Switcher
After 22 years of computing, I told
Micro$oft to drop dead and bought my first Mac. Phew! What a
relief.
I’m 67 years old. I’ve worked in
sales for the last 30 years, mostly representing folks in the bicycle trade;
but, for the last several years, I’ve worked for a local construction
company.22 years ago, I took a
position with the company that became Diamondback Bicycles. After they hired
me, the vice-president called me and said, “don’t forget to come
down to our regional warehouse and pick up your
computer.”I said, “Pick up
my what?” I didn’t know from computers. Still, I labored through
the predictable beginners’ mistakes and began to supplement how I managed
my selling -- with my Tandy TRS80 Model 100 laptop computer -- tiny LCD screen
and 32K memory. The OS was written by some guy named Bill
Gates.I welcomed Windows; then watched
it slowly become leaden, buggy and insecure over
time.About a year ago, following the
lead of other members of my family, I began to experiment with flavors of Linux.
They’re proper command-line geeks and when there were hiccups with one or
another GUI, it didn’t bother them a whole heck of a lot. My style is
entirely based on ease of use, ease of communication. Linux didn’t work
out.So, two hours after Steve Jobs
announced the Mini, I ordered one from the Apple Store. I think I got the first
one in New Mexico. I discovered a few
things:1. This critter is quiet. I
mean QUIET! I’ve had tinnitus for decades. Even with a custom fan
installed in my Wintel computer, the noise drives me
crazy.2. OS X Rules! It does
everything I expected from Unix -- and didn’t get with Linux. The folks
working in Apple’s industrial design crew really do know how people think,
feel and react. Intuitive actually is -- for a
change.3. My Mini -- in combination
with OS X and software written for OS X -- runs as fast or faster, smoother and
easier than my Wintel Computer and software written for that platform. And that
critter has a P4 running at over 3.4mhz!
First, I moved all my personal stuff
over to the Mini. I hooked up my Maxtor firewire jukebox where I store tens of
gigabytes of digital photos, my hobby. Day-to-day stuff, from email
[Thunderbird] to web browsing [Firefox] ran just
fine.So, a few months back, I moved
everything over for work. I supplement my Social Security check doing sales and
custom design work for a locally-owned subcontractor. Lots of images. Years of
history of proposals and interaction with other
contractors.As part of my
“walking away” from Windows, the past year, I’d already moved
everything over into OpenOffice. At first, I tried the version the
OpenOffice.org folks were developing for OS X; but, it was cranky. Then I found
NeoOffice. They use Java to adapt OpenOffice to OS X. I don’t know beans
about the programming; but, even in Beta, it worked well enough for me to rattle
back through hundreds of proposals and memos and pick out what I need -- and use
it. I mean, this is supposed to be a tool as well as a digital utility, right?
[Now, they have a production
Release]It ALL works. A couple
weeks ago, I turned my Wintel computer off. Everything’s been transferred
to the Maxtor jukebox for storage and reference. Current projects, everything
I’m creating, now, gets done with the Mini and resides there. My job runs
as smoothly as ever. I had started up
the Mini with a spare keyboard, mouse and an old monitor. Now, those are hooked
up to the Wintel machine in case I absolutely have to turn it on -- for some
unknown reason. My newer Logitech cordless keyboard and mouse are hooked up to
the Mini. My 19” LCD monitor is now hooked up to the
Mini.Now, I just need a little bit of
an excuse to get an iBook -- and give my old Toshiba laptop to my niece and her
kids.Update: I
bought an Apple 20” Cinema display. Wow! I caught a $150 rebate at
Amazon.com and bought a 12” PowerBook laptop. Unlike folks building for
Wintel, smaller is less expensive at Apple. I did send my old Wintel laptop off
to my niece and her kids. I hope she forgives me.
Posted: Fri - July 8, 2005 at 03:18 PM
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