More thoughts on updating our PPC Macs

As I am writing this post on my trusty dual G5, I am still trying to analyze my thoughts on the next computer platform that I will support in our family.  We only have one Intel based Mac in our family, and even it is showing its age.

As I mentioned in my previous post, there are five us in the family.  We will probably ignore my Linux breathing son.  He spends enough time immersed with computers at work that he rarely does anything at home other than check his email on his company provided Windows laptop or play some games.

My wife and youngest daughter are the ones which require the most support.  My oldest daughter is technically savvy but stops at the point of installing memory or hard drives.  They represent four houses in two states since my wife and I travel between Virginia and the North Carolina coast. Three of the four houses have wireless networks.  I run two of the networks and my son takes care of the third.

Four new iMacs would delight everyone with the possible exception of me.  I still have a problem with a built-in screen and only one internal hard drive.  No one else cares.  I personally think the Mac mini is under-powered and over priced so it does not fit in the equation.  I am thinking I will ignore my problems with an iMac and just move to one.

Some of you have wondered why I would tackle all of this at once?  Why not do it a little at a time?

Well I have my reasons, they are good ones for me, but perhaps might not make sense for others. After twenty-seven years using computers and more specifically Apple's computers, I have figured out a few things. 

One is that my life is whole lot easier if I can keep the three ladies on computers that are very nearly the same.  One, it makes answering simple questions a lot easier. While the three ladies mostly get along fine with their computers, if something does not print, mail does not work, or if photos are slow downloading, I am usually on the hook for the solution.

Also I do the major operating system upgrades.  The last time I left an upgrade disk for my oldest daughter she ignored it.

I also find that over the life span of a Mac and perhaps especially Macs since Macs do not even have really good model numbers on consumer products, it helps if everyone has the same product.  That means the same memory works along with the same wireless cards.  I do not keep a stock of anything but knowing one set of products well makes my life easier.  Also it is easier to watch for specific Apple issues.

If you are going to migrate data, hook up older printers and make everything work well, if you do it in a short space of time, you get pretty good at doing it and at learning what glitches might bedevil you.

The last time I upgraded the ladies it was over the space of three months.  It worked well, and I do not see a good reason to change the strategy.

Some thought I was going to buy all the computers.  That is not the case.  I will buy my wife's and mine, and maybe help the youngest daughter who is still looking for a good post college job.

Another unpublished comment groused that I was just complaining about Apple prices.  The more I think about it, the less I believe that is the case.

I have recently argued that we need to pay more for Macs so that Apple will stay in the desktop computer business.  I think the argument is how much more we should be willing to pay?  I did the numbers on how my time was worth in supporting my own Vista laptop.  It came out to $693 per year.

My Vista machine's problem would not be an issue except that it is recurring.  About once a week something weird happens, and I end up spending at least twenty minutes of my time getting things back to where they were.  That ends up being over seventeen hours a year that I am wasting my time being my own IT support.

Now a youngster looking for a computer to play games probably has a low value on his time, so seventeen hours a year costs him nothing.  My over seventeen hours charged at forty dollars per hour which is what I charge when I am billing my time comes out to around $693 per year.

There are other things that worry me about staying on the Mac platform. 

Will there continue to be new software that draws me to the Mac platform? 

Right now if I had to label one program as having a lot to do with my staying on the platform, it would be RapidWeaver.  I have had to quit using Dreamweaver on the Mac because it was not compatible with Leopard unless I upgraded.  I ended up buying Page Spinner for the the once or twice a month I need something like Dreamweaver.

Just about every other program that I use other than Pages. iDVD. and iMovie is on the Windows platform.  I probably do two DVDs a year and several YouTube movies including some virtual home tours.

However, figuring out how to do all of that in the Windows world would be a significant disruption for me.  The reality is that I like the way I have things set up now.  The updates that I do to my Southern Outer Banks site are pretty automatic.  Even adding something like my new "Caravan Talk" to my website only takes minutes since I have been using the same tools for a long time.

So in thinking this over, my computer life is probably not worth the hassle of abandoning the Mac world and moving to Windows even if Windows 7 is significantly more reliable that my Vista laptop which has been doing much better since its August Service Pack III.

I could go to Windows, but I see no compelling evidence as to why I should.

The only other thing in the back of my mind is what happens if Steve is gone?

