Something I have to admit...

Well, my laptop finally died. At the ripe old age of 5 years 7 months. I'm not so sure which is more traumatic: the fact that it finally did die, or the fact that I was so attached that I thought I was putting down the family pet.

I'm still in the process of figuring out what went wrong. Somewhere between a Windows update and 4 hours of downtime, the hard drive decided to lose the majority of the files necessary for Windows to function, as well as some files that I was saving on the drive (such as my resume, old papers, etc...). I came back to my laptop and proceeded to have a long battle with the machine in the vain attempt to try and repair and locate things that had gone missing.

Luckily, the week before this all went down, I had purchased an external hard drive, and was in the process of moving all my files over to that drive. I guess my thinking about the laptop dying made it happen, or something like that. So I didn't lose too much... I think.

I've been slowly working my way through the laptop. I've got Windows working again, but I think the hard drive has a few bad sectors on it. I'm hoping I can format the thing and it might work again. Before I do that, however, I've been moving files off of the laptop...

And onto my new computer! Megan and I have been talking about getting a new desktop for a bit, but this failure of functionality brought the situation to a head. Now here comes the part that requires me to admit something. I'm not sure if you're all ready for this, since I've been pretty hardheaded on this topic in the past.

Ready?

We got a Mac.

...

Still with me?

Now, before you all start calling my Judas, and pointing out all the complaints and comments I've made in the past, hear me out. First of all, the new iMacs come with Intel processors. This means, if I get desperate, I can install a copy of Windows, and dual boot the machine. Basically it can be both a Mac and a PC at the same time. So there shouldn't be a problem with getting old software to work if we need it.

Which brings me to my next point. I love to tinker with settings on a PC. I've done it for years. However, the point of learning all that useless crap was for when I played games, or was screwing with a system for some reason or another to make it run faster. However, I don't play games anymore. I play some card games, but basically I do 5 things on a computer:

1. Check Email.
2. Surf the Web.
3. Listen to Music. (this should be number 1, actually)
4. Type papers.
5. Watch movies/media.


Really, why do I need a PC for that, especially since all the things that might come up randomly, I'm sure I can get to work on a Mac.

Funny, but the thing looks gorgeous too. Definitely eye candy. The whole setup is sleek, and the all in one rig for the thing is not as boxy as it used to be years ago, when I made fun of them. Megan's point was that now we don't need to find a place to put the tower and other gear, this thing has it all built it.

Don't get me wrong, I still am trying to figure out the stupid apple/command button thing, which seems to control just about everything. Using that stupid button is like playing Starcraft: there's a keyboard shortcut for everything! Not only that, but some of the old shortcuts from a PC don't work, so I find myself doing stuff like ctrl-backspace and watching in vain as nothing actually happens. And man, you think installing stuff on a PC is confusing... watching this thing mount programs like drives, and then having to drag stuff around to install it... what the hell is that?

In any event, that's the big story. I've become a traitor to the PC cause. I'm sure it'll survive without me.