I gave up and bought a Dell Inspiron-8600 laptop. It is very pretty. I still prefer my Mac, having used Macintoshes since 1984, but this laptop is right beside it. I had to buy it because OCLC, and I understand WebDewey, do not work well with Macs. Also, Real Player does not work properly on the Mac and my online classes use it. See jogin.com :: Real Obnoxious for a discussion and see a reply at jogin.com :: Real Reply.

I cannot build up speed on the laptop keyboard, and I don’t like mousing on a touchpad. So, my first challenge was to work out how to have one keyboard, one mouse, and one monitor. My solution was to purchase the Belkin Omniview SOHO 2-port KVM switch with audio. Really cool the way this KVM (keyboard video mouse) works. They support both Mac and PC on this. I just press a button on the front to toggle the peripherals between the PC and Mac.

I plugged the mouse into the mouse in-port and ran USB cables from both the Mac and the Dell laptop. Single mouse. Works great. My Apple keyboard is not recognized, so I bought a Logitech Elite. I cannot get used to it. You may know how that is. You type for years on a certain keyboard and your fingers just find their way. The KVM has extra USB ports, so I hooked my printer into one of them and I can print from either system.

The screen on the Dell is very sharp, so I use that when I am working on the PC and I use the Apple Display when I am using the Mac. I am still shopping around for a monitor, and I am looking very seriously at a Viewsonic in 19 inches because my daughter recommends the Viewsonic. The ones I have viewed are floor models only, as everyone seems to have these back-ordered.

I am getting up to speed on XP Pro, and of course the first thing I did was add security software. Networking is not an issue. I plugged an ethernet cable into the router and I can get to the Internet with either system. I am getting there folks. PC-land isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Having sharp graphics and a speedy system makes a difference.

Now I just need to figure out how to make the Dell a dual-boot system with RedHat Linux and Windows XP Pro. You didn’t really expect me to live with Windows, did you?