Switching to a Mac – I’ve finally done it

2011: Many of you know I’ve been using a Windows machine for what feels like decades. I’ve owned Mac’s since 2005 but never used them as my full-time machine. Instead, I used them for trips and casual computing.

Until now.

I recently purchased a nice new MacBook Pro with a nice new i7 processor and 8 GB of memory. This thing flys. And with Vmware Fusion running Windows in the background, I can still run a few programs I need. I switched for a number of reasons, but the timing was because my other computers were getting old.

I’ll have to write more later about my experience switching. I tried once in 2005, but it didn’t work out. Today, the tools are much better. We have Dropbox for synchronizing projects, and fonts now work cross-platform, and I love Sparrow (instead of the Mail app).

Update April 2013: Planning to upgrade to one of the newer MacBook Pro’s here soon because they have 2 Thunderbolt ports and an HDMI port. That means you can effectively run 3 external monitors without breaking a sweat. Something that’s hard to do with the 2011 MacBook Pro I have.

Additionally, I’m now running 16 GB of RAM and an SSD which is fantastic. The machine is so fast.

Update April 2014: Not much has changed in the last year, except that I’m now using a 15″ Macbook Pro Retina with 8 GB of RAM, and a 512 GB SSD. Haven’t had any problems over the last year, and the machine runs like a charm. I’d say the primary reason to upgrade was the ability to run more than one external display.