I Missed My Mac This Summer!

Do You Prefer a Mac or a PC?

by Kathy McLaughlin

Eight years ago I began as a secretary for one of the administrators at school and worked on a computer most of the time, about 3 hours a day. I was pretty comfortable with several programs for working with data and numbers, excel, word, Filemaker Pro were the programs I spent the most time on and knew quite a few tips and tricks to make it fun.

Five years ago I was a PC user with no real experience with a Mac when I was fortunate enough to get another position at school that was also part time for another administrator, the only problem was I was going to be working on a Mac in that office. A lot of things I was very good at now became very challenging, I just couldn't find things! The thing I missed the most was my "right click".

It took a long time but I would am now just about as good on a Mac as I am with a PC, In fact I have switched to a Mac in the other office too. We still use a PC for some programs that won't work on a Mac, our ID badges require a PC and our assessment data must be submitted on a PC also.

In our text and it explains that an operating system is "system software" and is required before any Mac or PC can run any "application software" (Shelly, Gunter, Gunter, 2010, p.136). These are always being updated with new and better features.

Now! A Few Things I like About PCs

I still prefer to use excel and word on a PC as it is more user friendly. The mail merge program in word is easier to move around in. Spreadsheets are easier to work with on a PC, I can't tell you exactly what it is but they just do what you need to do with less problems.

And! A Few Things I like About Macs

Working at home on my PC and at my summer job a couple of things I missed about the Macs are the preview of a document without opening it, all you have to do is select the document and touch the space bar and you can see if that is the document you are looking for. In fact you can arrow down through all your documents to find the one you want before actually opening them. The other feature is the dashboard which you customize to work the way you want it to. Simply by going to my upper right corner with my mouse it minizes and separates all the files and documents I have opened  so I can select the one I want, this is expecially helpful if you have multiple applications and documents open frequently.

So I would have to say, I like them both. I do think I will purchase a Mac for home the next time around in order to use iCal and all the other i features that talk to each other. I did find an article that is very good about comparing the two and has some terrific links also, so enjoy!