworks 3D Solid Modeling package have been able to hang this machine in the past ~three years I\’ve had it.

    I just placed an order for a new Gateway quad core machine. I specifically ordered it with XP Pro and not Vista as I\’ve read about waaay too many issues with Vista. This machine will replace my 6yo desktop machine.

    I have not looked into whether this is doable or not, but wouldn\’t it be cool to be able to run Mac OSX on a PC, after all they use the same processors and basically the same architecture, accept for the bios.

    Comment by JeffH — September 17, 2007 @ 1:30 am

  43. Well, there are as we all know split opinions about this. There are ups and downs for PC and for Mac alike. It\’s all a mater of getting use to one or the other. The Mac person will never switch to PC and viceversa.
    My opinion as a PC user (for all of my life): will NEVER switch to a Mac.

    Comment by Blog writer — September 17, 2007 @ 2:12 am

  44. I had to quit Macs in the early \’90s when Apple was totally messed up.

    I returned in 2004 with gigs (12 years\’ worth) of Outlook email archives. It was a trivial task to accurately import them into Thunderbird on my Windows PC. Then, it was an equally trivial task to accurately transfer those mail files to the corresponding Thunderbird directory on my Mac. All came across intact.

    I\’ve retained an old Windows laptop for occasional travel use, and I wouldn\’t go back to using Outlook on that computer if you paid me.

    As for Entourage on the Mac? I\’d kill myself first.

    Thunderbird is absolutely excellent for all professional and personal needs. And the ease of moving mail files to any other machine (*nix, Mac, or Window) demonstrates how all software should work.

    Comment by Kuahine — September 17, 2007 @ 2:25 am

  45. Mark, I respect you as a businessman and an awesome figure head for the NBA, I understand you don\’t claim you are any big tech head or anything, but your post about vista is just silly. So many Vista owners have great experiences. It just needs the hardware to match. Granted a lot of everyday users cant afford the latest and greatest, but you sir surely could. Can you give us some specs on the machine you had? Because I have no problems at all on my T60. It runs better then any of my macbooks, i love it so much I loaded it on one of my Macbooks.

    Comment by Keegan — September 17, 2007 @ 2:34 am

  46. I\’ve been turned onto Macs in the past few months, especially after the store I work for (Best Buy) finally got an Apple Store put into our location.

    Truth be told, I probably won\’t go away from using a PC because I\’m so used to it, but never say never.

    Comment by Sean — September 17, 2007 @ 2:36 am

  47. My god, what a sad state of affairs when you are willing (forced?) to switch platforms only because one can read you mail and the other one can not.

    I hope (trust) your Mac will appeal to you in many (many!) different more ways besides the trivial stuff.

    Comment by Mike — September 17, 2007 @ 3:34 am

  48. You have deleted my comment. Now you know that you can\’t be a good blogger if you\’re against the PC. The readers opinion counts so don\’t delete the comment if someone is against the Mac.

    Comment by Blog writer — September 17, 2007 @ 3:37 am

  49. Great choice in moving to a Mac. As many people have mentioned, the mouse issue is a quick fix. I\’ve used Outlook in the past, and to be honest, it is not the cream of the crop that people claim it to be. Move yourself to gMail and you\’ll be very happy, especially considering the amount of email you get. You\’ll get like 3 gigs of space, an email search feature, and all replies and responses between you and your receiver are kept in a single email, making the old replies in quotes.

    And here\’s an even better thing about gMail, you can attach it directly to your domain name and use their interface. For example, the typical gMail account is \”name@gmail.com\” However, I have learned that you can set it up so you can have the email \”name@yourdomain.com\” and still use the revolutionary gmail interface. If you have multiple domains, all the email to each domain can be handled in a single inbox!

    Anyways, I don\’t work for them or anything, but you can find out more at http://www.google.com/a/ and read about their Google Apps for your website.

    Comment by Mac — September 17, 2007 @ 4:02 am

  50. There is a utility called Sidetrack that will let you use one corner of your trackpad as a button for right clicking.
    http://www.ragingmenace.com/software/sidetrack/
    This utility was popular a couple of years ago before Apple introduced their way of right clicking. Sidetrack has other options as well, like letting you use one side of the trackpad for scrolling.

    Comment by Bruce McL — September 17, 2007 @ 5:56 am

  51. I was thinking of getting a Mac but i got an IBM laptop instead the finger print security device sold me on the IBM! lol
    I\’m a sucker for hot new technology, I think IBM are releasing the waterproof laptop soon -). I think the Mac is let down because of its incompatibility to the generic pc world.

    Comment by Ikedi — September 17, 2007 @ 6:18 am

  52. Entourage sucks - don\’t waste your time. It\’s a pale shadow of Outlook, and as a Mac app it\’s laughable. Importantly, MS has put a lot of effort into frustrating the use of OSX conventions in Entourage so you will inevitably be, well, frustrated by it.

    Use Mail, iCal and Address Book - the resident OSX apps. They\’re very effective, and integrated into the OS. I have 5 years of emails within Mail - thousands of messages - no worries. And thousands of contacts in AB - again, no worries. iCal integrates nicely with Google Calendar, and my BB.

    The **ony** reason to go with MS apps on the Mac, IMO, is because you **have** to - eg, Exchange Server.

    But if not, I would say don\’t waste your time.

    Comment by Rob Hyndman — September 17, 2007 @ 6:36 am

  53. Dudes 3 gig e-mail idea on google is a non starter for Mr. Cuban, because probably he doesn\’t only receive \”doc\” e-mail, but also some heavy media attachments. 3 gigs is going to be used and gone in no time. Also from not so price sensitive user prospective Mac is probably the way to go. On the other hand it is really stupid to compare windows to any Mac product, because there is like only 25 different hardware configs which mac\’s carries where is there is infinite number on of hardware configs on PC. Also add up major OS upgrade on top of that and u will get a lot of crashes. It is just too completely different systems. Mac should be compared not to average PC but with XBOX 360. Man this stuff never crashes(please don\’t bring up overheating issue) and it works like a clock and costs only 350. And don\’t tell that u don\’t have iBS on it, because if Microsoft wanted it they would have probably put all the different applications on it. But it is stupid to do because it will cannibalize their windows system.
    Also our tech guru Mark has to realize that Mac is also a PC, but the more expensive one.
    But anyway Mark i think Mac is a good choice for you. I am looking forward for you shelling huge $$$ to upgrade next time around. Enjoy.

    Comment by Tim A. (LA kid) — September 17, 2007 @ 6:40 am

  54. I\’ve been using a laptop with Vista for the past few months. I find it a big step backwards from XP. The load times are a joke. The security seems to get in the way and slow down response time.
    With all the negative press that Vista has been receiving, it will be interesting to see how Microsoft responds.

    Comment by John Taras — September 17, 2007 @ 7:58 am

  55. 2 finger tapping; 2 finger scrolling.

    I know it\’s been said already, but I repeat it in case you\’ve missed it in the pile.

    Comment by Craig — September 17, 2007 @ 8:50 am

  56. Seriously, are you retarded… I see the problem in the 2nd paragraph. \”Then I upgraded my PC to Vista.\” WHY would you upgrade to something that offers you nothing, as you said you only use outlook, office, and firefox… if you don\’t need more then that stick with what you have. This is why I still run on XP. Also you haven\’t giving M$ the approximate one year untill most of the bugs are worked out, its the same thing with XP. XP was awful during the first year and then it became the OS to have. MAC is the worst choice out there, its costs a ton and offers much less performance.

