I'm writing this on my new MacBook Pro. It's really slick and new. However, I feel like my computer literacy has regressed about 15 years. I am lost. I am flummoxed. I am frustrated. You cannot, I repeat, cannot, just pick up a Mac and know how to use it. Programs I am familiar with work in entirely new and novel ways. Things I want to see more of, so I know how they work, I cannot. Like network connections. It found my home network fine, without much intervention. But at Elly's house I couldn't get it to work, and I couldn't get anywhere except to a Wizard dialogue to guide me through it. Surely there is somewhere I can see a list of available networks, which comes up automatically in Windows. I don't know where the latch is to look under the hood, as if I would understand what I was looking at if I could. I have a book, which I will start working throgh (I do my best learning from reading about something). But I may have to look for a Basics class or something to get me up to speed so I can understand the book. So I can pretend I'm a professional at something again someday.
Yes, I totally agree with you. I was very disappointed that those Mac fanboys were lying all those years about ease of use and those other fancy claims they made about their favourite OS. :)
Posted by: Donncha O Caoimh | June 26, 2007 at 03:44 AM
Enjoy your new tool. To find wireless network look on top of screen, on right you will see 6 icons and the time/date. The middle object, looks like a fan, is the wireless(Apple speak ;airport) info spot. Click on it and there will appear all available wireless net works.
Chose the one you want and all else is done.
Enjoy,
Steven
Posted by: Steven Alexander | June 26, 2007 at 06:22 AM
When I switched to Macs I would get very frustrated trying to figure out how to do something basic only to find out the solution was far more obvious/logical than I was expecting it to be. The problem was I was using the same mind-set as I had in Windows.
I found the best way to learn the differences was to simply not expect it to work like Windows. Once you get around that mental block, things move much more smoothly.
BTW, iStumbler is a far superior tool for finding and connecting to networks than Apple's Internet Connect (found in the menu Steven mentions above).
Posted by: Dan | June 26, 2007 at 09:28 AM
Doug, I feel your pain. I recently got a new Mac Book Pro myself and it has been like learing a foreign language. I love my Mac so far but the learning curve has been much more steep than I expected. Like one of the comments above stated, I think I will be better off when I stop expecting OS X to work like Windows. Good luck to you with the Mac and I look forward to checking back in to see how you are doing.
Posted by: Darrell Klein | June 26, 2007 at 02:48 PM
I made the change 2 years ago. I felt the pain at first. But within a couple weeks I was loving it and wondered why I hadn't made the change earlier.
I've never looked back!
Posted by: Dan Bachman | June 26, 2007 at 04:40 PM
If it's any consolation, the reverse is true by orders of magnitude. I've worked on Macs since Macs were born. (My computer experience goes back to WELL before personal computers.) Whenever work required me to use Windows, I always felt micromanaged by someone whose mindset was at right angles to my own. Relax, try not to bring too much Windows baggage with you (I'm thinking specifics, what geeks might call cruft) and don't expect to know how to do everything immediately. If you have a question, shoot me an email. I'll be happy to help; also happy to admit I don't know!
Posted by: cehwiedel | June 26, 2007 at 04:56 PM