Buying a new computer in the sales? Torn between an Apple Mac and a Vista ready PC?

Photo by Terry Johnston. (License: Creative Commons Attribution)

Microsoft's much anticipated update to the Windows operating system, was never going to meet it's already twice delayed release date of Jan. 2007, if any of the things which needed doing to make it genuinely better than Windows XP where ever going to get done. Consequently many of the major features which developers, business and gamers alike had hoped Vista would feature won't be appearing any time soon, if ever at all.

The billions of dollars Microsoft wasted to get into this mess, versus the growing dissatisfaction with their existing operating system, runs in stark contrast to the rise in popularity of Apple computers.

When Apple switched to the Intel microprocessors in 2006, it made a reality something which Apple users had long waited for, so-called virtual machine software which enables Apple hardware to run Windows, Linux and other x86 dependent software, inside it's own UNIX based Mac OS X.

This and the platform's notoriety for stability, usability and striking good looks has resulted in the largest leap in market share for the platform, in 2006 alone, that the company has seen in it's entire history and projections for 2007 look set to increase the profile of the platform even higher.

Naturally this means there are a lot more Mac users out there and those who are still considering the switch, who might benefit from a crash introduction to some of the features which veteran Mac users have come to know over many years; the little details which have made Mac the OS of choice for graphic artists, scientists, photographers and musicians the world over, since 1984.

System settings.
The "problem" with Mac OS X, to anyone used to doing things the Microsoft way, is that at first it can seem a little too easy. You're left wondering if perhaps you might have missed something or forgotten to click OK somewhere along the line.

When I came back to Apple computers, after years of being given no choice but to use a PC, I hadn't seen OS X before. The last time I'd used a Mac the OS version was System 7 and things where very different.

I remember spending a good ten minutes looking for the folder in OS X which held all the shortcuts to the icons in the dock at the bottom of the screen. Assuming, from a Windows indoctrinated point of view, that some esoteric control panel or hidden system folder held the key to removing and adding icons to it. Then a light flashed on in my head and I remembered - "This is a Mac". And sure enough, adding and removing icons to and from the dock is as simple as dragging and dropping - doh!

Then there's those times when setting up options in a program you can't get used to not having to click "Apply" every time you want something to take effect. In fact, getting used to everything just working without much of a fuss at all can be real problem for people who've only ever thought of a computer as Windows.

Take a look at the System Preferences window under the Apple menu. There might at first appear to be less in there than you're used to seeing - but that doesn't mean everything you need is missing, waiting somewhere on-line to be downloaded, installed - then restart, blue screen, "Cannot find driver, please do what you've already tried 20 times before" - No! With OS X, the Apple System Preferences panel is a more logically laid out tool than the show you everything, give you nothing style which Windows has used since 1995.

Compare the ease of access to system settings in OS X to the rigmarole of setting up a none American keyboard and regional language in Windows, for example. You have to jump through hoops; right clicking on this and that, choosing "Properties" for the language bar, select "British Keyboard", click "Apply" - then restart two or three times and all just to put the @ and £ symbols where they're supposed to be on the keyboard - ridiculous!

With an Apple computer, you plug the keyboard in and low and behold, it just works. It "knows" you're British because it sees the USB identifier of your keyboard and doesn't get in your way any more than asking you to click "OK" when you first plug it in.

Installing and uninstalling applications.
New to Mac users find it hard to believe that applications can be moved wherever you feel like moving them. There is no "Program Files" folder as such, and what there is, the Applications folder, is really there more for convenience, than a hard and fast place where apps must be kept.

That's because all the files which make up an application are stored inside a UNIX directory with a .app extension, analogous to a Windows .exe file. Mac OS X sees .app files as applications, when in actuality they are a UNIX directory, which contains all of the files needed to run the application.

If the application needs to refer to a file outside of the .app directory, such as one which remembers global settings, Mac OS by default looks for this file in the Preferences folder - a system folder in your Library directory. Since the Library directory is always where it should be OS X doesn't need to hide it from you - because if you do choose to remove anything from it OS X simply creates a new preferences file, rather than asking you to peck around to find the missing file it's looking for.

This is another good example of how, just because OS X is easy to use, that doesn't mean you're locked away from touching the underlying guts of how it works. This is thanks to UNIX being very robust and powerful when it comes to protecting limited user accounts. You need to enter a root password before any real damage can be done to essential system files.

This is a handy thing to bare in mind if, heaven forfend, you need to reinstall or uninstall an application - although removing the Preferences file isn't always necessary to do this. The more usual process of uninstalling an application is no more difficult than dragging the .app file into the trash - it really is as simple as that.

Again, in Windows Vista, Microsoft have attempted to copy the way Mac OS X securely isolating regular user accounts from gaining administrative root access to the whole system. Unfortunately in true Microsoft style the program to base Vista on entirely new code was scrapped in favor of sticking with the same code base which gave us Windows XP and there is a massive flaw in the way Vista tries to do this, which many hackers and security experts have already exposed, just months before Vista is due to be handed over to the general public.

Three machines in one.
As mentioned above, now that Apple use the Intel chip, other operating systems, such as Windows 98, XP and Vista as well as most of the major Linux distributions like Ubuntu and Fedora, can all be run on Apple hardware right alongside Mac OS X. But why should you care about that? Surely that's just something "computer people" or "fan boys" say to convince you to buy a Mac, that in reality ends up not working properly, right? Wrong!

The new generation of Intel chips are designed to, very simply put, have a dual personality. They can juggle many millions of tasks, given to them by two or three different operating systems at the same time.

Special software called virtual machine technology "tricks" the operating system installed inside of it into thinking that it has the sole exclusive use of one cordoned off area of your total available system. So, it tells the virtual version of Vista you're running on your Mac that it has, say, 1 GB of RAM and a certain kind of video driver, this and that amount of hard drive space and so on.

Vista is completely oblivious as to the fact that it is in fact running on a machine which is simultaneously running OS X and Linux (if you so wish to run three operating systems at once).

Because the Intel chip has pipelines optimized to run such tasks you don't ever feel like you're stretching things too far. Windows runs as smoothly as you'd expect a 10 year old operating system designed by philistines to run - which is surprisingly well, considering the odds.

At the end of the day..
Aside from the overwhelming relief of finally being treated like an adult by your computer, when you look back on your purchase in a year or two year's time, you'll still be using a better computer than any of your Dell or Sony using friends.

I'm not about to use the term "Future Proof", because it incurs a second hand car salesman image - but from the point of view of your operating system at least, it is true. OS X Leopard, due out sometime in Jan. 2007, sights some of the greatest achievements in software engineering among it's ancestors.

Bill Gates himself once said that the Mac represents the real standard by which all others are set and if Vista is anything to go by that looks set to remain true for many years to come.

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