Hello. I’m a Mac and a PC. That is, I’m the happy owner of a very new MacBook Pro. Core I7, Solid State Drive, 8 GB memory. And a ThinkPad T400 (Core Duo, Solid State Drive, 8 GB memory).

Some people get attached to pets. Some get attached to their cars.  Me, I get attached to my computers. I’m a zealot. A fanatic. A fanboy. And both these machines rock but for very different reasons and they both suck in very different ways.

My degree is in Computer Engineering. My day job is software design. I love hardware and software. I know how it works and truth be told, I’m pretty good at it. And as I use these machines, I recognize bits of genius far beyond my capability and a lot of half-assery that is disappointing and surprising.

Generalizations

Let me summarize the key difference between a Mac and a PC in my opinion: Mac hardware is sublime, designed by the best and brightest. PC hardware is dumb, spec’d by suits and engineered without passion. On the other hand, Mac software is flash over substance. Elegance at the expense of productivity. And, frankly, surprisingly inconsistent even as it’s slick while being inconsistent. PC software, by contrast, tends to be ugly but designed for maximum productivity.

Specifics: Hardware

The Mac hardware is a joy to use. Its multi-touch touchpad is a joy to use. As a Trackpoint fan, I am surprised with how much more enjoyable and useful a well designed touchpad can be. I say well designed because I’ve found no touchpad on the PC to be remotely as useful.

The MacBook’s touchpad works like this.  One finger to move the cursor. Two fingers will scroll a page (and do so incredibly smoothly and instantly). Three will let you go back and forth on a browser or other app. Four will let you quickly go between windows and programs.  On the PC, the touchpad experience could be considered, well crap. I’ve got a lot of different laptops here and nothing comes close in this area.  The ThinkPads, however, at least have a Trackpoint which serves as a good alternative. But PC users who love their TouchPads would likely return from using a MacBook rather pissed off at how clunky and half-assed their PC laptop’s touchpad was implemented.  This is mostly (but not completely) a hardware issue.

PC laptops, in general, are just awful in comparison to a MacBook. Even the Lenovo ThinkPads are starting to fall behind.  I open up a PC laptop (any brand) and maybe it’ll come out of sleep. Maybe I’ll need to hit a few keys to jolt it. Maybe I’ll have to hit the power button quickly to jolt it awake or maybe I’ll end up rebooting. Depends on the maker and the circumstances. When it does come out of sleep, maybe I’ll get my WiFi connection back within 10 seconds or…maybe I’ll have to rejoin the network or maybe I’ll have to reboot it to recognize something. Oh wait, the forums say I just need to turn off the blue tooth. Or maybe I just need the new drivers..etc.  PC experts know what I’m talking about. Every version of Windows promises to fix this but nothing will fix hardware makers who just don’t seem to give a crap.

MacBooks, by comparison, are wonderful. You open the lid, it’s on and it’s connected. Every time. Always. Perfect. They are well made, well thought out, and clearly made by people who care about what they’re making.  Talk to an engineer at a PC manufacturer and you’ll often hear frustration in how the designed by committee of people who barely use computers decided X or Y was going to be made.   The hardware capabilities versus the software realities are rarely considered by PC manufacturers. It’s depressing.

Specifics: Software

On the other hand, there is no equivalent on the Mac for Windows Live.  iMovie is more powerful but a much bigger pain to use for “simple stuff” than Windows Live Move Maker 2011 (note the version since it took Microsoft awhile to get this right).  I was surprised at how many steps it took to make a simple movie via iMovie versus Live Movie Maker (especially since the source material was on my iPhone).  This sort of behavior is exhibited throughout the Mac versus Windows 7 (note the version).  Simply put, when it comes to getting things done quickly and effectively, Windows 7 is better in my opinion. And it’s better by enough of a gulf that I have a hard time seeing how anyone could come to any other conclusion (then again, I see Android fans clinging to the belief that Gingerbread is remotely as nice as iOS 4.2).  See, I’m an equal opportunity offender.

Now, the versions matter here because Snow Leopard is so much better in every way than say Windows XP to use on a daily basis and MacOS X was better than Window for so long that it’s no wonder there are so many Mac zealots out there.  

