Software designer, with a heavy focus on Microsoft ASP.NET web development, I basically design business level applications. Due to this I have always stuck with Windows (although I have always admired Apple from a distance). Unfortunately they don't make Microsoft Visual Studio for the Mac, I don't think Microsoft ever will since they know it is one of the major reasons many developers stay on board. I now run OS X as my full time operating system, I don't even dual boot. I run Windows 7 using Parallels desktop so I can continue to use Visual Studio. I kind of like it because I keep all of my work related files and programs inside of the virtual machine. When it's time for work to end I just close it and then I get to use OS X without having to be reminded of work, it's like two worlds in one machine. So far my Hackintosh has proven to be quite the machine. No more crashing, no BSOD, no random restarts and no more virus magnet. Parallels runs Windows exceptionally well, there is not even a noticeable performance drop by any means. I even ran the Windows Experience Index (Microsoft's built in benchmarking utility) and it returned a score of 7.6 out of a total of 7.9. Just goes to show you how powerful OS X is, that it can run Windows in a window, and run it like a champ. Backing up my work stuff is really simple, since I only have to back up my virtual machine which is one file (I use Carbonite online backup). God forbid something really bad happened, all I would have to do is restore the VM file and everything is just as I left it. My Hackintosh is also my HTPC, which I have connected to my living room TV where I use Kodi for entertainment, and OpenEMU for retro gaming. I even run high end games like Need for Speed which runs absolutely flawlessly. I also like to mess around with some music production using Reaper with a nice USB midi controller I have. All around I have pushed this system quite far and OS X handles it all like a champ. Switching to OS X has literally unlocked my system's full potential. I wonder if Apple realizes that when we put their OS on a PC, that PC actually ends up out performing Windows itself.
