‘A Mac user switches to Vista’
I’m working on a tech column for the JFP this morning, and I was fascinated to stumble on what looked, finally, to be an “opposing” view to the largely net-wide lackluster response to Vista. The very notion that A Mac user switches to Vista (MSNBC) intrigued me. I read the whole story from beginning to end.
Windows Vista makes an impressive first impression. From the startup screen, to the desktop, icons, and menus, every aspect is razor-sharp and super-shiny. The new system font, Segoe UI, is simple and elegant.
If you’re a Mac lover, that’s the kinda quote that gets under your skin, right? Even so, I suggest you read the whole story, too. 
Windows expert to Redmond: Buh-bye
Over at ComputerWorld, writer Scot Finnie has been working on a three-part series exploring the possiblities of using a Mac for his day-to-day computing instead of a Windows Vista system. His conclusion is right there in the headline of the third part of that series: Windows expert to Redmond: Buh-bye.
After living with the Mac for three months and comparing it with my Vista experiences, the choice is crystal clear. I’ve struggled to sort out my gut feeling about Windows Vista (see “The Trouble with Vista”), but the value and advantage of the Mac and OS X are difficult to miss. While I continue to work with Windows XP and Vista on a number of other machines, I am now recommending the Macintosh for business and home users.
Oddly, my “experiment” has been the opposite in my attempt to use a PC notebook at home (and for writing a book) while using a Mac on my desk at work.
What I’ve come to realize is how tied my business already is to the Macintosh. Our entire accounting system is based around MYOB AccountEdge Network Edition, so that the bookkeeper, sales manager and I all have access to invoices and statements.
Well, I Suppose…Technically…
Over at 
iPod Hacks they have a fun little entry called 10 Years Ago Today: Steve Jobs Returns To Apple. OK…back in February 1997, when Apple bought Next, I guess technically Jobs was brought into the company as a member of the executive committee. (It was also announced that Woz was brought in as a consultant…not sure what ever happened with that.) It’s said that Steve was enamored most with all of the Apple eMate, the Newton-OS based education computer that he then decided to kill when he took over as “iCEO” and chairman of Apple’s board in the summer of that same year.
(To this day, the eMate remains an interesting and unmatched idea, IMHO, with nary a Mac OS X-based portable yet able to rival its portability and single-purposed usefulness. In the odd way that they do, journalists seemed to cling to their eMates long after they were pretty much impossible to work with for compatibility reasons. But their extreme portability, rugged design, long battery life and reliance on solid-state memory — meaning near instant on and off — would still be a handy item to have in a newsroom. Even the damn handle makes sense for reporters. But I digress.)
OK, I probably need this…
Via Engadget, it’s Martin Frey’s GPS watch that not only keeps track of current time and your appointments, but uses GPS and Internet-based map data to tell you when you need to leave in order to make it to an appointment on time. I often joke that my office is so centrally located in Jackson that I habitually leave it at the exact moment that I have a meeting scheduled to begin somewhere in the city. Unfortunately this is (a.) true and (b.) not terribly amusing to the people that I’m meeting with. The only real issue here is whether showing up on time with this gizmo on my wrist would be worse than coming in few minutes late carrying a tasteful notebook and a smile.
Could They Not Get a Beta?
In the story Apple: None Of Our Products Is Windows Vista Compatible – News by InformationWeek, the writer points us to a statement on Apple’s website stating that none of its products are currently Vista compatible. They should be. Seems odd that Apple wouldn’t have been able to at least get a developer’s release and tweak things a bit to get them to run. If you’re looking for a nefarious angle on this, I don’t see it — I don’t think it’s quite time yet in the market for Apple to destroy Microsoft by making iPods and iTunes incompatible with Windows. I could be wrong.
Update: OK…could this be clever marketing games on Apple’s part? According to iTwire Gates reacted poorly when asked about the Apple commercial where “PC” is going in to get surgery in order to be upgraded to Vista. Then, they write:
As for Apple, it senses some cracks appearing in the Vista dam and it is applying the pressure using its considerable clout in the music player space. Vista has some incompatibility problems with iPod that have yet to be overcome, Apple headlines scream. Now there’s tens of millions of PC users who won’t be upgrading to Vista in a hurry.
Dunno. I’m not sure that Apple complaining about Vista would register on anything but the PunditScale(TM), but maybe that’s enough. Need more buzz to know for sure. Give me more buzz!
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