SubpagesWindows XPEtc.Mac versus WindowsWhen I was young, my family only ever used Windows at home, but my school had late 00s iMacs in the computer lab, and I got an iPad for my birthday when I was young to play educational games, so I always wanted a Mac. I eventually got a crappy HP laptop, and a couple of years later, a crappy Dell laptop, which pretty much turned me off of Windows, especially the later, which ran Windows 10 on a spinning hard drive. So yeah. Nowadays I use Mac exclusively, and they're mostly great, though Apple have made some choices with the Mac recently which I'm not exactly a fan of. For example, I don't really like the new Big Sur interface which seems to be more and more iOS-ified. Windows 10 and especially 11 aren't really good either, but I don't plan to switch to Linux, mainly because Linux doesn't have iTunes or the Mac's mitosis'd iTunes apps. Windows 11What the hell has Microsoft been thinking? One of the commonly touted advantages (from my experience) of Windows PCs over Macs is the customizability, and now Microsoft has gone and completely axed a good part of that. At least with Macs the dock doesn't have to be at the bottom, it can be at the left or right side to, but the Windows taskbar is stuck to the bottom. It also has that new centred look, basically ripping off Chromebooks, and the horrid new Start menu. Seriously, you can't replace the recommended files with more apps? If there's anything that we've learned with Windows 8, 10 and now 11, it's that Microsoft just refuses to leave good enough alone. Meanwhile, the Mac interface hasn't really changed much (besides aesthetically) in quite a while, which I'm personally fine with, since if it ain't broke, you don't fix it! Though I do prefer the Mac's older skeumorphism to the new flat design. Windows 8.1In my opinion, the last good, or at least decent, version of Windows. With a couple of minor tweaks (Classic Shell, etc) it was basically a faster version of Windows 7. Microsoft mostly left the desktop unchanged, and it still had the Control Panel and all of that, and even the modifications were bearable. Windows 10 claimed to bring the best of both worlds, but it just muddled the desktop with Metro-y crap. Plus, it seems to me that Windows 8.1 was the last version of Windows that didn't hoist its crap in your face, since Windows 10 forced itself upon Windows 7 and 8.1 user very literally, and forced Candy Crush and co. upon users. And then, of course, Windows 10 removed some customization options, and Windows 11 removed many more. Windows 10It brought Windows back in the right direction (i.e. Windows 7 and XP) at first, but started going away from that with all the weird crap they did, and didn't really go far enough in the first place. But then, of course, Windows 11 makes it look amazing by comparison. Update 1/1/2023: I could (and maybe should) make a rant about Windows 10 sometimes, but yeah. At first glance, it was better than 8, but they screwed everything up, added some weird crap and added a bunch of spyware. All I can say for it is that at least it isn't Windows 11. OS X VenturaSince it's apparently coming "this October" (it's October 2, 2022 as I write this), I thought I'd give my first impressions of OS X Ventura. (I still don't want to call it macOS, fight me IRL Apple!) Continuity Camera, where you pop your iPhone onto your Mac to get a 4k ultra-wide webcam for Zoom meetings, seems pretty pointless to me, especially with the improved webcams on recent Macs, but perhaps there's some reason it'd be really useful to some people that I don't know about. I don't really see a need for Stage Manager, hen I already do pretty much the exact same thing (creating different window sets for different tasks) by creating different virtual desktops: one for my Neocities, one for my schoolwork, one for my writing, etc., so it seems like a slightly different way to do the same thing.
Passkeys seem useful at first, but I'm a bit wary that by using them, you'd be locked into Safari and iPhones or whatever, and if you have a secure, memorable password (which I think I'm getting better at), then you're pretty much safe on-line already. The updates to Spotlight seem much-needed, since it's been in a pretty sad state for a while. I also appreciate the better search in Mail, though it's more of a minor convenience. And the new layout in Overall, I feel like this is quite a nice update, though once again, there's nothing groundbreaking. But there's more new stuff that'd be useful to me in this version to compare to Monterey, though that's not saying much. Overall, I might upgrade if I really feel like it, but I don't really plan to. Microsoft OfficeI mainly use Apple's iWork, which is elegant and easy to use. Microsoft Office is crap. I've used the most recent version on a library PC, and I've even used Office 97 and Office XP on Windows XP, and all the options are buried, and there's no easy way to find most things. The user interface is generally confusing, and it's just hard to find options. I'll talk more about this later. Microsoft EdgeOf the Chromium-based browsers, I suppose that it's the best, but that's not saying much. It's barely customizable, and they all have the same little flat interface that I'm so sick of. But oh well. I trust Microsoft a little more than Google. 
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