Over time I’ve read many articles and comments about Mac’s vs. PC’s. The articles are mostly bias to one or the other and the comments are mostly the opposite. In the world of computers today, it is very difficult for someone to make an educated decision as to what platform is best for their use. There are so many factors to take part in the decision making process and in my opinion searching online for an answer makes things even more confusing for the average consumer. For the most part, a lot of people have their mind made up. Those who love Apple and their products will buy a Mac and those who have been raised on Windows will purchase a PC.
This article is not to persuade anyone that Mac is better then PC / Windows. This article is meant to educate and help people make up their own mind about what to purchase.
So lets first analyze the phrase, “Mac vs. PC” what does that even mean anymore?
Well, back in the day it used to mean a great deal when OS X (The operating system that runs on Mac’s) used to run on PowerPC’s which use a completely different architecture from Intel or AMD processors found in PC’s.
Today; MacBooks, iMac’s, Mac Mini’s, etc… all run on Intel Dual Core, i5, i7, etc… processors. You could go as far as stating that a Mac is a PC. Apple will never come out and say this, but yes, the Mac operating system runs on hardware that you could purchase to build a PC that will run Windows.
So what makes a Mac so different? Here’s the thing you have to remember when comparing a Mac to a PC. PC’s can be built using a variety of motherboards, processors, memory, video cards, hard drives, optical drives, etc…
What does this mean?
Without getting to technical, an operating system such as Windows, OS X, Linux, etc… is nothing but a bunch of code that was written and compiled to operate and recognize computer hardware.
Why does this matter?
Well, you could go anywhere online and start ordering parts to build yourself a computer and be pretty much guaranteed that you can install Windows on it after you’ve put it all together. Have you ever wondered why? When Microsoft Windows was written and compiled, it was done so that it would be compatible with almost any type of cpu, motherboard, video card, etc… you could throw at it. That’s great you think, Windows is compatible with anything which makes it easy to pick the parts you want for the computer you want to build. This is actually a bad think when you think in terms of optimization.
Because Windows is so very much compatible with so many different hardware combinations, it is very difficult to have an optimized operating system specific to certain hardware. On the other hand, there are many different distributions of Linux, Gentoo comes to mind that allow you to download the source code to the operating system and compile it to be optimized for the computer it is being installed on. This is no easy task.
Mac’s on the other hand, use very specific combinations of hardware which the operating system ( OS X ) is built around to have maximum optimization and utilization of the hardware being used.
So in short here are the 2 things you need to remember:
- OS X, the operating system that runs on Mac’s is optimized for the hardware that Mac’s are built with. Leaving less for compatibility and more for optimization.
- Windows, the operating system that runs on almost every computer is optimized to run on almost any combination of hardware leaving less for optimization and more for compatibility.
At the request of one of my readers, I am making a short tutorial on how to burn activate.iso on Mac OS X. This is a fairly simple process, however I will cover it in as much detail as possible.
Tools Needed:
The activate.iso file ( Download )
Disk Utility ( Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility )
A Blank Dual Layer DVD
The Tutorial:
Download the activate.iso file from the above list of tools. Once downloaded, you need to extract it, since it will be in a compressed zip format.
Open Disk Utility ( Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility ) – you should see a screen similar to the below
Disk Utility
Click on Burn, you will see a browse window similar to the image below, browse to the location where you downloaded and extracted the activate.iso file. Highlight activate.iso, then click on Burn.
Disk Utility - Browse
After clicking on Burn, the browse dialog will disappear and you will see a new window, similar to the following image. At this point you will need to insert your disk. When Disk Utility recognizes that a blank dual layer disk has been inserted, it will enable the Burn button. All you need to do now is click Burn.
Disk Utility - Burn
After the burn has completed you will most likely need to reboot your Mac to remove the disk since for me anyway OS X did not recognize that there was a disk in the drive after the burn completed and therefore did not let me eject the disk while I was in the operating system. So what you need to do is reboot your Mac and eject the disk using the eject button before your Mac boots back up completely.
So that’s it for the tutorial, nothing special, just use good old Disk Utility to burn and you’re all set.
In case you haven’t seen it yet, this is Apple’s response to all those Microsoft Laptop Hunter Ads you may have seen lately. Personally I think they did a great job…. GO MAC 
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