Monday, April 18, 2011

Full Timer Conversion to Mac Underway

I have been grumbling about MicroSuck and PC's for the last few years and kept wondering what kind of limitations a full time move to the world of Mac would impose.  The idea was to fully convert without creating a drive for a PC-like environment on the Mac.  

Now that tax day is behind us (that was my mental to-do before being able to 'play' with the Mac), it is time to fully embrace change!  Unlike the government promises of Hope and Change (or the myriad of other promises by either party - after all I am an equal opportunity indie launcher of criticisms), this is going to be real change (and still some hoping that data is not lost or mis-placed).  By my calcs, this still puts me way ahead of any bureaucratic entity that calls itself 'government'.

back to my converting....Microsuck slowly started to corrupt applications one by one.  It started with QuickBooks - so all of the financial data that we had been tracking diligently for taxes was subsequently lost. Not only was QuickBooks corrupted, but so were our data files.  Next on the hit list was HP Document Mgr....next was iTunes...and OHHH that hurt!  Fortunately the music files were still intact, but unfortunately the libraries and folders that we built for playlists were 'gonners'.  The tickie tockie of the clock was at volume 11 (Spinal Tap theft) while we tried to get our taxes completed before TurboTax was impacted.  Fortunately we were able to cross the finish line with our taxes submitted - it was close as the PC did have a few blue screen moments!

The craziness is that this desktop is about 18 months old so apparently shelf life for PC's is limited - mostly due to SW issues (thank you MicroSuck).  

We bought a Mac-mini and I ordered a memory upgrade on-line via a 3rd party and subsequently saved myself about $150 compared to if that would have been ordered via Apple.  The memory upgrade was very very easy and took no more than about 3 minutes.  Me thinks I have transferred most of the data over to the Mac but there are a couple of gaps I am trying to figure out (most notably GPS and workout data from rides).  

I am curious to see the impact on my professional life...all of my work is usually done via PC apps so it is a bridge yet to be crossed.

Once everything is done, it will be time to figure out what to do with the old desktop that is exponentially larger than the mini mac - Apple surely does not how to make their product sassy and ergonomic!  More to come but for now, it is time to think about how to retire the desktop anchor...maybe a file server...maybe just a rebuild with a new OS like UNIX?  hmmm....will have to noodle on it...

okay, now I feel better...btw - did I mention I am not impressed with MicroSuck?

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