Switching wholesale from PC/Windows to Mac - Your experiences?

[Platypus]

You do realise that you can also get Windows PCs in small?

I'd appreciate a steer in the right direction....

Intel NUC?

If I can get something with an i7, 16GB RAM and 1TB of flash/SSD then I'd be interested

[Boo]

I'm thinking of getting a Mac Mini (top spec) and moving as much as I can from my PC to it. I'll also get VMware Fusion and virtualise my old PC so that some old stuff continues to work (Microsoft Money which I still use).

I'll get MS Office for Mac and use that (are the file formats compatible?).

But before I click "Check Out" .... has anyone done this? I'd be really interested to hear what issues you had, how your experience was, would you do it again? Gotchas and so on. Anything you wish you'd known before you went ahead.

My reason for doing this is mainly to get rid of my huge PC tower (which supports 4 displays and has 6 drive bays) and basically shrink everything down. I'll get a Time Capsule for backup and continue to use DropBox and BackBlaze for added peace of mind.

Thanks!

My own experience of using OSX was a 6 month period when a client provided a Macbook Air. I found it to be a rather average version of p.o.s.OS and didn't enjoy the experience at all. Some important keys are in the wrong place which is a constant irritation and the preposterous and appalling "Finder" is so much worse than Windows Explorer it is not true.

If you are ever going to need to use Windows on a client site then my advice is to avoid all brands of p.o.s.OS like the plague. If you can make a clean break then it may not be so bad, but personally I would not.

Just my HO,

Boo

[Sysman]

For me the winner about OS X is the command line

Same here. I've always reckoned that OS X is a good way to start learning the Unix command line. You aren't thrown in at the deep end and you can do it at your own pace.

[Platypus]

ok, done, that £2.5k gone in a click.

let's see what happens. look out for lots of "how do I ..." questions

[DimPrawn]

Same here. I've always reckoned that OS X is a good way to start learning the Unix command line. You aren't thrown in at the deep end and you can do it at your own pace.

You can do that with a modern Linux distro on an old laptop for nowt.

[Sysman]

Just seems to me to be an expensive (relatively) way of doing the same thing. If you are developing for Apple products, then fair enough.

I compared prices a few years ago and found that they weren't that much more expensive, though admittedly budget models are missing from Apple's lineup. There were quite a few reviews on the web showing there wasn't much difference at all for the same hardware specs, but every single one of them was comparing prices based on Windows 7 Home Premium, so I had to add the cost of upgrading to Pro or Ultimate to the Windows solution. And then an antivirus oackage, and backup solution, not to mention a decent database and development tools.

OS X also gave me mutlilingual capability from about 2003. The only Microsoft option for that before Windows 8 was Ultimate.

I suppose it's like saying, "I want a new car". You could get a highly specced Kia for the price, or a bottom of the range BMW. How much is the shiny Apple logo worth to your ego?

Absolutely nowt to do with ego here.

[Platypus]

Same here. I've always reckoned that OS X is a good way to start learning the Unix command line.

I'm an expert Unix user already! Goodbye Cygwin

Hope OSX has 'vi'

[Netraider]

I'd appreciate a steer in the right direction....

Intel NUC?

If I can get something with an i7, 16GB RAM and 1TB of flash/SSD then I'd be interested

I have just purchased an intel i7, 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD from here - Linky

[Sysman]

I'm an expert Unix user already! Goodbye Cygwin

You're all set then

Hope OSX has 'vi'

ls -l /usr/bin/vi
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 3 18 Oct 2014 /usr/bin/vi -> vim

If you really want vi instead it's probably just a download and compile away (once you've installed Xcode and its command line tools).

[stek]

I'm an expert Unix user already! Goodbye Cygwin

Hope OSX has 'vi'

It has, but they made it easy by telling when you're in insert mode, that's cheating!

:wq!