My Apple Upgrade

Three years ago I bought a MacBook Pro. At the time, it was super fast and able to handle all my computer needs. It was a glorious machine, and I quickly fell in love.

But over time, the keys became so worn I could no longer read the letters on them. That I could overlook. But when performance slowed down, I found myself wishes for something better. In fact, it eventually got so bad I could fold two loads of laundry in the time it took to perform certain operations in Photoshop.

So in September, I started to have an emotional affair with someone else: a quad-core iMac. At the time, it was mere speculation because Apple had yet to announce such a machine. I was left to only dream about the increased speed, larger hard drive, bigger monitor, and newer operating system.

Then in late October, it happened. Apple made quad-core iMacs available for the first time. Any commitment I had made to my MacBook Pro instantly went out the window. I found my credit card, pointed, and clicked.

Yesterday, my new machine finally arrived. As I pulled it out of the box, my own children and several from the neighborhood watched in wonder. When the screen was revealed – all 27-glorious-inches of it – they all gave an awe-struck “oooo” and “aaaahhh.” When I pulled out the wireless keyboard and mouse, a chorus of amens could be heard out in the street.

Then my 10-year-old called “dibs” on the MacBook and a fight broke out, but I digress.

I spent the rest of the evening setting up my new companion. I used Apple’s Migration Assistant to copy my files and settings from the MacBook to the iMac. I did run into a snag when my user profile was ported over, as apparently the preferences had gotten corrupt on my old machine. [Tip to anyone else who might try to use Migration Assistant: run Disk Utility first on the old machine to fix any corrupted preferences before transferring your files.]

The real test came this morning when I sat down to work. I launched Photoshop and opened a 217 MB client file. What used to take a full two-minutes to load took mere seconds (15 to be exact). I can now say without a doubt that I am in love with this machine… at least for the next 2-3 years .