A die-hard ‘PC person’ (me) converts to a Mac, and the world spins on. For now.

The world didn’t end the day I switched from a Dell PC to a Mac. Granted, that was only last week — and the world is more likely to end from a slow, ongoing event like global warming than a catastrophic occurrence like a hit by a comet (or my switch to Mac). Which is to say, the day is young.

For a die-hard PC user, the change is like going from a hamburger-based diet to tofu. Or giving up lattes for flavored water. You’re likely to get coerced into these kind of moves against your will due to some medical necessity, and it usually comes with an ugly detox period.

Alas, no such impending medical crisis twisted my arm to join the league of the Mac Tribe. In fact, I didn’t see it coming, considering I’ve been a devoted Dell fan for my entire 15-year computer-purchasing life.

Dell, on the other hand, should have seen the writing on the wall — after one too many headache-inducing calls to customer service and endless transfers through internal departments by CSRs with heavy Indian accents, I realized last year our marriage was over.

So when time came for a new laptop, I was free to contemplate my options. Since I’m getting into multimedia and anticipate having to edit videos a lot within the next couple of years, I needed a machine that can accommodate more heavy-duty work than in the past. I also consider certain bells and whistles a must (like anti-glare screen, which is uncommon unless you opt for a military-grade, “rugged” computer that can easily take heat, water, drops and other unfortunate events).

As I researched non-Dell options and looked at rankings of everything from customer service to performance, a few choices floated to the top including Toshiba. But I couldn’t help but notice Apple was trying to get the attention from the corner of my eye, as I repeatedly ignored the MacBook Pro at the top of all those lists.

Finally, I decided to peek. After all, you can look as long as you don’t touch, right?

I am really digging the "Mission Control" option Mac has, which shows you all the open apps, both in Mac OS and Windows.

I groaned and cringed as I Googled, read, compared, ranked and Googled again. A Mac was making more sense as I “slept” on it for a few days. After a friendly geek at a Best Buy store answered some questions about Mac vs. PC advantages, I was nearly ready to wave the white flag.

Just to be certain, I popped into the Apple store at the mall — and suddenly was feeling that I needed to get a latte, just to make sure I still preferred one over flavored water.

I wasn’t always this adventurous. Although I was ahead of the curve in switching to a smartphone years ago — Palm became a convenient alternative to hauling the planner for coordinating my schedule while on the road — I was also proudly a minimalist. The latest and greatest gadgets didn’t entice me.

Blame it on the iPod Touch (or Steve Jobs, may he rest in peace, for knowing what we needed before we did). Once my husband bought one, I couldn’t think of anything else when my old MP3 player bit the dust.

The rest went downhill from there. The Kindle came. And then the iPad. I wasn’t an early adopter of any of those devices, but I sure didn’t follow my minimalist ideas much.

Yes, I’m conscientiously still sticking with a BlackBerry smartphone because I don’t need a choice of half a million apps, but beyond that, all bets are off.

The detox period, I’m happy to report, is going well so far. But — here comes the big confession — it’s because I’m having my cake and eating it too. I wasn’t about to invest a couple of Gs into replacing all my PC programs, so I’m running Windows on the MacBook, via Parallels.

So yeah, I’m cheating. Let’s call it going from hamburgers to soy “burgers” before embracing tofu. It’s a happy, beautiful union while I learn the quirks of Mac and avoid suffering from Windows withdrawals.

It’s not a perfect relationship — there are glitches and annoyances, like with anything else — yet so far, I haven’t regretted the decision.

Does that make me a Mac person? Not entirely. At least not yet. The world is still spinning, but let’s not forget that global warming idea.

Duels are illegal (OR, a few simple tips for saving your words from certain death)

Of course we’ve all seen this poster about poor Grandma.

But it could be worse. Here’s a one-sentence email press release I received a few years ago (with names removed to save embarrassment):  ”By a vote of 42-3 with 5 abstentions the [District No X] Democrats voted for a Duel Endorsement of [incumbent] and [challenger ] for the US Senate.”

I had to save this email for posterity — once I stopped laughing hysterically. I mean, I knew politics can be murder, but a duel?

If you want your target audience to take you seriously — whether a customer reading your brochure, a fan reading your blog, or an editor reading your press release — don’t give them a reason not to. You don’t have to be a great writer or create perfect copy to look professional, but you can do a few little things to save your precious words (as well as grandmothers and senators)  from certain death.

This post  from copyblogger that I highly recommend reading lists five of my personal pet peeves that are among commonly made errors  (you’re vs. your, its vs. it’s, there vs. their, affect vs. effect and the sneaky dangling participle).

One common mistake missing from that list is entitled vs. titled, which I see commonly used by best-selling authors, big media publishers and PR gurus alike.  You could try to argue with your teenager that you’re entitled to his or her attention, but convincing someone that your book, report, song or whatever is entitled to something is pointless, even if it’s cleverly titled.

My Other Pet Peeve is Capitalization. I realize your Idea is so Important that you want to Emphasize it, but using capital letters is not the way to do it. Neither is using ALL CAPS. Neither is using excessive punctuation!!!!! You get the point.

I’m not saying I’m a saint in my own writings. Episiotomy vs. epitome was my all-time low point (in a beautiful magazine story) that made me want to crawl under a rock and hide for a very long time.

I’m simply saying: If English grammar is not your friend, get a second pair of eyeballs to read your prose before you launch it out into the universe. Your grandma will thank you. Maybe even your senator.

Personal blogging is not for the meek… and a few other conclusions so far

(Reposted from my “journalist in retraining” blog)

(Not) just another gratuitous cat photo. When you're blogging about personal topics, sometimes you feel like the fish in an aquarium.

It’s been more than two months since I’ve been dragged kicking and screaming into the blogosphere (I explained my trepidations in an earlier post) and I launched my first official blog, Sandwiched In. That doesn’t make me an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I did come up with some conclusions so far.

First of all, I can see why so many blogs are floating out there, tossed into the cyberlandfill like disposable utensils. Blogging is work, no matter if you’re writing about your cat or about the latest tech gadget — you have to put in the time, and you have to be disciplined about it.

Unless you’re an expert in a specific field, coming up with a topic is half the battle, and suddenly it makes sense why the going advice is to base the blog on something you’re passionate about. It’s hard as it is to keep up the writing unless you have nothing better to do, and if you don’t care about the topic, it’s even worse than pulling teeth.

Hello, World! (or why a writer may be the last person to take a ticket for the blogging bandwagon)

Today I surrender.

I have resisted becoming a citizen of the blogosphere for some time, though in the interest of full disclosure I should mention I did throw in the towel once, a few months ago. The euphoria lasted for five posts, and then I went about my daily business.

Someone I met recently wondered how can I be a blogless writer. Writers have much to say, people would argue. Writing is already a piece of cake for them. They could blog in their sleep. They are WRITERS, for crying out loud!

It’s all true.

There’s just one little thing. Actually, many many little things.