Monday, May 16, 2011
Switching from Windows to MAC
As far as I can see... switching from Windows to Mac involves 1.) differences in key combinations ... the ctrl key becomes on the Mac a key with an APPLE logo on it, so ctrl-C ctrl-V for copy and paste become Apple-C Apple-V .... and to force close a program rather than bringing up the task manager with alt-ctrl-del you click Apple-options-Esc (or is it Apple-ctrl-esc) .. but anyway you may GOOGLE SEARCH and ask how to do something on a mac and it will tell you. Next, realize that whatever you do in a browser in the "cloud" will be the same. Facebook will be the same, and Google, and Gmail. Many of the applications you use will be on the Mac such as Excel, Word, etc. One cool thing about Mac is the FINDER... e.g. suppose you want to change some configuration in Airport Extreme ... or lets say you want your Chrome browser.. you simply key what you want into FINDER and it brings it up for you and launches it.. you do not have to crawl to some folder hidden in Programs.... You do not deal with a pesky thing like the Registry... When you download a program for installation you simply drag it to the Programs folder. To UNINSTALL a program you simply DELETE it from the Programs folder. Supposedly you do not need an anti-virus on the Mac. I installed the free Sophos antivirus. I did use the Safari browser to search something and it automatically launched a program which said I should give it permission to do all sorts of wonderful things to my Mac (with no option to decline) so I did the Apple-option-esc forced shutdown thing (which is what I do on Windows with the task manager) ... There is a backup drive which will do a real time backup.... and if you lose something important (or minor) you may restore to some previous state and there will be no need to reinstall programs....
There are various reasons to go with Windows, MAC, and Linux. If you want reliability and quality for free then you go with Linux which is open source (Windows and MAC are proprietary). Windows XP (which is no longer supported) was one of the most stable versions of Windows but Vista was an abortion. Windows 7 is much better than Vista. All computers are now 64 bit as opposed to the old 32 bit. Windows 7 maintains a Programs folder for 64 bit apps and a Programs_86 for 32 bit legacy apps. There are problems uninstalling programs which is why there is a $40 third party program that DOES uninstall Windows 7 programs... which kind of sucks. Apple MAC is more expensive and very proprietary but offers better dependability and support. I suspect that there is something Linux like underlying MAC because there is a TERMINAL program (which you launch by going into FINDER and keying TERMINAL) and from TERMINAL you enter very linux like commands which include the VI or VIM text editor. Perhaps I am mistaken. IF you depend upon something like Intuit Quicken or Quickbooks then you may have problems getting the same thing on MAC. You may have to use something which lets you REBOOT the mac into a Windows mode, which is inconvenient. Of course if you can afford a Mac Book Pro and have a genuine need for it then you will enjoy a light notebook which give 8 hours of battery life. I have had a a 6 year old Mac Book for all of 2 weeks so I am hardly an authority. But you may google up tons of articles on Mac.
