Do you still use both a Mac and a Windows Machine

I was long time Mac and iPhone user (for past 10 years).

Around 2 years ago, I migrated from Mac to PC and also iPhone to Android. I was using Mac and PC concurrently for a while (around 6 months). But I was able to fully migrate to PC.

As for iOS, I cannot drop that. So even today, my main phone is Android, and I keep an old iPhone on wi-fi only for iMessage, FaceTime, Find My (to track family member location), Screen Time (again for family member).

It was tough moving away from Apple Photos. I love its DAM and editing capabilities. The best part is the syncing between iPhone, iPad, Mac, iCloud. I can cull and edit on any device and everything is synced.

On Android side, Google Photos has "sync and backup". But it is not a sync, but only backup, in that update goes only 1 way not both ways. So the work flow take more overhead to manage and much less flexible. The positive is that I have easier time to manage my cloud usage.

"Yes, apple is bassackwards with biometrics. Touch Id on devices that should have face I'd and vice versa. I'm getting my new Mac this week to try. I was going to get a fully spec'ed air but I'm going to buy the base model, just in case I don't like it I can return without issue. If I do like it, my son will get the base model, and I will get a max spec model then. See what happens."

How has the M2 MacBook Air worked out for you?

I remember JCL.

Back in the 80s I worked for two years writing accounting system audit interrogation software. Nothing grand, mostly interrogation of accounting files using a package called NCC Filetab. If I remember, we had to get hold of record layout details for each accounting file, then work out using hex, where each record started and ended, read in the records one by one (excluding all the record types that weren't transactions of interest) and total up the value of all the records in the file and reconcile this number to the published account. Then we ran the file a second time, this time using random sampling (based on monetary unit sampling), to extract a random selection of transactions to give to the auditors so they could go out and test the transactions on their local audit visits.

One of my clients was the Inland Revenue General Account which used to arrive courtesy of Securicor in the form of 30 or so giant reels of tape. I had to box this up and send it to the Met Office's Bracknell computer centre where we rented time on their IBM mainframes (3081, is that a thing?).

It was a long time ago, but I think Filetab was some kind of high level language package intended specifically for feeding in files and extracting data from them. Something like that. That's how we used it anyway. It was a bit weird in that instead of writing If-then statements for the logic, you had to type a noughts and crosses grid thing using character graphics called a Decision Table. I think JCL was kind of like an intermediate operating system for setting up and scheduling batch jobs? One of the things you had to do was explain the record structure to JCL and book time on the tape drives. And tell the operators which tapes to load. Very hazy after 40 years.

The funny thing was that we dialed in remotely from our ICL DRS 50 micro computers. Using a digital modem called a Kilostream (some kind of ADSL?). It was like a mini precursor to the internet.

Ah, the good old days.

I got bit by Ventura. But it mostly had to do with cyber security protocols that were integrated into Ventura that basically killed the file sharing networking between Macs. My MBP I was using as a backup server no longer would serve the purpose. I spend time with Apple both on line and in person but never got it reliability fixed. It turns out the issue was tied in S/W that was threat to a threat that had been communicated to Apple (and MicroSoft) by NSA. So I ended up spending a half day, blowing away Ventura on the server and reinstalling Monterey. It works fine just like it did prior to Ventura. The latest Ventura patch has solved the issue and at some point I will reinstall Ventura.

Today a majority of S/W updates today is directed toward security updates based on treat data provided by NSA. In Ventura Apple went overboard and apparently not all the teams on the development of the update talking to one another. There is a huge risk to allow an application that only needs to be able to see data in selected directories and/or disk data throughout ones entire system. As Apple moved to limit such access in the last few OS updates and got more and more "anal" it often was an odds with the application developers and conflicts arose. Both Apple and Microsoft will need to be address this brave new world of issues with the advisory becoming more sophisticated and all machines sitting on the Internet for the world to have access to.

The latest update to Ventura solved the original issue I had. I'm not no real hurry to update my server as I have taken actions to isolate it from the outside world. I will eventually. Cybersecurity is one of the main reasons I stick to POSIX compliant Unix based OS (which MacOS is one).

MacOS going to have more security issues as it continues to increase its market share:

Bad Week for MacOS Security: Two New Malware Threats Identified

I'm still debating whether to get Mac Mini M2 Pro or build a mini-ITX desktop Windows PC. Self build is cheaper, and RX 7600 GPUs are gonna drop soon, but I am not into PC gaming anymore so I now only need a desktop PC for creative work, which Mac is optimized for, and I haven't heard good things about Windows 11.

My external HDDs, where I backup my photos, are all formatted NTFS so if I get Mac PC then I will have to transfer the files and reformat the drives, but that's just an annoyance. It's Apple's restrictions on self-repair makes me wary, as does their emphasis on form over function (just looking at their mouse and keyboard makes my hands and wrists hurt).

I don't have a smartphone, but my mom does have an Iphone and Ipad, so some capability and integration there could be useful. My current PC is Windows 7, Phenom II 945 X4, 1GB Radeon 7850, 4GB DDR3 1333MHz, so it will be a big upgrade either way.

Long ago, I has a Mac Performer OS9.0 for music production and a PC Win XP for internet access.

Both died about a dozen years ago and I never fixed/replaced the Mac.

DxO forum participants claim that the purple (or yellow) color casts caused by Ventura 13 when using Deep PRIME (XD) are fixed in 13.4 and PhotoLab 6.6.

I never noticed them, nor could I find a test case, so I cannot verify.