PIMs, Writing Software, and Windows XP, Vista, and OS X

Posted by Randall Shinn
Nov 26, 2007 at 09:50 PM

If you look at the Wikipedia list of PIMS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_personal_information_managers, it is clear that there are many more PIMs available for Windows than for the Mac.

But I have grown concerned that Microsoft may be dropping the ball on Windows. I need more horsepower than I currently have to run one particular music program (which will run on Windows or OS X). News reports today indicate that when Windows XP SP3 is released that it may speed up XP by 10%. And in the tests of one lab XP SP3 performed twice as fast as Vista on the same machine.

I suspect that the test machine didn’t have enough RAM for Vista, but the point remains that Vista seems to suck up RAM that I need for other purposes. I have 3 Gigs installed with XP, and would try installing more, but the forum for the music program in question has indicated that XP wouldn’t be able to address the extra memory.Vista doesn’t seem to be any better, according to the forum.

When I look at the Mac site I see that I could purchase servers that can use quad processors, 64 and 32 bit processing, and ridiculous amounts of RAM. When I look at Windows servers I see messages like “not approved for home use.”

So in addition to lusting after the certain programs like Scrivener (as recently discussed on the forum), I am starting to wonder if the Mac OS is starting to offer more powerful options.for one-man operations than Windows. I chose Windows in the first place because some people suggested that if you needed a truck then buy Windows, whereas a Mac was described as being more like a sports car.

I need a truck, and now I am beginning to wonder about the direction that Windows is going.. From reports so far, Vista is a step in the wrong direction relative to my needs. And I am stunned when I see the kind of power that OS X can address.

I love some of my Windows software, so at the moment I am waiting to see what happens in the next six months to a year.

Randall S