whatchamacallit's Profile

First of all, I am a hard core old school computer enthusiast, hacker, programmer, and currently employed for a fortune 100 company supporting tens of thousands of Windows PC's and servers. I have run everything, not just Windows. UNIX (Solaris/AIX), Linux, FreeBSD, NeXTStep/OpenStep, GEM/TOS, AmigaOS, OS/2, DOS/Win3x/WinNT3.51-4/Win9x/Win2k/WinME/WinXP/Win2k3/Vista Beta. I have 20+ years of experience with using, programming, administering, and supporting computers of all types. I bought my first Mac as soon as Mac OS X went 10.1 and an Apple store opened within driving distance. I never considered Apple computers to be a real computer but more a toy. That changed with Apple's purchase of NeXT and the new Mac OS X. I had experience with NeXTStep/OpenStep and I missed it. I walked into that new Apple store and spent three hours picking the salesman's mind and playing with each machine. I walked out with a TiBook 500Mhz and Mac OS X 10.1. I have since bought an iPod and Nano, as well as a PowerMac 1.0Ghz MDD with dual displays, as well as a newer AlBook 1.33Mhz. There has also been an Airport Extreme basestation and Airport Express as well. I plan to buy the second generation MacBookPro when it ships with a Core Duo 2 processor. I bought Apple because of it's UNIX core, I can run all the Linux/OpenSource/GNU stuff along side MS Office and other apps like Photoshop, etc. The second reason was the free development tools which will save me a fortune. As a bonus I now have home computers that I don't have to fix nor even run regularly scheduled maintenance (no virus definition updates, no defragmenting, no manual patching). However, since Apple switched to Intel, I have had quite a few people very interested in the ability to boot Windows and run Windows in a virtual machine. They aren't ready to buy yet but they are seriously considering it. They like the idea of migrating to a Mac while still keeping their previous PC software and hardware investment. Apple would sell more Mac's if they produce a low end PowerMac tower with a standard PC video card. i.e. no more custom Mac firmware on the video card! Gamers consist of a large market and they will switch in droves if the PowerMac was affordable, had an Intel processor, and the video card was upgradable. Gamers will reboot into a base WinXP build just to play games, after all you won't be multitasking with other apps while playing an intensive game. I think that Apples market-share will suddenly surge in the next 5 years as people wear out their older PC computers and start looking for a replacement. Apple is now a real alternative to a PC. The real draw is being able to migrate your old Windows apps as well as being virus, spyware free!