Today I Left the Dark Side

Today is a momentus day, a day that has created fundamental change in how I work, a day that finally arrived after years of growing frustration and aggravation. A day to do something I did not have time for but knew I just had to do. A day when living with the pain was no longer easier than the financial cost, time, and headaches of addressing the aggravation.

Today I left the Dark Side. I switched from a PC to a Mac.

I have owned PC's since 1988 and most recently have moved through a series of Dell's about every two years. I've set my friends and family up with similar systems. I've dealt with the driver compatibility problems, the connection issues, and the expected degradation of performance over time that no defrag or optimization routine can seem to address. I bought my most recent Dell only a few months ago, a souped up XPS M1330. All the extra memory, fast drives, high resolution screen, fingerprint reader... you name it, it had it. As expected the problems started to occur, first when I installed a scanner, then with increasingly slow wireless connection times, and over the past couple weeks several instances of the "blue screen of death." That's when I decided I needed to change. Coincidentally Apple announced their new fasters laptops. The planets aligned.

I was worried. What about all my software? Well, the new Mac's can run them if desired, although I've decided to make a clean break and buy new software. What about file transfer? Piece of cake over my home network. How in the world do you survive without a right mouse button? I'm still learning to deal with that.

But within an hour of turning on my new Mac laptop I realized it was a new day. On a PC setting up my networked wireless printer was a pain. I literally had to navigate through the network to find the printer, install it using a CD, allow the laptop to use it, and then spend an hour debugging why the scan and fax features wouldn't work.

When I asked my new Mac to find the printer it simply said "HP 7200 series found and installed." Done.

It just works.

Comments

[Chris Akins]

Hi Kevin,

And welcome to your new day! I had a similar experience about 18 months ago when I bought my MacBook Pro. I was just totally amazed at how wonderful and easy the Mac is to use! When I brought it home my wife snubbed her nose at it. She was a true PC lover-Mac hater type of gal back then... now it seems I cannot pry the Mac out of her hands!

But alas, I still own a couple of PC's, also. I've not yet installed a windows emulator on the Mac, so am still using the PC for a lot of my productivity software. I have, however, set a goal to buy a Mac desktop in the near future and install BootCamp on it... so my PC's life in my household is limited.

Enjoy the Mac and welcome to the growing revolution!

Chris

[Matt Cline]

Hi Kevin, congrats on the switch!

Re: the right mouse button, there are a couple of options:

1. Click while holding down the Control key.

2. You can plug in a USB mouse and use it. Most mice Just Work (just like your printer), but Microsoft and Logitech both have Mac software for their mice that give you the same features as under Windows.

3. It sounds like you have a laptop, so open your System Preferences and go to "Keyboard & Mouse". (Alternatively, you can click on the Spotlight icon at the top right of your menu bar -- it's the icon that looks like a magnifying glass -- and type "Keyboard & Mouse".)

In the Keyboard & Mouse preferences, about 2/3 of the way down, there is a checkbox that says "For secondary clicks, place two fingers on the trackpad then click the button". Check that.

You can turn on tap-to-click in the Keyboard & Mouse preferences, too. If you have that turned on, the checkbox changes to say "Tap trackpad for two fingers for secondary click".

Enjoy your new Mac!

[Robert Damelio]

Kevin,

I use a "PilotMouse Mini Bluetooth" from Kensington with my mac setup. You won't have to give up the right click or mess with cords, or usb ports. It is "way too cool for school."

Its smaller in size which I'm told is aimed at laptop users. Go Figure!

[Julie, writer Surefirewealth.com]

I had to laugh at that "blue screen of death" speech! Anyway, it's a level higher I assure you. I'm still using a pc but my boyfriend has been using a Mac for months now. For some reason, he feels more productive and ideas seem to come quicker on a Mac. Perhaps the only warning I can give you is that after a month or two with a Mac, you may not wish to work on a PC ever again.