A Lawyer's Mistakes about a Mac

You know, the one thing that I don't like is that most people who "switch back" to PC really don't want to change and in nearly every case that I've come across, they want the Mac to act like a PC and have not: taken the time to learn, ask the right questions or are willing to pay to learn how to get the same productivity out of a Mac that they do on a PC.

In reading Larry Bodine's article Commentary: Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree about his hard time with his Mac it really makes you wonder. So I'll go through his commentary point by point to answer what "short comings" he came up with and some of the answers to his problems.

1. I realized it was time to unload the silvery box of frustration when I had to buy a "Dummies" book on how to operate it. I'm smart; I shouldn't need this. Aren't Macs supposed to be intuitive and easy to learn? My mistake. OK, I don't care how much you know, but when you switch to something new there is ALWAYS a learning curve of some sort. Most people who switch to a Mac take between 2-4 months of getting used to it before they exclaim "I've got it now" and take off. Larry bought it May 2006 and was right at the launching off point but decided to quit.

2. I pretended that I liked the one button mouse. I quickly started using click + command keys (and other keyboard shortcuts). I really missed the little scrolling wheel in the center of the mouse. Uh, Larry, you should have had a two button mouse with your Mac called a Mighty Mouse since the mouse was introduced Aug 2005! If you have a Mighty Mouse and take a look under System Preferences > Keyboard/Mouse you'll see that there is are FOUR buttons to choose from, not just the one and has 360 degrees of scrolling, up and down, left and right.

3. What drove me nuts was that I would open Word for Mac and couldn't delete files while I was in Word. There is no File | Delete option. So the documents took up space on my hard drive, until someone told me I had to find the document in Finder and then move it into the trash from there. This seemed stupid to me; I just wanted to highlight a file and tap "delete." Ok, so there is no File > Delete in Mac's Word. You got me there. I don't have any answer at the moment. But one thing is for sure, these documents will not take up space on your hard drive unless you leave them there. Deleting files when you're in the Finder is no different than being at My Computer's C: drive.

4. Word files transferred from the Mac were missing pictures. PowerPoint files transferred from the Mac would lose their formatting. PCs and Macs are not compatible, regardless of what they say. While everything would be nice that things would be that easy, but programs and OSes are getting so big that there are problems, both with Mac, Windows, AND Linux. I'll have to check this one out myself and get back to you.

5. Doing a simple screen capture was an immense chore. On a PC you just press Alt and tap PrtScr. With the Mac I had to download and launch special programs to accomplish this simple task. Uh, no you didn't! Since the beginning of the Mac, using the Shift + Cmd + 3 key you're able to take a picture of your Macs screen. Or, under Applications > Utilities there is a program called Grab that does what you want to do with LOTS of differing options than a simple Alt + PrtScr keystrokes. So you were not aware of this, but if you find under the Finder the Help menu and typed in Print Screen in the search box you would have found a special help document called "What's it called on my Mac" describing all of the differences between your Mac and Windows. If you do screen capturing frequently, then put the app (drag and drop the app icon) onto the dock and with one click you launch the app. If you read up on "short cuts" under the Help menu you'll find a ton of ways to doing more with less keystrokes.

6. I didn't even bother with the Mac's iCal or Mail, which required me to buy an @mac.com address. Instead, I went straight to Outlook for Mac. A lot of the software for Mac -- such as AOL for Mac OS X -- was dumbed down and missing may features of the current PC versions. Ok, here's where you were told wrong information, you are not required to buy a .Mac account for calendar or Mail, but you are unclear what you needed to do here. Are you sharing your calendars with others? Again, you are NOT required to buy .Mac for your Mac. True, some of the software may be as you say "dumb down" compared with a Mac, but then again, this is a part of the Widows marketshare. But it is not about "dumbing down" the software, but more appropriately Mac software that is a "remake" of Windows software may have "less features and bells and whistles" than Mac software, so it is not "dumbed down" by any means. But remember, there are normally equivilents of the more robust Windows software for the Mac. Check out versiontracker.com to see what's available.

7. I run several Web sites, all optimized for IE 5.5 or higher. I couldn't operate my own Web sites with the Mac. Here's the number one problem of PC users do NOT get: Microsoft purposely creates it's OWN standards for web sites using it's OWN technology and therefore it "is optimized" for Windows!! If you were to go to the World Wide Web Consutium and read this "The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) develops interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools) to lead the Web to its full potential. W3C is a forum for information, commerce, communication, and collective understanding" you'd find WHY MS stuff doen't work well with Safari, Firefox and others. If you'd follow W3C standards for your web site, you'd reduce your problems considerably and EVERYONE would be able to see your site, not just Windows users.

8. As a consumer, you have every right to choose what you want to use, but one thing that I tell everyone is that you can give feedback to Apple concerning their products just as you can give feedback to Microsoft concerning their products. Don't just complain online, write the companies and tell them what you think.

9. Then the hard drive croaked on me after only three months of owning the machine. I couldn't tell what was going wrong and had to hire someone for $125 an hour to come over and tell me what the heck was happening. Apple replaced it for free, but I became leery of what other hardware would fail unexpectedly. Well, this is nothing new, and it's not an Apple thing, it's a hard drive thing probably. Regarding the $125 an hour you spent to troubleshoot your Mac, you would have been in the same boat in your PC troubleshooting the problem. Or, you could have taken the time to make an appointment for FREE at your local Apple store and found this out. And by the way, ALL computer hardware will fail at some point. While I agree with you that "it's not fun" having to deal with broken equipment you just bought, more PCs have problems than Macs do and while you're getting a "cheap deal" on the new PC, you pay through the nose in upkeep costs, viruses, and the like.

Thanks Larry for the chance to show some positive light to your "bad" experiences.

I run Windows, Mac, and Linux at home, so I understand your comments for sure.