- By Dan Veaner
- Around Town
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I am still getting used to my Mac after using PCs for years. After switching from Microsoft Outlook to Apple iCal and Address Book for my appointment calendar and addresses I thought I had gotten over the differences. And I was thrilled because I could use iSync to put my calendar events and phone book onto my cell phone wirelessly.But then iCal went crazy on me. I put in appointments, and they disappeared. And one day iCal changed the times on about half my appointments to an hour later. Now, if it were all my appointments I would have thought I set daylight savings wrong. But it was only some of them. And I am pretty sure it didn't change the times on the calendars of all the people I had appointments with, so they still thought I was coming an hour earlier!
I wasn't as thrilled any more.
Then I started thinking could there be some method to this madness? Does my Mac know that I am a PC guy at heart? And is it scheming to get me to spend more time with it so it can convince me of how lovable it is? After missing enough appointments I would surely stop making them. And who could be more fun to be with than my Mac? In its own mind, anyway. Does a Mac have a mind?
It does if you believe those irritating Apple commercials. In fact, if those commercials are to be taken seriously, my Mac is a self righteous, irritating egomaniac that considers itself superior to lowly PCs, and hasn't the good manners to leave its sarcasm at home. Maybe changing those times on my calendar was something more sinister than a simple desire to be loved... Maybe my Mac thinks my appointments should be at the times it thinks it should be at, because the times I set are somehow inferior.
Now I'm worried. Is my Mac only letting me see the email it thinks I should see? Is it rewriting my letters and documents behind my back? Is it sending nasty notes to my friends that it doesn't approve of? Is it torpedoing online purchases it doesn't approve of?
I decided I needed a new program to handle my calendar, and the copy of Microsoft Office I bought for my Mac has one called Entourage, the Mac version of Outlook. Entourage can be set so that any changes I make will also overwrite iCal and Address Book, so I can still sync them to my phone. But I can't escape the irony that a Mac version of a PC program is solving my problem. And I worry a lot about how the Mac will respond to this turn of affairs.
Actually I only think Entourage is solving my problem. It is too early to tell. I haven't really had any appointments since I switched, so I don't know whether I'll show up early or late. Or not at all. Or go to appointments I don't really have.
I'm thinking of going back to a paper calendar. Analog, not digital, but I never had an altercation with a DayMinder. At least not one that I couldn't win.
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