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Published: April 2, 2019, 9 p.m.

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My employers used Outlook. My universities have used Office. Most of my clients still use a combination of Windows, Outlook and Office to get them through their day. Meanwhile I use none of these. So, how does that work?

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This is Clickstarter, I\\u2019m Dante St James. This is episode 37, and Day 3 of my daily series, April Foolproof Your Business where this month, I\\u2019ll cover a bunch of quick, useful tools, strategies, marketing methods and ideas to give your small business a shot in the arm.

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Today, why I use a Mac, GSuite and Android in a world of Windows, Outlook and iPhones.

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This one is bound to fire up fanboys of all persuasions. I admit it. I\\u2019m a Mac guy. Not because of the fancy aluminium case. Not because of the Apple logo. After all it doesn\'t even light up anymore. I use my Mac because it\\u2019s just easier to do what I do on one. Back some years ago when I was still a determined Windows user and something of a Mac hater, I made a decision that anyone who knew me then thought was crazy. I was building a new team of digital content people. And I decided that we were all going to use Macs.

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My reasons were simple. Yes they cost more, but on average, at the time, you\\u2019d get 3-4 years of solid use from a Mac. Windows machines seemed to start running out of puff after 12 months of use, and were practically useless after 2 years of daily use. No one in the company wanted to support Macs, so to avoid their ridiculous antivirus installations, admin rights lockdowns and controls that don\\u2019t work for a digital environment, I ordered Macs so I could work around the IT department instead of being held back by them. And finally, the time saved on wrestling with Windows updates breaking things, taking forever to download and install and the myriad of configuration options and endless problems with software compatibility, we opened our Macs and just got to work. It wasn\\u2019t about brand. It was about efficiency. It was about saving time. And I\\u2019m still a Mac guy to this day. I opened my new Macbook Pro recently, set off a copy of my old one onto it and was working on it within an hour. A colleague bought a high end Windows notebook the other day. So far, we\\u2019ve spend parts of 3 days unloading the bloatware from it, updating the operating system, downloading software, reissuing licenses - and we\\u2019re still a good week away from it all being usable enough to simply open up and get started.

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Secondly, I\\u2019m a GSuite user. That\\u2019s the business version of Gmail for those of you who are saying \\u201chuh?\\u201d My last employer forced me to use Outlook. Every day, it was a process of digging through spam and junk mail and phishing attempts and scam email to get to the stuff I actually needed. Colleagues were getting viruses on their computers. People were handing over credit card details to Indian \\u201csupport reps.\\u201d It was a nightmare. With GSuite I think I have only seen two spam emails in about 3 months. I don\\u2019t know what it is they do over at Google, but it works. And because it\\u2019s a cloud system, I don\\u2019t use WeTransfer or Dropbox or any of those annoying third party systems to load up and send big files. I just load to them up to my email, GSuite puts this in my account\\u2019s storage and sends a link for people to download it. No memberships or subscriptions required. Not bad huh? My Outlook mates are still waiting for approval to upgrade their Dropbox to a paid version so they can open some file another colleague sent them.

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I\\u2019m also, despite being a Mac guy, an Android user when it comes to my phone. I used to be afraid of Android because my iPhone let me send text messages from my Mac. So I held on for years while my friends on Android leapt ahead with bigger screens, more options, better cameras and more ways to integrate with more systems. Then one day a little feature called Android Messages popped up in my Chrome browser and I\\u2019ve never looked at an iPhone since. Once I could send SMS from my computer without picking up my Google Pixel 2 and 3XL phone, the iPhone was no longer necessary.

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The point here is to use the tools that work best for you. The Mac helps me to work faster. Gmail helps me work faster. My Google Pixel 3XL takes a wicked photo, amazing video and loads directly into my Google Photos and Google Drive accounts so that I can grab them from any device on work on them. Not just one with a fruity logo on it.

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So what combination of systems works best for you?

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Got a topic this month to cover in these shorter, daily versions of the podcast? Email darwin@clickstarter.com.au or drop a message via facebook.com/clickstarter

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I\\u2019ll catch you tomorrow as we continue to help your small business to get known, get found and stay known.

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