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Bought my girlfriend an MBP and she's afraid to use it :)

T

Thomas Davie

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 20, 2004
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528
Bought my gf a 13.3" 2.26 ghz/2gb/160gb hdd MBP last friday, she upgraded it to the 4gb/250/2.53 ghz model, and bought Parallels for her.

Got everything installed (Parallels, Win XP, Civ 3, Office 2008, Onyx, VLC, Firefox, Thunderbird, etc).

And other than email and ebay, she won't use it because she's afraid of damaging it/it's too different

What's the best way to ease someone into using their own Mac; that is....someone who is coming from a life long PC use pattern? She has a one to one appointment with a Mac Genius for video editing, and I'm hoping that will spark things, but can anyone think of anything else? Are there any good freeware photo editors out there that can work with iphoto libraries?

thanks for any advice

Tom
(seeing all of these icons on the dock kinda freaks her out)
 
Web browsing/Word processing.

Anyone can do that. Safari really is nothing more than a location bar (well the way I have it setup). After that she'll start to get curious.

By this time next week she'd have hacked it and will engage in dual booting/virtualization and advanced unix. :p
 
Thomas Davie said:
Bought my gf a 13.3" 2.26 ghz/2gb/160gb hdd MBP last friday, she upgraded it to the 4gb/250/2.53 ghz model, and bought Parallels for her.

Got everything installed (Parallels, Win XP, Civ 3, Office 2008, Onyx, VLC, Firefox, Thunderbird, etc)
Click to expand...

I'd go back to the 2.26 model and use the extra money for SSD.

Also, Safari works a lot better on OS X than Firefox. Firefox has resource usage issues.
 
Eh, if she is afraid of using it, take it away and enjoy it for yourself.

Usually people who are afraid of breaking something are either not to bright or do actually break things quite often.

Yes, I'm an *******.
 
Thomas Davie said:
And other than email and ebay, she won't use it because she's afraid of damaging it/it's too different

What's the best way to ease someone into using their own Mac; that is....someone who is coming from a life long PC use pattern?
Click to expand...
It sounds like your girlfriend is just afraid of messing something up. The best cure for that is to ease her into it by getting her to do everything on her own with either you or someone else there showing her the correct and wrong way of doing things. You have to teach her all the basics. For the most part Mac is pretty similar to Windows. If you walk her through everything then she will become familiar with it and it won't be new to her.

If she doesn't mind reading you can also buy her a Mac learning book and there are classes at community colleges to teach her the basics if she is willing to do that. Unless you have time to teach her then taking classes is probably the best way for her because she sounds rather timid when it comes to learning new technology. The self taught or trial and error method doesn't seem like something she is willing to do. There are also a lot of guides on the internet too but it sounds like she will need someone to hold her hand and walk her through everything until she gets comfortable with Macs.
 
Consider yourself a lucky man. I had to pry my laptop from mine because she kept using my MBP instead of her HP. I think it was a ploy for me to buy her one, and which in this case she won.... :p
 
I made the mistake of installing iStat menu and she's getting fixated that the temperature will rise by 1 or 2 degrees C, or that the rpm of the fans will increase (I also installed fan Control). We've got Canadian remeberance day on Wednesday so think I'll try to run imovie and idvd by her and see what happens.

One positive note; she is very impressed that she is not (as of this current date) not needing to run anti virus/malware proggies. Thats kind of what sold her on the Mac, and although she didn't beileve it at first, it's starting to sink in.

She's got a few thousand photo's on her HP laptop so I'll have her import them into iphoto and see what happens

thanks everyone

Tom
 
After I found the CPU/GPU to be normal -- i deleted iStat, less worry that way since any problems would be covered by Apple Care anyhow.
 
She is probably afraid of damaging it. My daughter was scared when she dropped an MBP that I had just given her. I told her it was fine and showed her it still ran perfect except it had a dent in the corner that added character. She loves it now and isn't afraid of dropping or damaging it anymore. Maybe you should drop it and dent the corner... or maybe not. The point is stuff happens and it's far easier to just enjoy it rather than fearing damaging it.
 
direct her over to the apple website and have her watch those videos, after 2 or 3 she'll start to tinker on her own and google on how to do stuff
 
just have her hold it and play with it for a while to get comfortable so she realizes she doesn't have to be so gentle and can get a little rough and it won't break

wait are we still talking about laptops?
 