    Comment by Name Goes Here — September 17, 2007 @ 9:00 am

  57. I\’m with you brother….typing this on my MacBook Pro. I\’ll *never* go back…

    Don\’t look back in anger…

    Comment by Jason Chesworth — September 17, 2007 @ 9:02 am

  58. Mark,

    (1) You can set a Windows laptop to remained powered (no power-down or sleep) when you close it. This is a simple power option.

    (2) Maybe Outlook is the real culprit. Suppose they made Outlook for a Mac… then you may still have a freeze problem.

    (3) If you hibernate your Windows laptop then you can \”boot up\” quickly as well.

    I only reboot my Windows XP laptop about once a week. It remains fully powered when you close it. When I press the power button my first option is to Hibernate. No problems.

    I will admit I not ready to put up with Vista. But Windows XP will be fine for another year until Vista SP1. And by then software vendors will have written Vista software which runs more efficiently.

    Im not knocking Macs, but Mark, your top three reasons for switching are not really big issues.

    JMP

    Comment by John Mark Parsons — September 17, 2007 @ 9:26 am

  59. re: exporting from Outlook folders:

    Yes, it\’s a pain, but if you can move everything onto an IMAP server you might be much happier. Unlike POP3\’s store-and-then-download approach, IMAP is designed for all your email to reside on the server. You then access your email on the server as needed. This solves a lot of issues like how to be able to share your mail archives on different computers, avoiding the single-point-of-failure problem of having all your mails stuck in a single archive file (and yes I have had Outlook archive files get corrupted, so it definitely can happen), etc.

    Tricky part, of course, is moving things from the outlook archives to the IMAP server. If you mostly keep your email in just a couple of folder then this is an easy, drag and drop thing. It gets tricky, though, if you filter your emails into many different folders, such as people do very often with mailing lists.

    HTH

    Comment by DAR — September 17, 2007 @ 10:20 am

  60. Im a bit curious, though, why you decided to go with the Mac instead of downgrading back to Windows XP.

    I\’m not a Mac hater or fanboy - they\’re unmatched as far as multimedia is concerned but the hardware AND software is expensive as all get-out. I typically use Linux for work, Windows for multimedia.

    Could you go into more detail about your decision?

    Comment by Brian Boyko — September 17, 2007 @ 10:43 am

  61. Hello Mark,

    I switched to a MacBook Pro in January and have not look back. Since I work in accounting, I was worried about the lack of business apps for the Mac. Then I installed Parallels running Windows XP. This program creates a virtual machine so you can run windows and the mac os at the same time. I just upgraded to Parallels 3.0 and it works great. You can run native Outlook in the virtual machine and drag and drop files from either operating system. You can even open files using the PC programs from the Mac desktop.
    I prefer to use native Excel as opposed to the Mac Excel or the spreadsheet program in iWork. I also run Quicken and Quickbooks from the virtual machine. Printing is fine. The only thing is to configure your virtual hard drive large enough to handle the programs and files you might store there.

    Good luck.

    Comment by Gregory J. Amani Smith — September 17, 2007 @ 10:54 am

  62. Nicely said Mark and good for you. I have been thinking about it myself after trying to set up my mothers PC so she can view her images in the correct resolution without stretching them as she is a portrait artist. I don\’t think I have any hair left. We discussed Mac as a potential way to go.

    While I did the dead simple logo for my blog MarketSaw on a PC, I am pretty sure I could have done a better job with a Mac.

    Check out http://marketsaw.blogspot.com

    Comment by Jim Dorey — September 17, 2007 @ 11:00 am

  63. I couldn\’t do anythink without my MacBook, I need it, I love it

    Comment by Mad — September 17, 2007 @ 11:09 am

  64. I\’ve never had a Mac - but I just put the purchase in the budget for next month - WHY? VISTA - I am TOTALLY with you on this one.

    I went to an Apple store, played with a Mac Book for 20 minutes and I\’m convinced it will work just fine for me.

    After more than 20 years on PC products - I\’m done. Add in the iPhone, iPod, and increased Mac use among my colleagues and there are no reasons to stay with a PC - and my latest PC laptop is only 7 months old. I don\’t care. I\’ll eat that.

    Comment by ann michael — September 17, 2007 @ 11:11 am

  65. I\’d love to buy a Macbook but can\’t afford it right now. I have heard that they are better. I use a Mac at school since most schools are apple. I do know that Mac does have a mouse that can left/right click but again that\’s a mouse not a notebook.

    Comment by browie — September 17, 2007 @ 11:29 am

  66. Forgive me if you\’ve already answered this -but I\’ve always been curious how you organize your permanent emails. Do you save them by year? By sender? Type?

    Thanks.

    Comment by Janet Pierson — September 17, 2007 @ 11:45 am

  67. Mark, have you ever try FreeSW? Ubuntu? I think is perfect and is FREE!!!

    Well, If you like it of course…

    Comment by marko — September 17, 2007 @ 11:52 am

  68. There is no elegant way to transition your mail from our PC to a Mac, but I have found the best way is to use Parallels or the newly released Fusion to keep things going. By using one of the virtualization environments, you eliminate the need to head over to your PC every so often and it allows you to use the other programs that have still not been ported over to the Mac.

    Comment by Kevin — September 17, 2007 @ 12:02 pm

  69. For the Outlook issue - have you tried Parallels? Install it and flip to windows or better still, run Outlook on its own over OS X. Brilliant.

    Comment by Ivan Pope — September 17, 2007 @ 12:04 pm

  70. Thing about Macs and pricing - IMHO if they actually gained enough market share (i.e. enough people started buying them), eventually they\’d lower their pricing, just like they did with iPhone. I was stuck as a PC user until recently, and I\’ll never go back.

    Also, if someone\’s going to learn Vista, they should save themselves the extra time/money and learn OSX instead… they\’ll be smarter for it, and happier in the long run.

    Comment by Jim — September 17, 2007 @ 12:16 pm

  71. A lot of folks have already commented on the right-click solution, but I would want to add that with Parallels, VMWare or Apple\’s own Boot Camp, you can still run a copy of Windows XP on your MacBook for any legacy software issues.

    Enjoy!

    Comment by Paul Greatbatch — September 17, 2007 @ 12:20 pm

  72. You would think, MS makes both Outlook and Entourage, but Entourage doesn\’t import Outlook mail!

    There\’s a program though, Outlook2Mac (I think it\’s re-named: O2M now). It exports ALL of your Outlook, even attachments, etc. And makes it into files friendly for import into Entourage or Apple Mail. I imported years and years worth of mail this way.

    And about the right click… change your trackpad preferences to allow a two-finger-tap to be a right click. You\’ll find it becomes very natural.

    Comment by Timmy Chen — September 17, 2007 @ 12:21 pm

  73. I\’m there with you Mark, used Windows since 93 and as of this month am a proud owner of the Macbook Black laptop. I agree the lack of a right-click button sucks, it\’s even worse if you install bootcamp and run Windows on it, after 30 minutes I ended up repartitioning and just keeping it a Mac.

    Comment by Taylor — September 17, 2007 @ 12:28 pm

  74. I used a cheap shareware program called O2M from Little Machines to migrate my 45,000+ email messages and calendar of about 5 years from Outlook to Apple Mail and iCal. It took a long time to export everything, but it worked great and I haven\’t looked back. It is unbelievably easier and faster to search through email using Mail than it ever was with Outlook. And, Smartfolders are amazing.

    Comment by patrick — September 17, 2007 @ 12:36 pm

  75. Mark, I am ashamed for you. As a long time PC user/developer, surely you never went to 2000 or XP prior to SP1? I\’m sure you never recommended your clients to do it.

