From desktop to laptop, MS to Mac
November 15th, 2005 by Bill
I’ve been preoccupied the last day or so. My Powerbook arrived so I’m getting use to using an Apple product. And this is a laptop, recplacing my old Toshiba Wndows laptop (which actually replaced itself about a year ago). Excluding my work computer (an ancient, pre-WW II Dell), I’ve been using my desktop PC.
Isn’t this a riviting post? (This may be one of those tedious posts male bloggers make - this was discussed recently on Neil’s blog.)
So here’s where I am. I’ve always hated laptop keyboards. I’m an inept typist so I need a separate keyboard - something where my hands can’t keep hitting things like the trackpad. But I am getting better at it.
The biggest thing I notice about the Powerbook (a 15″ screen) is the squinting. Since personal computers came into the world, there has been a relentless evolution for smaller and smaller text, smaller and smaller icons as people work to get as much as is humanly possible onto those monitor screens. Unfortunately, during the same period my eyesight has been steadily deteriorating.
End result? I’m damn near blind and squinting like Mr. Magoo as I work on this thing.
But I’ll adjust.
The other thing I notice, which I had been sort of aware of, the people who love Apple products are designers - visually oriented people (though what they use for eyes, I’ve no idea). I,on the other hand, am a writer. In my quest for meaning, I look for words. Images just look pretty to me. They don’t suggest function.
Hence, while I’m on the phone to the Apple guy yesterday asking about transferring music files from a PC to a Mac for my iPod, I say to him, “Oh, by the way. I was looking for the serial number and it says here to go to the Apple menu. But I can’t see an Apple menu anywhere.”
“It’s the apple in the upper left corner.”
“Oh. I just thought that was a nice image you liked to put on the computers. A brand thing. So, that’s functional. Interesting. You know, you might want to toss a word or two in there explaining that’s what it is.”
“Apple people know what it means!”
Ok … so he wasn’t really testy. I was. Still, it would hurt to actually put a word there that says “menu?”
Anyway … my music’s in the machine. My iPod has made the adjustment. And slowly I am to.
Tag: iPod, Powerbook, Apple, How to become an idiot
