Apple Switch Television AdsA few weeks ago I wrote how I had migrated Holly to the iMac, but that I had run into some hurdles running the 10.0.4 version of OS X and that I needed to upgrade to 10.2. My experience thus far had been mixed, but overall was positive. The OS X 10.2 CD that I purchased via eBay arrived and the following weekend I decided to make the upgrade.

Making A Backup
I hadn’t done all that much in the initial setup. I had Holly’s e-mail client setup and the St. Edwards Youth Choir in her address book. All of her main data is stored on a small windows server, but I had been unsuccessful in connecting to it. Even though she had very little data, I wanted to back it up and save from having to re-enter all of that information. Luckily I had a good friend who had my back. Mike Rohde is a long time Macphile and he had a contact with Apple that told him everything I needed to do to back up Holly’s data. I simply used an FTP client on my main Windows workstation and transferred the files to the server.


Scorched Earth And Smooth Sailing
With Holly’s data backed up, I rebooted the machine and let the installer launch from the CD. The initial screens made going through the installation a piece of cake. One thing that I expected was that the dual partitions that 10.0 required were going to be replaced by one single partition. That was fine by me, but it did mean that the entire drive was going to be wiped out. Good Thing I backed up. 🙂
It took awhile for everything to install. The CD and the computer are rather slow, plus it had to reformat the hard drive, so it was to be expected. After a reboot, the Apple Update ran and there was more downloading and a reboot, but when it was all said and done, my iMac was now running 10.2.8 the most current version available.

1st Impressions
The thing that I found most surprising was that the latest version of the OS actually ran faster. That’s right, 10.2 ran faster on this little 233MHz iMac than 10.0. That’s not to say that it was blazingly fast, but I’ll take what I can get. 😀

I don’t know how to put my finger on it, but 10.2 is better overall. The way the doc operates, to the small improvements in the built in applications, to the overall feel of the OS is much improved. Even Holly said that it was better.

After a few downloads, I had all the software that Holly needs and she was setup and ready to go. I then copied the original data back and got her e-mail back to where it was. The only thing that I didn’t have much luck with was getting her addresses back. Given that there was only one mailing list created in it, I just re-created it.

A Few Adjustments
There were a few things that I wish worked a little differently. There’s hardly any options in importing data into the address book for example. I quickly resolved that by having Holly’s pa1mOne Zire 71 sync via iSync and all her addresses were uploaded, but what if she were moving from Outlook instead?

The backup process was also a bit cumbersome. I’m just thankful that Holly didn’t have more data, or it could have been a real PITA. Luckily, Apple has a solution going forward. Through their .iMac package, you can backup your computer quickly and easily.

There were a few other small things, but they were of no real importance. Most of these adjustments were really more geared to changing my way of thinking, than necessarily something with the Mac. I’m used to having to dive deep into Microsoft’s options to make something work, or to make it more secure. That’s just not the case with the mac, so I’ve had to make a few adjustments in my brain.

A Surprising Backlash
The week that I worked on the iMac was also the week that I spent a majority of my time in Linux. Bouncing back and forth between the two operating systems was easy. After a week of Linux and Mac joy, I got back on my main Windows desktop and I was surprised at my reaction – I hated it. 😐

I wasn’t on that machine for five minutes before I had a security update to install. Ten minutes later and app crashed and things started acting weird and I had to reboot. 30 minutes later something else was causing the system to run slow, so I had to reboot yet again. Granted it’s been over a year since I re-installed Windows, but that only makes my point. Why is it that Windows users take it for granted that re-installing the OS is a normal thing?

Maybe you don’t, but I recommend to all my clients that they re-install Windows every year. As I tend to explain it, Windows collects “lint” over time and slows down your system. Wiping out the drive and installing Windows again brings everything back to normal. I was doing this about every 6 months, but I haven’t done it in a little over a year and it shows. Since I re-installed Windows on my laptop it’s running much better. It’s time I do that on my main workstation, but I don’t have time for that right now.

My point is that going to back Windows sucked. I was surprised that I would feel this way, but I really don’t like it anymore. I know that I’ll always have a Windows system running, since it’s my job to support it, but I think I’ll be migrating to Mac as my main box one day. :O

My New Attitude
Now that I have sunk my teeth into OS X 10.2, I really like it and I keep finding examples of where people should be buying a Mac instead of a PC. I’m trying to convince my mother into purchasing a new iMac and I’d like Holly’s Mom and Dad to get an eMac for their home. I know that if my clients switched to it, I would be out of a job. They simply wouldn’t need me as often, if ever.

I guess you could say that I’m a convert and I’m trying to convert the masses now, but I can’t help myself. When I hear someone carrying on about something stupid that their Windows box is doing, and they ask my opinion, I can’t help but think “Get a Mac.”