[Writer Post] Why This PC Girl May Go Mac
Over the last few years, whenever I had a computer issue, I prefaced it with “If your answer is Get a Mac, please stop.†Well, guys, you might just get your wish. This PC Girl may just be going Mac after all. Or maybe Linux (just not Chromebook, but that’s another rant). I’ve always been a PC girl. It’s the platform I was “raised†on, so to speak. It’s the one I know. The one I can get cheap. It’s had my loyalty since the beginning. Now… now I’m not so sure.
My current laptop is, I think 4 years old. It was a Black Friday sale Christmas present one year from my folks. And being 4 years old, it’s starting to do some squirrely things and slowing down, and well, simply showing signs of age. So I started looking into the new computers – and the new Windows 8. And frankly… I’m scared and I’m pissed off.
This is my favorite review of Windows 8 from a Guy named Charlie ABOUT a review of Windows 8:
“This operating system is a lurching, staggering, vomit-in-your-crotch disaster. Vista and Windows ME were like stupid, illiterate couch potatoes; but Windows 8 is different. Windows 8 is the Adolph Hitler of operating systems. It is drastically, dramatically evil. There isn’t any plainer or more accurate way of stating it.â€
What’s really pissing me off is the fact that Windows 8 won’t run or makes it more than difficult to run legacy programs INCLUDING THEIR OWN. I’ve never been a fan of WORD or Office – wishing WordPerfect had won the industry standard war – but, I adapted. I adapted to WORD. I adapted to Office 2007 and 2010… NOW, now I find out that Office 2010 won’t run properly on Windows 8 and unless I bought it since October 2012 and upgraded to Office 2013 before January 31st, 2013 – I would only be given the “option†to “upgrade†to Office 365 … THE SUBSCRIPTION BASED SOFTWARE COSTING $10/MONTH. Oh, hell no.
I don’t care how “integrated†the software is across devices…I’m not going to pay MONTHLY for a program or program suite that I use grudglingly and not every part of. I’m not going to buy a computer that is going to require me to rebuy every program (*if* there’s a way to make it run) for a computer platform I’ve been using for decades.
Yes, I know I sound like an old dinosaur – and I know not all OS upgrades mean you can run all legacy programs, I get that, but upgrades don’t generally mean trashing EVERYTHING and starting over again. But in a rush to “redefine†an industry and make startling leaps forward? How about leaving something for the dinosaurs so we continue to buy your product? Because the way it’s looking now? I’m going to run this computer into the ground while saving my pennies to go Mac.
2 Comments
I had to buy a Windows 8 laptop last fall, when my old laptop choked while mixing my band’s blues album. I personally don’t find Windows 8 to anywhere near as horrible as it has been hyped to be. It’s just a dressed-up version of Windows 7, and a simple keystroke moves the Metro interface out of your way.
I’ve never liked Word, in any of its incarnation. I’ve been using OpenOffice for years. Have you tried it? Works great. Costs nothing. Save files in Word format and share them with your Word-using friends.
My problem with Open Office when I last used it was that you can’t reset the default file type. I know it’s a lazy/old fart thing, but I don’t want to have to remember to do a “save as” to get it into a file I can send to editors/publishers. That’s one of the reasons I went to Word to begin with.