Works Like You Do

School started and two out of two times, the video output has not worked with the overhead LCD in the classroom. I decided to copy the files from the Windows to the MAC side and the output works fine. I haven’t had time to work on it but tomorrow I intend to get there early and see if I can’t make it work.

There are two other things I need to check out:

1. How do I set it up for I can access the same Windows partition from Parallels and Bootcamp?

2. How do I set up the access so that I can read and write to the Bootcamp partition from the MAC side? I can see and copy the files but I’d like to set it up so that I can use the MAC side, which has much more disk space available, as an archival area to keep the Bootcamp partition less full.

Answers to these questions will be the next posts.

It had to be done. There was no escaping the fact that I use the PC side more than the MAC side so under the knife it went. Bootcamp has been installed and I’m now working with a MAC on the outside and Windows on the inside. It’s a most unsupported configuration but it allows me easy access to the most up to date MS software which is our standard. I can also use Outlook and the Exchange server for sharing calendars and connection to my new Blackberry.

Which OS does it boot into? What do you think…

I needed to get something done this weekend. Fast. Like it was due two weeks ago. Unfortunately it required a PC. Here’s the problem. My PC is broken and I haven’t been making a serious effort to replace it because this forces me to use the MAC and get used to it. I’m really trying to make the change stick. But I had no choice. Really. I borrowed a PC laptop and started working. I couldn’t believe how comfortable it was. Oh, the display wasn’t as nice and the laptop itself seemed rather crude compared tto the MAC but I could find everything I needed in the applications and the keys work just the way I remembered. What’s more, the file manager sorted and worked just right. I was able to complete the task in less time than I expected.

The dark side is that as I sit here now doing another project, I keep thinking about that IBM laptop sitting on the credenza behind me and wonder how long it would take to copy over my data and just start using it from now on.

I usually not change-averse, but this time is proving to be very, very difficult…

I still use one old DOS program. It uses function keys, including F9 and F10. Anyone using Parallels knows that the MAC and Expose use these same keys and no matter what mode you are in, they default to MAC behavior. There are workarounds for Windows, but I couldn;t find anything about DOS. Here’s what I discovered:

You can use these keys but you need to be careful. FN+CMD+F9 and FN+CMD+F10 will do the job but if you take your finger off the FN key first, Windows will respond to the CMD key and display the Windows Start menu, taking you out of the DOS window. If you just hold them down and don’t let go, it works most of the time; but if you are careful, you can get to the point where it’s relatively consistent.

So there is my first tip. For all you Neanderthals like me who insist on using a program that’s 20 years old on a computer that’s brand new, you can do it successfully!

OK. I figured that since it is a MAC, I should be able to use it without reading the manual. I still believe that this works for some people. The problem is that once you’ve grown accustomed to doing things a certain way, in order to learn to do those same things you need some guidance. Mine comes from family and friends who use MACs. Here’s my learning model:

“I can’t do [fill in the blank].”

“Of course you can. Just do [fill in the blank].”

“Why is it so counterintuitive?”

“If you hadn’t learned the hard way on the PC, it would be intuitive.”

And on it goes.

My latest was saving a file. Yes, I can save a file but for a few days the only place I could save it was in the big bucket labeled Documents. I tried the down arrow next to documents but it wouldn’t open up any other folders. Every so often I would go to the Finder and drag documents into the folders I wanted to use. When I mentioned how painful this process is I was told you can click on the down arrow next to the file and that opens up more folders. Imagine that! I thought the arrow next to the file would open up file types or maybe memorized file names. Now I see that if you want to see more folders, you click next to the filename. When I questioned the “intuitiveness” of this arrangement, the response was that since you want to save a file in a folder, the folder expander button should be near the file. It works. I can live with it. I’m not sure I’ll ever think this way.

I have an Apple key on my USB keyboard but it is disquised as a Windows key! I had tried it before but I must not have done it correctly. I can now do simple copy and paste from the generic keyboard. I still haven’t figured out the End and Home buttons but I’m beginning to believe there is an answer.

[Time passes while I search. . . . . . . . .]

I found a couple of interesting things to help mitigate if not resolve the problem. But first, I discovered that the home and end keys on the MAC don’t work like the PC. So it wasn’t just my keyboard, it’s a MAC thing. The first interesting site, Garbage In Garbage Out, offers a small program to change the way the MAC keys work. The second site, is from Random Access, the Micro Center newsletter and offers key shortcuts and a link to the Apple site for their listing of shortcuts. It gave me a way to get to the end of lines and the start of a paragraph and that’s a good start.

I’m not going to categorize this as good or bad because I think it just IS.

I used to put my IBM in hibernate mode every time I shut it down. Whatever I had open would then open up when I started it up and away I went. The MAC allows you to just close the lid and it enters the sleep mode. IBM had this open but it drains the battery where hibernate saves all your settings to disk and then shuts off completely. I’m not so worried about the battery (yet) but the sleep mode doesn’t seem to handle relocation as well as hibernate did. It finds the new network most of the time but in the past two weeks, I’ve had to restart it several times. Everything is slow and some apps don’t want to come up. I try for awhile and then a restart seems to clear out the cobwebs.

