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
Once you go Mac
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Reader Comments
(Page 1)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.
Posted at 7:23PM on Sep 16th 2007 by Oliver Dueck
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.)
Posted at 7:25PM on Sep 16th 2007 by Brian Madden
4. 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.
Posted at 7:31PM on Sep 16th 2007 by Steve Baranski
5. 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...
Posted at 7:41PM on Sep 16th 2007 by Graham Brown
6. 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.
Posted at 7:42PM on Sep 16th 2007 by Collin Brooke
7. 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.
Posted at 7:43PM on Sep 16th 2007 by Amin Issa
9. 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.
Posted at 7:48PM on Sep 16th 2007 by Amin Issa
10. 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...
Posted at 7:58PM on Sep 16th 2007 by Dixon
11. 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
Posted at 8:00PM on Sep 16th 2007 by Mason
12. 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
Posted at 8:09PM on Sep 16th 2007 by Michael Byrne
13. Mark, get a two-button mouse. I use the Logitech bluetooth two-button mouse. It "just works." Nothing to it. http://tinyurl.com/3xagcl
Posted at 8:09PM on Sep 16th 2007 by Dave Winer
14. 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.
Posted at 8:12PM on Sep 16th 2007 by Ross Middleton
15. 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.
Posted at 8:13PM on Sep 16th 2007 by Matthew
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.
Posted at 8:14PM on Sep 16th 2007 by Ben Drawbaugh
17. The fact that mac users are so smug.
Nice entry though, especially the title. Holy cow, MC.
Posted at 8:19PM on Sep 16th 2007 by Chris Johnson
19. 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.
Posted at 9:05PM on Sep 16th 2007 by chris
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.
1. Macs are pretty sweet...haven't owned one myself but plan on it soon. Little pricey but probably worth it.
Posted at 7:16PM on Sep 16th 2007 by Electronics Reviews