I never touched a Mac until I was 18 years old. I knew of their existence of course, but I didn't know anyone who owned one, and I didn't really know anything about them.

I got a job as Tech Support for an ISP, and we had a couple of Macs for testing and problem solving. They were the first generation of iMacs:

iMac

A now classic design, fitting all the components of a personal computer into one neat package. I never had to use them much, but when I did, I remember thinking that they were easy to use. If you can use Windows, you can use Mac OS.

Fast forward eight years, and I ordered my first Mac in 2006.

macbook

I'd kept up with things via the internet, played with a couple of Macs at people's houses and in the Apple store, and Landers was smitten. When the Macbook was released, I decided to get one, and I can honestly say I've never looked back. I would certainly never consider getting a Windows PC again. I do still have my old PC, but it's used as a glorified network hard-drive come media centre. It stores our music and is hooked up to the stereo.

Don't get me wrong, Macs aren't perfect. I've had a couple of problems; for example, currently my laptop's battery is not being recognised and I can only use it while it's plugged into the mains. But the fact remains that the experience of using a Mac after years of fighting with a Windows PC is a pleasure every day. I can count on one hand the number of times my Mac has crashed, and most times the problem is due to a piece of software which is promptly updated and the problem goes away.

I've had to resort to using my PC on exactly one occasion - an obscure bit of software I downloaded was in a format I had never heard of, and the only programme I could find to open it was Windows only. Not bad in 18 months of usage, in my opinion.

The best thing about Mac OS is the fact that everything just works. It's seamless. Just playing with one in the Apple store does not fully illustrate how wonderful the whole package is when you get it home, and you start actually using it. And as I said, if you've used Windows, you can use Mac OSX.

Many of the features of Vista that Microsoft trumpeted about when it was released have been in OSX for a long time. The slogan for the Vista launch was "The wow starts now!"

As far as I'm concerned, the wow started 8 years ago with OSX.

I think I've gushed enough for now. I hope I've given a good overview of my Mac experience, this blog is intended to spread the gospel of OSX and if there's anything you want to know, leave a comment and I'l do my best to answer it.