    And for all these mac moonies, and for your experience Mark, the reason you aren\’t having any hanging problems is because you are on a much later version of Sylvester(or whatever ferocious puddy tat they are on now).

    Granted, its a vastly different scenario, but OSX initially was even worse (as in, it simply didn\’t have certain networking, management, applications or just plain working components), and every Jaguar, Leopard, etc, upgrade has its own issues that only get resolved with Apple\’s software update, just like in Windows. In fact, these 10.4, 10.5, etc, are just that- service packs. Clever marketing and a few new applications makes them \’OS updates\’.

    And you know better than anyone what the tradeoff is for that fast boot- Give me a laptop line with one BIOS, fewer changeable parts, fewer models, and a supply chain with a limited number of vendors and I could build you a Linux based laptop that would be the same email reader/browser you currently have and boot even faster, for a lot less and without forcing you to monetarily contribute to the further decline of human civilization.

    In fact, I have a business plan related to that laptop idea, so hit me up. :)

    The Apple logo is more accurate than people know; fail the test of temptation, take a bite, and the garden of eden is gone and its hell on earth (or at least more money in Satan\’s pocket). The day of reckoning is coming for Apple. iPhone blowback is just the beginning. mark tape…

    ps. I will give you the standby is nice, but again, one bios, one motherboard vendor, and alot less code (not to say that vista isn\’t bloated; at this point in a codebase lifecycle any OS surely would be)

    Comment by Gary — September 17, 2007 @ 12:38 pm

  76. I normally don\’t like you (because I\’m a Warriors fan), but I can\’t help but commend you on your latest switch. I wish you much happiness on your new mac journey. But I hope your upcoming NBA season replicates your PC experience. Peace out.

    Comment by Stan — September 17, 2007 @ 12:38 pm

  77. \”Im not an Apple fanboy, but I love me some MacBook\”

    So being enthusiastic about an Apple product is OK, as long as you don\’t consider yourself a \”fanboy?\” Sounds kinda like the same thing, except maybe the \”fanboy\” has been enthusiastic for longer than you…and that\’s somehow a bad thing?

    I really don\’t get this whole \”I love Macs, but I\’m not a Mac-lover\” thing I\’m seeing a lot of lately. The only reason there\’s a stigma around Mac enthusiasts (a.k.a fanboys) is non-Mac users created it.

    Anyway, glad you like your MacBook. I\’d say \”welcome to the club,\” but that may be a little….\”fanboyish.\”

    P.S. Yes, I\’m expounding on what John Gruber noted.

    Comment by Billy K — September 17, 2007 @ 12:39 pm

  78. When you describe the list of applications you need to use, the first thing that struck me was that you really are in prime territory for an easy switch. There are plenty of obscure and esoteric software arrangements out there that keep people tied to Windows, but if somebody came up to me and said they needed to be able to email, surf the web and use word-processing, spreadsheet and presentation software, and they weren\’t on some cripplingly tight budget, I\’d recommend a Mac without hesitation.

    What makes this all the more strange is that it\’s this combination of software needs that has so deeply entrenched Windows in the corporate environment, despite their equivalent products\’ blatant inferiority.

    If you\’ve not tried it yet (you didn\’t mention it), check out iWork \’08. You can save documents in Word (Pages), Excel (Numbers) and Powerpoint (Keynote) formats, and they\’re all very nice apps. Oh, and whilst cost isn\’t likely to be your number one concern, the whole package is a throwaway $79. I believe the comparative Office package is around $300.

    Comment by Ben Darlow — September 17, 2007 @ 12:48 pm

  79. Why don\’t you use gmail? I switched and have never had spam. Loads way quicker than outlook, which should be no surprise. Isn\’t outlook by Microsoft?

    Comment by greg — September 17, 2007 @ 12:53 pm

  80. Mark-

    The best way I have found to transfer Outlook mail to another mail app (on a Mac or Windows PC) is to use an IMAP account as a temporary transfer conduit.

    1) Add an IMAP account to Outlook.
    2) Select a mailbox/folder in Outlook, \’Select All\’ messages, and drag them to a mail folder in the IMAP account.
    3) Wait. ;-) Depending how large a mailbox you have, this could take a while.
    4) Add the same IMAP account details to the destination machine\’s mail client (For that MacBook, Apple\’s Mail.app is solid, beautiful, has a very effective spam filter, and ties in nicely with other OS features).
    5) \’Get Mail\’ on the destination machine and watch as the message data on the IMAP server is synced.
    6) Organize the imported mail into folders/subdirectories as you wish.

    Comment by Matthew Rosen — September 17, 2007 @ 1:08 pm

  81. Dude, you should get your facts straight before posting things to the public as \”facts\” rather than simply as your own personal questions needing answers.

    Three important comments for you:

    1. Microsoft Entourage (part of Microsoft Office for Mac) is the Mac equivalent of Microsoft Outlook.

    2. You can easily transfer all your stuff from Microsoft Outlook to Microsoft Entourage simply using the outstanding program \”Outlook2Mac\”. This transfers Outlook data from the PC to almost every major email program on the Mac, including Apple Mail and Microsoft Entourage. Check it out here:
    http://www.littlemachines.com/

    3. There are MULTIPLE WAYS that you can right-click on any MacBook/MacBook Pro:
    b) Hold down two fingers on the trackpad while you click. (You must turn on this option in the mouse system preference first.) You can also use two fingers to SCROLL in any direction on your laptop.
    b) Hold down the control key while you click on anything.
    c) Plug in ANY multiple button mouse and its right-click button will work right out of the box! For Apple\’s Mighty Mouse, you have to enable its right-click button in the mouse system preferences.
    d) Use ANY wireless mouse and its right-click button will work right out of the box!
    e) If you need even MORE functionality from your external mouse, download the great utility USB Overdrive, which goes even FURTHER in providing great mouse functionality.

    Comment by Scott Rose — September 17, 2007 @ 1:15 pm

  82. 1. Mail is Apple\’s version of \”microsoft outlook.\” or you can get entorage, which is microsoft outlook for the Mac.

    2. Right click is ctrl+click or you can enable the two finger+click in your system preferances. If you want an external mouse, Apple\’s wireless Mighty Mouse is a 4 button mouse. You can enable right click on that as well.

    -Mike

    Comment by Mike Pescetto — September 17, 2007 @ 1:23 pm

  83. Let\’s solve those issues:

    Mouse Right Click:

    HOLD THE CONTROL KEY AND CLICK!!! Right Click solved. It\’s been that way a LONG TIME! You don\’t need to buy a mouse or do anything special. Like they say, \”It just works\”.

    Outlook:

    * Use Parallels on the mac (http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/).
    * Launch Parallels in about 10 seconds
    * **UN-SUSPEND** your XP (forget Vista!) in 1/1000000000 the time of even **unhibernating** your windows machine! Though booting your Virtual XP machine in Parallels is a zillion times faster than booting a real PC (Probably because you NEVER use it and gum it up with crapplications.)
    * Hey look, Outlook\’s already open because it was when you last suspended your virtual XP machine in Parallels.
    * Download your mail.
    * Backup the Outlook file directly (since the Mac can read write into the virtual machine file and share files with the Parallels virtual machines
    * Quit Parallels (automatically suspending the virtual machine).
    * Take your PCs and give them to your enemies.

    You may even be able to automate this with Applescript where the MacBook launches Parallels at some time in the night, lets Outlook do its thing and then shuts down.

