I switched. (long)

Two weekends ago, a friend and I were in the Emergency Room near his house to make sure that a superficial wound he suffered was indeed superficial. We made the acquaintance of an Army/National Guard soldier who was waiting for his comrade to come out, and, being tech guys ourselves, we started up with the tech talk. This guy was a trip. Supremely intelligent, as tech-savvy as it comes, and as the subject turned to Apple he made the comment that while one of his professional functions was to use and support Windows machines, he would never own one. He went on to extoll the virtues of the Mac platform to the effect that I could not find one argument to make to the contrary, especially not since one tenet was the ability to dual boot the newer Macs and run a Windows OS if one needed, as was the case for him when he wanted to get his game on.

By the end of the conversation, even my friend, who is no lover of anything Apple, was agreeing that if I was going to be in the market for a new laptop I should consider the Mac route because my main hobby focus is on Photography and Videography. It was interesting timing for me, because I had just lost my nice Lenovo when I left my previous job, and I had decided that it was time for me to buy a laptop of my own and not be beholden to any workplace for the system.

So here we are.

In the past two weeks, I have been familiarizing myself with the Mac OS. My girlfriend has had a Macbook for the past two years or so, and while I once avoided it like the plague, recently I've immersed myself into its function and operation with the frenzy necessary to one who needs to have a power-user level of understanding of an OS. While I didn't really mind the "chicklet" style keyboard of the Macbook, I can already tell from some limited typing on the Pro that I am going to love this machine. I am sure that there will still be some necessary acclimation time needed, but I know one thing - I will not miss having to constantly maintain the OS, I will not miss the possibility of everything being wiped out by a virus, and while I will miss the proficiency that I had with a Windows machine, I am looking forward to learning as much as possible about this system.

Thanks for reading.

CMT,

Congrats on your new Macbook Pro. And thanks for a great picture-story on your new "baby."

Enjoy, and welcome to the forum...

Noel

Thanks Noel! I am really having a great time learning this machine and configuring everything to exactly how I want it. The hot corners function is killer. I really, really should have done this years ago.

For example, it is always a chore to get my PC to recognize my HD Canon video camera, and this Macbook Pro recognizes it just fine every time I connect it. There is no drama nor frustrated hair-pulling, just an easy connection that allows me to proceed straight to capturing and editing without having to fight against the hardware. I'm sure Mac owners take this for granted, but for us n00bs, it's nothing short of a revelation!

CMT,

You're welcome, and you're absolutely right - these Macs are all amazing machines.

I'm a relatively new switcher myself (March) and still have a couple of PCs in my arsenal, but my Macbook is my favorite... again, enjoy!

Noel

Welcome!

I did have to laugh at your post as I've seen TONS of unboxing photos and videos, I can't say that I've ever seen photos of the FedEx guy bringing the package to the house..

Did you hear him coming or were you camping out?

-Cheers

I had just swapped out a larger telephoto for a wider-range lens when I saw him pull up. I shot through the window - I felt like such a stalker.

Great story and photos. Really enjoyed the photos.

As I've often said, Macs are not perfect, just better than everything else. Were you ever that excited/impressed when opening a pc? Enjoy the switch and be prepared for the adjustment period.

There are several sites dedicated to switchers that will help you with the learning curve: this forum, of course, iSwitched, and switchingtomac.com to name a few.

My brother in law pretty much camped out waiting to ambush the Fedex guy and it was pretty funny to watch his face light up when we first heard the approaching diesel of the truck.

Also, he too was convinced to switch after a demo I gave him of my Macbook in, of all places, a hospital waiting room. Not exactly an ER but it could have been because that's what led us there.