However, as it’s the season of goodwill and all, I thought it fitting to redress the balance and list 10 things that Windows does better than Mac OS…

1. Windows is more customizable

Change the desktop theme – including wallpaper, taskbar, window styles and fonts – to anything you like. Try doing that on a Mac.

2. Windows is more compatible

Let’s face it – practically all software and peripherals out there support Windows. (Though the Mac is getting better all the time in this regard.)

3. Choose your own hardware

With Windows you’re not tied into one manufacturer with a limited product range like you are with Mac OS (Psystar notwithstanding). On a budget? Any cheap clone will run Windows. Want something that exactly matches your lifestyle or situation? The range of PC options is huge so you’re bound to find something that suits.

4. Better keyboard shortcuts

You can access any menu option in a Windows app with 2 or 3 keystrokes, and they’re the same standard keystrokes on any Windows PC. With Mac apps you’re limited to the shortcuts chosen by the app developer. (You can add your own shortcuts on a per-app basis, but then you have to remember which shortcuts you’ve added for each app. And what happens if you get a new Mac, or use a friend’s? You have to redo all your shortcuts again!)

Furthermore, you can access pretty much all controls in any Windows dialog or window via the keyboard. Mac OS lets you turn on so-called “full keyboard access”, but there are still many things you can’t do with the keyboard (try moving from the Calendars pane to the Day/Week/Month View pane in iCal, for example, or activating the all-important Scan button in Image Capture).

5. Sensible use of navigation keys

I know I’ve been over this before, and it’s largely a “personal taste” thing, but after nearly 3 years of using the Mac I still can’t get my head around using the finger-twisting Command-Left Arrow to go the beginning of a line, and Command-Right Arrow to go the end of the line. Not to mention the Home, End, Page Up and Page Down keys that scroll without moving the cursor. Arrrgh. Windows uses these keys much more sensibly in my opinion.

6. More useful file manager

Finder can’t cut and paste files or give you a 2-pane tree view of your files and folders. Windows Explorer can, and jolly useful these functions are, too.

7. More flexible open/save dialogs

Speaking of file management, Windows open and save dialogs let you rename and delete files and folders; add new files and folders; open a selected file in another app for viewing/editing; open a selected folder in Windows Explorer; and manipulate image files:

Mac’s open/save dialogs merely let you select a file and create a new folder. Not nearly as useful.

8. Much bigger range of games

I’d love to play a lot of games on my Mac, but sadly there just isn’t the range that there is for Windows. And when you do get a game for the Mac, it’s often a second-rate port of the Windows version.

9. Easier to get help

There are many more Windows users than Mac users. If you get stuck with your Windows PC, chances are you know someone round the corner (or their kid!) who can help you fix it. With a Mac, you might be struggling.

10. Windows Media Center does more than Front Row

Media Center lets you watch and record live TV and/or radio (with a suitable card), and you can do a lot more thanks to plugins. It also works with a mouse if you want it to. Can’t do any of things with Front Row (the Apple Remote is nice though).

So there you have it. Macs may be lovely, but there are some things that Microsoft simply does better! Not that I’ll be trading in my iMac for a Dell just yet.

Merry Christmas, Windows users everywhere.

After much mucking about trying to get the ever-stubborn Windows XP to recognize the printer, I came up with a nice bit of lateral thinking. What about Bonjour for Windows? Bonjour (previously known as Rendezvous) is the Mac’s zero-config system allowing auto-discovery of stuff on a network, such as computers, printers and routers – and, handily, they make a Windows version, too. It’ll never work, surely…!

Seriously, it was as simple as:

• Download the EXE
• Double-click said EXE to open it in Windows XP (in Parallels)
• Run the setup (no reboot required!)
• Double-click Bonjour Printer Wizard on the desktop
• Click Next
• There’s my printer! Click it, then click Next twice followed by Finish
• Boom!, as Steve Jobs would say – the printer is installed, and usable under Windows XP.

Why can’t Windows always be as straightforward as that?

For the above reason I’m not really interested in Boot Camp (rebooting just to test a website in Windows would be a right pain), but Parallels Workstation fits the bill perfectly. Judging by this Macworld review, it’s pretty speedy and easily capable of running the 3 operating systems at once.

Yay! No more nagging Si to test PageKits in Mac browsers. Parallels will be on my shopping list as soon as (a) it’s out of beta and (b) my wallet has recovered from buying the Mac. I’ll also need to get myself a copy of Windows XP of course (Home edition should do the trick). My poor bank account!

Well I could, of course. Though I’d still want to buy a new PC, as my current one is getting a bit long in the tooth (7 years and counting, bless it). But frankly I just don’t like using WinXP that much. I had to use it on-site the other week and couldn’t wait to get back to my nice slick Linux desktop!

I guess I just love the UNIX way now after 8 years with Linux. Not having a bash shell to drop into… disturbs me. (I did install Cygwin recently on my Windows 2000 laptop, which helped a bit. How do Windows users cope without rsync? )

I also get the impression that Windows isn’t that much more stable than Linux. After all it still has a million different hardware combinations to deal with, just like Linux. The other day I booted my Windows laptop and it claimed that the network card that had been in there for weeks was “new hardware”, and proceeded to use up 20 minutes of my valuable time while I scrambled for the driver CD. Grr…!

So it wouldn’t be a step forward on the reliability front. Whereas all Mac users will tell you how rock-solid Macs are, right? (Except for Si, whose Mac seems to need rebooting every time he starts up Skype. )

Anyway, I want to try something new and exciting! I’ve never used a Mac (well, I’ve used one once or twice to surf the web I guess) so it’s all going to be wonderfully different. Even if I end up hating the Mac and moving back to a PC – well, at least I tried it. In fact thanks to Apple’s move to Intel I can keep the Mac and run Windows and Linux on it too – either dual booting or at the same time as OS X. Life doesn’t get any better than that!