    Extra:
    For extra comfort, max out your memory, backup your documents. Save more years of your life. In the zillions of hours you\’ve just been saved, make quick easy home movies of anything in 30 minutes to share with friends and families. REALLY organize your photos and create and order the sweetest stylized personalized photo books for your coffee tables and friends and families.

    Find yourself working and thinking instead of solving Windows problems or dealing with the 1000s of stupid little redundant limited PC software downloads from tucows or download that is *just* another $39 or $29 just so you can convert an MPEG or read a DVD. Find yourself enjoying doing what you like to do, not what you have to do.

    What is the cost to America of the time spent rebooting Windows 3.1, 95, XP, and Vista and noodling with Windows? I bet this cost dwarfs sick time.

    Comment by iJames — September 17, 2007 @ 1:28 pm

  84. Dear Mark,

    I do not own a Mac, but I know a way out of your outlook misery. And better: once you are done, you can kiss good bye to all those proprietary mail files M$ is locking you in.

    The way out is called IMAP, and what\’s better: having a PC, a MAC, and a network between both gives you the physical infrastructure to do it.

    Basically, you outlook client (whatever version you are using) knows how to talk IMAP, and possibly uses it to talk to some of your e-mail providers.

    What you need to do is:
    1) set up your MAC as a IMAP server
    2) connect outlook to you brand new IMAP server
    2) transfer all you e-mails from your PC to your IMAP server (i.e. to your Mac)
    At this point, you can choose to keep you e-mails in the MAC IMAP server, or transfer those e-mail back to you favorite e-mail client, it\’s up to you.
    But the most interesting thing in this process is that step 2 is going to free you from the M$ tyranny, and that it\’s going to be as easy as copying file from a folder. Because for IMAP naturally organizes e-mail as files in a folder.

    Now, for the software part, and how to make it work. I did it for myself by switching from Outlook to Mozilla mail client and I have a permanent home IMAP server running on debian, so your case is different.

    Apparently, you can set up a IMAP server on your Mac using those instructions: http://www.stepwise.com/Articles/Workbench/eart.index.html.

    Once this is done, you won\’t even need your old PC anymore.

    Comment by pruneau — September 17, 2007 @ 1:35 pm

  85. Great for you! I was a Mac user for a long time and switched back to Windows boxes and life has been great. Sorry to hear about your Vista issues. Most new OSes have lots of issues, even OS X. OS upgrades should never be taken lightly.

    It\’s a just a tool at the end of the day.

    Comment by Jim — September 17, 2007 @ 1:36 pm

  86. Mac is a equal to PC - the playing field is even and level - now if mac had better prices; or competition (AMD vs Intel) etc… instead its a monopoly and I don\’t like that.

    -.rb

    p.s. I\’m a microsoft addict still - anyone got 12 steps?

    Comment by Paintless dent repair tools — September 17, 2007 @ 1:50 pm

  87. For the most part I am a Mac user and if I regret one thing in my tech investments it\’s that I did not get a Mac sooner than I did. It is to a good degree still a \”Windows world\” and I\’m thankful Apple went with the Intel chip so we could have good vitualization choices like VMWare and Parallels as I do need to use Windows for some software. I do however spend about 90% of my time using OSX and I love it. I find OSX less distracting in terms of dealing with problems and a user interface that is too busy. However my mouse of choice is a Microsoft Intellimouse and it works great with my Mac. I actually prefer the Microsoft mouse to any mice Apple has come up with.

    Comment by Patrick — September 17, 2007 @ 2:01 pm

  88. Someone probably already told you this but there is a right click. You just need to buy a two button mouse. On a MacBook, hold down the control button and then click with the trackpad clicker. Or do the two finger click.

    The rumor of no right click is the longest running rumor and yet most false one to exist since the creation of the computer.

    Comment by Son Nguyen — September 17, 2007 @ 2:11 pm

  89. If this was mentioned I didn\’t see it…

    Mark can also install Windows XP on a partition on his MacBook and boot up into it whenever he needs to (if he ever does).

    Those of you saying \”the Mac doesn\’t work in the PC world\” are over a year out of date. All Macs can now run Windows as well as any HP or Dell. Not that its saying a whole lot:)

    Comment by Matt House — September 17, 2007 @ 2:28 pm

  90. Welcome back to the Mac. The more the merrier.

    Isaiah

    Comment by Isaiah — September 17, 2007 @ 2:38 pm

  91. Welcome aboard, Mark.

    Check out myfirstmac.com (http://myfirstmac.com).

    It\’s made just for people like you. It has articles on the right-click and how to transfer Outlook contacts and all that type of stuff new Mac users are looking for.

    Great blog, great points of view, and it sure is nice to hear a candid, unfilterd voice from the ranks of the super-wealthy.

    Comment by Chris — September 17, 2007 @ 2:42 pm

  92. I\’m glad you are liking your Mac. Most folks seem to have addressed the right-click issue you spoke of. Whether or not any of the suggestions will work for you is another story. There does exist a way to get Outlook Data out of your PC and into your Mac. I work at a Mac service place and I use it daily. It\’s a little piece of software called Outlook2Mac. You can find it at http://www.littlemachines.com/ Ypu run the program on your PC. It takes all of your files and folders of emails, calendar data, contacts, everything, and puts it into a single folder on your PC. You then copy that folder to your Mac and import it into the Mail program, Address Book, and iCal on your Mac. As always, back up before you try this, but I use it almost daily and I\’ve had no issues. Oh, and if you prefer, it can also be imported into Entourage, the Mac equivalent of Outlook for the Mac.

    The software\’s cheap too, I think it\’s just $10. Might be worth it to eliminate a computer from your desk.

    Comment by Rex — September 17, 2007 @ 2:42 pm

  93. Mark,

    Do yourself a favor - suck it up and import the email over to Entourage or like-kind OS X client. The UNIX mbox format for folders is a godsend. Deal done - drag and drop the whole folder onto the desktop, and archive. It rears it\’s ugly head again? Just drag it back and continue the correspondence.

    Well worth the time - particularly if you have a lot going on in the inbox under different subjects/deals/clients.

    MG

    Comment by Michael Gracie — September 17, 2007 @ 2:48 pm

  94. I actually haven\’t had a great deal of problems with Vista… Well I did have to reinstall it when I first got it - but since then it\’s been all roses! I also don\’t use Outlook though - I hate Outlook. I\’m all about webbased email. So maybe that\’s why I haven\’t experienced as many problems.

    Comment by Weirdo — September 17, 2007 @ 2:48 pm

  95. Mark - glad to hear you like your MacBook! Can I send you an invisibleSHIELD for it? It\’s a clear film that protects it from getting scratched and discoloring. I\’d be happy to send you one for your sidekick too. See http://www.invisibleshield.com (as disclosure, I work at ZAGG Inc, the makers of the shield)

    BTW, love your blog. I knew about you as the Mavs owner but didn\’t know of your business success and blog \’til a year or two ago. Nice work.

    Comment by cameron — September 17, 2007 @ 2:58 pm

  96. You should load your MacBook up with as much RAM as you can afford, buy a copy of VMware Fusion and install a copy of Vista / XP on it. It really is the only way you can run Windows and stay sane.

    Comment by Andrew — September 17, 2007 @ 2:59 pm

  97. Mark, I don\’t think it\’s your PC. It\’s just Vista and Outlook.

    I own a Thinkpad X60 with identical hardware to my Mac Mini, and I\’m still using Windows XP. Every piece of software runs faster on my Thinkpad, and it has not crashed once since I bought it last April, even though I use it as my main computer at work(connected to a large monitor, of course). My Mac mini, on the other hand, is a bit less responsive and has crashed a few times while idling. If I have to choose only one computer, I\’d go back to Windows XP without hesitation. I\’m too old to figure out the smart tricks that will make a Mac work faster.