As I said, I’m not sure it’s a bad thing but you need to be alert to it. Perhaps the lesson is to shut down whenever possible and you might not even notice this.

On January 4 I got a call that if I could come the next day, I could have some “quality time” with the MAC expert from IT. He could get me all set to go and then I could explain what I needed on the PC side. I figured that sounded like a good idea since I needed some special software for my courses this semester that isn’t available for the MAC.

When I arrived for my appointment, he presented me with a brand new MacBook Pro, loaded with the standard “build” of software. This included the following configuration: 100G of MAC side and 20G of PC side, Parallels for running the Windows software which consisted of IE, MatLab, Autocad and a few utilities. The MAC side had MS Office, the Adobe Creative Suite and a large number of programs that so far are nothing more than cute icons cluttering the bottom of my screen. I explained that I needed a few pieces of Windows software and, while you’re at it, how about putting MS Office on the Windows side as well so I can compare them? Apparently, the communication to me and the communication to him and the helpdesk staff was not exactly the same. They weren’t allowed to load BOTH sets of primary software. If they did there could be licensing issues or worse yet, support issues. We considered this for a while and then they recommended I return in a couple of weeks after they gave out all the standard MACs and we could take our time and work through it. I agreed to this since it made since and my priority is a working laptop for teaching, not being part of an experiment , although I am willing. As we sat a while longer, someone suggested that I take the MacBook anyway and keep my IBM. That wasy I could do whatever I wanted to the MAC and when we had time, they could just return it to the standard “build” and we’d all learn something from it. This seemed even more sensible and it allowed me some security in knowing that I could always return what I was comfortable with. So the MAC expert gave me a quick run down on how everything worked and handed me the operating manual they have prepared for users and away I went.
The lessons are that change is good but we fear change. And we’re not the only ones who fear change. Support people fear change when it might mean something totally unexpected causing a problem that they are expected to resolve. I determined that I would try everything I could think of to see what worked and what didn’t and I would let them know what the results were. I suspect I will not ever return to the standard “build” but they will know how to configure something that meets a former Windows user’s needs and allows them to take advantage of the good things about a MAC.

I realized I needed to track my progress so I started this blog. It has three categories - Good MAC, Bad MAC, and Just the facts. As I try things or run into things, I’ll try to capture my experience here. I intend to use one post for each thing I run into. Also, since I have to do this, it will be easier for me and somewhat therapeutic to write like I speak, something I continually warn my students against. So you’re going to get a verbose version of this report.
Disclaimer: I’m pretty comfortable using computers but I’m not a geek, nerd or anything approaching an expert. I have avoided learning to do much more on the MAC than use applications. I have no familiarity with the Finder, OS, file structure, etc. It’s all new to me. I may not have found the best solutions to my problems but I tried to do everything without requiring support because our IT are quite busy right now and I would rather try and fail than be told, “you don’t really need to do that.” I “need” to do everything I’ve been able to do on the IBM and I “should” be able to do much, much more.

The point of this blog is to capture the highs and lows of making the change from a PC to a MAC (in this case laptop). It all began because I had a number of students working on a communications project and they needed to record podcasts and create some simple videos for the Web. Now, these things can be done on a PC or a MAC but they all had MACs and I had…a PC. THis means I had to download some great open source software for creating podcasts but they could use Garage Band. I needed to try to find something good for editing movies but they could use iMovie. Unfortunately for me, they needed help with Garage Band and iMovie. The solution was to borrow a MAC laptop that was set up like theirs and learn the programs and then teach them the basics and set them off to create content. If this sounds like a hassle, it was.

The IT guys who helped me suggested I think about trading my IBN laptop for a new MacBook Pro. That way I could run Windows and MAC software, they said. I eve saw a demo of Parallels and I read up on BootCamp. This was beginning to sound like the answer. I can use the software I am used to and then also begin to learn and introduce software from the MAC world. Besides, those MAC laptops have that great wide screen display which puts my IBM to shame. The final thing that convinced me was that the MACs didn’t have problems playing movies through the overhead LCD projectors. For some reason, our IBM T43 doesn’t when you want to play a movie or clip. It’s not that it’s impossible but sometimes you need to relaunch your software and sometimes you need to reboot to get it to do it. These are a real deal-breaker in the middle of class. Since I like to use clips and link to them from PowerPoint during a lecture, this seemed to be well worth the learning curve of a new machine.

Maybe the final, final fact that convinced me was my son saying, “Let’s see. You can have the latest, most expensive MacBook Pro for free to play with. It should run everything you currently use plus a number of new things. If it doesn’t work out, you can just get another IBM laptop. Is there really a question about whether or not you should do it?” And he was right and here I am.