In november 2004 I decided to switch to a Mac after 18 years of MS-DOS and Windows. The decision took me about two hours. A few months later I also switched my keyboard layout to Dvorak, after 24 years of typing with the classic QWERTY-layout. A few months after that I started migrating the think tank I was leading from Windows Exchange to Mac.
Change always takes time & energy. Moving from Windows to Mac or from QWERTY to Dvorak is no different. There were switch issues, like ‘How can I take my old emails to my Mac?’, ‘Where is the delete key?’, ‘How can I sync my calendar at the office?’, ‘Where is the Dvorak setting on my computer?’ and ‘How do I tweak my keyboard to Dvorak?’.
For all these issues and more I found solutions and tweaks. Hopefully you can benefit from what I learned.
If you are considering to switch to Mac: don’t expect that you’ll never have problems. You have to get used to your new machine. And any computer can break down, even a Mac. I had some problems myself with my first Intel Mac.
The same goes for the switch from QWERTY to Dvorak: be prepared. If you can touch type you basically have to reset your brain. It took me a month before I was comfortable with the new layout and three months before I could type faster.
But the good part is: I’m very happy with the switches that I made. Mac OSX is a wonderful OS with much more elegance and ease of use than Windows. There also is an amazing crowd of software developers. And Dvorak takes a long time to learn, but you will benefit from the switch for decades (if the force is with you).
Why switch?