    I don\’t use Outlook and I don\’t work with Graphics/Design apps so my words probably doesn\’t mean anything. Just want to share my experience. (Before anyone starts debunking me, I\’d also like to add that I\’ve never had to reinstall Windows because of virus or speed issues caused by bloat. Never had a virus. That\’s since 1995. BSODs were few and extremely rare after XP came out. I can brag \”It just works\” for a Windows system just as well as a Mac, which surely works but not nearly as great as I had believed before I tried to switch. I was a Mac Fanboy when I didn\’t have a Mac, because it used exotic hardware and looked really cool and I was young and read about them all the time on those nicely designed magazines. Nowadays I\’m not looking forward to a Mac any more.)

    Comment by Felix — September 17, 2007 @ 3:39 pm

  98. see below for solutions:

    http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/14914/

    Comment by 5andman — September 17, 2007 @ 4:00 pm

  99. Hello Mark,

    Everyone else covered your two points, you might also want to browse through http://www.MacDailyNews.com as they are a good source of info - including listing your blog.

    One thing I want to warn everyone about is that while the software on a mac can run non-stop for months without crashing, the hardware it turns out needs a break. My MacMini died this morning (just turned off while I was using it and won\’t boot) after running for about 2 months straight (I put it to sleep when away for more than 1 hour or overnight). It is 15 days past it\’s warranty (purchased Sept 1, 2006).

    Maybe that\’s why Windows systems crash, to ensure they reboot/shut down and give the hardware the chance to cool off. So make sure to shut down your Mac every once and a while to let it completely cool off. I guess I need to move forward my intention to upgrade my Mac to a MacBook.

    Otherwise, it has been awesome.

    Enjoy it,

    Jack

    Comment by Jack Levy — September 17, 2007 @ 4:08 pm

  100. Why wouldn\’t you just get a computer running XP and use hibernate instead of shutdown. You can buy a new HP w/ XP installed on it. XP has been stable since service pack two, and hibernate lets you resume use in a few seconds without draining any battery life. I know Money ain\’t a thang, so the extra few hundred bucks for a Mac wouldn\’t phase you, but I don\’t understand why you\’d upgrade to Vista, when it doesn\’t offer any real advantages over XP.

    Comment by Andrew — September 17, 2007 @ 4:11 pm

  101. The thing that seals the deal is when Microsoft wanted to do an ad on people switching from PCs to Macs, they couldn\’t find any, so they faked an ad, and were dumb enough to use a stock photo. Didn\’t take long for the cat to get out of the bag, for one more embarrassment in their long panoply of blunders, of which Vista is just one of the latest (along with the Zune and the XBOX 360 being outsold by the Sony PS2.

    I use the Mighty Mouse. You have to use it for a while to get what it\’s really about. In graphics, such as layout and design the fact that you can scroll sideways and at an angle with the ball makes it a fantastic mouse to use once you get used to it.

    Comment by Eric — September 17, 2007 @ 4:11 pm

  102. Just thought you should know that for $10 (yes, $10), you can buy a nice little program called Little Machines\’ \”Outlook to Mac (O2M)\”.which will transfer all your Outlook mails to the Mac. Here\’s the link:

    http://www.littlemachines.com/index.html

    As others have suggested, I LOVE my two-finger tap on the trackpad for a right-mouse click.

    Looks like your hassles are over…

    Welcome to computing the way it should be…

    Comment by E. Blasberg — September 17, 2007 @ 4:11 pm

  103. The solution for your Outolok hassle:

    http://www.littlemachines.com/index.html

    Comment by Wu Ming — September 17, 2007 @ 4:28 pm

  104. Well first there is a $10 program called Outlook for the mac by Little Machines.

    Second, double tab with two fingers on the track pad for a \”right click\”.

    Comment by GranitW — September 17, 2007 @ 4:33 pm

  105. Mark,

    I recently switched over to Mac as well and most of your comments ring true with my feelings as well. Seems as though everyone has answered any issues you may have had thus far with the Macbook.

    But the one extra thing that I have learned is that if you upgrade the Macbook to 2GB RAM your computer will freeze even less (if you can even believe that, being so familiar with windows) should get it down to maybe once per month or every two months! Anyways hopefully this helps!

    I never wanted to call myself an Apple fanboy, but the more and more Apple products I try out…I\’m slowly moving towards that term…and not by choice…

    -J

    Comment by Jeremy Salter — September 17, 2007 @ 4:35 pm

  106. I\’ve imported something like 12gigs of email from various versions of Outlook into Entourage. It took some doing, but it can be done. The secret was breaking up the files into 2 or 3 gig export files…

    Entourage is a bit long in the tooth right now, but for a long time it was arguably the best Mac mail client despite it\’s being from MS. My guess is the new version coming out next year will bring back up to snuff.

    The one great thing about having all the email on my mac is that I can now search it in seconds with spotlight… suddenly that huge archive is a useful vibrant source of info that I tap into daily.

    Comment by raul Gutierrez — September 17, 2007 @ 5:01 pm

  107. From MDN info.

    \”MacDailyNews Take: Mark, meet Little Machines\’ $10 Outlook to Mac (O2M). Buh-bye, so-called \”hassle\” number one. Please dispose of that PC in an environmentally sound manner.\”

    Number two seems fully covered above.

    Enjoy your Mac. (PS have you tried iChat video yet. Super easy, works great. Nice video. I use it on the road all the time. )

    Elder Norm

    Comment by elder norm — September 17, 2007 @ 5:03 pm

  108. Quick one here: I don\’t like tapping on the trackpad. I have that disabled. If you are not going to use a mouse then just hold Control and click. That is a right click as well.

    Just make sure you don\’t try Command… It\’s actually Control > Click for this one.

    Comment by Marty — September 17, 2007 @ 5:04 pm

  109. Welcome to the Mac, Mark. A quick suggestion that will make your user experience a lot better…

    As others have said before me, install Entourage and import your e-mail into it from Outlook. It\’s pretty seamless.

    Then immediately open the Mail app that came installed and import your messages from Entourage into Mail. The throw Entourage away. It\’s a piece of crap. Mail has decent junk filtering out of the box, but if you want some really tight spam control, plop down $30 and download a copy of Spamsieve. I get thousands of junk messages every day and it filters 99.9% of them.

    Oh, and unless you have an Apple tattoo, you\’re not a fanboy.

    Comment by Destructo — September 17, 2007 @ 5:19 pm

  110. Getting your email out of Outlook is only the first step.

    One wonderful thing about the Mac and OS X is how many of it\’s applications, i.e. Mail, Address Book, iCal, iPhoto, etc seamlessly share their data reducing redundant input forever. This benefit was thought to be lost if one was forced to retreive that data from sources using Microsoft Exchange Server. Not the case with the following…

    Groupcal 3 allows you to access and manage your Microsoft Exchange calendar seamlessly from Apple\’s iCal. Synchronize your events and tasks, book people or resources for meetings, respond to meeting requests, view Free/Busy time and much, much more. All with no need to install additional software on your Exchange server.

    AddressX makes it easy to access your Microsoft Exchange Server Global Address List (GAL) contacts directly from the Apple OS X Address Book all separated into its own address group. All with no need to install additional software on your Exchange server.

