Friday, July 17, 2009
I’ve had it. And you won’t believe what I’ve “had it” with!
I’ve been a PC guy for literally 25 years. Cut me and I bleed Windows. Staunch the flow with a Ctrl-Alt-Delete styptic salute.
My hot Dell workstation, originally optimized for photo editing isn’t so hot. It’s had just about every moving part replaced, some multiple times and when each and every part is working, it doesn’t work for very long. Every so often it seems to get tired and stop to rest. Sometimes it’s for a few seconds … enough that if you’re typing a sentence, a few words in the middle never reach the keyboard’s escape velocity. Sometimes it’s for a dozen minutes or more … during which nothing gets done and “System Idle” consumes the entire machine.
Talking with a PC friend who’s switched to a Mac, he said, “Maybe you like fiddling with the registry. Possibly you enjoy spending several hours each week on system administration. It could be you feel incomplete unless you’ve re-imaged your PC in the last 6 months. But if not, maybe you’d like a Mac that ‘just works’ instead.” He went on to say, “When my daughter at college had a PC laptop, we’d talk by phone every week to fix its latest glitch. I realized she hadn’t called for like seven months. Feeling a little left out and fearing a serious boyfriend, I called her and learned she’d bought a Mac laptop. She hadn’t called because nothing had gone wrong. She was silent on the boyfriend concern.”
I am a victim of ‘Death by a Thousand Cuts,’ and Tier 1, 2, and 3 Support at Dell do not know what to do. My fear is that there are so many hardware devices, software applications, OS Versions that the number of permutations is impossibly large … too large to be tested and certified by mere mortals. My fear – they not only don’t know what to do – there is nothing to do that will work.
Time to simplify!
I’m taking the plunge. I ordered a Mac Pro today from Apple’s website. My technology life is literally flashing before my eyes.
I sure hope the “I’m a Mac and I’m a PC” ads are right.
Break out the Kool-Aid; the journey begins!
Posted by Digital Quixote in
• PC to Mac
(7) Comments •
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This is all very perplexing. When I knew DQ back in the day, he was a main frame sorta guy, cutting his teeth on Cobal, Fortran, and 12 inch data discs.
on 07/29 at 03:58 PM -
I recall the hours spent in the GU computer center, flipping key punch cards on some basic as dirt program that played checkers, albeit I think the computer only won when it cheated.
on 07/29 at 03:59 PM -
There was the day DQ came to the dorm in a purpley-blue funk the I was sure must be related to girl friend number*. Turns out, DQ was on one of his jaunty trips across campus and tripped, feet over head.
on 07/29 at 04:00 PM -
Put in your mind’s eye a tall slim-built young man carrying an arm-full of books and the ever-present, slim-line box of punch cards.
on 07/29 at 04:01 PM -
In the midst of aerial ballet, said box-o-cards comes loose from the DQ and now unbridled computer cards become like so many leaves in the wind.
on 07/29 at 04:01 PM -
Did I mention that the cards are required to be in a certain order to work? Refreshing to see the world hasn’t changed for DQ, no matter what digital generation.
on 07/29 at 04:01 PM -
BTW. The 250 word limit is a hurdle, but not a wall to wordy sots like me.
on 07/29 at 04:03 PM
