From China With Love

michael — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 22:38:24 +0000

As of this morning, April 3rd, my Lenovo SL410 left China enroute to ME! Yay! I was starting to worry after a week of no news about it’s status. I called Lenovo and they said it was being built and would ship soon. The following day I got an email that it was ready to head out.

According to UPS it left China early this morning, and should be on my door step by Thursday. I would like it sooner, but at least I’ll have it by this weeks local user group – UFSUG.

Once I receive my new notebook then there will be a lot more posts as I have opportunity to play with and setup my new machine. Now… back to waiting…

I’m A Switcher

michael — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 23:49:59 +0000

In 1984 Apple Computers introduced the Macintosh. Later that year, my dad introduced the Macintosh to my home. Since then my entire family are Mac people, save a few siblings who were forced to use Windows by their spouses, but the bulk of us are Mac people.

Well as of today* there is one less Mac person in my family; me. I’m switching to Ubuntu. Now before I continue about why, let me paint a picture about my experience.

Not only have I’ve used Macs since ’84, I’ve serviced Macs since ’97. I’m familiar with the hardware and the software. I’m currently paid for my understanding of Macs and OS X. I’m not a casual user who makes home videos. I’m a geek how gets into the guts of the OS and makes it do things my way. Now back to the post.

About 1 1/2 years ago a friend of mine, who recently switched to Linux, invited me to participate in a user group he was creating. Our first meeting I installed Ubuntu in a virtual machine and started playing. The months following, I started to understand why people chose to live a Linux life opposed to living with Apple or Microsoft.

I started seeing Apple as a company and not the God of Computing. As the months rolled on the negatives of living in an Apple world started to become more and more pointed, and my need for Mac only apps decreased as I found useable FLOSS alternatives.

A couple of weeks ago an opportunity arose for my wife to sell her MacBook Pro (MBP). Since she has no desire for Linux, I told her if we sold her MBP she could take mine, and I’ll buy a cheaper non-Apple laptop and use it with Linux. She took me up on the offer and now I have a Lenovo SL410 on the way.

I will be documenting my transition to Ubuntu Linux on this blog and how I will set up my environment. If you find some tips that I seemed to have missed, please let me know in the comments. If you like what you see or have questions on how I did something, or how to do something, let me know and let’s see if I can help.

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*Today meaning this time in my life. I’m waiting for my Lenovo, but once I get it then I’ll be off of my Mac.

NovaTech Solutions

From China With Love

I’m A Switcher