Switching to Mac

This MacBook Pro arrived. First time in my life, my primary computer became a Mac.

For decades, there has been this teasing back-and-forth among us PC people and them Mac guys. The verbal jousting and teasing aside, I have always been a secret admirer for Mac. My choice of siding with the WinTel empire was based on a very practical reason: Microsoft Office. All Office software were several versions behind. I needed to get my work done efficiently and therefore would settle for the platform. Truth is, I have always been a Unix guy and the MacOS’s BSD base has always been a lure for me.

How time has changed! I can do my Excel and Outlook on Mac not much differently than Windows. This took care of 90% of the issues. Most other things I do are on the Internet. All I have to switch to is Safari. When I brought up the terminal window and found my fingers still remembering the good old Unix commands, my conversion was completed (emacs!).

First was the getting used to of the Mac keyboard: the “flower” key instead Windows. Pretty much everything I was used to on the Windows side has a Mac equivalent, just that they are slightly different and I would need to Google to find out “how to do xxx on a Mac.”

The built-in “Spaces” was such a delight. I never understood why Windows did not implement virtual desktop. I was using Rooms in the early 90s and have been missing it ever since. The lack of true “delete” key is annoying, so I bought an external keyboard.

Next was the practicing and getting used to of the “gestures”: multiple fingers going this and that way instead of using mouse and buttons that and this way. I got used to two-finger scrolling quite quickly.

Ever since the NeXT days, Steve Jobs insisted making the better computers even at the price of customer needing to change behavior. For some reasons, I hated the transition from Windows 95, to newer versions. For Mac, I was willing to learn new tricks. I felt the new tricks were really better ways, instead of just different ones. This is probably the magic of Apple.

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