Your sitting there with your bowl of cereal, catching up on your DVR shows, when, while fast-forwarding through the commercials you come across the latest “Hi I’m a Mac” commercial. They are always worth watching, and they work very well. But for many people, who may not have hours and hours to sit and use either platform, you may be wondering: am I the nerdy guy with the tie or the cool slacker in the sweatshirt. Well, maybe you are both? How you use your machine may decide more about what OS is right for you, than a cool, trendy commercial.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

 
1) Am I a tech saavy user? In other words, am I already comfortable in a particular OS?
- If you have been a PC user for years, the switch to Mac OSX would not be painless, but it is not impossible.
-If you are a Mac user there is probably no way you could bring yourself to admit you needed a PC…LOL
-either way, any change would depend on how much you are willing to change your mind set in how you interact with a computer. They both have their positives and negatives (yes, Macs occasionally have problems too…put down the Kool-aid).
-people with little to no computer experience may find the Mac an enjoyable introduction, and pretty simple to learn on.

2) Do I want to use a different OS at home and the office? Will I work from home?
- either OS can be found in any industry, but there are some industries that lend themselves to different OS’s
- if you use AutoCAD at work you are often in a PC environment, if you are in design, Mac. You can make the switch back and forth, but it is nice to not have little hiccups like shortcut button and mouse differences get in your way at work or home.

3) If you are a parent: what are the kids using at school or for class?
-this one would depend on the school, but a lot of school are using Macs now.
-one cool thing is that Mac and PC software is more transferable now. Your Word doc will work on both a PC or Mac. So your kids should be covered in major software areas.

4) How memory intensive are the programs that I will be using?
-again, Mac is the king, hardware and software wise in the realm of Design, video, audio, etc.
-you can get a good PC to do all the above things, but a Mac comes with it in the box already

5) Along with that question, am I really graphic intensive (video, pics, etc.) in my computer use ?
-see above, question 4.

6) Do I want to purchase a machine that includes playing games as one of my primary uses?
- There are LOTS of great Mac games out there, with more being released all the time. You can also play an PC game just as quick as the fastest Dell or HP box using Bootcamp (requires some setup).
- Windows has long been king when it comes to playing games. Any serious gamer is probably not buying a mac.

7) How much do I want to spend?
- For YEARS it’s been a common belief that Macs are more expensive than PC’s. ArcSource firmly does not believe this. Once you account for all the software that comes bundled with the Mac, the lack of downtime you’ll experience thanks to viruses etc, the cost of maintenance and repairs, and the expected life span of the machine, the Mac can actually be cheaper. Read more about this subject.

Hopefully you may find some answers on your own. You are the one using the machine, so you need to find what machine, and OS, is right for you. If you have questions, we’re here for you.