I needed to upgrade. But having worked on PCs for more that a quarter of a century, this was a significant move. It brought to mind Umberto Eco's "The Holy War: Mac vs. DOS" written for L'Espresso in1994.
Eco put forward the view that the Macintosh was Catholic and that DOS (the operating system of the PC before Windows) was Protestant. Of the Macintosh he said: "It tells the faithful how they must proceed step by step to reach - if not the kingdom of Heaven - the moment in which their document is printed."
DOS, on the other hand, was inherently Protestant.
"It allows free interpretation of scripture, demands difficult personal decisions, imposes a subtle hermeneutics upon the user, and takes for granted the idea that not all can achieve salvation." Eco was not entirely convinced that with the passage to Windows, the DOS universe has come to resemble more closely the Mac. "It's true: Windows represents an Anglican-style schism, big ceremonies in the cathedral, but there is always the possibility of a return to DOS to change things in accordance with bizarre decisions: When it comes down to it, you can decide to ordain women and gays if you want to."
Was I caught in a religious conflict - betraying liberal Anglican heritage for rigid Catholic dogma? The big problem with the changeover was the Anglican baggage - in our case email forged over more than ten years in the Windows world . Mine was beautifully organised into folders relating to stories I worked on or topics that were recurring themes in my writing - eg Telecom and broadband. My partner's - well, she has a unique method organisation that involves chaos theory.
But either way, as journalists, this stuff - a searchable database of contacts and background information - is vitally important to us. And while we both have the more recent stuff accessible in webmail, having access to a local archive is very useful. But here is where things come unstuck - the thousands of emails were all in Outlook Express .dbx format and getting them across to the Catholic scripture of the MacBooks rapidly became a descent into hell.
Was I caught in a religious conflict - betraying liberal Anglican heritage for rigid Catholic dogma? The big problem with the changeover was the Anglican baggage - in our case email forged over more than ten years in the Windows world .
There are various conversion programs available to purchase, but which one? Having been sent down a wrong path, (importing Outlook Express to Outlook on the PC then Outlook on the Mac doesn't work) I decided to get some expert help.
Enter Nick from Melinjo, a Tauranga based internet provider and IT support company. He used Emailchemy to make the migration and before long had both our vast archives into Apple Mail.
I'm gradually getting used to the quirks of that software, keeping in mind a comment from a reader of last month's column. Murray was blunt: "You are not a Mac user. You are using a Mac as a PC. Why use Excel or Word? A Mac must be used as a Mac otherwise Microsoft uses its systems to screw you."
Given the ongoing frustrations I'm having with Word - which on the Mac has a number of features that seemed designed to entirely bamboozle a PC user - I'm beginning to think he's right. But then, there is only so much change a man can take.
Thanks also to the other kind readers who gave me all sorts of advice on some of the other issues I was having - such as changing to a single click on the bottom right hand side of the Trackpad if I was still finding the two-finger tap weird. I am, but gradually getting used to it and beginning to appreciate the wonders of the Mac Trackpad versus the PC. Though I have to confess when working at home, using the Vaio's wireless mouse - with right click - on the Mac has given me inner peace.
Kris's comments were encouraging too. "So nice to see a sane voice in the PC vs Mac discussion. It's such a rare thing." She uses both Mac and PC everyday and maintains both Windows and MacOS have gone backwards in the last few years in terms of user friendliness. "The trend to 'flat' interface design is one of the worst backward steps in tech history." She's talking about the minimalist user interface design genre now prevalent on both platforms that resulted in the so-called death of skeuomorphism.
In the PC world I generally knew the answer. Here I knew nothing. I was a fish out of water and up a creek without a paddle.
The latter was the design genre favoured by Apple's Steve Jobs - a graphical user interface that emulates the aesthetics of physical objects, (such as icons that looked like slips of paper). She also talked about the debate that's been going on about Windows 10's ugly icons. It got me wondering whether flat design - where minimalism and efficiency rule - was the reason I was finding my Mac transition so painful. As Kris points out: "Apple now considers the height of icon design to be a flat rectangle. A flat white rectangle. Imagine how much more 'friendly' and 'rich' both operating systems would feel if they embraced the possibilities available."
Nick from Melinjo fixed several other issues including Wifi printing and file sharing which had worked fine in my PC environment but no matter how I tried I couldn't get them to work with the Macs.
By now I was beginning to realise I was an alien in a strange land. My partner was just as lost, frustrated by the new machine and constantly asking: "How do you do this?" In the PC world I generally knew the answer. Here I knew nothing. I was a fish out of water and up a creek without a paddle. I asked Nick for his view on the differences between the two platforms and why, despite the Mac being seen as more intuitive than the PC, I was finding it anything but. "The desktop war has been won," he said. "It's the web and mobile."
I suppose he's right. There's no doubt he's restored some harmony to our home and I'm slowly come to appreciate some Mac benefits - Time Machine for backup is a revelation. Now if only we could fix the new IP conflict problem that has emerged meaning we constantly have to restart the router to get web access. Perhaps then - when the technology actually works - we'll stop raging against the machine.