    In addition to Emailchemy I\’ve also seen O2M (Outlook to Mac) for transferring data out of Outlook. While Entourage works for some it is still a deliberately handcuffed/limited application from Microsoft. The less Microsoft is involved the better off everyone is!

    Comment by SBC — September 17, 2007 @ 5:23 pm

  111. If you get stuck, try out my free apps webpage:

    http://web.mac.com/simon_elliott/iWeb/simon_elliott%40mac.com/Software.html

    I have found that you can do without a PC and often without spending out on more apps.

    Comment by Simon Elliott — September 17, 2007 @ 6:14 pm

  112. 1. If you bought a new Mac then you have a Mighty Mouse which is a 4 button mouse which, unfortunately come pre-configured as a one button mouse. Simply go to your system preferences to set up the actions for each button.

    2. MS Office Mac will solve all your Outlook problems, but if you don\’t want to pay for that, try LitlleMachine\’s Outlook for Mac @ $10. http://www.littlemachines.com/index.html

    3. Have fun trashing that Vista PC or sell it to some sucker if you really want to be mean.

    Comment by Brau — September 17, 2007 @ 6:31 pm

  113. TO RIGHT CLICK ON A MAC JUST HOLD DOWN: ctrl + click. It functions exactly the same as a right click on PC. It took me months to figure that out but it was there the whole time.

    Comment by Nikko Godoy — September 17, 2007 @ 6:33 pm

  114. welcome back from the dark side!

    Comment by dead cow — September 17, 2007 @ 6:40 pm

  115. A little trick I used to do to transfer PC emails to the mac. I\’d install Thunderbird on the PC and Mac http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/, transfer all the outlook emails to Thunderbird on the PC side, drag those profiles to the Mac Thunderbird section - then I could do a transfer those to mac mail.
    http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/mtarchive/moving_thunderbird_from_window.html
    http://jermexpress.com/archives/2005/12/07/switching-from-thunderbird-to-mac-mailapp/

    Of course, you can ignore all this and just convert your email to an IMAP account. Then you can drag and drop your email from the PC side to folders on your IMAP server - which would sync in real time to your mac side.

    Either way, I hope it works out for you on the Mac platform!

    Comment by Brady J. Frey — September 17, 2007 @ 7:35 pm

  116. re: Outlook

    When I switched from Windows to Mac for my laptop, I had the same email problem. I used a piece of software called \”Outlook 2 Mac\” from http://www.littlemachines to import my Outlook email into Mac\’s default mail program (not Entourage). Worked great and is only $10. Haven\’t opened Outlook since. ymmv

    Comment by Dave Lang — September 17, 2007 @ 7:58 pm

  117. Thinkpads are the way to go. I have vista on my Thinkpad X60s and not a glitch. And about the memory leak, Vista doesn\’t use ram like XP or OSX, it sees it as cache where your frequently used apps reside even when your laptop is turned off. and you can easily increase your ram using any usb thumbdrive.

    Comment by Thinkpaduser — September 17, 2007 @ 8:02 pm

  118. @ #91 I find this a growing trend as well, people installing OSX on thinkpads instead of macbooks for stability and muscle. But I\’m not sure how they get around using biometrics.

    Comment by thinkpaduser — September 17, 2007 @ 8:12 pm

  119. Glad to welcome you to the Mac world. I\’ve been the owner of everyone of their laptops from day one and with only a short period - basically when Jobs was gone - I\’ve been a happy camper. Have used PCs as well but there\’s no comparison in ease of use. As for an Outlook alternative, I\’m watching Zimbra - just acquired by Yahoo! today - which looks like a great alternative, now even more of a solid player than before.

    Comment by Joe Buhler — September 17, 2007 @ 8:24 pm

  120. For Outlook I have used Outlook2Mac from LittleMachines.

    It worked well - not perfectly - but I had three 1.5 GB PST Files compiled and manually fixed in Apple Mail within 2.5 hours.

    But why didn\’t you bought a 15\” MacBookPro, buy th 2×2GB Memory at your favourite Retailer and add them, so you can use Windows if needed more easily.

    I am testing at present VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop for Mac and at present prefer the simplicity of Parallels, especially the Snapshot Functionality is great…

    Kind regards

    MAX

    Comment by Max Mertens — September 17, 2007 @ 8:26 pm

  121. It appears most people don\’t know that control-click on a Mac works the same as right-click on a PC. It may not be as fast, but most of us won\’t need it very often.

    Comment by Jerry — September 17, 2007 @ 8:34 pm

  122. Welcome back!

    Comment by Switch Blog — September 17, 2007 @ 9:03 pm

  123. Hi Mark,

    Just read this at MacDailyNews.com, your import problem with Outlook might be solved with: \”Little Machines\’ $10 Outlook to Mac (O2M).\”

    Hope this helps.

    Comment by James Gross — September 17, 2007 @ 9:19 pm

  124. Hi Mark,

    I tried to paste in the URL for O2M (See previous post). But ti didn\’t show up . . . .

    Here it is again: http://www.littlemachines.com/index.html

    James

    Comment by James Gross — September 17, 2007 @ 9:21 pm

  125. Windows version of Outlook can run on a Mac under Parallels and appear to be a Mac app. That is, it can run outside the VM shell, even though its a virtualized Windows app. Not sure in VMware can do this too. Then too, it might run under Wine.

    Withe the free VMware converter you can convert your current instance of Windows to a virtual machine to run on your Mac.

    Interesting story, by the way, about poor market share for Macs.
    http://www.cnet.com/defensive-computing/8301-13554_1-9779313-33.html
    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/technology/16digi.html

    Unfortunately, the same is true for Linux.

    For anyone using their computer for something they consider important, it\’s way too early for Vista. My rule of thumb is to wait 2.5 years.
    http://www.cnet.com/defensive-computing/8301-13554_1-9770230-33.html?tag=head

    Comment by Michael Horowitz — September 17, 2007 @ 9:31 pm

  126. You stole my slogan!

    http://dscheidt.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!75582706FFDC005!1153.entry

    Welcome to the dark side! BTW, there is a fairly easy way to transfer your Outlook files, check out O2M at http://www.littlemachines.com/. I don\’t work for them, but it does a good job of converting Outlook to the mac.

    Comment by David Scheidt — September 17, 2007 @ 9:35 pm

  127. If you don\’t like the \’two-finger\’ right click, you can use \”Ctrl-click.\” If your fingers for your left hand are in the \’home\’ position for typing, just drop your left hand about a half a letter. It\’s probably already there so you can \’click\’ with your right thumb. That\’ll put your left pinky finger in perfect position to hit the \’ctrl\’ key. Or, you can click with your right thumb by tapping the trackpad. I use both, depending on what I\’m doing. Takes about… and hour of use to get used to it. When your right hand\’s mousing around with the trackpad, your left isn\’t doing anything anyway.

    I get frustrated on any Windows computer when I can\’t use \’ctrl-click, \’option-click,\’ and \’command-click\’ without moving my hands. It\’s not about having an option for right clicking - it\’s about having three of them.

    Comment by Brian B. — September 17, 2007 @ 9:40 pm

  128. I am looking into one myself. I have heard nothing but good about the new Mac\’s.

    Comment by Josh Cox — September 17, 2007 @ 10:47 pm

  129. Alright Cube\’s. Welcome to the bright side of the street. Next time, try the Macbook Pro. What a sweet machine.

    MFFL…Mac Fan For Life

    Comment by Mark Simpson — September 17, 2007 @ 10:50 pm

  130. Mac rules because they know everyone, one day will need a computer; S Jobs does not see logic in mining every possible dollar out tghe consumer right this second. P.C.is an acronym(not feeling creative) for spending money

    Comment by David Bass Dancy — September 17, 2007 @ 11:15 pm

  131. Mark,

    The Macintosh does indeed have a right-click. I know it may not seem so if you have a Mighty Mouse, which appears to have only one button but in reality has at least five. All you need to do is set it up in System Preferences. You want to click on the right button drop down box in Keyboard & Mouse Preferences and choose \”Secondary\” as the function of the right button.

