April was a big month for us. Some of you may recall that it was then that we took the plunge and bought MacBook Pros. Thinking back, our first week was a bit painful. It took time to “re-train” our brains to think differently. Both Ryan and I are keyboard shortcut aficionados, meaning that we’re big fans and use them often. When switching between a Mac and PC, keyboard shortcuts are definitely different, and caused us some frustration.
By the end of May my brain had just about fully adjusted to the changes in operating systems and my fingers naturally seemed to do what they were supposed to do on a Mac. When I needed to copy something, I automatically pressed command + c instead of pressing ctrl + c out of habit. Life as far as computers was concerned, was going pretty well.
This all changed for me when I started my new job. The laptop I was issued has Vista installed and while I am excited that it is Vista and not XP (nothing against XP, I just enjoy Vista), it sure causes some brain confusion! Some of you probably know what I’m talking about if you have a Mac at home and a PC at work or visa versa. It gets confusing, doesn’t it? I can easily remember the shortcuts for each, it’s just that my brain can’t seem to remember which computer I’m on and allow my fingers to press the appropriate keys.
Even as I write this article (on a Mac) I have found myself with “brain confusion,” pressing fn + c to copy something instead of command + c (the fn key is in the same location as the ctrl key is). Other examples include pressing the Windows key and the spacebar on my Vista laptop expecting that the Start menu will appear and I’ll be able to start searching (Spotlight on a Mac – Command + Spacebar) .
Oh, and then there’s the issue of differences between applications. I use Office 2007 on the Vista laptop and Office 2008 on the Mac. They are very different from one another. Yet another example is with my screenshot software. On the Vista laptop I use SnagIt which uses completely different shortcuts than Skitch which I use on my Mac. I find myself trying to drag images from SnagIt, into applications like I do with Skitch, and of course, it doesn’t work.
To those of you who switch daily between a Mac and Windows, do you find yourself confused? Please tell me I’m not alone. 
I was issued a Mac last August for school (we were required to use a Mac for a program at school). And I still love my Vista box. So, I use my macbook when I want to be anywhere else around the house, but my desktop if I feel like working in my room. And to be honest, the shortcuts are painful! Especially if I suddenly go to corners of the screen on Vista, expecting something to happen.
And yes, fn + c is a pain…. and I usually press (by mistake) Windows + tab (I always preferred alt+tab) now, since I got used to command + tab.
Different vendor (or even model) has different Fn key layout. So it’s just not a matter of switching OS. Once I have a Toshiba laptop which keyboard has no right shift and the Win key on the top right area (WTF?).
And in my Asus A8Js the Fn key is in the bottom left (and the Ctrl next to it). At first I always press Fn + c to copy (and curse Asus “Why on earth you put the Fn key there?”) but eventually I get used to it. And now actually I’m quite happy to have them put Fn key there!
yeah right. it can make us confused.
Have you thought of using your mouse to Copy/Paste instead of using the keyboards? If you do that, you don’t have to worry about where the keys are to get from A to B.
If your Apple computer at home and your PC at work have the same Main Menu, then that would standardize your work on both computers.
Just my two cents on the subject. I only use my computer at home, since I’m a retiree. When I worked, I had another PC at work together with Microsoft Office 2003—the same I had at home. So I really had no problems. Most of the time, I use Copy and Paste from the main Menu clicking my mouse. It’s just a habit of mine and for me it works fine.
Yeah, same problem for me for about two months…but after that finally mi mind got accustomized to the switch.
No hint for you, just have faith! You will succeed…i only have a difficult with ctrl and command keys for copy and paste…
I use a Mac and a PC with the same monitor and keyboard at work and switch between them with a KVM. I got really confused at first because I too use keyboard short cuts frequently. In the last month I have trained myself when I use the keysrtokes to change computers to then look at the bottom left corner and top left corners to see if I see a Start button or an Apple. This has helped alot but I still occasionally find myself using the wrong shortcuts.
I have a Macbook and a PC desktop. Yes, I usually have the issues when I stop using my Macbook for quite a while. It will take me around 10 minutes to tune my brain to ‘Mac’ mode. After long periods of my Macbook, I will start having problems when I switch over to my desktop. I supposed humans are just creatures of habits.
I have always used Macs at home and almost always had to use PCs at work. When I’m at work I always feel like I’m in computer exile. Sure, partly it’s just that things are different than how I like them, but it’s also that Windows has so many features that are either counterintuitive, difficult, inconvenient, ugly, or some combination of all of those.
If I could, I’d uninstall Windows and replace it with Linux…but at work it’s just not my computer.
I support lots of clients with all different types of keyboards, pointing devices and operating systems. I personally use Vista, Mac OS X 10.5 and Windows XP every day on my own equipment. Am I screwed up when it comes to remembering which system does what with what device? You bet. The worst issue is the lack of a single key that is a true delete key on my MacBook Pro. I redefined the second Enter key to be a true delete key but my brain still wants to send my fingers elsewhere when I need to delete something.
simple change the keyboard shortcut on the Mac if you must! Pretty trivial. I switched never looked back and had no problems. In Fact quite a few less problems not having to deal with Windows!
Yeah I’d recommend the same as Paul: change shortcuts wherever you can to make them consistent between the two platforms
I personally had the most trouble with not having Expose on Windows. At work I used a Mac, at home I had Windows and I found myself going to the corners very often, unconsciously, and then finding out nothing was happening
Generally speaking I don’t have too many problems switching between Windows and Mac on a daily basis. I’m not quite sure why, but it seems as though my fingers adjust rather quickly to the differences.
That’s interesting that it didn’t have a right shift key, but after you said that I realized that I never use the right shift key anyways. My fingers always gravitate to the left one.
I’m a keyboard shortcut kind of person myself, but I do use the mouse from time-to-time to do my copying and pasting.
Amen to that… having to press function+delete can be a pain.
True… but sometimes I still like to look at the keys to see what I’m pressing. So that would probably make things just as confusing with me.
I am a commercial Linux developer, love to play computer games and have always used windows at home, and now have 2 Macs for iPhone development.
In my situation, I use 3 different operating systems daily, but I don’t like it and would never do it if my job didn’t require it – it’s just unnecessarily annoying.
If I had my choice, I would just run Windows. The selection of hardware and software is just enormous, and the hardware is far cheaper than Apple. MacOS is a fine OS but is too restrictive – you can’t run it on any hardware you want, you can’t run it virtualized, its too restrictive and expensive.
Another “issue” just came to mind. On my Mac I am so used to using two fingers to tap on the touch pad when I want to right click. I find myself doing the same on my Windows PC, forgetting that there is an actual right-click button.
Agreed!