Run Martine, run!

The move from pc to mac is sloooow going but I have to admit that I’m learning a lot about the mac OS in the process, so it’s not all bad. Plus, I’ve been running more than usual this week because exercise is the best way to release frustrations. If things keep going like that, I might make it to Quebec City by foot! (Maybe that’s why Forrest Gump was running aimlessly. He must have tried to switch OS).

Aaaah but yes, the mac is pretty and white and it’s got cute little icons and it keeps making little « woooop » and « klounk » sounds and looks back at me with a hopeful smile like a child who really, really wants me to like him even though his nose is full of snot. I even did my first Web cam chat last night. I was so surprised to see it work from the first try that I lost my English and spoke in a nervous primitive language that must have driven poor AJ crazy (he was very patient). Now I have to get better lighting on my face because the image wasn’t flattering at all and I’ve got to make sure that Blork picks up his clothes because his dresser is in full view in the zone captured by the camera. Macs are invasive in that way.

The biggest disappointment so far doesn’t have much to do with Apple perse. In the last 7 years, I’ve relied heavily on the Palm Desktop software to organize my life. It tells me when everybody’s birthday is, when I need to pay the mortgage (every two weeks) or fill out those damn TPS and TVQ forms, I keep lists of books to read, cds to buy, wines I enjoy, directions to my house I can pass on quickly to friends, passwords to a million sites and applications, etc. My whole life is in there and I was very, very comfortable with the Palm Desktop on the pc. I downloaded the Palm software for the Mac and I had a big shock: bleh, bleh, burk, ugly. The interface is so 1990’s you expect Nirvana to resuscitate and start dancing around with the paper clip guy. Changing skins didn’t make things much better. Everything, from contacts, to memos, to the to do list, opens in a new window. Messy and ugly.

And I hadn’t even tried yet to make the Palm talk to the computer. At first I thought: cool, let’s try a Bluetooth connection! Ha! How arrogant of me! I managed to get the Palm to connect with the iMac via Bluetooth but couldn’t Hotsync if my life depended on it. It’s due to some silly, badly documented problem about the Palm or the Mac thinking that the port is already in use by another application. I spent hours in forums, reading about other people’s experience with the problem and trying a few of the suggested solutions. Wouldn’t work. No ma’am. So I thought, to hell with Bluetooth, let’s just use the usb cable to Hotsync.

Nah. Wouldn’t work either.

I’m stubborn and after a lot of work, I finally got the usb connection to work. My Palm data transferred into the iMac. But now I’m stuck with an interface for the Palm Desktop which I don’t like at all. I’ll live with it for now. I can’t even think of starting to import all that stuff into iCal, only to realize that I don’t like iCal either. I’ll try to be zen and tell myself that it’s part of OS switching. Things are going to be different from now on. Think freakin different, Martine. Think different. It’s okay. I just need to get used to it. Breathe in. Breathe out.

So I went out and got all of my hair chopped off.

Really. I’m not kidding. I now have short hair. New OS, new haircut. Why not? You don’t know how therapeutic a drastic change of hairstyle can be until you’ve tried it. And it cost a lot less than Microsof Office.

So now I need to try to transfer my music from iTunes on the PC to iTunes on the Mac (without losing my iTunes purchases, of course). Should be easy, right? Ha ha! Yeah, right. Which one of these three methods should I use? (1, 2 or 3?)

If my Quebec City readers look out their windows this evening and see a woman with short hair, all dressed in white and running like a mad woman, please stop her and e-mail Blork asap.