Soft Launch of the new Switching To Mac
September 24, 2008 by Ross McKillop
Welcome to the newly re-designed (but far, far from finished) version of Switching To Mac. As many of you know, Mike has decided to “hand over the helm” to someone, and that someone turned out to be me. So where to start.. I guess an introduction is in order. My name is Ross McKillop, and up until now my primary site has been Simple Help. Over there, I’ve done a lot of Mac tutorials, along w/ Windows, Linux and misc. other stuff. Going forward, all of my Mac focus will be directed to this site, and Simple Help will go Windows/Linux only…
Here’s my Mac background:
During my last corporate job I worked closely with the “portal” team, who all used Macs. Having been a long-time Linux (Slackware) user, I finally decided to see what all the fuss was about. I talked my boss into approving a purchase req. for a PowerBook G4. Tiger had recently been released, so that was my first real hands-on experience with OS X. I’ll admit it, I was frustrated at first. If it didn’t have BSD at its core, I would have probably given up (thank you Terminal!). I think I drove my co-workers nuts with my constant instant messages asking them “why does x work like this?” and “how on earth do I do y?”. Eventually it dawned on me. To really start using OS X, I had to unlearn Windows. Instead of trying to figure out how to do something in OS X based on how you do it in Windows, I’d ask myself “What’s the easiest way to do it?” - and sure enough, that’s how it’d be done. OS X is painfully intuitive, but much more so if you’ve never used Windows.
I haven’t looked back since. When I quit that job, my biggest regret was having to give back the PowerBook (if my final paycheque wasn’t more than the value of the PowerBook, I wouldn’t have). The first thing I did was run out and buy myself a shiny new MacBook Pro. And that’s the Mac I’m using to type up this message on right now.
Another change that you’ll see in the coming weeks is a complete redesign of the site, which I’ve already started. Every day you’ll probably notice something has changed, so for now I’m calling this a “soft launch” until everything is in its place. You will almost certainly find some “rough spots”, errors and things that need to be fixed. And while I’m on that topic, if you’re an experienced WordPress theme designer, please get in touch (use this contact form). I’ve purchased an excellent WordPress theme, but need to have it customized to Switching To Mac. This is of course a paying gig, so please be sure to include any previous WordPress sites that you’ve designed. Again, you won’t need to do heavy duty WP coding - the theme has all of that covered. It’s just a graphical “face lift” I’m looking for.
Speaking of paying gigs.. I’m also looking for writers for Simple Help while I spend time getting Switching To Mac overhauled. Unfortunately, I’m looking for folks who can write Windows or Linux tutorials, as the Mac stuff will be migrated here. If you’d like to contribute to SwitchingToMac once things are up and running - get in touch.
I very much look forward to “meeting” all of you, Mike has said nothing but good things about the folks in this community.
Ross:
As a relative newbie to switching to mac, I’m sorry to see Mike go. I received some great help from him. That being said, welcome and I look forward to many surfing days ahead!
I hope that all turns out well. For over a year and half now, I, (and many others) have relied on Mike’s great ability to help, and his wealth of knowledge about macs. S2M was pivotal in my decision to make the switch. I’m sad to Mike let S2M go, but I hope I (and we) can continue to have the kind of relationship and community that we had going with Mike. Best of luck to you. (I’ll be back -Van)
stalban and vangogh -
Mike and I spent quite a bit of time (Mike in particular) making sure that his vision of the site would not be lost in the transition. Also, he’ll (probably) be back from time to time offering his super-helpful insights and support.
Right now I’m working on bringing back a bunch of the content that he created, and trying to get the forums back up and running. The initial plan was to keep the original switchingtomac.com site up until I was done setting everything up, but that kind of fell apart after a less than ideal domain registration switch.
For what it’s worth, I’ve had a huge success with Simple Help, and literally thousands of “thank you” comments and emails. I try my very best to assist people having problems. I wanted to branch out w/ a second site because my true computer-related “passion” now lies w/ all things Mac.
ps. I’m installing the forum software as we speak, and with fingers seriously crossed, hope to be able to import all of the old content.