Many people, when they hear what I do for a living, ask me if I use a PC or a Mac. I invariably answer, “I use a Macintosh every day.” At which time they look at me like I am crazy. “An IT guy, using a Mac. I thought that was just for artists.”
I get asked the same thing when first meeting fellow IT folk. It may not always be asked in an obvious manner, but many times it will come up in conversation, “So what rig do you use?” When I mention “a Mac,” many times that person will treat me like a second class citizen until they get the chance to work with me. Then I always get the follow up question…”Why aren’t you on a Unix box?” To which I reply,”I am on a Unix box.”
The answer is a complex one for me, and has to do with my whole history as an IT person, freelancer, and business owner. Over the years I have had the opportunity to work in many environments, and fulfill many roles. I have worked in a tech support capacity, as well as in many a production environment. Sometimes I was directing the effort, and other times I was a worker bee. I have used many different kinds of systems throughout during these times. If you can think of it I have probably used it. Desktops, laptops, servers, and not just PC’s, or Macs, but also terminals hooked up to huge mainframes. IBM AIX systems, AS400 systems, Unix systems, Banyon Vines servers, Windows servers, Unix servers, and Novell Servers, and Mac servers. The list goes on and on.
In each one of these cases I found a common theme. They broke. Some were more reliable than others, but when it came down to it, if a computer or server went down the people using those systems were losing time, and therefore money. That is never a good thing in business.
My story does not end with the systems I have used…throughout the years I have worn many proverbial hats. I’m the guy that came from a graphic art/print background, and moved into a tech support/sysadmin role. That was the past… These days I have branched out into multimedia, and web work. This means that I normally do things from start to finish. Build configure, and harden the server, then install whatever I need. A good example right now is Expression Engine. Then design, program, and build the website graphics and all.
Throughout the years the main argument I have heard from many IT folk is money. I don’t know how many times I have heard, “I can get the same PC with a faster processor for $600 less than your Mac.” While I agree that is a true statement, I want to point out something here that many people miss, or choose to ignore during this argument. Time is money when running a business, but how much time are you spending keeping your machine up to date, virus free, and just plain running.
Yes you can get a PC running Windows or Unix for a smaller amount of money in the front end, but if running a business has taught me anything it is that you have to look at all the costs associated with everything that you do. Including buying a computer.
So If you look at it from a total cost perspective throughout the life of the computer how much are you really saving by purchasing a PC? Assume that every hour that I spend working on a project means cash in my pocket. If I spend any of that time working to get my machine running, or getting a plug-in to work, or cleaning the viruses off, or updating drivers, or hooking up a new peice of hardware… that means money is flying out of my pocket. I could be spending that time making money instead of working on my machine. I don’t want to spend my time installing software when I could be spending my time making money.
This is the reason I use a Mac. Throughout the years I have found that my Mac just works… If I need to hook up a camera, it shows up. If I then need to organize a huge amount of photos quickly…I can. If I need to upload those to a server I can do that without downloading any software.
Over time, the time you spend installing, configuring, fixing, and cleaning can add up. Now take all that time, and assign a dollar value to all those hours. How much are you really saving by buying that PC?
Aside from money, it also helps on the creative side. When asked to come up with a piece of art for a project I want my mind to be in a creative space. I want my the tool I am using to get out of my minds way so I can create. I don’t want to deal with a dialog box that keeps telling me that my USB key is in the slot, or that there is another security update ready, or that I need to download and update my virus settings. Again, it all comes down to money. The quicker I can get my mind into the creative space, the quicker I can get the project done. Again saving both time and money.
So before you go out and purchase a computer, think about what you want to do with that computer. Do you want to spend your time working on the computer itself, or spend your time using the computer for it’s intended purpose?