I’m in love …

Posted by Samuel Walters

… with a leopard …

… a snow leopard:

I’m not exactly in the habit of making “personal” updates here at Dauntlessmedia. Quite frankly, I rather doubt most visitors would really care. But I figured something like this would be worthwhile, considering that it, no doubt, will ultimately have an impact on the site itself. So I am proud to announce, after a series of rather unpleasant experiences with PC laptops (thank you Best Buy, thank you Dell), that I have finally begun my migration from PC to Mac, via MacBook Pro.

In case anyone is interested, here’s the most abbreviated version possible:

In the Spring of 2008, I purchased a Dell Inspiron laptop from Best Buy and absolutely fell in love with it … until, 18 months later, the hard drive failed. What followed was a series of traumatic events, mostly centered around Best Buy’s Geek Squad, and its utter ineptitude. After roughly 3 months without my laptop being useful, I finally managed to bring it back to life. But this Fall, less than a year after the original hard drive was replaced, the Inspiron crashed completely.

I figured an upgrade was in order and, because I attributed most of my bad experience to Best Buy and its support services, I figured a direct purchase from Dell, including an upgrade to their Studio laptop, complete with the spanking new Windows 7 OS, would do the trick. In truth, I splurged a bit, even getting a BluRay drive on the machine … only to discover that the higher-end Studio machine was made with incredibly poor plastic. The entire keyboard bowed every time I tried to type.

And then, within two weeks, the DVD drive failed.

Needless to say, I was just a tad bit … disappointed. A few frustrating and ineffectual calls to Dell’s service center later, and I chose to send the damn thing back for a full refund.

So what to do next? Buy another PC laptop? From Toshiba? Or HP? Or maybe a SONY Vaio? Well, for a long time I’ve wanted to purchase a Mac. The reputation for performance and stability speaks for itself. The problem, though, was that all of my programs are PC-based. Enter the wonderful world of Parallels: A program that lets you install and run Windows (7, Vista, XP, whatever) as if it were just another program on your Mac. So now I can use my Mac, as well as Microsoft Word and Photoshop, without having to invest in entirely new software — at least not until I pay off the MacBook.

And here’s where things get interesting. Having spent almost two years with Windows Vista, and almost two weeks with Windows 7, I can honestly say that there really are some benefits to Windows, particularly in the realm of organizing files. I suppose it might just be a matter of familiarizing myself with Mac’s Finder function, but Windows’ “My Documents” really does allow for an easy exploration and organization of files — particularly music, image, video and word processing files. Put simply, the file system is a bit more intuitive than the “build it yourself” approach of Mac. And that’s a triumph for Windows.

But honestly … The Mac has been a real pleasure thus far. Startup and shutdown are quick and flawless. There hasn’t been a single issue with performance — even when I am running Windows Vista at the same time as OS X. Graphics are phenomenal. Sound is very good. About the only criticism I have of Mac, other than the organization of files, is the lack of a real word processing program with its standard software suite. But with the ability to transition from PC to Mac software (thanks to Parallels), that omission is less of an issue.

Otherwise, I am, truly, happy with my MacBook Pro. And once I finally extricate myself from PC programs … I see no reason why I would ever return.

Here’s to the (second) love of my life: MacBook Pro and Snow Leopard.

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