TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:RE: Mac laptops and Tech Comm From:"McLauchlan, Kevin" <Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com> To:Craig Cardimon <craig -dot- cardimon -at- gmail -dot- com>, Gene Kim-Eng <techwr -at- genek -dot- com> Date:Sun, 26 Feb 2012 15:00:49 -0500
With Parallels, in many cases, you don't even have to dual-boot.
On my elderly MacBook Pro (late 2008) I've got a Windows partition
that I used for a while in order to connect to the employer's VPN.
After a while (I don't know what changed) it was able to work via
Parallels, in OSX, so I didn't even need to reboot into Windows
when I wanted to connect to the office. Then a new gen of the
VPN stuff came along, and it wasn't friendly with Parallels, but
about that time I got a company laptop, so I've stopped using
the MBP when I want to connect to the office anyway. I'll probably
wipe the Windoze partition entirely, next time I have nothing
better to do. Except for employer-office-specific work, everything
that I do these days is done either on the Mac or on my phone.
In your case, I'd inquire whether any Windows-only applications
that you need can run via Parallels. When it works, it's certainly
handier than rebooting to swap the OS.
As for the PC and dual-boot.... every PC I've used at the employer
office for the past dozen-or-more years has had dual and triple
boot configs - usually at least one Windoze and at least one Linux.
The Mac is no smarter than the PC. Its only real advantage is that
Apple won't support their OSX on any hardware that they don't
make, so integration is much cozier. Windows needs to comfortably
co-exist on a wide variety of hardware from a legion of PC
makers. Given how well Windows does that these days, that fact
makes it, arguably, smarter than Mac OSX. Even so, I prefer my
Mac or my (Android) phone. :-) That said, our local IT guy
has a really nifty Windows phone. Hmm.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Craig Cardimon
> Sent: February-26-12 12:04 PM
> To: Gene Kim-Eng
> Cc: techwrl
> Subject: Re: Mac laptops and Tech Comm
>
> I had no idea about the double-booting. Seems like the Mac is rather
> more
> versatile than the venerable PC.
>
> On Sun, Feb 26, 2012 at 11:40 AM, Gene Kim-Eng <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>
> wrote:
>
> > If a firewire port is the only issue, just shop for a PC that has
> one. If
> > you want to be able to run Mac apps and still work with Windows tech
> comm
> > apps, Macs can be dual-booted to run Windows with no performance hit
> since
> > they now use Intel processors.
> >
> > Gene Kim-Eng
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Craig Cardimon" <
> > craig -dot- cardimon -at- gmail -dot- com>
> >
> > I might be in the market for a laptop one of these years, and I am
> >> starting
> >> to think a Mac might be a better investment, but I need to be able
> to do
> >> technical writing on it.
> >>
> >
The information contained in this electronic mail transmission
may be privileged and confidential, and therefore, protected
from disclosure. If you have received this communication in
error, please notify us immediately by replying to this
message and deleting it from your computer without copying
or disclosing it.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Create and publish documentation through multiple channels with Doc-To-Help. Choose your authoring formats and get any output you may need.
Try Doc-To-Help, now with MS SharePoint integration, free for 30-days.