Yes! I’ve finally made the switch back to the light side of the force. I’ve been using and writing software for Macs since the Mac Plus in 1986. I switched to use PCs when Windows 95 came out as I saw that the market for independent software developers on the Mac platform was shrinking and the PC installed base and software industry was rapidly growing. Eventually, I ended up working for Microsoft as a software developer on Windows desktop software applications in the late 90s’.
Fast forwarding to 2007…. I was getting very frustrated with Vista on several of my PCs and laptops on a daily basis to a point that I stopped enjoying working on computers. On a clean Vista Pro install with just IE, Outlook and Office on strong Dell workstations and on a Vaio laptop, I kept getting hangs and crashes left and right. I now run Vista using the excellent Parallels Desktop for Mac software. It is worth every penny. See: http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/ . With 4GB of RAM on a 2.4ghz Intel core 2 duo MacBook Pro laptop, I get very decent performance from Vista running virtually in Parallels, in full-screen mode it is easy to forget that you are not running Vista natively, so if I need to use word or powerpoint I just switch back to the dark side virtually on Parallels and if Vista hangs crashes I just quickly restore the virtual machine to a previous state while I keep working on my Mac apps.
OS X works great for me so far. It is very clean, elegant and smooth and I have none of the issues I had with Vista. OS X is bringing the joy of Personal Computers back to my daily work and play. Thanks for AmitZohar for showing me the light on his last visit from Hawaii to San Francisco 🙂
Aviv Eyal Blog 