    If you have a third-party mouse like I do, then the set up is pretty much the same. My complaint with the Mighty Mouse (or at least the one I owned for 10 days before returning it) was that it is a touch sensitive mouse and for some reason, it didn\’t sense my mouse clicking habits very well, so most of my right clicks ended up being left clicks or even center clicks (which I ended up turning off).

    I ended up getting a Danger Mouse (available from MacMice.com, but I AM NOT trying to sell their products, only give a little advice). This is the best mouse I have ever used. It looks like the Mighty Mouse, except it has TWO REAL buttons. It also has a 1400 DPI laser pick up that makes is EXTREMELY fast and responsive. In fact, I had to turn the tracking speed down in System Prefs because it is so precise. With all the other mice I have ever used, I have had to turn the tracking up to almost maximum speed.

    So you see, Mark, there is a right-click. It does most of the functions of a Windoze right-click, including moving items to the trash, copying, pasting, creating new folders, etc.

    If you have a really old Apple one-button mouse (which I doubt it, since you have a newer MacBook) then you might want to find a two-button mouse. Any two button USB mouse will do. The one-button mouse will still perform the same function of a right click, all you have to do is hold down Control and then click. The Control-click also works on a laptop.

    Cheers!

    Comment by Thomas Mastin — September 17, 2007 @ 11:16 pm

  132. Buy the best, only cry once.

    If you want help moving that outlook database:

    Step 0: 250 gig hard drive. This 2.5\” external fits Macbooks and Macbook Pros:
    http://dealnews.com/deals/Western-Digital-Passport-2-5-250-GB-USB-2-0-Portable-External-Hard-Drive-for-150-shipped/187649.html
    and is $40 cheaper than the bare drive that is in it! Grab at tie LED corner and pull the case apart to remove drive after step 1.

    Step 1: Superduper! (http://www.shirt-pocket.com)

    Step 2: Fast connection (use a wire)

    Step 3: Entourage Or Apple Mail on the Macbook

    Step 4: Add your exchange account

    Step 5: Add an iMap account

    Step 6: Copy the folders in the exchange account to the imap

    Step 7: Drag and drop emails (click 1 and select all) then drag to same folder name in imap and drop.

    Step 8: Delete exchange account

    Done

    Comment by bill — September 17, 2007 @ 11:30 pm

  133. didn\’t read all of the comments so maybe someone has already told you this, but you can have an Apple Store Mac Genius transfer all of your outlook mail into Entourage for you if you sign up for ProCare. It\’s sort of like VIP service and support at the Apple Stores and it\’s only $99. it\’s worth it just for the data transfer, even if you never use the expedited service features. You have to go to an Apple-owned retail store to get it. You should check it out.

    welcome to Mac, by the way.

    Comment by rob — September 17, 2007 @ 11:36 pm

  134. Mark,

    If your ever down Key West way, stop in and I\’ll hook you up with the \”Pro\” version of your MacBook– You\’ll REALLY love it!

    Tom
    Macintosh Systems Solutions
    1001 Truman Avenue
    Key West
    305-293-1888

    Comment by Tom Mulhall — September 18, 2007 @ 12:48 am

  135. dude ive had a macbook pro for over a year and the greatest thing is ive had no kind of problems with it! the warranty just helps me feel safer also. dude APPLE owns now..enough said!

    Comment by gabriel — September 18, 2007 @ 1:35 am

  136. Your Mac freezes 3-4 times a month? Mark, either you\’re exaggerating (quite a bit!) or you have a defective unit. Come on! Swallow your pride and either tell the truth or send it in for repair ;-)

    Welcome to the MacUniverse! (What took you so long????)

    Comment by DaviD — September 18, 2007 @ 3:02 am

  137. Ill jump in.

    We are running almost all-Vista in our office. Love it.

    Aside from a full 3GB RAM, heres a tip if your system has sudden unexplained slowness after youve used a vpn (even if now disconnected):

    See hotfix in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/934202

    Basically, the machine gets set to slow/offline connection type for synchronizing offline folders.

    Stays slow with intermittent trips to la-la land until you reboot. Then fine until you make the fateful vpn connection.

    Comment by russian women — September 18, 2007 @ 4:19 am

  138. Spare sometime and $10 to move all your .pst files to Mail application on a Mac. You will never go back to Outlook.

    Do it with http://www.littlemachines.com/

    Comment by Gokul — September 18, 2007 @ 4:49 am

  139. You\’re right, Apple made a big step forward with their Intel based computers. I tried the Macbook Pro and it is completely amazing - like you say - to start up within 26 seconds!

    Vista made it too complicated with 6 different versions, that means 6 different manuals, 6 difeerent troubleshooting..

    Apple rocks, now also with their iPhone available in UK on 9th november with O2 for 269 only, so cool!

    Welcome to the club of switchers that grows every single day:-))

    Comment by Matthieu Pesesse — September 18, 2007 @ 6:21 am

  140. Hey Mark,

    I too hate the two button thing, but found a little trick that can make it a no brainer and one hander at the same time. (I really got used to this damn quick) If you go to the trackpad options in system preferences, you can set the trackpad to detect when you have 2 fingers on it, and if you click the mouse button it is the equivalent of a real second mouse button.

    Comment by Ron Holmes — September 18, 2007 @ 8:03 am

  141. I haven\’t read all the readers\’ comments, so apologies for repeating the information if it has already been mentioned. There is a little application called O2M that may deal with your problem of migrating your Outlook email on the PC to the Mac:

    http://www.littlemachines.com/index.html

    Cheers, and welcome to the Mac brotherhood.

    Comment by Mark McCormick — September 18, 2007 @ 8:18 am

  142. no application menu shortcut keys on apple.

    Comment by Robert Reddick — September 18, 2007 @ 8:57 am

  143. Mark, Go get Little Machines\’ $10 Outlook to Mac (O2M). Do a search for it in Google. Quite honestly though… mail is way better and the way it intergrates with the \”Address Book\” is awesome. As for the right click… you have lots of suggestions and I recommend you join an Apple user forum to post your questions. There is NOTHING that can\’t be done on a Mac and the myths, lies, etc by PC users, retailers, etc. drives me nuts. Mac FanBoi? You bet! I want to DRIVE my car… not be a damn mechanic. I run a recording audio/video studio and my clients shouldn\’t have to \”insert error here… cancel or allow?\” OSX Leopard next month! Buh Bye Vista!
    Cheers from Canada!

    Comment by Ian Graham — September 18, 2007 @ 9:55 am

  144. Actually a dbase as alrge as your outlook dbase might often crash on outlook mac as i found clients with more thn a 2000 email in one page database tend to crash a lot in Entourge

    Appl\’e mail does a nice job - and you coudl use Fusion to run outlook on your mac from a windows partition if you really needed to.

    Welcome to the world of mac

    May it be as good to you as it has to us over the years.

