A few years back Apple ran a promotion stating how it had never been easier to switch from a PC to a Mac.  For the most part I would say this is a true statement.  Unlike the old days, most of the programs you’re used to are easily found, or there is something similar you can run.  Overall I am finding the experience of switching my primary computer from a PC to a Mac to be a painless and easy experience.

… and then it came to iTunes.

I’m a music junky and I have a collection of music that is far larger than any human should even contemplate having.  On my PC I had my music files on an external drive, but my iTunes and podcasts ran off of my primary C drive.  I was expecting some hiccups with this setup, but nothing that I couldn’t overcome.  I had moved the collection between various PCs a few times, so I didn’t see why this should be that difficult as it was essentially an Apple product coming “home” if you will.

I started doing some research online and what I found was a mish-mash of haphazard ideas and workarounds.  Seeing as I had paid for Apple Care, I gave them a call … for the first time ever an Apple employee gave me a less than satisfactory answer and actually suggested I call Microsoft to see if they had a tool for converting the files to the required Mac format.

Are you kidding me?  You want people to switch to Mac, but you don’t have a simplified process for moving one of your flagship products?  That ranks up there on the idiotic scale in my book.

So I ended up going to a bunch of forums and asking questions, and much to my surprise, nobody came up with a good answer.

While doing this research I came across an ad for a programs called CopyTrans TuneSwift.  It was $15, but it promised to move your iTunes from a PC to a Mac with ease.  At this point, with days of research under my belt, I figured I had nothing to lose.  I made a backup of everything to another external hard drive just to be safe (which took nearly a full work day), ran the program (which took nearly a full work day) and then did the restore on the Mac … which took about 90 minutes.

End result?  Everything is on the Mac and working without a hitch.  Everything ended up on the main drive, which isn’t exactly what I wanted, but to be honest, at this point I just didn’t care any more: It all moved, it’s all working and I’m just happy.

Apple: Take note of this.  You want people to switch to a Mac, you need to make it far, far easier to move iTunes.  The process was silly, and the fact I had to spend $15 on a program to do it was just idiotic.  Want an idea?  Buy the rights to TuneSwift, because for whatever reason, they got the whole thing to work.

In a move that is sure to polarize people I know, I am switching my main computer to an iMac.

Last Aug. I talked about getting an iMac, my first computer I’ve ever owned from Apple.  My intention was that this particular desktop would stay in my house for use, and that is where it still resides.  The idea of switching my main computer at work to a Mac was still not sitting well with me, but as I have become more immersed in the world of Mac via my work at TechnoBuffalo, the idea was becoming more appealing.

As I’ve gone back and forth on the subject, the final straw was my work computer getting hit with rogueware – malicious software that masquerades as anti-virus software – multiple times in a two week period.  In my role as technology blogger, I am constantly on the Internet, hitting site after site.  It is fair to say I probably visit more websites in one day than most people do in a  week; it’s part of my job, and you just learn to deal with it.  What I haven’t been able to deal with is losing literally hours of work to cleaning my system of these blasted viruses.

When you earn your entire income from being on the Internet, losing your computer to a virus is like not being able to go into work due to car issues.  Except, in our cases, it’s even more infuriating because you technically are at work, you just can’t do anything while your system cleans itself.  (and before you ask, yes, I had protection in place to keep them out, but they kept getting in.)

With the latest update to the iMacs, and the cash on hand to do so, I took the plunge and purchased a new iMac.  The day I never thought would come has arrived, and there is an Apple computer sitting next to me as I type this, transferring files on to it and installing drivers.  While I am aware that Macs are not totally immune to viruses, and, yes, there are even now Mac specific rogues out there, the number is small enough to be negligible.  Having also read through the uninstall instructions for them, they seem far easier to remove than on a PC.

Call me names if you must, say I’ve partaken in the iKoolAid even, but I just can’t take using Windows as my main hardware any more.  I highly doubt I will ever be able to pull myself completely away from Windows, and as a matter of fact there will still be a low-end Windows machine on my desk still which does nothing more than handle writing invoices and printing shipping labels, but for everything else I do in my life, it’s going to be on a Mac from here on out.

If it makes you feel any better, I’m still going to be using a Microsoft Natural Ergo Keyboard 4000 and a Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0 … what can I say, Microsoft makes great computer peripherals.

Yes, that disturbance you felt in the force was true … I bought a Mac.  A 27-inch iMac to be precise.

This is something I have wanted to do for years, but I never really had a “need” for such a system, it was always just a “want”.  With the amount of media I’m producing now, and with a lot more to come, I finally felt like I needed the editing power of a Mac.  With the refresh of the iMac line last week, I jumped on it, and here I am … staring into the face of an enormous 27-inch screen.  (seriously, this is almost too much screen!)

I’ve been playing with it for several hours now, teaching myself to do various things, and I have to say I finally enabled right clicking on the mouse, I just couldn’t take it any longer.  I have been right-clicking on things for so many years that I just don’t know what to do without it at this point.

Of course I am not fully switching away from the Windows platform, quite the contrary actually.  I may go days without turning on this Mac as it was bought for specific jobs, but it’s here when I need it.

Overall it’s not a horrible experience, although it’s taking some getting used to not having programs fill the entire screen most of the time … and learning how to save a file to where I wanted it to go took some learning.  Once you get those things down though, it’s pretty quick.  Now … learning the “new” keyboard shortcuts may take a bit of time …

(yes, this post done entirely on the iMac … a first for me.)