Commentary

Vista, Round 2

Wow! I seem to have struck a nerve. 6 comments off of one post is awesome! I'd like to respond briefly to my previous post and the responses I got regarding Vista and Windows 2007. Yes, I got the vocabulary mixed and complained about Vista when actually Word 2007 was giving my such trouble. Honestly, I don't see too much of a difference in Vista itself, but I also don't see the point of all the "great new features" they brag about. I have no desire to record TV on my laptop. If I miss a TV program, it's not the end of my world; all I wanna do is do research and type papers.

Anyway...Thomas Hicks, my track pad does that too and it drives me up the wall! Sometimes I'm not even looking at my screen while I do my Toasted Cheese exercises so that I don't distract myself trying to edit as I go, so I have to cut and paste things all over the place to make sense afterward.

And finally to the couple of you who suggested I get a Mac...believe me, I'd love to...if only they weren't twice as expensive as a PC. Until I graduate and get a real job with a real paycheck, that's kinda not in the cards.

Thanks to all for the feedback, I really enjoy hearing what people think about what I think. :)

1 comment about "Vista, Round 2".
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  1. Lynn Thompson from Thompson Writing & Editing, Inc., December 15, 2008 at 10:46 a.m.

    Tread very carefully if you decide to get a Mac; I did so after being a PC user for many years, and have had an absolutely horrible experience. The staff in the store here tend to be very snarky and unhelpful. I know someone else who got rid of an iPhone for exactly the same reason. And the people you call for support tend not to know much about the things you'll want to know as a writer. I've stumbled upon things just by poking around that I'd specifically asked more than one of them about, and they didn't know how to do them and acted like nobody there had ever thought that someone may want to hit a key that would take them to the end of the line they're typing after they've arrowed back to correct something. And they're closed on holidays, which is likely when you'll have a little time to play around with the thing and try to learn something new.

    Macs were designed for graphics people, who love them. But writers are more word people, and you'll find that things you could do in a couple of keystrokes in Word will require a good hour of your time and a call or two to the Mac support people before you can get them done on a Mac. Their Help files are written from a programmer's point of view, not from a user's, and especially not from a PC-minded user; they never call anything what you call it, so it's impossible to search in Help and find anything when you need it. You'll end up finding work-arounds that are more trouble on the Mac than they were on a PC. Plus, if you're using their suite of office software in place of Microsoft's, you'll have to "export" all your files to a Microsoft format before you send them to anybody else, since most of the world still has PCs. Then you end up with two files for the same document on your computer.

    You'll also have to re-purchase all your software for the Mac. I did this with QuickBooks, only to find that the conversion of my file to the Mac version had erased all my past bank reconciliations. Actually, my VA discovered this when she was catching up my bookkeeping for me, and when she called about it, Intuit admitted that had been a problem with people converting their QB files from PC to Mac. They actually had the audacity to suggest that she pay them to act as intermediary between us in transferring the file so the reconciliations would be there...because of THEIR programming mistake! Oh, and the Mac version of the software negated the discount offer they'd sent me for upgrading to the new 2009 version, so it cost me more than an upgrade to my PC would have cost. Then, of course, there's some software that just hasn't been designed for the Mac yet, so you'll have to learn to do without that, or get a backup PC to use for those programs; I did the latter.

    So it's more than just the initial cost of the Mac that should give you pause before converting. You'll have ongoing higher costs for it, snarky or ignorant tech support people, compatibility issues, and unavailability of software. All in all, you're better off sticking with the PC.

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