My First Couple of Days with a Mac

I have agreed to be part of a research project that focuses on the logistical realities of transfering computer platforms from PCs to Macs. I now have a great new Macintosh computer on my desk at work and have been using it for three days. While I am excited to have a Mac and can definitely see that it is superior in many ways to a PC, I have discovered some stumbling blocks.

1. I am not able to utilize the following programs on it: Microsoft Visual Studio, Frontpage and Access.
2. I have to order new software: the Macromedia suite software.
3. I have discovered that my Mac can read the Word document that I have created on my PC, but my PC cannot read anything created on my Mac. Perhaps there is a way that I can save these documents for a higher degree of compatibility.
4. Some of the documents that are PC created will not print out the same when printed from a Mac.
5. I need a new webcam.
6. I have a dearth of USB ports.
7. Safari often times does not connect, however if I switch to Google I am okay.
8. I have not been able to interface my PDA with the Mac.

The following are the things that I am enjoying about the Mac:
1. Instant messenger works great and I love the iChat.
2. The Mac offers iMovie and a better pictures structure than my PC.
3. The Mac screen seems to offer a higher degree of resolution and has a sharper look to everything.
4. I love the "stickies" feature.
5. The Mac seems to be easier to use, I did not even have to load software for my printer, once I hooked it up to the Mac, it immediately recognized it and was ready to go.
6. I love the way that you can stack and transfer things on the desktop.

These three days have been interesting for me and I have learned a lot. I have not tried to Blog from my Mac, hopefully there will not be any problems with this. In the next week I will try to solve a lot of my software issues and try to run my HP scanner on the Mac and work with transfering graphics. I need to figure out what I can do on a Mac without Microsoft visual studio, since I need this software for my dissertation project. This could be my biggest hurdle, that and the Frontpage. I teach a lot of students about web authoring and the most ubiquitous program that they have access to in their homes is Frontpage.

I am hoping that with this Blog some of the Mac geniuses of the world will impart their knowledge to me so that I can more fully utilize my Mac to it's full potential. Come back and visit as I move through my experiences with Mac and shift my paradigms on computer platforms.