Probably the biggest change that has come over my household was my move from PC to Mac. This is a bigger deal than you might first think. You see, ever since I was a teenager playing video games on my Commodore 64, it’s been drilled into me not to trust Mac. Of course, back then we referred to them as “Apple.”
I still recall the arguments between me and my cousin Dion, and my swearing that I would *never* buy an Apple computer. Even IBM (now known as “PC”) was far inferior to the Commodore machines. One of my fondest memories as a teenager was trading in my 64 for the Commodore Amiga, a computer far ahead of its time. (Much of Mac OS, in my opinion, copies what Commodore Amiga was doing in the 80s.)
Unfortunately, Commodore went bankrupt and I had to make the choice between PC and Mac. In the 90s, there really wasn’t a choice. Software and support just wasn’t there yet for the Mac, and all my friends had PCs. So, to the PC I went.
I’ve never been impressed by how difficult it is to maintain a PC. The constant software updates, the security glitches, and the viruses drove me nuts. I’ve lost entire hard drives to viruses, or to software glitches, and lets just say when my PC died recently I made what I consider a bold decision.
First, let me tell you a few reasons why I made this decision. At every CWC camp I’ve gone to where I’ve shared a room with Lee Fodi, I’ve had the chance to directly compare his Mac to my PC. Windows takes forever to load, and every program, because they have to go through the virus checker first, takes forever to run. The hard drive is loud, having to load drivers when you install new hardware is annoying, and Windows crashes constantly. Then there was Lee’s Mac, that would load up, connect to the Internet, and allow him to answer emails just as my PC was finishing loading Windows. I kid you not.
After our trip to Korea, where my PC let me know it was going to die and die soon, I decided that it was time to replace it with a Mac.
I went Mac. It’s been an easy switch, and I think it may be due to my teenage years with my Amiga-500. The Mac feels like the Amiga, and it even acts like one. It’s user friendly, simple, and a powerful little machine. I do have some Windows only programs that I can’t do without, as well as a near brand new version of Office 2007 for which I paid a lot of money. So rather than invest in Mac Office 2008, I bought VM Ware and Windows XP to run on the Mac. Now I have two computers in one – and let me just say that Windows, so far, runs more efficiently on my Mac than it ever did on my PC.
To make the switch even more fun, fellow writer and friend kc dyer has also gone Mac. There’s nothing more fun than sitting in a cafe, Mac to Macbook, discussing the cool new things you’ve learned.
Good times ahead!