Yesterday, I wrote about why I made the switch from PCs to Macs, early in my solo law practice’s existence. Of course, the post apparently vanished into thin air, which is troubling, but hopefully this one won’t. (Just to be on the safe side, until I figure out what’s going on, I’m composing all posts in MarsEdit, and saving a copy in TextEdit. Can’t be too careful.)
Today’s post explores my experience switching to the Mac environment, as a life-long Windows user.
Out of the Box – No Kidding
It’s almost a cliche by now — “Macs work right out of the box” — but it’s worth taking a moment to look at this assertion a bit more closely.
What does it mean to work right out of the box? To me, it meant no tweaking. No fiddling. No additional purchases necessary. It meant that the machine, once set up on the desk and plugged in, would let me do stuff. It meant:
- Step One: Plug in.
- Step Two: Do stuff.
Now, to be honest, this assertion always struck me as an odd one prior to that fateful first purchase.
After all, Windows machines work “out of the box” too. Plug in, start up, and you can write in the stripped down version of Works that ships standard with most machines.
You can set up a mail account using the stripped down version of Outlook that ships standard with most machines.
You can web chat … oh, wait. No, not without an additional webcam.
OK, but you can listen to music … nope, have to install iTunes or some other application for that, usually.
OK, so perhaps it’s not such an odd statement, after all.
The Machine Arrives
I’d selected an iMac 20″ model for my first Mac experience. Despite having pondered the decision — “go to Mac? Or stay with PCs?” — for literally years (three, to be exact, from the date it had first crossed my mind as a serious notion), I’d spent precious little time selecting the specific model.
I knew I wanted a desktop, initially, as I already had a PC laptop that I’d have to be stuck with for awhile longer, and frankly didn’t see any real business need for my work purposes at the time, not being a heavy litigator.
So, that left me either the iMac or the Mac Mini with an additional monitor, and I selected the iMac, I admit, because it was pretty. (There’s that aesthetic again!)
I picked the 20″ model because the 24″ model seemed a bit like overkill. Then, too, I had a 19″ flat screen Acer monitor I intended to pair with the machine, and was worried about desktop real estate being able to accommodate both adequately.
The purchase on the Apple website was so easy as to make writing about it useless. The shipping was mind-bogglingly fast. When it did arrive, I carted the box into the office, opened it carefully, and slid out all the protective packing.
I plugged it in — marveling at the all-in-one form factor, wondering where in the name of Bill Gates the CD-ROM drive was … ah, there, slid flush into the side of the monitor, a single thin notch, and no more.
I started it up, followed the fairly simple instructions to set up a user account, then the even easier instructions to sign on to my wireless network — and there it was, the infamous OS X desktop, with the strange looking dock where the taskbar used to be.
Brave new world!
Navigating Mac-Land
The differences between the machines and the operating systems’ environments are in some cases profound, but in many cases more slight.
I missed the page up and page down functions that moved the cursor as well as the screen; and the home and end as well. The function keys were a bit different; there were two delete keys but no backspace key!
Then there was the biggest difference of all, to my mind: the installation of software. Here was a difference that took some getting used to — but not for the reasons you might think.
It took quite awhile to get used to the simplicity of this process. Rather than downloading a cumbersome installation zip or .exe file and letting it walk through the installation process at a snail’s pace, I simply saved a file to the desktop, double clicked, and dragged the resulting icon into the Applications folder. Every step in that incredibly simple drag and drop process took less than 5 seconds – in some cases, it was instantaneous.
Using the Dock to launch applications ended up taking no time at all to get used to. In fact, when I had to use the laptop for something or other — one of the ever-decreasing number of tasks that I hadn’t moved over to the Mac — I found myself grumbling mightily at that cursed Start button.
Applications for the Mac
Finding the right programs for my needs turned out to be an embarrassment of riches — in all but one notable area. With the freely available (although sluggish and bloated) NeoOffice, word processing needs were met adequately — until iWork ’08 came out with the amazing Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, putting my fond recollections of Office to rest, all for the relatively low cost of $79. (Seriously, that’s one fine suite of apps right there — but more on that in another post.)
Mail and calendar needs were met quite nicely by the creatively named Mail and iCal applications, both of which are part and parcel of OS X, together with the robust Address Book.
From there, it was an entertaining ride through incredibly intuitive, smooth, and function-packed programs such as Circus Ponies’ Notebook (for all manner of tasks, such as outlining, note-taking, web-clipping, project — or case — management, and document management), Scrivener (for any writing project, creative or otherwise), and Journler (for quick notetaking, bookmarking, and even implementation of GTD principles) — just to name a very few.
Then there was the whole Windows-on-Mac-machines experience. With the addition of Parallels (in my case) and a fresh copy of Windows XP (I’m still not talking to Vista), all those “gotta run on Windows” applications for which I’d hung on to the PC laptop could be run on my iMac. With my dual monitor setup, I could have Best Case running in Windows on the left screen, and my client’s financial information in PDF on the right running in Preview (an amazing Mac app that’s worth a post of its own, frankly).
The Computing Experience on a Mac
Apples and oranges. Actually, more like apples and Porsches. They just don’t compare. With the Mac, I can count on one hand the number of freeze-ups I’ve encountered in the year-plus it’s been sitting on my desk.
While every now and again I do have to force-quit an application, I can say honestly it’s a much more rare occurrence than it ever was in Windows. The knowledge that virus and spyware infections are so much more unlikely as to be almost unheard-of in Mac — well, that’s a special feeling, let me tell you, especially after the last time I had to sweep and quarantine a PC hard drive of malware.
Not All Peaches and Cream
Is it a perfect machine? No, of course not. Nor is Microsoft some corporate devil, and Windows isn’t a worthless piece of crap, no matter what some may insist.
What the Mac machine is, however, is useful — incredibly useful, and incredibly reliable: two things a lawyer needs in abundance, especially a truly solo lawyer who must depend on creativity and technology to make up for a lack of support staff.
It’s not an improved version of Windows, either, and for that reason some switchers may have a difficult time learning the new environment and how to navigate the vastly different “structure.”
It really should be approached as a completely different experience, which is what it is. There are an overwhelming number of resources — books and websites both — to help the newcomer learn his or her way around the Mac desktop. We’ll be exploring some of those later in the week.
Perhaps the biggest problem for lawyers is the lack of Mac versions of the big players in case management software. There is no Time Matters for Mac, no Amicus Small Firm for Mac.
But there are other options, if you’re willing to think outside the box a bit and get back to the real needs behind CM/CRM applications, and not just the familiar terminology of those dedicated law office suites (many of which I’ve found too much “program” for a solo’s use, in any event — but of course your mileage may vary). (That’s another topic we’ll be exploring in a later post this week.)
What do I want you to know about my experience switching to Macs?
- It did nothing short of revolutionize the way I look at and use computers.
- It was challenging to make my brain start at square one again, so to speak, with a computer. But ….
- I had lots of help in the form of blogs, websites, mailing lists, and very good books.
- Most of all: I’m not sorry, not one bit. I’m only sorry I didn’t do it sooner.
I think that’s about the best recommendation I can make for any product shift.
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