So, I bought a new Macintosh portable computer a few months ago (The MacBook Pro), which has an Intel chip in it that can run Windows along with my built-in Mac software (you need to install a progam like Parallels or Boot Camp to run Windows on the Mac).

Now I’ve been using the Mac for many years and am an Apple fanatic. I once met a fellow Mac user at a conference and said, “Oh, you use Macintosh computers too.” He grinned and replied, “I don’t use a computer. I don’t know how to use computers. I use a Mac.” I knew what he meant. Macs are so easy and intuitive to use that they don’t seem like computers.

But I decided that I should learn to use Windows. There are a few programs that are Windows-only programs that I want to acccess. Plus I am going to be teaching people how to create podcasts, blogs, ebooks, digital audios, wikis and so on and they are not always Mac users, so I need to be familiar with Windows. Trouble is, I didn’t know the first thing about Windows.

Well, I found a free tutorial from which I quickly learned all the basics of Windows XP. It took me about an hour. One surprise was that the procedures are mostly the same as Macintosh procedures. Microsoft and Apple have apparently been watching and borrowing from each other over recet years and that has made the transition between the two easier. There are some differences (two-button mice, while they can work on the Mac, are not common–you use Control-click or Command-click or Option-click instead). How you navigate through menus is a bit different. On Macs you need to eject flash drives before you remove them or you can damage them and lose data. CD burning is a bit different process. But all in all, it wasn’t that hard to learn or that different. I think the two operating systems are coming so much closer together that most people should be able to make the transition back and forth with little problem. Of course, I vote for Windows user to make the switch to Mac, since Macs can run both easily, and since Macs are a bit ahead in the ease of use and in audio and video capabilities, but that’s just my bias.

If you are a Mac user and want to begin to use Windows on your Intel-chip Mac (the newer models are all Intel-chip based), visit:

http://www.fwcs.co.uk/training/windows_xp/windows_xp.html?id=1405