Why, again, must you run Windows?
April 7th, 2006 | by jg3 |I bought a Mac. Droplet. It’s cute.
Two days later, Apple released Boot Camp, software which allows you to use your Mac hardware to boot “other operating systems”.
But of course, the primary example alternative operating is Windows. The reviewer of Personal Technology from The Wall Street Journal. said:
Next, I installed 11 Windows programs that aren’t available for the Mac. These included Microsoft Access, Outlook and Publisher; ACT!; Adobe Photoshop Album; Microsoft Money; Family Tree Maker; Microsoft Flight Simulator; Microsoft Age of Empires; AVG anti-virus; and Spyware Doctor.
Now let’s think about this:
- Microsoft Access
- Microsoft Outlook
- Microsoft Publisher
- Microsoft Money
- Microsoft Flight Simulator
- Microsoft Age of Empires
- ACT!
- Adobe Photoshop album (what is that?)
- Family Tree Maker
- AVG anti-virus
- Spyware Doctor
Of the eleven programs “that aren’t available for the Mac” no less than six are Microsoft’s own products. Fair enough, I wouldn’t try to put Ford parts in a BMW either. There’s Adobe Photoshop Album which, frankly, I’ve never heard of. Then again, I don’t see the need to pay for Photoshop on any platform as The GIMP is free and I am not a professional graphic designer. ACT! is a contact information and schedule manager, and I’m looking into* if that info can be exported to the Address Book and iCal programs that come with the Mac as part of osX. So that brings us to Family Tree Maker. This would be one of those programs that would be a show-stopper for people who have invested a lot of time and effort in something that doesn’t yet run on their preferred platform. Finally there are two “security” programs that don’t run on the Mac because, well, they don’t have to.
So if you haven’t yet found a Mac program to import your Family Tree Maker files, and you haven’t imported your Photoshop files into iPhoto, then you’ll probably find Boot Camp to be really useful. As for me, I’m going to see if I can get my mini to dual-boot into FreeBSD!
* Update: There are versions of ACT! for Mac, and exporting the data so that it can integrate with the osX operating system appears easy
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