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Mostly Painless: Using a Mac in a Windows world
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Location: Blogs Team Blog |
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| Posted by: bsiblog |
2/26/2008 |
I recently switched from using a PC laptop to a Mac laptop. While the process is, as the title implies, mostly painless there are a few gotchas to be aware of if you're thinking about the switch.
I've been a Mac user at home since I was old enough to have a computer. However, like most of us I had to use Windows at work. I always hoped that one day I'd get to use the Mac instead, and although it's not entirely a smooth road, it's now possible to do just that.
There are a lot of good reasons to use a Mac over a PC, but that argument is beyond the scope of this series. This post, and the ones to follow, assume you've already made the decision to switch, and now need to play nice with the Windows world.
Before you switch, however, ask yourself these questions:
1) Do I spend a significant amount of my time at work in a program that is only available for Windows?
Most of us do our work either in Office, Adobe or Office-like programs, or through email and the web. None of these are unique to Windows, but proprietary contact management programs, accounting programs and the like may force you to spend all your time in a Windows environment. While this is possible (and even easy) on the Mac, it might not be the best way to spend your day.
2) Does my organization rely heavily on Exchange and Outlook?
Again, this is not a dealbreaker, but there are some tasks possible in Outlook that just aren't on the Mac. Of course, there are workarounds, but again it may end up being a hinderance. More on this later.
3) In the course of your day, are there websites you use regularly that require you to use Internet Explorer?
There won't be many, but there are some Microsoft server "features" that you can only use through Internet Explorer, which isn't available for the Mac (anymore).
If you've answered "Yes" to any of these, you might not enjoy your Mac at work very much. A great deal of the Mac's ability to play nicely with Windows is the existance of Apple's Boot Camp (which allows you to install a Windows partition on your computer) and Parallels/VMWare (which allow you to run a Windows "virtual machine" inside the Mac OS). Boot Camp requires you to restart your computer when you need Windows, and Parallels and VMWare will run Windows alongside your Mac, but not at the speed you'd maybe expect from booting directly from Windows.
In our next article, we'll talk in depth about the various ways to work in Windows while still being on your Mac! |
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