Thursday, June 21, 2007

Back from the Curmudgeon's Convention

Ok, it's been a while. Since I last posted, I suffered a disk head crash on my main PC. I was awakened to the shortcomings of my back-up strategy (i.e., "Do it later"), and I replaced that PC with a beautiful new (and now obsolete) MacBook Pro. I still run Windows XP/Pro under Parallels, but I'm trying to switch to native Mac software as much as possible. (Interestingly, Parallels/Windows XP allowed me to access a scanner that was not accessible from the Mac directly.)

Meanwhile, recovering the data from my late, lamented drive cost as much as the MacBook. So now I've revised my back-up strategy (i.e., "Do it sooner"), and will be trying one of the on-line backup services. More on that sooner or later.


The MacBook is indeed a thing of beauty, but I miss some of the keyboard shortcuts I was used to on Windows. Since a mouse was always optional on Windows, it's always been possible to completely drive the system just from the keyboard. Not so on the Mac. While many of the same shortcuts are there, and even with appropriately similar key combinations, there are a frustratingly large number that are simply missing.

Anyway, as cheered as I am by the switch to the Mac side, there's still plenty to be curmudgeonly about. Stay tuned.

1 comment:

joecab said...

Good for you for thinking different(ly) and switching to the Mac!

1. For online backup I use my .Mac account, but you can find a lot more bang for your buck elsewhere.

2. You probably already know most of the Mac keyboard shortcuts (here's a good list of them), but you can also get things like keyboard-accessible menus; more info here, here and here.