Comments on: Macs vs. PCs

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 15:19:49 +0000

I agree that virtualization is a great tool. I have my main work environment on my XP box, which uses Office 2003. But I use VirtualPC to provide VMs with each of the Office versions in XP, without all the stuff I’ve added to my installation, and without risking any conflicts between shared components of the different versions. For example, my gallery of user-defined charts is completely hosed on my main machine, and I blame concurrent use of Excel 2003 and Excel 2000. Also, on another machine, my Office 2003 installation was hosed by an installation of the Office 12 Beta.

Unfortunately my dev PC does not have the juice to run Vista in a VM.

I don’t agree about Excel 2007. I won’t repeat my comments: you could search the blog for “Excel 2007″ to find those.

By: wheat

wheat — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 14:40:56 +0000

No worries, Jon. I enjoy your blog! And you’re quite right, based on your analysis, that the extra effort would not create much ROI. In my situation, excluding that platform would be unwise. But in yours, it’s quite different. I’m really happy, though, that virtualization software (and hardware speed) has come up to the point that I can run multiple OSes side-by-side and can choose the one I want for the job. I really like the 2007 Office suite, in fact. And I can run it when I need it, even on my iMac. It’s nice to have options.

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 14:27:41 +0000

Wheat -

Thanks for your viewpoint. I should point out that I wasn’t surprised by the results. I was merely doing the analysis to satisfy myself that not creating special Mac versions of my utilities was a reasonable decision.

By: wheat

wheat — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 14:01:32 +0000

How surprising! A blog devoted to a Microsoft technology primarily used in business settings and primarily on Windows operating systems would garner a larger readership among users of that same Microsoft technology on those same Windows operating systems! You hardly need charts for that one.

As one more set of data points for this discussion, here are the breakdowns of my recent web stats for bassplaying.com, a site for bass players (no matter what platform they prefer). Here are the percentage breakdowns for the past month (Aug. 29–Sept 28), according to Google Analytics:

Windows: 85.25%
Macintosh: 12.19%
Linux: 1.91%
iPhone: 0.23%
iPod: 0.20%
(not set): 0.15%
SymbianOS: 0.05%
Playstation 3: 0.03%

Lets compare that to the same time last year (2007), shall we?

Windows: 89.54%
Macintosh: 8.86%
Linux: 1.47%
(not set): 0.11%
Playstation Portable: 0.03%

So, on my highest traffic site, Windows lost 4.29% and Macintosh gained 3.33% (3.67% if you count the iPod/iPhone hits), based on this sample. I might go back and see how it trends over time (as I’m an Excel fan who uses and supports Excel 2007 at work).

I used to be a Mac (Classic II, then Performa 631). Then, for many years, I was a PC (lots of Dell laptops and Gateway + Dell desktops, Win98, Win2000, WinXP). Now, I have a Dell WinXP PC at work and an iMac at home. I have WinXP available via VMware Fusion for times when I want to run Office 2007, but Google Docs and NeoOffice do the job most of the time. And I do enough Excel and Access work at work that I don’t care to do any more at home. You know what’s funny? Running WinXP via VMware Fusion is, in many ways, superior to running it natively. So, my Mac, at home, is actually a better WinXP box than my WinXP box at work.

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 20:07:51 +0000

Zach -

I completely missed your point. Now I get it.

PS – I hold comments for moderation, which is why the first three didn’t show up.

By: Zach

Zach — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 19:34:37 +0000

Jon,

Sorry, I didn’t mean that I can’t access your site from my Mac. I meant that your site is very well-suited for work-time browsing, so I tend to save it for when I’m bored at work. ;)

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 19:10:08 +0000

Zach -

I don’t prevent Macs from accessing my site (I don’t even know how). Other Macs to visit my site, which is obvious from the presence of nonzero Mac data in this post.

By: Zach

Zach — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 18:51:20 +0000

I’m a Mac guy myself, having a MacBook Pro at home. However, that Mac won’t make its way into your site logs. Why? Because I subscribe to dozens of RSS feeds, and not all are as work-friendly (translation: I can read them and still look like I’m doing work) as yours. So, I read many of the blogs at home (on my Mac), and save some of the more work-ish ones like yours for when I’m at work (on a PC).

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 04:37:33 +0000

Doug -

We were discussing this at the Excel User Conference today. Many Mac users (including one conference attendee) are emulating Windows so they can run Excel 2003. Another attendee, a retired college professor, noted that his college got a deal with Apple, so they’ve changed all of their networking infrastructure to be compatible with Macs now as well as with PCs. Many of these Mac users are emulating Windows, which seems to make the upgrade redundant.

I’m thinking I should affix an Apple sticker over the HP logo on my laptop, so at least I can pretend to be cool.

By: nixnut

nixnut — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 17:24:20 +0000

Hi, I’m a mac… running linux. :-)

Just a short hello from your readership in the weeds.
And don’t worry. No offense taken.

regards,
nixnut