<p>Vista won't officially be supported until the middle of next year, and possibly not until the 2008-09 school year. The holdup is mostly the Novell client that Williams uses for networked file/printer sharing, so Vista will be supported whenever that's ready.</p>
<p>That said, there are people on campus now who use Vista, and it's not that much of a big deal. You have to jump through a few more hoops to access network printers and your network folder, and OIT might look at you a little funny if you ever bring them your computer, but it's definitely doable. I wouldn't worry too much about the OS you bring to campus; both of them are generally fine at doing the things you'd need them to do. </p>
<p>Or, you could save yourself the worry and get a Mac. :-)</p>
<p>Why a Mac?
My D has a PC with XP at Williams, and she complained about her laptop slowing down when she came home. So, I ran some ad removal and anti-virus software, and everything's back to normal.
I've never seen a Mac in a professional environment besides academia and publishing.
I've seen thousands of PC's to every Mac out there.
I work in the life sciences and chemistry world.</p>
<p>Sorry, Kev;
I wasn't clear.
I'd recommend a PC on the basis of my daily observations of the world of high tech and my D's positive experience at Williams.
Yes, the PC's have vulnerablities, but are much more widely used in the real world. I have literally seen thousands of PC's per Mac in the field.</p>
<p>Both will work while you are at Williams.
Once you become gainfully employed, IMHO, you'll rarely see a Mac unless you remain in academia or pursue a career in publishing.</p>
<p>I think that's becoming less and less true. Yes, PCs are definitely entrenched in the business world, but I've heard that a lot of businesses are looking towards Macs as they realize that Vista really isn't much better than XP, and the few improvements it adds are things that Macs have had for years. Sure, Windows will probably be popular for a long time, and of course everyone should know how to use it, but I wouldn't be so hasty to say that 99% or even 50% of businesses will be using PCs 5 or 10 years down the road. Apple's made a <em>lot</em> of progress in the past few years, and they build some really nice stuff right now. </p>
<p>Speaking as a Williams student that works at OIT, we rarely see Macs being brought in with problems, and when we do it's usually something in hardware like "I dropped it in the pool and now it won't turn on." People bring in PCs with viruses/spyware and other serious issues all the time. But then again, that stuff isn't inevitable with PCs; it's just that lots of people aren't careful and they do stupid stuff (using IE instead of Firefox, downloading random programs, etc.) PCs are fine if you know what you're doing. So are Macs. Get whatever you're comfortable with.</p>
<p>rskibum, you're right when you say PCs are much more widely used in the real world.</p>
<p>But this is Williams.:)</p>
<p>Yes, kev, I don't think I'd ever touched a Mac before coming to Williams. But I got a macbook pro. And it can't be over-emphasized that Macs are smoother and easier to use than are PCs. It felt sort of funny, having been so adept at using Windows, and familiar with all its innards, and such, to be reduced to a baby with a Mac. What's more, there was very limited access to the inner workings of the computer, unlike in PCs, where you have tons of dialog boxes to setup and all sorts of hidden stuff that felt good to know. But the Mac was just a work of art. No stress. You just opened it and started using it. It took me less than 30s and 1 or 2 dialog boxes to set up a networked printer on my Mac, but helping my friend set up his on his PC laptop, took us about 2min, with several dialog boxes and information we had to look up on the OIT website.
Like Jobs said, a Mac "just does the right thing". No snags.
But, like I said, it was a funny experience for a seasoned PC user, but I think it was worth it.
And even though I have the option of running Windows on my mac, the thought has not crossed my mind yet.
The only thing is - Macs are not for hard core gaming. Most of the best games out there are PC-based. But I'm not a gamer, so that doesn't bug me.
Plus, I used to think Mozilla was the best until I met Safari. And, boy, is Dashboard cool!
In short, my computer - hardware and software - is an excellent work of art.</p>