Historically, the Mac’s elegant OS and software were its biggest advantage. It’s amazing how long it took Microsoft to get their act together on software and now that they have, it’s under appreciated (though the IE team UI designers should be flogged – the MS engine team do this wonderful job only to have the experience part of it made by people who clearly should not be making computer software).  But Chrome on Windows and Chrome on the Mac are both wonderful so it matters not.

Compared to Windows 7, Snow Leopard makes me feel like I’m jumping through hoops. It’s still really good (especially if you’re coming from Windows XP or to a lesser extent Windows Vista) but it’s definitely not as efficient overall as Windows 7.

It. Just. Works.

The MacBook still has a big advantage in the “It just works” camp over Windows 7. As soon as Windows has to reach out to hardware…well, bad things happen.  My favorite home printer is a Canon Pixia wireless printer.  On the PC, getting it set up is a bit (but not much) of a pain. On the Mac, I just pressed a button, it saw the printer and I chose it. The drivers, scanner, and other goodies “just worked”. No CDs, no going to a website, nothing. It just worked.

Final Thoughts

Now obviously the Mac has the advantage that the hardware and OS are made by the same company. But consumers don’t really care.  The good news is that, really, they’re both so good at this point that you really can’t go wrong. It’s just so disappointing at how poor PC hardware is by comparison when it comes to usability. What’s worse is that the bad hardware designs from the PC side of things comes from depressingly dumb decision making. It’s not even an engineering issue as much as just dumb decisions at the corporate level – where the specifications are made.  If the PC makers could just make it a qualification that you have to have a genuine passion for technology before getting to make decisions, the PC guys would catch up overnight.  Because it’s obvious that the Mac designers love what they’re doing.

At the end of the day, I’m using both my ThinkPad and MacBook depending on what I’m doing.  If I need to do “serious work” I gravitate to the PC unless it involves “serious” video editing and then it’s Final Cut Pro (sorry Premiere, you’re too flaky these days) on the Mac. It’s a lot easier for me to gather my “stuff” on the PC than the Mac but the Mac is more fun to use. 

So that’s just one guy’s opinion as a fan of both Macs and PCs. In 2011, it’s nice to be able to say that overall, they’re both really excellent.

Christmas is rapidly approaching, and if you are anything like me then you just love the holiday season.  Dressing up my Windows desktop is also part of my holiday routine, and one of the coolest ways is to use DeskScapes to put some animated holiday cheer on your desktop.  WinCustomize has a Santa’s bag full of .dreams (animated wallpaper) available, and here are some of the top Christmas .dreams.

Christmas Trees by CarGuy1

The Traditional Christmas by G47

Snowy Day by CarGuy1

Christmas Cottage by amitsaran

Red Xmas by amitsaran

More .dreams are available at WinCustomize.com, and more information about DeskScapes can be found here.

https://www.stardock.com/products/deskscapes/

In the last gift guide we covered some sweet desktop apps for your PC.  This week we’ll start to take a look at games and one of the most popular categories is for casual games.  These could be puzzle games, card games, etc.  Don’t let the name fool you though, many of these games are highly addictive and before you know it hours out of your day are gone!  Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing though! 

Remember, Impulse has gift cards available so a friend or family can pick out their own games.

You can view the Casual games category on Impulse here, but these are some games I recommend.

Peggle Nights

This is one of my personal favorite games, and one that you can play over, over, and over. There are several different game modes like Quick Play, Duel, and more.  If you have to get one casual game this year- go for Peggle Nights. ($9.95)

Puzzle Quest 2

Puzzle Quest 2 is a puzzle game set in a fantasy world with weapons, creatures and minigames.  Customization of your character is possible with several different types of classes.  ($14.99)

Plants vs Zombies GOTY

This is a very popular game, and because it includes zombies how could it not?  This action strategy game from PopCap puts you in the action of stopping a horde of zombies that are invading your home. ($9.95)

Luxor 3

Luxor 3 from MumboJumbo is a must-have for any Luxor fans.  Several game modes are included and you call use the power of the gods to bring you supernatural power-ups to complete your missions. ($9.99)

We’ve seen some inspiring Christmas wallpapers and DesktopX gadgets in recent posts, so this time I wanted to focus on CursorFX themes for your Windows desktop.  There are some really creative ones available, and changing your Windows cursor is easy with CursorFX.  A free and Plus version is available, and you can read a tutorial on changing your cursor theme here.

