n i c k y n a x . c o m

I realize it’s been almost two weeks since I last wrote, but a couple things have kept me pretty busy.

For starters, the MacBook Pro (yeah, I splurged for the Pro) arrived and we have been spending some quality time together getting to know each other.

It was a bumpy road getting him though. UPS failed to deliver him overnight like I had paid for and all of their tracking information claimed would happen. But somehow they were able to deliver the AppleCare overnight, which was nothing more than a huge cock tease that left me with laptop blueballs for 24 more hours.

But finally, he arrived, and I’ve spent the past several days getting to know the ins and outs of him and of the entire Macintosh way of life. I figured it would be pretty easy to learn since everyone has always said that Macs are so intuitive, but I found that some of the easiest tasks ended up being that hardest to figure out and adapt to. I think this is, in part, due to the fact that after spending my entire computing life on PC’s, my intuition has adapted to a new way of working, so while Macs may very well be very intuitive machines, my intuition had been stunted and changed due to many years of a non-intuitive machine.

For example, perhaps the easiest thing to do on any computer (insert a disc into the disc drive), caused me way too much confusion that it should have. I spent probably five minutes trying to find the actual disc drive and the button to open it before breaking down and asking someone. Yeah, I’m a moron at times.

But now that Leo (that’s what I ended up naming him) and I had gotten to know each other and spent some quality time together, it was time for another man to enter my life.

Kevin came home from Asia last week. He ended up leaving his job over there and was able to come home five months early. I don’t really know what that means in terms of us, but it’s really great having him back. We spent Valentine’s Day together, which was the first time I’ve actually had a real valentine for Valentine’s Day.

So, those are the two men who have been keeping me busy the past ten days and kept me distracted from writing a blog. The other day I decided to combine them both into one project. I took all of the pictures from the time I went down to Florida to spend a weekend with Kevin and plugged them into iMovie and used Leo to make a slideshow set to music with the pictures. It turned out pretty considering I had never touched iMovie before or attempted to make a slideshow either. I’m pretty proud of it, and he seemed to like it, so that’s all that matters.

There are still a couple things with Leo that have me thoroughly confused, and the biggest confusion comes from iPhoto. For the past four years I have had a very specific way of organizing my photographs in folders and subfolders and sub-subfolders and so on and so forth to the point where some end up being five or six folders deep before you actually get to the pictures. And unless I am just having another “Where’s the disc drive?!” moment, it doesn’t look like that is the way iPhoto works. So, either I have to opt out of using iPhoto much (which would be a shame, because it looks like a pretty great application), or completely abandon the organizational system I’ve spent the past four years using and come up with another system that is not only iPhoto compatible but also Me compatible.

What I would love is to find my own personal Apple Genius who I could keep in a little cage in my house and have as a personal tutor whenever I needed help with things like this. Even better if this Apple Genius was an attractive young man who resembled an Abercrombie & Fitch model, complete with lack of clothing.

Then this blog would be about the three men in my life. And we all know that things need to happen in three’s.

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…and it was delicious.

My taxes were figured today and I found out how much my tax refund is going to be. It’s going to be direct deposited into my bank account in ten days which means that I will have it before I have to pay my next Amex bill. And that means…

I can buy the new Macbook I’ve been coveting for so long.

So…

I did!

I bought it today! And I’m so excited!

I was going to just drop by the Apple Store on my way home from work until a coworker tipped me off to an alternative which came with three pro’s and only one con. And that alternative was amazon.com. Who woulda thought to buy it there?!

The Pro’s:

• Amazon, somehow or other, doesn’t charge any sales tax
• Amazon offered a $150 mail in rebate with the purchase
• Amazon only charged me $4 for overnight shipping

When stacked up against the only con of not being able to have it immediately, a one day delay seemed like a small price to pay in order to save the several hundred I was able to save via Amazon. And it’s just one day to wait. Although the fact that I’ve been unable to think about anything else since hitting "Purchase" today is making this one day wait feel like months.

I spent all night so far compiling a list of the programs I will need to install on the new computer, and coming up with a game plan for transferring all of my files over. I realize I could go to the Genius Bar at Apple and have them do it for me (for a small fee considering I didn’t buy it directly from them, in which case it would have been a free option), but as odd as it is, I kind of enjoy the whole process of setting up and programming new gadgets.

