A Windows Girl Goes Mac: Episode 1

So. It was a very good mail day. :D The MacBook came. :D

So today began the adventure getting to know the new machine, and learning the Mac OS for the first time. I have been asked a lot since I mentioned it, to talk about my personal experience as a Windows girl, entering the Mac world, and my thoughts. 

Here is how the First Meeting went down:

When we opened the box and removed the styrofoam, our Thing of Beauty with the sweet translucent apple logo gazed up at us, and batted its eyes.

We opened the lid and turned it on, LOVING that it was fully charged so we could dig right in.  

We watched a cute little Welcome movie with a jazzy soundtrack, and then it began to lead us through the setup process.

Right away it located our wireless network, and all we needed was the password. 

It asked for Jared’s iTunes information and got our address and his phone number.

Then it connected itself to our file server. 

I think we said, “Holy CRAP!” about 34 times in the first 10 minutes. And I think I cried a little bit.

Later:

We plugged it in. The power cord is slightly magnetized, so it locks itself into place.

I’m sitting here in the dim light on the couch, and the keyboard is illuminated.

Clearly Apple has the science of human interface design down to, well, a science. It is so easy to get blinded by the sexiness. Part of me wonders, “Where have you been all my life?” and part of me wonders why there’s no backspace key. And whether to push the CONTROL key or the COMMAND key when I want to copy something? And what does this little line and triangle button here above the Delete key do? Ah! It’s the Function button.

And how do the kids feel? 

Nothing better than a built-in webcam to play with! Elliott got shy, and Rowen experimented with seeing herself on video as only a 4-year-old can. :)

 

So far, I am cautiously in love. All I’ve done is type, after all, oh, and upload a YouTube video. I don’t know if I am brave enough to bring this to CKU next week - there are a few too many hunt-n-peck and “what was that key again?” situations for my comfort.  But it’s light, it’s lovely, it glows, and I am pretty sure I can figure out how to maximize, right? :)

More to come as the journey continues! (And I was just hunting for the End key, and apparently there isn’t one?) 

I’d love to hear how your first encounter with Mac went, if you have one!

Comments

[Bev]

I am reading with interest, I have decided I am going Mac, hopefully in about 2 weeks when I have a big birthday - I've dropped enough hints ;) I am excited but more than a little nervous, I've been a PC girl for over 20 years, but I want a sexy little MacBook and I am going to hold my breath and go for it.

[Katie Chapman]

Well...this changes everything, Jessica!! My DH has been begging me to get a Mac for a few years now so that he doesnt' have to be "family IT" anymore. I keep saying no because I keep telling myself if Jessica is a PC girl, then so am I. I really enjoyed hearing everyone's stories of switching over and they are making me think I might need to march right on down to the Apple store and get one. Thanks for sharing your journey with us.

[Cinda]

My MacBook Pro just arrived this week too! I hope we can learn some things together! Glad I read the comments and got the fn > tip for end - I'm assuming I can go the other way and get home! I think I'm going to have to get a mouse because I'm missing right click - maybe I'll finally use my Bamboo mouse. ACDSee - can it work? I've got a virtual instance of windows running and can get ACDSee to run, but still need to figure out how to open those files in CS3 in my Mac OS!

[Chriss]

I am a MacAddict....I am in L_O_V_E with him, Mac that is. I left windows 4 years ago and have never looked back, except for the daily expression of gratitude for having him in my life now and NO MORE SLOW, SICK PC. I upgraded my office to MACs and my two sons have Macs. My husband got a new Mac last December. When I got my first Mac, I bought stock in the company the very next month...so glad I did that.

Remember...right click is ctrl/click...it gets you the drop down menu that you have when you right click a PC mouse. Enjoy

[Chere]

HA! I was snickering to myself as I read your post. I'm usually a lurker here but thought I would chime in. I went Mac about 4 years ago, it wasn't something that I thought very hard about doing, I just did it. At first I was completely frustrated, didn't know where to find anything, what the heck is a command key and why are there 2 delete keys and why when you press end it doesn't go to the end of the sentence it goes to the end of the document? However, I quickly came to love my Mac, it's been very good to me, aside from the time when the logic board went out (that's Mac talk for motherboard) to the tune of $983 but was thankfully covered under warranty! They are not cheap to repair! Another word of advice...if you happen to spill water on your keyboard and have to hook up a Microsoft keyboard to your computer to use it, you will be UTTERLY confused! Good luck with the learning curve :)

[mei]

Welcome to the Mac world. I love my mac and it's true, I'll never go back. My poor windows never gets touched anymore. That one will go to the kids. :) Yeah for you and your mac!!!

[mei]

Welcome to the Mac world. I love my mac and it's true, I'll never go back. My poor PC never gets touched anymore. That one will go to the kids. :) Yeah for you and your mac!!!

[SharonS]

Hi Jessica, I've been learning PSE from you for awhile :o) Thanks for that! I wanted to tell you my first Mac experience. I went back to grad school in 1990 and had to produce an entire special education report on a Mac. Mind you, I'd never touched a computer before that time!! When it came time to purchase a computer, I naturally chose a Mac. My first Mac had 4 MB (!) of memory. lolol We just bought DD a Macbook for dental school. It came with a free iPod Touch. She is in Mac heaven and Mama is suffering from a little Mac jealousy. Enjoy your Mac!

[Christine]

Congratulations! I switched from pc to Mac last week, after being a pc girl all my life. I don't think I'll ever look back! A lot on the Mac is pretty intuitive, a lot is explained in the user manual, and the rest comes with a little practice. I love my MacBook!

[Trude]

Welcome to the Mac world! (Love how my comment is 2 weeks later, finally catching up on blog reading!) I switched about 3 years ago, and haven't looked back. The only thing this trooper has needed is some additional RAM and an EHD to hold all my digiscrap supplies! :) I would recommend downloading Firefox, because some websites just don't like Safari. Also, a tip for organizing your supplies - if you're like me, you want to be able to see what's in a folder. This seriously bugged me when I first switched! To change the folder icon into the preview jpeg for a particular kit, open the jpeg in Preview and then type Cmd+C to copy the image. Then go to the folder icon, click on it and type Cmd+I for the info box to open up. Then you can go to the folder icon in the info box, click on it to highlight, and type Cmd+V to copy the image. Voila! Hope that made sense! :)