Switching... to Vista
About a year ago, I got nutty and bought a beautiful 15" PowerBook G4. I had been running OS X in an emulator, I was teaching myself Rails and, to a certain extent, I was bored of XP. I gave in to some strange, the other--I committed to switching my digital life to a Mac.
Doing so was not only enjoyable but switching pain was nominal. Yes, there's a learning curve, or more appropriately an information curve... what do I use instead of EmEditor? (survey says: Smultron), anything like TopStyle for CSS? (survey gleefully says: CSSEdit), etc. Most of the effort was spent just learning the ecosystem.
When all was said and done, I was happy doing everything that wasn't work on my Mac. There was minor impedance around sharing data and some niches. Music sucked for me on the Mac. I prefer real live ripped CDs and subscription services--to me, iTMS is idiotic. So I kept my music on my Media Center and avoided iTunes.
There were other small areas like this, but for the most part, I was fully converted and happy.
I had switched, I was ready for my commercial.
Now, mind you, my personal history with Windows dates dates back to college--Windows 286, yikes. My work is very specifically focused on the Microsoft stack. I have been using Windows for what seems like eons. I know my way around, I know the good, I know the bad.
I actually wouldn't say I have a strong bias for or against Windows. I've been doing this long enough to have had any shades of zealous idealism beaten out of me. If something works, I really couldn't care much about it's provenance or personal life. If you think I'm a Micro$oft fanboi (tm), I'm not going to convince you otherwise and I'm not going to try.
Besides, I really like the Mac and I really like OS X. I enjoy using it a lot more than XP at this stage.
In a year of cheating on Windows with my Mac, I never stopped surprised at how many great applications are out there for Mac users. I love Quicksilver, ditto TextMate, Mail.app is probably the best IMAP client I've ever used.
I love being able to rsyncx to my FW800 drive to back up my machine and then be able to boot off that same backup drive like it was plain old occidental arithmetic. UAC works like it should. Colloquy makes mIRC look like a pizzaface, Adium is similarly beautiful, NetNewsWire is right there with FeedDemon for best aggregator. CSSEdit makes even lovable TopStyle seem awkward. Xyle Scope is mind-blowingly useful and well executed.
Combined with iTerm, I grew to love the *nixy good ness at the command prompt and would have to say I prefer it to the comparable Windows flavors (including PowerShell, though I haven't invested myself in that yet). Dictionary integration, though not universal, is way better than popping open the browser. Did I mention Quicksilver? Ridiculously addictive--someone in Redmond should have committed ritual seppuke by now for not shipping something comparable in Vista (yes, yes, I know about the new Start menu, no, silly, it's not even remotely the same).
One year in, life on a Mac is totally great, no substantive complaints.
But a funny thing happened a few weeks ago. Something that I still find really surprising.
I stopped using my Mac so much. I started using it only when I had to.
Maybe I had some notes in Devon THINK that I didn't have in my wiki, maybe I didn't have the ftp credentials for a certain site anywhere but in Transmit.
At one point, my Mac was mostly powered down for a week, no love whatsoever.
What happened?
Well, for work-related reasons, I installed Vista RC1. It's surely still got its blemishes and quirks. But, for the most part, it's been extremely stable and--more importantly to the context at hand--it's pretty damn enjoyable to use.
I'll write more later about why I think Vista has won me back for my digital life, but it has that certain "it" factor that I think is at the core of OS X--it just feels right using it, it doesn't feel tired like you're logging into someone's NT 3.51 server.
I realize the world hates Vista and few things have earned Microsoft more negative pub than its delivery issues. I don't think what I'm experienced will be easy for most to understand, but, at the end of the day, it's working for me.
I can get what I want to get done on either platform. In my case, Vista has started to feel as comfortable and rewarding as using OS X was. Choosing one right now might be a bit like Sophie's Choice, but since I can use Vista seamlessly for both work and personal life, I think I'm effectively switched back.
Does this mean I'm going to have turn in all of my corduroy clothing?