sad mac

For Mother’s Day, Husband surprised me (I mean REALLY surprised me) with a MacBook.  I had my prior PC laptop for a good 5 years and the screen had started to diminish, it was getting slow and even after Hubs put in more memory in it two years ago, I was at the memory breaking point with my music collection and pictures.  So it was time.  However, wow!  A Mac, I haven’t been cool like this for years!  [insert happy dance here]

Yeah, it took me about an hour after turning it on that yep; this was going to be trouble.  It is NO SMALL TASK to change your PC ways to a Mac.  I don’t care how cute this thing is or how easy the switch says it’s gonna be on their site.  It hasn’t been a breeze and my Husband is a professional.  I was hoping he would just spend the evening switching all my programs over, resetting my settings and hooking up all our peripheries.  Well, it’s been two weeks since Mother’s Day and I still don’t have everything up and running.  Ugh.

Here are all the things that are bugging me:

1. Okay, I can get over the command key vs. alt key switcheroo.  Like riding a bike, it will come back to me.  But still it bugs me because I’m grumpy about this whole Mac thing.
2. iTunes transition WAS NOT EASY!  You would think that an Apple product on a PC would be a swift transition to a MacBook.  Nope.  In fact it duplicated and even triplicate some of my playlists.  I had to go to the Genius Bar (which was GREAT by the way) to get it all sorted out.  Thinking that I had lost some of my music almost gave me a heart attack.
3. I had to install and transition data files for family finances with Quicken.  And now instead of saying Family Finances it has Husband’s name on it, which is little, but it still bugs me.  AND I had to purchase the Mac software version even though I had recently upgraded to the 2010 edition.  Grrr.
4. I needed to purchase the Microsoft Office suite because I use a Blackberry (not cool enough or rich enough for an iPhone data plan) and evidently I need Entourage (equivalent to Outlook) to sync.  Yeah, still working on that one.  Calendar entries doubled, I have about 5 of everyone in contacts and note info has dropped off.  This has been a royal pain in the ass and I’m still deleting files and haven’t synced my phone yet.  Patience young Jedi.  I know…I know.
5. Our wireless is not the newest fandangled box so it runs slower with my high speed computer.  And the pain in the ass it was to download printer software and reset all my settings got under my skin.  I want a magic wand or to wiggle my nose please.

If ever you decide to make the switch from PC to a Mac, I can’t express enough to buy your computer through the retailer and do the OneToOne (only available if you by through Apple Store or online).  Let them handle all the file conversions.  So what if it is $100, your time is worth so much more than that!  And you’ll be saved from the weeks of hair pulling and growling at your kind and gift-giving husband.  (Husband wisely thought to get the MacBook through a discount retailer, but looking back that was a bad decision.)

So once I can sync my phone I know I’ll be satisfied with my pretty little white computer and I’ll be cool again.  Until then I have a sad Mac face.  Whaaaaa!  Mommy needs a drink.  Cheers friends.