My Mac Switch

First, let me thank your for visiting my new blog.  My name is Steve, I have been a lifelong PC user and I still use PCs frequently at work and occasionally at home, but it is becoming less frequent at home.  I have owned many computers, starting with a Tandy TRS 80.  I was one of the first kids in school to be doing my homework on a computer.  We even had a Tandy 102 laptop.  Later, we started buying various “IBM Compatible” machines.  At school, we had the Apple II, then the Mac.  I was an MS DOS wizard.  I still find my MS DOS skills to be a great asset when I need to use the Windows command prompt.  The people that I work with cannot believe the stuff that can be done from a command prompt, but they never had computers before the GUI.

I remember when Dad bought Windows 3.1 and installed it on our 80286 machine.  We put it on, and I continued to use MS DOS for most tasks.  Windows was OK, but it was not needed, I was very proficient at DOS.  Years later, I was living on my own, and I bought a Gateway desktop with the brand new OS, Windows 98.  I still have that computer, not much inside of it is still original, but it still works, and I have had no reason to replace it.  

I had a HP laptop that served me well, it was one of the first HP laptops to ship with Windows XP.  I have also had a Gateway laptop (which I loved) and a Dell laptop running Vista.  My Mac switch story starts here.

On June 15, 2008, my Gateway was diagnosed as “terminal.”  I had been using the computer for a couple of years, and now the battery would not charge.  I bought a new charging jack, as that computer used a 5 pin jack and one of them was notorious for “burning” through.  I removed the jack and replaced it.   We had voltage past the jack, but not to the battery.  It appeared that one of the resistors near the jack was open and causing my problems.  I was not going to pay somebody to repair the computer, as it was already about four years old.  I needed to buy a new computer, as I use my laptop for our photography business and when I fix other computers, I download drivers to mine to install on other machines.  I have an uncle that used to call me all of the time for computer help.  I would help him with any trouble that he had.  He would always call when I was cooking, driving, or just not at home.  He could not believe that I walked him through the menus in Windows XP from memory.  Anyway, he bought a Mac for his daughter and he liked it.  he bought another for himself, then the next thing you know he bought a third Mac.  The support calls suddenly ended.  I kept this in mind as I was considering what to buy for myself.

My wife and I went to Best Buy to look at computers.  I was hoping there would be a few Windows XP machines leftover and on clearance.  I had used Windows Vista on a computer for about one week just after the initial release and it was so unstable, that the computer was almost unusable.  I was not going to buy a Vista machine for myself.  My wife told me that she used her Mother’s Vista machine and it was not bad.  She uses it for surfing the web and emails.  Amy got a Dell laptop with plenty of memory and Windows Vista.  I bought a Macbook Black.  I was not sure how I would like the Mac, and always had the PC to fall back on if I really needed to.

Within a few hours, I knew that I would be happy with the Macbook.  I loved the packaging, the feel of the computer, how fast the OS booted, the ease of setup, and the thing I loved the most was that there was NO BLOATWARE!  Every program that came on the computer was fully functional, not one “trial” software application was loaded.  I found that when I installed a program it asked for my password, this was something new for me, but not nearly as annoying as the User Account Control in Amy’s Vista Dell.  I became comfortable with OS X Leopard very quickly.  I found myself going to the upper right corner of applications to close them, when on a Mac, you close the application in the upper left.  I was right clicking all of the time when there is no right click, only “control click.”  After about two days, I was drifting away from the habits I had developed from years of PC use.

Last week, I bought another Macbook.  I bought it for Amy for Christmas, and gave it to her early.  She had finally had enough of her Dell and Windows Vista.  That computer never really functioned the way it should have.  Vista, even with the latest updates, still has some bugs that annoy its users.  I was going to make Amy wait until Christmas to get her new aluminum Macbook, but she was going to go buy one herself, so I figured I had to give away her gift.  

We have both been very happy with our Macs.  The purpose of this blog is to post information to help other users who are making the switch to the Apple Mac from the PC world.  I have found many things that helped me, and I think that information should be shared.

Please do not think that this is going to be a “Steve is God and Bill is Satan” blog.  I still use PCs and still maintain several corporate networks and setup new networks.  I still enjoy my Windows 98 and XP machines, but I have been thrilled with my Macbook running OS X Leopard.  It has been my favorite computer that I have owned to date, and I was not even sure I would like it when I bought it.  As for Microsoft, I hope they learn from their Vista mistakes and move on to the next OS quickly, as they did with the abortion know as Windows ME.