Every time I get a new phone, I always bypass the option of having my phone numbers and stuff transferred for me. I actually enjoy manually adding all of my contacts and what not. I have a secret fetish for organizing things, and while I don’t quite understand how I got it, I accept it and enjoy getting to use it from time to time. So the next few days with a new laptop that needs fully personalized and organized is going to be like a wetdream for me.

Shut up.

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I am going to be making a change within the next couple weeks that has me both very excited and a bit apprehensive at the same time. I’m normally not one that handles change very well, which is lending to my fears.

Well, no, I take that back. I think for the most part I am able to handle changes pretty well, but it’s the idea of the change and the buildup to the change that I don’t handle all that well. Once the actual change happens, it usually tends to go pretty smoothly and I adapt with much less ado than I originally feared there would be. It’s just getting to that point without all the stress that seems to be the thing I need work on.

Anyway, enough of that self analysis.

Sometime within the next few weeks, I am going to be making the switch from PC to Mac.

I can’t really pinpoint a singular reason why I have decided to make this change. It’s just something that has kind of evolved over the past year, I guess.

The fact that Macs seem to have far fewer issues with viruses is a huge plus. For someone who watches as much porn as I do (hey, don’t judge), the fewer viruses, the better.

Macs, from what I’ve seen, are just so much sexier than PCs. And I want my laptop to be sleek and sexy. Even though I am not a coffee drinker, if I was to ever sit at a Starbucks or some other overpriced coffee shop with my laptop and pretend to be doing something incredibly important on it (yeah, you guys who do that do not have me fooled one bit), then I want my laptop to be just as pretentious and impressive. I mean, seriously.

I also figure that now that I have had an iPod for years and have recently added the iPhone to my menagerie of gadgets, the next logical step is to keep it all in the family and adopt a Macbook as well. I assume that they would all work together better than they currently do with my PC (not that they don’t work well), but maybe that is just a naive assumption on my part.

And, I’m not going to lie, those commercials with Justin Long are just good commercials. They are very much in the "less is more" category. Simple, but effective. I can appreciate a company that makes a good ad campaign, and if they have the products to back them up (which Apple seems to have), then really, I’m convinced.

So, awhile back, I decided that I would use my tax refund to buy a Macbook. I just got my W2 this past week, and so as soon as my taxes are done and the refund is in hand, I’ll be making a trip to the Apple Store to bring home my new toy. I am currently trying to decide between a regular Macbook and a Macbook Pro. I know that I don’t need the advanced features of the Pro, but I really really really want a silver one, and unfortunately the regular Macbooks don’t come in silver. So, I’m still torn. I think the decision will come down to how much of a tax refund I end up getting. If it’s enough that buying a Pro seems more possible, then I may just do it. If it’s not as much, then I’ll downgrade and just get a Macbook.

Then comes the hard part. Learning how to use it. I have this huge fear that I’m going to press the wrong button or click on the wrong icon and completely ruin it within ten minutes of opening it. I know that for the most part, it’s not THAT different than a PC, but at the same time is nothing like a PC. Everyone says that they are so intuitive and user friendly, but that just gives me false confidence that I can go clicking around (and with only one mouse button? that’s gonna take some getting used to!), and suddenly find that I’ve deleted the entire hard drive. Because I’m just that intuitive sometimes.

I’m also a little nervous that all of the programs I’ve become so accustomed to will not be compatible with the Mac. For example, right now I am writing this with Windows Live Writer and I know for a fact that I won’t be able to use that on a Mac. What other programs will I have to leave behind? Will there be Mac equivalents to them? Or perhaps the Mac equivalents will actually be better? It’s the uncertainty that makes me nervous.

I have a few friends that have Macs and I anticipate that once I get mine, I will spend the first few weeks (or months) annoying them to the point of insanity with question after question after question. And probably questions that are incredibly obvious and not worth even asking. But hey, it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t dwell in the details and minutia.

Anyone want to give me personalized Adapting to Mac classes? Please?

So, very shortly, these blogs will start being created on my brand new Macbook (Pro?) instead of this busted up, virus infected PC that has been saddled with a broken mouse button for over a year now. And I’ll write them while sitting in Starbucks while listening to my iPod in one ear and talking on my iPhone in the other.

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