My girlfriend also has her own MBP.
She started with the 101 and by watching me play with it.
(ok there we go 18+)

anyway,
chill. said:
just have her hold it and play with it for a while to get comfortable so she realizes she doesn't have to be so gentle and can get a little rough and it won't break

wait are we still talking about laptops?
Click to expand...

ooooh my dirty mind started playing in that first line.
nevermind

My girlfriend also has her own MBP.
She started with the 101 and by watching me play with it. :eek:
(ok there we go again)

No seriously. first programs like photobooth and front row make her feel comfy :)
 
Get time machine up and running and show her that everything is backed up! It won't matter if she deletes something by mistake, it can simply be restored with time machine in a few clicks. Should make her feel a bit more safe. :)
 
I don't get the point of this thread? IF all she needs to do on a comp is read email and browse the web, then that's all she needs to do and that's all she does.

What are you saying when you say "afraid to use it". For an average consumer, to be honest, there isn't much you can do with a Mac lol. I have one, hardly use it.

Is she a Web developer? Artist? Photographer? Video editor? Developer?

If not, then she IS using the macbook to do what she WANTS to do. You can't force her to do stuff just because she has a mac now.

Maybe someone can enlighten me.
 
n19htmare said:
I don't get the point of this thread? IF all she needs to do on a comp is read email and browse the web, then that's all she needs to do and that's all she does.

What are you saying when you say "afraid to use it". For an average consumer, to be honest, there isn't much you can do with a Mac lol. I have one, hardly use it.

Is she a Web developer? Artist? Photographer? Video editor? Developer?

If not, then she IS using the macbook to do what she WANTS to do. You can't force her to do stuff just because she has a mac now.

Maybe someone can enlighten me.
Click to expand...

I'll enlighten you since I'm the OP. She's been using computers for a number of years and does the usual; Office, surfing, downloading, listening to music and watching vids. etc. I bought her a MBP because her PC laptop was getting long in the tooth. So, it's setup, has all the programs installed that she would 'normally' be using on a PC, and she is *afraid* to use it. I'm not trying to force her to use it, never said that. I am asking for help on how one could ease someone into OS X. The point is, I want her to be able to enjoy using it as opposed to enjoying looking at it.

I hope that clarifies things?

Tom
 
She is probably afraid of damaging it physically or messing up some settings. I know I treat mine with kid gloves for fear of a bump taking out the hard drive or knocking it off the table. Amazing how it was so much easier to fling around my 800 dollar plastic laptop...but this thing is just so damn sexy and cost so much I have some anxiety over it. I read some article where this lady was writing to Steve and complaining because she broke the screen basically and they wouldnt fix it free...she starts by saying "I could just buy another one I could afford it easily"...wanted to slap her.
 
Thomas Davie said:
I'll enlighten you since I'm the OP. She's been using computers for a number of years and does the usual; Office, surfing, downloading, listening to music and watching vids. etc. I bought her a MBP because her PC laptop was getting long in the tooth. So, it's setup, has all the programs installed that she would 'normally' be using on a PC, and she is *afraid* to use it. I'm not trying to force her to use it, never said that. I am asking for help on how one could ease someone into OS X. The point is, I want her to be able to enjoy using it as opposed to enjoying looking at it.

I hope that clarifies things?

Tom
Click to expand...

My wife turned the MBP I gave her into a full screen VMware Fusion Windows machine. She just did not want to learn how to use Word, Excel & PP on OS X. She has two degrees and a bunch of certifications in her field so it's not too difficult. She said everything was too different and stayed in Windows the entire time. I eventually sold the MBP and gave her a HP 17" with Blu-ray and 1440x900 screen. She loves it and vows never to have a Mac.

My daughter & I (both Mac users) wish her well. Some people have a comfort zone and they will not leave it w/o being highly motivated. She had no real reason to leave Windows since I have to clean up any problems associated with her Windows PC.

If your GF wants to learn the new stuff she will in her own time, either that or she will live a lot in Parallels.

Cheers,
 
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