February 11, 2006 --- The day John switched to a Mac.

For anyone who hasn’t heard, I made the switch to a Mac a few weeks back. Funny, I only have one sentence in and I know that most everyone who knows me is saying, “wha..????” Well, it has been something I have thought about doing for some time. Actually, back in college, I almost switched to one of the original PowerPC Powerbooks. What stopped me though, was the fact that there were too many things I did in Windows and the lack of a good PC emulator for the Mac. When my cousin, Bob picked up an iMac in November, that was when I really started thinking about switching again.

You see, over the past few years, with the birth of Emma and TJ, photo and video editing is becoming more near and dear to my heart, and though I have had some success doing these things on the PC, almost no one would argue that the Mac is the better way to go by far. I wasn’t satisfied with editing videos on the PC. Everything seemed clunky and what I thought should be the easiest things to do, were often the most tedious. Every time I would get frustrated, I wished I had a Mac to work with. It was always a dream that quickly disappeared into the jumbled mess inside my head, until that day in November, when Bob called and said he ordered an iMac. Now, my mind recalled that dream I have had for the past 10 years, only this time, it wasn’t going away.

Over the next couple of months, I spoke to Bob frequently and asked him how he liked the switch. Now, my dream could have been quickly pushed deep back in to my head if Bob’s experience was bad, but it wasn’t. He said that it was the best computing move that he has ever made. He loved it and would never go back. I still had the reservations that I had had back in college though. Things like, how am I going to play games, can I connect a Mac to Active Directory to access shared data on our home network kept popping in to my mind.

Don’t worry about that last sentence, I am not going to get all technical now. You can keep reading.

For another month, I went over things in my head on the subject of switching to a Mac. Finally, I came to the conclusion that I could get a MacMini and run both my PC and Mac simultaneously. That was it. I talked to Melinda about it and I will spare you all the details of the conversation. Suffice it to say that she thought I was crazy, but since I had a birthday coming up, she decided that I could have a Mac for my birthday. Just like that, I was off to CompUSA.

Well, I shall skip the whole purchasing experience in the interest of time, but I reserve the right to tell that story at some point. Anyway, here I am, writing this with my Mac. I have not really edited much video yet, but I have made a few slide shows that I have burned to DVD and sent to my mom. You can also check out TJ’s crawling video. That link is right below this blog entry. Am I happy with my Mac, you ask? To that I answer, yes, extremely happy! It is the best computer I have ever owned. I love the experience so much that I have already talked a coworker into switching. By the way, she loves it too. I will say this though, I still have my PC up and running beside me. I can’t do everything on my Mac just yet, but that day is coming.

Oh yeah, one last thing. My wife did get something out of this whole deal. She is covered for my birthday, Valentines Day and Father’s day. Also, I am not allowed to have any tech things for a while (1 year) and I owe her the next time there is something she wants. You know, the "item to be named later. She has already given me a few hints. Though not getting any new technology for a year will be tough, this was a fair trade.