Me and My Macs

I am a rabid Mac fan. Rabid.

Sometime, a long time ago (around 1986 or 1987), I decided that I wanted a computer. Now, understand that I had never so much as turned on a computer at that point. So I bought a couple of magazines and ordered a Zeos. And I used it for a couple of years. I taught myself DOS and then Windows and I futzed around with it all. AOL. Prodigy, Compuserve. Local BBS's. I loved it. And then the Zeos started breaking. The floppy drive failed and the modem failed. And I needed more RAM. (WOO HOO MORE RAM.) While I was searching for non-proprietary options for all of the above, a friend suggested that before I invest any more cash in my system I take a look at his Mac. A pivotal moment in my computing history, I looked, I played, I put the Zeos in a closet and ordered a Mac.

My brother's a geek and he went nuts when I switched camps. And he still goes nuts about it. He thinks that Macs are for elitists with numb brains. Until recently, I hadn't won this war with anyone in my family. When my parents bought a computer, they went Windoze. I gagged. I wanted them to have fun, not be tied up in fixing things all of the time. When my ex bought a computer, he listened to everyone in his office and went Windoze. He bought a whiz bang Gateway laptop, loaded with RAM and bells and whistles. It didn't even work out of the box. They replaced it and he used it a little and then he put it away. Every time he took it out to use he would call me and I would walk him through whatever it was that he wanted to do. The drill was that he would use it, get it all whacked and then put it aside until I visited and could get it working again. And he wasn't trying to do anything difficult, just access his email and play with a flyfishing game. And he's certainly not stupid.

One summer while I was traveling, I sent a Mac to our daughter at his house. She opened the box, set it up (with a printer), and was online within a couple of hours. Anybody can use a Mac. The ex resisted for a while, holding on to the misconceptions that Macs were limited in scope and then he ordered one. And he uses it. Every once in a while he gets himself in a mess, but the tech calls are few and far between.

Macs are butt easy to use. They're fun. The only time that you have to get techy with them is pretty much when you want to. They're not quite as easy to use today as they were even 5 years ago, but they're still easy. There's not much that goes wrong that you can't fix yourself.

So, enough with the minor rant. I think operating system resonance may be a left brain/right brain thang.

Macs in the house (and they all still work):

6110 with the original monitor

6320 Performa

G3 with the really great 17" Studio monitor

Original iMac

Powerbook 180C

Powerbook 1400

Accessories: Stylus 1200, HP LaserJet 6MP, Stylus 740, Original Stylus, AGFA scanner, Mustek scanner, Yamaha 6416 CD R-W, La Cie CD R-W, Superdisk, Zipdrives, cablemodem, Wacom tablet (that I don't really know how to use), Kensington TurboMouse.

I've had 2 digital cameras, an Olympus 220 and a Mavi 83, but I gave them away for Christmas. I'll be replacing them soon. I really miss having a digital around.

HARDWARE UPDATE!!! Add to that mix a bronze Powerbook and an iBook, an EZQuest CD-RW, a La Cie CD-RW (USB and less than useful to put it mildly) an Olympus 3030, a Sony Digital Handycam and some other stuff. Speakers. Routers. Hubs.

Software that I consider indispensible:

Ram Doubler and Speed Doubler and Speed Startup

UPDATE!!! Not indespensible any more. Ram's too cheap, so I don't use them.

NetPrint

UPDATE!!! Still indespensible. Used constantly.

FinderPop

Cameraid

UPDATE!!! Not used at all anymore thanks to memory cards and and a Microtech card reader.

Norton Utilities

UPDATE!!! Yeah. Still indespensible. But now I use Disk Warrior, too.

Image Styler

Photoshop/Image Ready

Dreamweaver

URL Manager

Toast

Felttip

Ultra Recorder

SoundJam

I love Kaleidoscope, but I don't use it on the laptop where memory is precious.

UPDATE!!! I don't use it anywhere any more. I have far fewer conflicts when I'm not using it. But my desktop's sure not as interesting as it used to be.

And I have NOT switched over to X. Yet. But I hear the siren call . . .

Websites that I visit and/or use every single day:

Versiontracker

Macsurfer

Destiny Cards

Horrorscope

Digital Camera Info

More digital camera info

And yet more

Looka

Obscure Reading Room

Weather

Dictionary

Dogpile

Sky and Telescope

Cruel Site of the Day

Robot Wisdom

Refdesk

 

This is who I use for my website. They are terrrific. Really.

Hosted By Dreamhost

In addition to my cablemodem account, I keep an Earthlink account to use on the road.

 

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