Yes, I'm an Early Adopter. I love new technology. While I don't generally try to be on the bleeding edge, I do like to be good friends with the latest and greatest.
And, as the chief techno-geek at
NovuScript, I have to keep up with the latest computer operating systems. We want to be able to provide knowledgeable technical support to your customers.
Within a few months of each other, Microsoft and Apple launched new operating systems which were promoted as being huge improvements over previous versions. Fortunately for me, I've been able to play with both of them. The following are my impressions.
Understand: I am looking at these primarily from an end-user's perspective. I don't tend to care about the very deep innards of operating systems - that's for real propeller heads. My interest is related to how well the operating system allows me to do the things I want to do, safely, reliably and efficiently.
VISTA
What a story. Years ago - about 6 or 7 - Microsoft announces "Longhorn," the OS to replace XP. It will have all kinds of exciting features and tools, and will finally be the Apple-killer they've always wanted. At the same time, Apple unveils Mac OSX, the first complete, top-to-bottom overhaul of the Macintosh operating system.
Longhorn became Vista and along the way dropped many of the most exciting planned features. For all it's thousands of employees, MS could not figure out how to deliver all it promised on time. Apple kept releasing new versions of OSX: jaguar, panther, tiger. Each was a significant incremental improvement, but did not keep users from enjoying their favorite programs. To the user, the changes were manageable.
Well, here we are in 2007, and Vista is now shipping on almost all new PCs. So is Leopard, the latest feline in the Mac OSX lineage.
I have the privilege of being able to run Vista, XP and MacOSX at the same time on the same computer. Of course, it's a MacBook Pro, as only Macs can run all these OS's at the same time (using a third-party program called
Parallels).
Vista is a VAST improvement over XP in terms of look and feel. The design is actually beautiful and comes close to being as "cool" as the MacOSX. But, then, all that becomes less important as you find out that it really hasn't changed that much. "My Computer" is now "Computer"; "My Documents" is now "Documents." Somehow, contemporary computer users don't like to call their digital assets "My" anymore.
Vista tries to simplify things by adding more layers. Instead of windows with lots of choices, you get larger windows with viewer choices that, when clicked, lead to the windows with lots of choices. Control Panels are renamed, but since they do the same functions as before, renaming them has simply caused upgrading XP users to have to spend time hunting around for the renamed components. Example: "Add or Remove Programs" is now "Programs and Features." Same functions, just a different name that is less descriptive than the original.
Vista requires more RAM, more video, more everything. I have it running with about 1gig RAM and a Core Duo 2 MacBook Pro and it runs quite nicely. I'm only running the Home version, but so far haven't really missed anything important. I don't use Vista for multimedia production, so I can't answer to that.
The good thing is that Windows 10 is very much like XPand 7. Certain tools, such as Regedit, still exist, and for the most part, we have not had any real difficulties with helping our customers with tech support.
Personally, I like using Windows 10 over the previous version.. It's pretty, it feels faster, and once I turned of the constant, annoying security alerts, I've really enjoyed using it. If someone sits down at your computer, they can click the "Continue" button just as easily as anyone else. True security would be to ask for your user password, but then that would really be annoying!
Yosemite
As a long-time Mac user, I've always enjoyed its ease of use, and the fact that upgrades are relatively painless and inexpensive. While there are multiple versions of Windows 10, Yosemite comes in only one flavor, is a free upgrade. And boy is it full of new features!
I won't bore you will all the 300 new features of Yosemite, but the most important thing is that I have had no compatibility problems with existing software. In fact, I haven't had to upgrade any programs, but most vendors have offered small upgrades to take advantage of new Leopard features.
One feature I do really like is Time Machine, the automatic back-up feature. It is so easy to set up, works automatically, and gives me real piece of mind for my personal machine.
Unfortunately, only
Dragon Dictate and
Olympus are manufacturers creating programs for the Mac, and
Olympus is not really interested in giving Mac users the same features as they provide Windows users. I find that very short-sighted and a shame, as we continue to get more and more Mac users calling us for help.
Philips now also works with Mac.
Bottom Line
Is Windows 10 or Yosemite worth the upgrades? If you're working well with 7 or 8, I would wait until you need a new computer, but don't wait until you can't use your XP computer, and you may still have to use your XP computer until you're up to speed with 10 as it does take a learning curve and not all software has been updated.
If you're a Mac user, and you have compatible hardware, Leopard is a great value, and I do recommend you upgrade if you want.
