Month: July 2009

Switching to Mac – The Journey Begins

It’s been about 7 or 8 months since we picked up a MacBook for Christine, as an early Christmas gift.  Seeing how easy the transition was for her inspired me to make the transition myself.  I’ve always wanted a Mac, and seeing as how I’m a “designer” or “coder” or whatever you want to call it, it seems fitting that I have one.

After getting her MacBook, Christine never turned on her Windows laptop again, except for me to reformat it to give to her little brother, Ryan.  Was it that simple? It couldn’t be. There’s no way switching could be that easy.

Important files are kept in some form of Google docs, or an external hard drive. E-mail’s kept on web-servers.  Could it be that easy? Turn off old computer, turn on new computer?  For Christine, it was.

For me? It’s going to be a little more complicated.

For starters, I’m just about 30 years old.  I started using PCs when I was about 5 or 6. That puts me at 25ish years of PC experience, primarily with Windows. (Albeit I started with DOS, but I don’t think that counts.)

Can someone who knows Windows as well as I do switch to Mac and OSX so easily, as my wife did?  I’m going to find out.

I plan on buying myself a Mac Pro and 30″ Cinema Display.  Pretty big for a first personal Mac, right?  I think I’ll survive, and here’s why:

As you may, or may not, know, I’ve been contracting for a local University the last 6 weeks or so.  When I first arrived, they gave me a pretty old under-powered PC to use.  I quickly outgrew it, and had to seek something else.  There were no “better” Windows machines around, so I grabbed a 20″ iMac.  It’s a few years old, and has its problems, there’s no question about that.  At first, I was lost. I didn’t know what did what, or how to do the things I’d grown so comfortable with over the years on Windows.  I got angry quite often (still do, in some cases), and had to look things up.  Simple things, that most Mac users would laugh at you for.  But I’m learning.

Here’s how I know I’ll survive when I get my own Mac at home: when I go home, and turn on my monitors to look at something on my PC.  I dread it.  I won’t be one of those “I’ve switched, now I’ll bash Windows” types.  But I legitimately dislike having to use Windows at home.  I like the Mac.  I’d probably like it even more if it was newer, and didn’t have hardware problems that cause it to freeze and crash a bunch of times (4 reboots required thus far, today.)  I don’t hold that against the Mac though, it’s fairly old, and probably on its last leg.

I’m going to try to document the things I learn as I make the transition from part-time Mac user to full time, as well as photograph my new set-up once I get it.  I’m pretty excited, and much more at ease now that I’m sitting at a Mac most of my days, while doing work.  I’ve been learning by immersion. It’s a good way to learn, and I’m lucky I get to do it without having to spend money on a Mac, to learn I didn’t like it. (Which, thus far, is not the case.)