Walter Hutchens’ Blog

Today I installed Parallels on my MacBook Pro.

This software will allow me to run Windows “within” (or “in parallel to”) the Mac OS.

Apple’s BootCamp also makes it possible to run Windows on a Mac; however, that approach requires you to reboot the Mac and operate it as a Windows-only machine (until you reboot back into Mac OS X).

Parallels on the other hand leaves you in OS X but creates a Windows “window.” That means you can switch from Windows to OS X without rebooting—just click on what you want.

I am not a platform bigot. Vista has some nice features. Indeed, since XP the differences between Windows and Apple’s OS seem minimal to me. Sometimes people exaggerated the gaps when trying to support their side/denigrate an opponent in the OS holy wars. However, for most people most of the time—for people who mainly email, use a browser, run Office apps and other standard programs—nowadays the differences hardly seem to matter. Both operating systems are fairly intuitive and stable GUIs. Indeed, most applications (or an adequate substitute) are available for both platforms (i.e., Microsoft Office, Adobe’s products, iTunes, etc.)

Moreover, what I love most about using a computer is—or should be—OS-agnostic. As Sun opines, the network is the computer. These days do most people even separate the idea of using a computer from the idea of using the Internet? I don’t think so. The life-changing Internet—particularly email and the web—is platform-independent.

Still, returning to the Mac fold after a decade of using only PCs, I find that I do prefer the Mac OS and the suite of applications that ship with a Mac. I think I am more productive with a Mac. I feel like I have more fun using one. Macs to me are a still a somewhat more transparent tool, meaning that when I use one I find I am better able to focus on a task while the tool becomes “invisible.” But, alas, it’s a PC-centric world. Sometimes you still need to run Windows. In my case, two particular software packages prompted me to install Windows on my Mac.

I installed Parallels because 1) I want to use Google’s Picasa to manage my digital photo library and 2) sometimes, I love using the Tablet PC functionality within Windows itself.

Picasa, sadly, isn’t available for the Mac, and I don’t like the alternatives. (Because Google’s CEO is on Apple’s board and producing Picasa for the Mac might cut into sales of Aperture or other Apple products, one wonders if there is some kind of secret agreement between Apple and Google about this—if so, I would love to see an anti-trust suit!).

I’ve tried Apple’s iPhoto and Aperture. I’ve also tried Adobe’s Lightroom. Though each of these products—save iPhoto—costs hundreds of dollars, none of them works as well for me as Google’s free Picasa does.

To re-touch a photo I sometimes open Photoshop Elements or Aperture, but for 95% of what I want to do Picasa works great.

Ninety-five percent of what I want to do is simply import my pictures from my camera’s memory card, pick favorites, crop and make minor adjustments to them, then email them to friends and family or publish selected images to the web, and finally manage my photo library. Picasa excels at all that.

Picasa’s indexing and search features are just unsurpassed. Using Picasa is the most transparent way I know to manage my ever-growing photo library (by transparent I again mean that the tool becomes invisible so I can concentrate on what I’m doing). Picasa’s indexing is fast and easy (perhaps predictable given that it is owned by the world’s leading search company). In contrast, both iPhoto and Aperture want to put my images into their own file management scheme. I don’t like that at all. Picasa keeps the images in the computer’s normal file directory scheme, allowing me to manage and get at them easily, without going through the program itself. Also, the Picasa alternatives simply don’t feel as intuitive to me. I immediately “get” Picasa’ indexing interface and can transparently use it.

Picasa also allows me to create photo albums for the web easily. I just pick the photos I want, hit “Export to HTML album” then drag the resulting folder to my server—voila, an instant web album. Picasa ships (downloads?) with some nice web album templates. Early on I additionally learned how to modify the output to de-brand the albums the software creates. I’ve also added some thrid-party, free templates to the default offerings, including the flash-enabled AutoViewer which I use all the time. Picasa has a single button for emailing photos (in reduced size, to show mercy to the recipients!) and another button for uploading albums to Google’s own free service if you don’t want to use your own server. So for me Picasa is a great tool for sharing photos, as well as managing them.

When I switched back to a Mac, the absence of Picasa messed up my workflow. Indeed, I found that I made and shared fewer web albums after I bought the Mac. Yes, iWeb has some nifty photo album templates, and I made more video web pages after getting a Mac. But the import and indexing features in iPhoto and Aperture just don’t delight me or seem as easy to use compared with Picasa. This change in ease-of-use was subtle but consequential. More and more I found myself deferring the production of web albums. I built up a photo backlog. Once the moment slips away, other demands crowd in, and it’s hard to ever catch up. Pluse, slightly stale photos are less compelling to share—it just doesn’t make people feel quite as involved in your life, nor is it as fun to produce albums with dated photos. Much better to send shots from this morning than from last month!

Thus, I sorely missed Picasa. Now I plan to run it on my Mac under Windows using Parallels.

Yes, I appreciate the irony of using a Windows program to manage photos on my “better-for-graphics” Mac and the irony of proclaiming that a piece of PC software is easier to use and more intuitive than the Apple alternatives. Whatever. This is what works best for me.

Second, even if Google finally produces a Mac version of Picasa, I adore the Tablet PC functionality that is now built into most versions of Windows (not just machines designated as Tablet-PCs!). I have owned a number of Tablet PCs (and even hacked a Sony touch screen model to act like a Tablet PC). Though I still find a conventional QWERTY keyboard to be the most transparent tool for text entry, sometimes the ability to use pen input is extremely handy.

For example, I’ve been living in China recently while changing employers in the U.S. As part of the job-changing process, I’ve had to complete a lot of forms and documents. It’s been extremely helpful to be able to sign electronic documents using Windows’ Tablet PC features. Even though I could do this with a Mac using the same hardware peripherals, sometimes it’s also nice to stop typing and use Windows’ impressive handwriting recognition features (HRW on the Mac, comparatively, sucks).

Even though I don’t use these distintive Tablet PC functions to “ink” every day, I’ve found that when I don’t own a Tablet PC I inevitably crave these features!

Now that the TPC features are built into most versions of Windows (I have Vista Home Premium which includes them), by adding a simple USB peripheral I can make any Windows-running computer into a Tablet PC! Because I don’t often take notes in digital ink, I don’t require a screen that I can lay flat and sciblle on—instead, I’m happy to carry a small Wacom peripheral in lieu of an external mouse.

Thus, my Mac is now a Tablet PC.

There are other good programs and features that work only or best on one platform (for example, I like SnagIt for screen captures and wish it worked under MacOS, and the first Mac version of MindManager lacked some of the features I used in the Windows version), but for me the best answer to the question “Mac or PC?” is “why not both?”