Stephen Nold

The Decision to Move to Mac
April 7, 2008

Many, many years ago, during my sophomore year in college, I learned how to use a computer.  The law firm that I worked for asked me to test a new IBM PC in order to determine if it was easy enough for some of the senior attorneys.  I guess the rationale was, if this young college kid can figure it out, certainly some of our finest lawyers would be able to also be willing to learn.  I later learned that several of the prominent attorneys had no desire to ever use the computers.

It was a cumbersome process to switch between floppy drives in order to load my Lotus 123 software and then create my spreadsheets.  Nevertheless, it was less trouble than the stack of deck cards that I had to carry to the University of Texas mainframe to run Fortran computer language.  Personal computers seemed more intuitive and promising than the complicated languages required to run large computers.  Microsoft Windows was just beginning to show promise as a way to reduce the number of steps to access new software.

I fell in love with the Mac platform only a few years later.  During one of my part time jobs while I was completing my graduate studies, I had the chance to operate on a Mac platform - again on the time clock of an employer.  Once I entered the serious world of market research, the Microsoft Windows environment was my only choice unless I worked in the graphics department.  No self-respecting businessman could justify use of a Mac given the compatibility issues.

Three months ago, I decided to obtain a new laptop.  After careful research about the various manufacturers, I realized that the MacBook Pro was a viable option.  More importantly, I spoke with three technology savvy executives who has switched to the Mac platform and heard outstanding reviews.  I respected the opinion of all three executives, and one of them actually conducts technology market research on a variety of computer hardware choices.  His opinion was backed by the stats.

My decision was made; I was going Mac and not planning to look back.  What I did not measure well in my research was the conversion time required to switch to a new operating system.  Sure, I have migrated through a variety of Windows OS and noticed changes that required new ways to business process things.  But the Mac requires a whole new way of thinking.  It seems you are employing the right side of your brain to do the left side’s tasks of crunching away.

“I’ll get the hang of it”, I assured myself.  Then I started to hear about the 30 days that most Windows users take to get acclimated to the Mac approach.  The entire navigation scheme was confusing and documents kept disappearing on me.  The screen divider solution called Spaces was cool, but I could never tell where an application would open when I tried to launch my tools. 

Beyond the usual complaint that you spend a bunch of money on the Mac computer and then you go spend more on the software to run it, I did not see any other immediate disadvantages until three days after I bought it and Apple decided to launch a more powerful version of the same computer at the same price.  Cooler heads prevailed at the Apple store, which is an interesting environment, and the store manager agreed to honor an upgrade.  I was worried this would not happen. 

When I returned with my faster Mac, I had confidence that my computing experience was ready to get better.  I could not be further from the truth.  Continuing to operate with through my Windows eyeglasses, every little task took on significant efforts to just complete.  Sending and email was no longer launch a new message, write, click and send.  Finding files required navigation through a new finder.  Even figuring out how much battery power was left seemed hard to determine.

One morning, I lost it.  Stress, sleep deprivation and huge deadlines combined with my inability to perform simple business tasks put me into an angry state.  As I stared at the screen, slammed my hands down on the keyboard…several times…hard.

Two hours later, I realized I had not only dented the top of the computer keyboard, I had also warped the disk drive slot that resided below the keyboard.  The Office Mac 2008 was trapped inside.

Fast forward to today.  I have no solution for the damage and realize that I may pay dearly for my anger.  Business tasks on the Mac are becoming more recognizable, but I am far from achieving efficient methodologies.  Was the conversation worth it?  Stay tuned…

Posted by Stephen Nold on April 7, 2008 | Comments (4)