Calling All Geeks - The History of Apple Computer

I converted in 1998. It was truly a religious experience.

A very good book about the creation of the original Mac is Revolution in the Valley by Andy Hertzfeld. Fascinating history. Much of the same information is at Hertzfeld's site: www.folklore.org.

I have heard the Hertzfeld book is great...he is actually one of the guys on the TWIT interview as well.

I may yet convert...I just have so much legacy stuff in MS Publisher and have not be able to locate Mac software which will import these.

I had a similar dilemma when I switched in 1998. Although there were Mac versions of the MS Office main three, and all my Adobe software, Publisher was missing. I, too, had quite a bit of old Publisher files, especially for quick and dirty projects done for the church. My solution, of course, was VirtualPC. Of course, it's always run a bit slow.

However, if you have any Mac envy at all, now is a great time to switch with the release of a program called Boot Camp which will allow your Mac to dual boot a full copy of Windows.

It was released by Apple themselves (still amazing to even consider that) a few days ago. I had a brief mention of it on my blog: http://homepage.mac.com/rmansfield/thislamp/index.html#unique-entry-id-254

One more thing... I've always been into computers (see your title attracted my attention) from my first computer that I got WAY BACK in 1982 when I was around 14. I do most of my own repairs, I like to use the comand line when I need to, and I'm not afraid to read the manuals (well, they don't give me manuals anymore, so I have to go out and buy them!).

Although I switched to the Mac platform in 1998, I've kept up with Windows through using it in VirtualPC and about a three-year stint where I was network administrator at a school over 3 Win2K servers and 140 Windows clients. So I feel I know my way around both platforms.

Having said that, if I had it all to do over again when it comes to computers, I would have gone the Mac route MUCH earlier--at least by 1990. I have no regrets by switching over.

Sure there may have been an occasional PC game that looked interesting, but that's about the extent of it. And that won't even be an issue now with the dual booting Macs that can run Windows natively.

All of the cool kids use Macs!

Yes, some day I might be a cool kid. When I can launch a windows Binary - native - under OS X on a core duo...I'll switch. But until then I need Microsoft Publisher for Windows. I have too much stuff in that format.