I think the reality is that even if he leaves, the platform will survive for longer than most expect.

There is too much going for it.

Thus if I am going to stay on the Mac platform, it makes little sense trying to migrate other people who are already happy using what they are using with the exception that what they are using is pretty dang slow.  Faster Macs would keep them happy for several more years.

While I could put my wife and youngest daughter on a Linux box, if something went really wrong, I would have to enlist my son's help which I would rather save for times when I might need him on one of my Linux computer problems.  I usually can get about ten minutes of support out of him in a year.

Now having said all of this, it would really help if Apple put Core i5 in new iMacs and made their prices a little more aggressive. I could see those systems lasting a very long time and not causing must of an upgrade pain.

I actually think that Snow Leopard might be responsible for my initial thoughts about leaving the Mac platform.  It has been an underwhelming upgrade.  When I look at the latest Ubuntu, it is pretty slick. Then here are folks saying Windows 7 is also very slick.

I guess that I want something very compelling from Apple for my desktop.  Maybe the timing is just about right.

Just maybe if new iMacs are announced, and we get a few in the family I might be singing their praises.  I will likely end up with a new Windows laptop at sometime for my real estate work. 

At that point, I might be able provide some interesting commentary on how the new operating systems compare.

There is some value at living in a multi-platform world. I have no fear of driving other computers.

I could live in the Windows or Linux world if I wanted to do so. Right now I use them enough to appreciate what they can do.  Linux in five more years might really surprise us.  It has come farther than any of the other operating systems. Heck even Vista has made huge strides in the last two years.

Here is what I like about living in the world of multiple operating systems. It opens more doors than it closes.  Here is an example.

I have one double side flyer that I originally designed in Pages on the Mac with a map annotated in Snagit on Windows.  Since the only good high speed color laser that I have access to is an old Konica which has no Mac drivers, I exported the file to Windows and MS Word which does a great job of doing a fast double sided print. I printed more than 400 one morning.  If it all works together why mess up a good thing?

By the way, I am not interested in having Windows run on a Mac.  I would rather just work on two computers.  I can usually keep them both busy.

Now that I have this worked out, Carpe Beach Diem.

Comments

[Ben]

By default, I'm the go to guy for Macs belonging to my mother, my ex, my 13-year old son, my girlfriend, and her college sophomore daughter. Its a mix of PPC and Intel machines of varying ages, but it presents no problem at all. My mother, for example, is just fine with an old powerbook for web and email. If you want to upgrade everyone at once, you can, but its not really necessary.

[Stephen Smith]

One of the things I loved about switching to Mac 3 years ago is that I no longer am the guy everyone, their brother, and whomever talks to my wife goes to in order to fix, repair, replace, rebuild, or de-virus their PC's. I recall that when I was a dyed in the wool windows user, with a lot of hardware and programming experience I spent 100 hours a year or more fixing computers for friends for basically food and beverages. It got to the point where I no longer wanted to answer phone calls from friends. I would estimate that by default I lost $3,500 in productivity a year fixing my own PC's and everyone elses, double or triple that number for the users and using windows is an expensive proposition.

Not to mention that the most popular antivirus, anti malware, anti spyware type software automatically claims a fairly significant amount of processor and RAM, and we begin to have to add significant costs to Windows....

Linux I like. I don't recommend Linux to anyone who doesn't have a modicum of experience on fixing their own stuff as getting Linux to "just work" just takes hours finding drivers, etc... My first experience was with MEPIS Linux in 2004, I remember it took me hours and hours of searching and eventually writing a driver for my broadcom wifi radio to work on the HP laptop I had. I was proud I got it running, but after that was unimpressed with the titles of software. At that time I was a web developer and needed Dreamweaver and Photoshop to work efficiently. Yes I could have used GIMP but it was at an efficiency cost which meant I made less money. To me Linux is not viable until the people who use it show a willingness to pay for software, and then the big software makers may actually write ports for Linux. Until then it is just not a viable alternative for many professionals or business.

Apple to me, is the only OS that meets all of my needs, Windows comes in a clumsy second and Linux is a fast stable 3rd.

[Robert]

You can always upgrade them, buy Parallels, and run Windows virtually. They get the best of both worlds, and usually end up migrating to all Mac-based stuff to make it easier for all and for you ;-)

Also rumor has it Apple is coming out with a lower cost entry level Macbook. I think its a valid rumor as well...