The day I switched back to a Mac
Most people that have worked with me know that I used to be an expert on the Mac. My first real job in high school was for a company named Specular International, a developer of 3D graphics and animation software for the Mac. From 1992-1998, I learned how to manage the inner-workings of a Mac. I mastered the operating system and learned how to add video boards and memory inside the machine. While an intern at Specular, I was the sole person in charge of a series of seminars around the country at Apple Market Centers. During college, I used a Mac exclusively. After I joined Specular full-time, and later when the company was sold to MetaTools, I used a Mac. I was a fan of the Mac and I knew it inside and out.
When I joined Adobe in early 1998, I was given a IBM Thinkpad and I had a Mac desktop. The product I managed, Adobe Premiere, was a big success on the Mac. It was built on top of Apple Quicktime, so I got to know the team at Apple pretty well. During this time, I learned the basics of the Windows OS, but I was no expert. Even so, I was happy with my Thinkpad. After about 2 years at Adobe, I upgraded to the latest and greatest Thinkpad.
I left Adobe and went to business school at the University of North Carolina — and continued to use a Thinkpad. By this point, I had suffered lots of problems with configuration settings, internet connectivity and other Windows idiosyncrasies but I dealt with them. For Windows, it was par for the course. After business school, I joined Bose Corporation. Another Thinkpad.
Fast forward to when I bought my first computer for Punchbowl. By this point, I had been using Windows (and related applications) for more than 9 years. I had lots of data from various programs, and I didn’t even consider switching to a Mac. Even though I continued to have typical Windows problems that I couldn’t fix, I didn’t even give it much thought. So I bought a Lenovo Thinkpad T61.
Over the last several months, things have changed. Here’s a partial list of some of the problems I’ve had with my Lenovo Thinkpad:
- Problems with docking station. Often when I undock and redock, I’ll get a blue screen of death (known issue)
- Constant problems connecting to wireless networks (many times a day I have to repair my connection for no apparent reason)
- Internet Explorer 7 crashes. A lot.
- Display driver problems when connecting to an external monitor (everyday, I have to run the display wizard to get the resolutions correct)
- External peripherals stop working (like my USB drive)
- Battery problems: Replaced the battery after only 6 months. New battery runs hot.
- Overall slowness and unusability (CPU idling very high even though nothing is running)
- Increase in spyware and malicious viruses (virus software often interrupting my work)
Yesterday morning (Saturday) I sat down to do some work. As soon as I touched my computer, I got a blue screen. I have no idea why. So I restarted my machine, and attempted to undock it from its docking station. Another blue screen. After another restart, I got it working again. And then it struck me: I don’t want to put up with this anymore. With the whole day in front of me, I set out to do the unthinkable. I decided to switch back to the Mac.
Switching back to the Mac is not something I take lightly. In fact, over the past several weeks, I had been jotting down notes about what it would take for me to switch. I have thousands of contacts, many data files from various programs, and numerous peripherals. This was going to be a big task.
Armed with my list of information, I went to the Apple store in Natick, MA. I spent about an hour and a half with a well-trained salesperson as I went through all of my issues. He had excellent answers for some of my thorny issues. So I plunked down my credit card and walked out of the store with a brand new MacBook Pro. I was on my way.
What transpired over the next ~ 10 hours was a massive switch to the Mac. Here is a rundown of how it went down (and roughly how long it took to get everything working).
- Initial Mac setup: Went very smoothly. Found my network quickly (20 min)
- Internet browsers and bookmarks: Installed Firefox 3 and Yahoo Toolbar (15 min)
- Installed Microsoft Office: Installation got hung on font installs, had to reinstall. (25 min)
- Installed Glance for screen sharing (10 min)
- Installed Adobe Web Collection (includes Acrobat Professional). Very slow install. (40 min)
- Spent some more time configuring the Mac: personal settings etc (30 min)
- Attach/reattach external monitor, configure settings. This worked really well, and I’m so happy that it will be easy to connect and reconnect quickly (20 min).
- Installed Palm Desktop (for use with my Treo 650). Went smoothly, but software is very different so took some time getting use to it (45 min)
- Office printer configuration: awesome (5 min)
- Scansnap 510 (2.5 hours). This was much more difficult. The black version of this device was made ONLY for Windows. Through some internet searching, I found a site that explained how to get the Scansnap to work on the Mac. Sounds crazy, but the solution is to use a Japanese driver and then go through a crazy process to localize that driver into English. A few notes for anyone who is trying to make this work, and running into problems:- Make sure you use the correct version of the English driver as explained in the directions. DO NOT use the most recent version! The correct Scanscap Mac driver is English version 21.
- If you still have Japanese menus and dialogs after you add in the English folder, you will need to find the English folder in EACH and EVERY component and replace EACH of these. There are 3 applications (Folder, Email, Print) and 6 bundles. Do not try and use the same English folder in all of the resources. It won’t work (and I found out the hard way).
- Read this thread very carefully. It has more information that will get you through this. - Flickr Uploadr: easy (5 min)
- Skype: easy (5 min)
- Moving all documents from PC to Mac using USB drive (60 min)
- Buffalo NAS Network Drive. Fairly easy, once I figured out how the Mac sees networks (30 min)
- Home printer, Dymo Label maker, Photo printer. Easy. (20 min)
- More personal configuration (1.5 hours)
So there you have it. I’m back on the Mac. I’m very happy with how things are working so far and I especially like how easily the computer wakes up from standby.
I have a few more items still to solve to make my Mac transition complete:
- Mobile Broadband Card from Sprint (I hope they give me a new one that fits in my Mac)
- Quicken for home
- Quickbooks for work
- Transitioning my iTunes library (it’s already on the network drive, so should be easy)
- Waiting for Google Picasa to come out for the Mac (should be soon)
- Carbonite Backup (I sent a note to the CEO of Carbonite asking to be added to the Mac beta program, we’ll see what comes of that)
- I need an extra Mac power cord so I don’t have to move the powercord from work to home everyday.
I don’t know if “I’m a Mac” now, but I do know this: after all of the advertisements are over, a computer should just work. My laptop is the center of my work life, and it’s critical that I can rely on it. My new MacBook Pro gives me that confidence.