Here are some Christmas favorites!

WindowBlinds is the application to completely change the look and feel of Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7.  It has been downloaded over 16 million times on Download.com alone, and there are thousands of skins that can be downloaded from sites like WinCustomize.com. 

Included in WB 7.2:

• Added advanced glass support including new sections for SkinStudio
• Improved compatibility with pre-release Firefox 4 and IE9 builds
• Added new IE9 sections
• Added support for per-skin custom colors
• Optimized skin changing speed on 64-bit Windows

A free trial is available and can be downloaded from Download.com.  More information about WindowBlinds can be found at www.windowblinds.net.

The holiday season is finally upon us, and with Impulse having tons of games and applications available, I wanted to take this opportunity to put together some gift guides to help make your shopping a bit easier.  Today we will start off taking a look at some of the desktop applications available on Impulse.

These are all great apps for either yourself or a friend or family member.  If you still aren’t exactly sure what they want, you can also pickup an Impulse Gift Card.

Fences Pro

Fences is a hugely popular desktop application.  It takes a desktop full of scattered icons and wrangles them up into “fences” that can be arranged in a variety of ways.  Pro version adds features like default Fences for new icons, automatic organization, sorting by type, and more. ($19.95)

WindowBlinds 7

WindowBlinds is the top app to have if you want to change the look and feel of Windows.  Thousands of skins are available for download, and customization options like Aero skinning, textures, coloring and more make this a must-have for any desktop user. ($19.95)

ObjectDock Plus 2

ObjectDock Plus 2 was released not too long ago, and is the follow-up to the also highly popular ObjectDock.  Many improvements and feature additions have been added to this release including, a new user interface, folder-view tabs, multiple docks, and new effects. ($19.95)

Multiplicity Pro

If you have more than one PC on your desktop, then you are missing out if you are not using Multiplicity.  Multiplicity enables users to control several PC’s with just one mouse and keyboard.  ($39.95)

Object Desktop

Object Desktop is a bundle of desktop applications which includes WindowBlinds, DeskScapes, Iconpackager, WindowFX, and many more.  It’s the best value at $49.95 and includes a year of updates.

There are so many wallpapers to choose from around the holidays, it is very hard to choose just one.  Personally, I use the wallpaper changer in WindowBlinds 7 to change them at certain intervals, so I can enjoy more than just one.  WinCustomize has a bunch of cool Christmas wallpapers available, and here are more of my favorites.

Winter is pretty much here, and although some of you may be experiencing real snowflakes outside, maybe you would also like to enjoy some animated snowflakes on your desktop.  DeskScapes 3 has a Snow effect that puts animated snow falling on your desktop.  Just select it from the Effects tab, and any wallpaper you are using will have a really cool snow effect added!

Get DeskScapes - https://www.stardock.com/products/deskscapes/

Fences is the widely popular application from Stardock that helps you wrangle up those icons spread out all over your desktop.  The v1.1 update for Fences Pro is out today with various fixes and improvements.

• Added ability to toggle hidden fences at startup
• Added "Hide shortcut arrows on desktop icons" to Appearance tab
• Reliability improvements based on user feedback
• Numerous small UI tweaks
• Improved multimonitor support
• Icons no longer have risk of falling out of their fence on F5 and/or monitor resize
• Fixed flicker when moving a fence behind the taskbar on Win7
• Fixed issue where new icons could become "stranded" until interacted with, particularly on XP
• Fixed issue where moving Fences beneath the bottom of the screen exhibited odd behavior
• Improved "Disable Fences" functionality
• Fences now "come to the front" when moved. Fixes behavior where you could move a Fence behind another and then lose access to it.

Current users can update via Impulse.  More information about Fences can be found at its website.

https://www.stardock.com/products/fences/index.asp

ObjectDock is one of the most popular desktop applications out there today.  Its functionality, ease of use, and variety of downloadable themes gives it an edge you won’t find with any other similar application.  As of today, ObjectDock has been downloaded over 9.7 million times on the popular Download.com website.  As we approach the 10 million mark, this is an amazing amount of downloads and look forward to millions more!

ObjectDock at Download.com