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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

My Wife Is Switching to the Mac: First Update

I've gotten a number of requests for updates about my wife's transition to the Mac, which I outlined in a Connected Home article and here in this blog. I suspect most of you will be happy to hear that the transition has been almost seamless. She loves her new Mac mini, as much as she can any technology, I guess. She's really not into computers.

With that in mind, here's what's happened in the weeks since the switch:

Overall, she just uses it every day and it works. The only semi-major issue she's had per se is that some of her Address Book contacts were mangled during the transition. As time goes by, she's finding more and more mistakes in there, so I'll re-do that for her soon. And since I just got an iMac myself, I'll need to convert my own contacts, so I'll try and settle on a reliable way to do it.

Another, less important issue is that she's already seen the occasional compatibility issue. The only one that kind of bothers her is the Southwest Airlines "DING" software, which provides live updates for low airlines fares. I don't care for Southwest personally, but she just snagged an entire trip to Phoenix for our family for 4 for $500 and now she wants to keep up on this stuff. There's no Mac version.

Within the past few days, I asked her how the Mac mini was doing and she said, "It's a tool. Like a wrench." Her point was that it just works, but I kind of smiled and said, "People aren’t going to like the sound of that." But really, she didn't mean it in a negative way. She really doesn't care about computers (or any technology) but enjoys that it's very quiet, nice looking, and doesn't cause any problems. It does the job, in other words. I don't think she'd say the same for Windows.

I swear to God this one is true. Just this morning she walks in my office, looks at the iMac, and asks, "What the heck is that thing?" Remember that it's been up and running in the office since Monday, and you can see it from the den. Getting over this latest example of her just not caring about computers, I told her it was the new iMac, and she kind of nodded her head, oh yeah, and then started typing on the Apple keyboard, which I'm not a big fan of (I prefer the ergonomic Microsoft models). She asked, "How do I get a keyboard like this?" I assumed she was joking, but she said that her current keyboard (a Dell-labeled Microsoft multimedia keyboard) was too loud. So it's hers. These things are so confusing to me. But I guess that one is a win-win.

Put succinctly, there's not much to say. She's using the Mac daily and liking it, and she hasn't had any major issues per se, other than the contacts stuff, which was arguably my fault anyway.

[ Posted at 4:11 PM | Permalink ]