PC Wins the Battle

OK – this is more like it. I spent yesterday returning Macintosh products and shopping for a new PC. I went with a Toshiba P105-S6084 – a very popular model with an unbelievable 2GB RAM that looks similar to the photo above. I was very pleased with the customer service at Best Buy.

I started after 5 pm and it was all up and running with another SPRINT EVDO card, wireless mouse, virus protection software, feed readers, Firefox, Adobe CS, and GoogleTalk within a few hours. Having trouble with the Product Key for Microsoft Office though. Just a small learning curve with the key placement and feel of the keyboard. This is lightyears ahead of my four-year-old IBM laptop.

My experiment using the new Intel chip and running both OS X and Windows on a MacBook Pro is over and was not a success. In fact, it was a very expensive ordeal. In my (humble) opinion, Apple still has some work ahead in developing BootCamp. I love the Macintosh, but until they have this software perfected and the phone companies catch up with the high-speed express style EVDO cards, I’m sticking with the PCs.

So, no more excuses not to post…

CompUSA Offers Excellent Service

Well, it’s been two (2) weeks since I got my MacBook Pro and yesterday I finally found someone who had the experience to load Boot Camp and Windows XP. I didn’t have time or knowledge of OS X to tackle it myself.

So… if you need assistance and you’re located in the Des Moines, Iowa area, contact CompUSA. The technical people are very knowledgeable, fast and thorough. Less than four (4) hours and it was back in my hands. What a relief! How is the service at your local CompUSA?

More about my frustrating experiences later…

switched to apple

Well, in the last month I have had nothing but trouble with my IBM laptop. In fact, it has been failing since last winter. I had to replace the hard drive just a week out of warranty and lost all my files. To make the pain greater, I opened the software package and found it contained cardboard. I had to pay to get the CDs with the original software.

Now the IBM laptop won’t shut down properly and when it’s off it won’t come back on. Since my life revolves around a computer, I can’t continue like this.

So… taking the advice of a friend, I started asking questions at the Apple Store and the Sprint Store in West Des Moines. I was using a Sprint EVDO card and it doesn’t work on a Mac, but I found out I could use a phone with a high-speed modem.

So with the assistance of Kelsey from Apple and Lucas from Sprint, I’m getting set up. Last week I purchased a MacBook Pro from the Apple store. Just like the ads claim, I pulled it out of the box and was able to start using it. What a dream. Lucas at Sprint helped me with the entire setup. I’m a customer for life at both Apple and Sprint. Both of these young people exhibited great customer service.

So now I’m on the journey to get the Windows part of the laptop set up. I got the Intel chip so I can run both Windows and Mac programs. More later…

Photo on flickr by brandonwardlaw

technorati tags: Iowa, Apple Store, Sprint, MacBook Pro, IBM, Laptops