Switcher Story

I finally wrote up my story. It's a memorable story for me. Years later I'll look back and see how my life changed because of a little Mac mini.

How I found out about the Mac

In Hong Kong, very few people use Macs. (It's more or less the same in the whole world, of course.) I didn't even know what Macs are. It all started with iTunes I guess. A year ago, I somehow saw iTunes and downloaded it. Then I learned about the iPod and immediately loved it. These was the first times I knew what Apple is. (And now Apple is commonly known as "the iPod company".)

Those times I liked to look around on some websites like WinCustomize.com, and I found some WindowBlinds themes that look like the beautiful Mac OS X. So I used them and made the Windows OS look like the Mac as much as possible. I had ObjectDock too, which works like the dock in Mac OS X. I spent much time playing with these apps. Actually, earlier I didn't know what Mac OS X means. But later I finally found out. And I found out that you have to buy an expensive computer from Apple to use the genuine OS. And this means completely different software too.

Why I wanted to have a Mac

Windows is just very bad. I think everyone knows about it and I don't have to spend time writing about it. And I read so many people saying the Mac OS X is good. I looked at the new Tiger features on Apple's website. I like Dashboard, Spotlight, Safari RSS, iPhoto (for transferring photos to the iPod)... All these apps seemed so good. So I made up my mind. I wanted to have a Mac.

My ideal Mac

Then the Mac mini was released. It was just ideal to me. Like Apple says, it's affordable. I can plug my old CRT display to it. Thought I can't plug the keyboard and mouse because they aren't USB. So I bought the expensive Apple keyboard and mouse too, because they are beautiful. (I regret about it sometimes. I think about what else I could buy with the money saved if I bought some cheap keyboard and mouse. But then I think about when people say they're beautiful and ask where are the buttons of the mouse? These are proud moments.)

Ordering

It was not easy to convince my parents to buy a new computer to me. I told them how good the Mac mini is all day. How small it is. I showed them the Mac mini page on Apple.com. One big PC is the size of at least 20 Mac minis (at least this is what I think. I never tried to measure it.) And they knew nothing about Macs. (Probably they still know nothing.)

At first my mum wanted me to get good results for exams before they buy the Mac. My results turned out not as good as she expected. She wasn't quite happy about it. Then I turned to my dad. He doesn't care much about my studies. He cares more about money I think. It was very hard to make him pay. But I succeeded after some time. So finally I ordered my Mac mini on the Apple store online. I added some more RAM to it because it was recommended by everyone. Along with the keyboard and mouse, the total was near $5000. Not a small sum, but just think about what I've got in return.

Waiting

I had some tough time waiting for it. I checked email every day for many times to look for a shipping message from the store. I checked the store itself every day. It took a longer time then it said in the shopping cart before I ordered it. I was desperately waiting and treasuring the last days using Windows (lol). I even restored the Windows OS.

During the waiting time I thought about buying a USB hub, because the Mac mini only has two. I didn't know the Apple keyboard has two. It was lucky that I didn't buy one. I never need it. I plug the keyboard to one of the ports, and the mouse to a port behind the keyboard. I connect my iPod through Firewire. There is usually one USB port left which is used when I have to print or transfer photos from my camera.

Arrived

In the afternoon on 23rd May, 2005 it arrived. I was still at school then. My mum got all the things and she didn't unpack them! Very good, because I wanted to unpack my very first thing from Apple myself. I was so excited that I didn't find the time to take photos of the unpacking. I set up the Mac to run very quickly. All things were satisfactory. It made me love Apple very much. All things are simple and easy.

The next day I borrowed my friend's iPod to transfer files from my old PC. (I didn't have an iPod then.) It was done pretty quickly. Great.

Exploring the Mac

The first few things I did after I had the Mac working for me was launching some apps. I don't remember which first, but iTunes was definitely one of the first ones, because it was an app that I already knew and loved in Windows. Then there was Safari, a beautiful browser, with RSS reader. I looked at Dashboard, played with the widgets, and downloaded a few new ones. I looked at the Finder too. I felt uncomfortable that there is no address bar like the Windows Explorer. But I have got over that by now. I checked out Mail, iPhoto, iCal, Address Book, TextEdit, the iWork suite, the iLife suite... And System Preferences too. It was all so good.

And then I downloaded MSN Messenger. It was probably the first app I downloaded to my Mac. A shame that it's from Microsoft. But I'm not using it now anyway. And soon there were a ton of new apps downloaded for my Mac. I think I didn't know I had to drag the app from the disc image to the apps folder. But I learned soon enough.

Becoming a real Mac user

Mac people are quite different from Windows people. I've learned to do things "the Mac way". I have got used to the differences between Mac and Windows. I've got used to a one button mouse.

Now I can crash a PC in minutes. Not a useful skill, but a funny one. And I can't use a mouse with more than one button. I would click on the other button accidentally.

I love Mac and would proudly say I'm a Mac geek. I don't think I'll ever go back to "the dark side".