http://www.panic.com/transmit/

So I am considering now as the time to finally become a Mac shop. I’ve always loved Macs, but have always been too cheap to own one. Way back when I did tech support for ARCO, 3 or 4 of us could man the phones and support our whole company using Macs. When we converted to a PC shop, we had to double our staff on the phones and still had trouble keeping up. We thought it might be just the pain of the transition, but the phone support traffic never died down  – even on into a couple of years past the migration. Macs are reliable.

And they are hard to beat when it comes to graphics.

They are slick in design, sleek in software, almost impervious to viruses…

Mac users are almost cult-like in their loyalty. Which means they love them. There must be good reason, surely?

So why have I waited so long to switch? It’s not just the expense – it’s also the software. I have already purchased the software I need for the PC platform. And there are tons of free apps out there that I use that aren’t written for the Mac.

But now the time has come where I need to upgrade my laptop AND my software… So I can make the jump.

Here is what I’m considering:

• 2.4GHz MacBook Pro 15.4″ with Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz / 2GB RAM / 250GB Hard Drive / NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT / SuperDrive / iSight Webcam / Bluetooth / Extreme WiFi / Mac OS X Leopard- $1,849 from JR.com
• Switch my Adobe CS3 Design Premium to CS4 Web Premium for $440 (offer lasts until April 30, 2009) on a Mac platform – or just pay the fee to switch my current CS3 to the Mac platform ($?)
• Get iWorks 2008 $79
• Switch from Microsoft Money to Quicken online for free
• Use something like Billings 3 Professional from http://www.billingsapp.com for $39.99 (this is a Mac application)

I’m not sure if I’m thinking of everything I need, but that is the basics to keep me going. So that total is about $1,968 (or $2,408 if I upgrade to CS4).

If I were to upgrade my current situtaion and stay PC:

• A new HP Pavilion 2.4GHz / 4GB RAM / 320GB Hard Drive / Geforce 9600M GT / Blu-Ray / Webcam / 802.11AGN / Bluetooth / Vista Home Premium 64-Bit from JR.com would run me $1,150.
• Upgrade to CS4 for $440
• Upgrade to Microsoft Office 2007 Professional upgrade $270

Total $1,860. If I don’t upgrade to CS4 or Microsoft Office, then just the $1,150.

Oh, and don’t forget to tell Kimili that you want to allow fullscreen mode if you chose a skin that has a fullscreen button, for example: [kml_flashembed movie="http://standrewswichita.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/vbs2008-controls.swf"  allowfullscreen="true"/]

Here’s what the front looks like. This was done in photoshop with a photo of my daughter Eliza playing with watercolors. We put more details on the back. More info at http://www.orbsofhappiness.org

Our old design was based on an earlier template I had found, too. But here’s the difference – I had to do all the customizations through the CSS and PHP files myself. That’s no problem for me, but whenever you mess with code, you have to maintain it. So, better, more customizable templates save my clients money.

Take a look at the updated site: www.standrewswichita.org. Our primary motivation for change was the previous menu was down the left hand side and had quickly grown out of control. It was difficult to find what you were looking for and difficult to keep updated. The new design has a drop down menu across the top. It looks cleaner and now it’s easy to see what’s there. Yay!