    Raul

    Comment by Raul De Arriz — September 18, 2007 @ 10:46 am

  145. Call it as it is - Vista sucks. I\’ve had to remove it from several of my machines. Just bought a very expensive Dell notebook with Vista Ultimate and it blows so hard that I called Dell and they said \”Yeah, we know, send it back and we will send you one with XP Pro.\” And they paid the return freight. Love me some 24\” iMac…

    Comment by Mark — September 18, 2007 @ 12:12 pm

  146. Welcome to the dark side! :) Your story was actually pretty much a copy of mine, and since my first Mac 4 1/2 years ago, I\’ve become Mac-obsessed! Your next item should be an iPhone..it will definitely blow your mind! :)

    Comment by Amber Yount — September 18, 2007 @ 12:13 pm

  147. Mark - I\’d suggest you check out Parallels. This is software that will let you run Windows applications within the Mac OS. Without getting too technical on the post, the software enables you to run applications for different OS architectures within a sandbox. The link is: http://www.parallels.com/en/

    Now you can ditch the desktop. Enjoy!

    Comment by Chris — September 18, 2007 @ 12:46 pm

  148. I have 2 kids who just graduated from high school. As a graduation present, I told them I would purchase them notebooks. My daughter wanted a MacBook (minimum config) and my son\’s college recommended a Dell D830 (souped up version) running XP.

    Prior to receiving the notebooks, we had 5 PCs in the house, all running XP Home. We had experienced all the normal problems with startup time, blue screens, viruses, ad ware, etc.

    Both notebooks arrived within a couple of days, and I tried them out. I was stunned at the difference in boot time. MacBook is up in running within 15 seconds. The Dell took about a minute and a half.

    But the biggest impression I had is that the Macbook was intuitive and easy to get around in. While the Dell was bloated and complicated to configure.

    When my wife\’s notebook crashes next, we\’re getting another Macbook. Why live with all the problems that Windows gives you?

    Comment by Tom Milner — September 18, 2007 @ 12:49 pm

  149. The mouse that comes with any mac is two-button, as it has been for nearly 3 years now. You\’d think a guy who made it in tech could find his way around a user preferences panel. But I guess not.

    Comment by Joseph — September 18, 2007 @ 1:08 pm

  150. On the PC, I use Mozilla\’s Open Source Thunderbird. Between that, Google Calendar and the \’Lightning\’ add-in, you\’ve got one of the most powerful email/calendar apps around. Outlook does suck badly.

    Comment by Andrew Strasman — September 18, 2007 @ 1:25 pm

  151. I have a mac love it. It kills vista http://www.myeclinic.com

    Comment by madison — September 18, 2007 @ 1:26 pm

  152. mac is great and so is aapl stock.

    there\’s probably fixes for the problems you are having.

    run \”repair permissions\” in the disk utility OFTEN…i do it probably every other day…

    as far as outlook, you might want to find a program on versiontracker which will help you integrate it into mac mail or entourage or some other mail client…

    what i love about my mac is that there\’s seems to be always quick fixes for any problems….

    and apple is one of the most innovative companies in the world right now—the stock is worth well over 200/share— i bet by xmas it will be up to that….

    lots of itouches, iphones, and the new little nano\’s will be stocking stuffers.

    plus you can run any pc software on a mac, which cannot be the same for pc\’s— everything is just superior. i wish i bought stock in mac when i bought my computer back in 2003 and it was at 70/share…even if i just bought 1000 shares i\’d have made around 100,000 in just 4 years. it was a good buy last week at 130–now up to 142 or something. still worth well over 200

    Comment by David Brotsky — September 18, 2007 @ 4:46 pm

  153. Mark…..

    Just talking with a friend since Mavs tickets arrived. It would be great if you could integrate the Mavs schedule with Outlook for 2 reasons.

    1. It will sync with my IPhone so Mavs will always be at my fingertips.

    2. It will be on Outlook since I have no choice but to run my business on Exchange server. I think Macs are great for personal use and will be a matter of time when they make a dent in the business arena.

    Ramz

    Comment by Ramsey — September 18, 2007 @ 6:09 pm

  154. Yes, the Mac Mighty Mouse is an Apple product that you can right click. http://www.apple.com/mightymouse/index.html

    System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Mouse > Secondary Button (activate)

    Enjoy!

    Comment by Tim Kau — September 18, 2007 @ 6:11 pm

  155. Welcome to the world of Mac. I\’ve been with Apple since well before the Mac as a user and developer. I will gladly offer any assistance you might like at no charge whatsoever. Your post made me smile, so I\’ve blogged it myself at http://www.darsys.net/quagmire.html

    I think like anything new, you\’ll have a learning curve. The left/right click thing is software selectable on the laptop. On the desktop, just buy a two button mouse. I am sad to admit I use the Microsoft Optical Intellimouse and really like it. Works great — all the buttons do.

    As for your Outlook issue, Entourage as others have pointed out, will do much of the trick. It comes with MS Office for the Mac. However, I would not be doing my duty if I didn\’t point you to OpenOffice (FREE and no need to support Microsoft) for both your PC and Mac because it\’s very good and does everything office can, or for the Mac, NeoOffice (www.neooffice.org) which is OpenOffice but made to look more Mac-like.

    Contact me directly if you need help, advice, whatever. No charge. Really.

    Comment by Eric Seiden — September 18, 2007 @ 6:55 pm

  156. Apple tech support is worth every penny. I\’m sure they take questions like the button problem. And they will probably help with the mail problem as well.

    Comment by Henry Isham — September 18, 2007 @ 7:07 pm

  157. Just get a regular 2 button mouse and plug it into your macbook. Thats what i\’ve always done and it works great.

    Also, saw you at the game Monday night and hope you had as much fun as we did. Go Cubs. =)

    Comment by ryan — September 18, 2007 @ 8:06 pm

  158. Mark, I\’ve seen you speak at a couple of conferences and I\’ve always admired your ability to understand technology and it\’s impact on the entertainment business. Which leads me to ask: what were you thinking when you upgraded your PC to Vista? Surely someone with your tech savvy would have known that Vista is an unmitigated disaster. Furthermore, given your views on HD video quality and DRM, I would have expected you to rail against Vista\’s draconian DRM policies; e.g. automatically down-res of HD content if there is no content protection between the PC and the monitor/panel. I sure hope your corporate IT folks haven\’t mandated this - if that\’s the case you need to have a serious chat with your CIO.

    So, what gives?

    Comment by Dave Simmons — September 18, 2007 @ 8:20 pm

  159. I\’m a little surprised that only a couple of people mentioned using IMAP, either on the mail server itself or on the Mac. I\’m using a combination of both. IMAP allows you to duplicate some of the functionality of Outlook (like having messages / folders available from multiple computers while) while using a standard protocol.

    I\’m tied to Exchange because of work and just use it (Outlook via Parallels) as the client for current stuff. I\’ll archive mail onto IMAP running locally and periodically sync the IMAP mailbox(es) to the server. Of course, I can easily do this because I having complete access to the IMAP mailbox store on both the backup server and local machine.

    I\’m not sure about the IMAP setup guide from Stepwise that pruneau mentioned, but that may mostly be my preference for different software (but then I also have the background that allows me to know what I want to set up and how to set it up.

    Converting your PST files is definitely the most difficult / time consuming of the tasks. Both of the ways that I\’ve converted PST files have been covered previously: Using IMAP (easy to do when IMAP is running locally); Using Thunderbird which converts them to a more open / standard format and then using scripts to convert the resulting files into a maildir mailbox format.

    I don\’t think it has been mentioned, but another of the benefits of IMAP is that just about every email client will support it and you aren\’t tied to any specific one, and can change back and forth between clients without having to migrate the data again.

    Enjoy.

    Comment by pj — September 18, 2007 @ 9:00 pm

  160. Mark,