Friday, July 08, 2011

My MacBook Pro

On Monday evening I was working on my 4.5 year old Toshiba PC laptop when Hypatia ran by my feet, got tangled in the power cord and started yelping away. I untangled her and didn't think much more about the incident.

On Tuesday evening, I was working on my 4.5 year old Toshiba PC when I noticed the battery icon was lit up. I checked the power connections at several points, jiggled some wires and told Dave I had a power problem. Dave promptly checked several power connections, jiggled some wires and told me I'd better shut down the computer until I had a chance to back up any urgent files onto our 1TB external drive. I finally got a chance to do that tonight. The old Toshiba went into critical hibernation to conserve its last remaining bit of battery power just as I was finishing up my file transfers.

On Wednesday evening, I picked up a new computer on the way home from work. The vast majority of my personal and professional computing experience has been on PCs, but I used Macs for some courses at the University of Manitoba and the University of Iowa. Joshua switched to a Mac last Christmas, and Dave and I had talked about making the switch the next time we replaced our laptops. Now, I've gone and done it. I have an Apple iPod, an Apple iPhone, and now an Apple MacBook Pro. Joshua has an iPod, an iPhone and a MacBook. Dave has an iPod and an iPad. When the time comes for him to surrender his employer-provided Blackberry for a personal cell phone, he'll probably buy an iPhone. And when the time comes to replace his PC laptop (which isn't too old - he burned through 4 during the time I was using the Toshiba), he'll probably buy a Mac.

It's going to take me awhile to get used to the Apple OS, and I sort of miss my Toshiba - it's like an old, familiar friend - but I don't have any choice about it now. I just hope I'm not too old to learn some new tricks.

3 comments:

Dotti said...

I can commiserate! I spent 2 days of my 3-day weekend last weekend installing a new desktop system. I saw the demise of my 7-year old desktop coming so I was able to back up crucial files on my EHD's, photos were already backed up (of course!). I have a laptop but it's just not as comfortable for me as the desktop, particularly when it comes to editing photos, very difficult to view the photos. But we couldn't do without them, could we? Never gave MAC a thought, I'm a confirmed PC gal.

Barbara said...

Everyone I know who has a MAC loves it and would never go back to a PC. Like you, I'm too scared to make that leap.

Christian said...

My Dell laptop is approaching 4 years and I am beginning to think its on its last legs. I have always said I want a Mac. I will be curious to know how you like yours.