Mac vs PC

I love these Mac commercials and I definitely understand them first hand. In some ways, these commercials show the dynamics between me (a graphic designer) and my husband (a civil engineer).

This is my personal overview of Macs vs PCs.

Here is a little history about me: I started out on a Mac in college (I could go back further but for the purpose of this comparison I will stick with the last 10 years of my life).

While studying graphic design in college, I used a Mac. I worked predominantly with Quark, Photoshop & Illustrator and Macs were the way to go.

At my first job I was introduced to the PC. I actually worked simutaneously on the 2 platforms for about 2 years. This experience taught me a lot about trouble shooting PCs and to love the ease of use of the Mac. During this period I began using a lot of different types of software programs (Quark, InDesign, PageMaker, Photoshop, Illustrator, Corel, Publisher and more). Mostly I would end up frustrated with the PC. I was constantly dealing with the blue screen of death (BSD) and my computer freezing. But to make my job work, I had to adapt so I learned to fix the problems and move on.

For the last 3 years I worked almost exclusively on PCs. This was not by choice but I managed. Most of the time I struggled with trying to convince my IT department (or anyone who was listening) that my problem was not necessarily the PC but the fact that my hard drive space was NOT BIG ENOUGH to run the programs I was working with. Also for about a year I worked out of Pagemaker (ugh) and once we upgraded to InDesign I was much happier.

In January I began freelancing out of my home office. I have a PC for my desktop computer and a Mac for a laptop. Here are a couple of thing I have learned along the way: Macs are definitely "friendlier" but if you know how to deal with the PC problems, they aren't too bad. To be honest, my home PC rarely freezes and I never get the BSD. However I have had to reformat my PC a couple of times due to viruses and that has never happened with any Mac I have worked on.

This may sound strange coming from a graphic designer, but for me it is more about the software than the platform. I work almost exclusively with Adobe Creative Suite and Microsoft Office and these companies have made working between both platforms pretty effortless. I am very comfortable floating back and forth between my PC and Mac.

Maybe I am just and oddball, but it works for me. My biggest struggle would be hot keys, but even then I make it work.