Becoming a Mac

A friend from twitter agreed to share their story of growing up Mac and their desire to come home... :-)

As I sit here typing on my outdated, clogged-with-programs (despite much cleaning) IBM PC, I'm seriously looking into getting a Mac ... again.

I haven't used a Mac for over 10 years. But I have an affection for Macs that never goes away. I guess it's true that there's something about Macs that captures certain people - something beyond the design software Apple is famous for.

My first 'serious' training with computers began on a Mac - one that someone kindly loaned to me. I don't remember the model name, but it was one of those clunky desktop numbers
with (what now is considered to be) a tiny screen. For about a year I learned how to use it, enjoying the look, feel, and simplicity. It was stylish in a subtle way. It was cozy. Once or twice I had a problem that required rebooting, otherwise it was problem free.

When the loan period was over I faced an unfortunate reality: it was a Windows world. As much as I wanted to stay with Mac, Macs were more costly than PCs and having one would
limit how I communicated with most other computer users. So I switched to a PC.

One of my first experiences with a PC is all too familiar to early PC owners, I think: a General Protection Fault error that resulted in the famous blue screen. I had no idea what was happening. I looked at the message "this program has performed an illegal operation and will shut down" and panicked, figuring I had done something really, really bad (what that was, I had no idea). I think my dad was able to reassure me over the phone to start it up again. It still worked. Phew.

So began many years of battles with PCs and the bloated programs that go with them. I stopped panicking, but often had to be hyper vigilant because it was only a matter of time
before something would mess up on me. Some OS's were okay overall - still the classic Windows problems but nothing serious. The Windows ME period was horrible. I had more problems with that OS than any other version of Windows (95 and up). Finally a programmer friend installed Win 2000 saving me from throwing everything against the wall. And, as I posted on this site before, one of the worst programs was Norton Anti-Virus. One time I had to manually remove ~ 10 thousand files Norton put on my computer that were causing problems. I could only get rid of ~ 200 at a time and had to wait for several minutes as each batch deleted before moving to the next one.

Every time I hear about someone who has 'crossed over' (from PC to Mac) I feel wistful and a bit envious. I want that to be me. And now I think it can be me ... soon. I know that Macs still cost, on average, more than PCs, but they aren't a disadvantage in what is still a Windows World now... not like they used to be. I know that they aren't perfect and can still get viruses and sometimes need to be rebooted, but it seems that the overall satisfaction with them is higher than it is with PCs. It's quite amazing that Macs continue to improve and sell, unlike the (I thought) superior Betamax when VHS came on the scene.

Lillea Woodlyns

http://www.SpeedOnlineWealth.com/blog

www.TwitterLillea.com

Here is a quote from one Happy Macbook user...

Been using a PC since 1995. Just made the switch to a new aluminum macbook, couldn't be happier. Mac's are so much easier to use, fast startup/shutdown, and install/uninstall is a breeze. The keyboard take some time to get used to, such as the absence of home/end keys and the Command & Option keys. My new quote is "Once you try a Mac, you won't want to go back." -Daniel S.