Category Archives: Computers

Apple, Computers, TECH

Mac and Me – iPhoto and Safari

To get the full Mac experience, I have resolved to try and do things “the Mac way” first before falling back on old habits.  This came to light when I finished setting up and wanted to transfer the unboxing pictures from my camera to the Mac.

When I was using Windows, I would remove the memory card from my camera, pop it into my PC’s card reader, create a new directory within My Photos under My Documents, and copy the pictures to the new folder.

We’re going to try doing things the Mac way, so instead of reaching for my SD card reader, I decided to plug in my camera (using the convenient USB plug built into the keyboard)  to see what would happen.

I got a prompt asking me if I want to use iPhoto, so I clicked yes.  The pictures that were on my camera then appeared in iPhoto.  I also had pictures from the family reunion I went to this past weekend on the camera as well.  They weren’t on the Mac yet, I had to type in an “Event Name”  I typed “Family Reunion,” selected all of those pictures (out of habit, I used the Shift key, but much to my surprise, it worked) and a minute or so later, there they were!

I repeated the process with my “New iMac” pictures, and so far, I am pretty impressed.  Despite my outdated 3.1 MP camera, the pictures looked pretty good.  I saw a “slideshow” option at the bottom of the window, and upon clicking it, was greeted with a slideshow set to Randy Newman’s “You’ve Got A  Friend In Me.”

That was cool, but now I want to watch Toy Story.  I was finished with the camera, but I wasn’t sure if there was anything special I need to do…you know, like in Windows.  I didn’t see anything obvious, so I just unplugged it, held my breath, and…nothing happened.  I guess that’s it…

I then opened Safari in order to upload the pictures I took during the unboxing to my Flickr account.  My initial impression was good; pages popped up fairly quickly, and I logged into my Flickr account in order to upload the 22 pics I had chosen to document the start of my Mac journey.

About 16 pics in, Safari crapped out on me.  I didn’t get a “blue screen” or even the “swirly ball of doom” I’d heard of.  Instead, Safari just sat there waiting for either me or the Flickr server to do something.  I closed the window, and uploaded the rest of the pics.  Okay, no biggie, browsers are picky things.

I then thought I would upload a pic to this site (the one where I’m giving a thumbs-up with a goofy smile) and WordPress just did not like Safari.  WordPress provides two ways to upload pics, and Safari failed both ways.

My next stop was to Mozilla.org in order to download Firefox.

Firefox handled everything just fine, but I’m not terribly dissapointed, after all, I rarely use Internet Explorer either.

Overall, I like working on the Mac, it is responsive, and the videos that Apple provides on their website do a good job of introducing PC slobs like myself to this new world of computing.

The only real learning curve I’ve experienced so far has been with the keyboard.  Typing is not a problem, but Mac keyboards don’t have the Page Up/Down or Home/End keys that have gotten so used to, so I have to re-learn many of the typing shortcuts I have gotten used to, like hitting “END” to reach the end of a line (now its command+right arrow) or doing CTRL+left to back up a word at a time (now its option+left arrow).

I think I’ll give iTunes a shot next, my PC experience with it was less than ideal (I removed it that same day) but that story’s for next time!

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Computers, TECH

Mac and Me – Intro

I have decided to buy a Mac.

After thinking it over for about a week, considering the alternatives, and crunching the numbers, I will be going to Best Buy, and will return with a 20-inch iMac.  It was not an easy decision to come to, particularly given that I am buying a new computer because I need one, following the early death of my Gateway (for what its worth, it was a pretty good machine up to that point).

I am one of those guys that defended Windows (and by association, Microsoft) with gusto, deriding Apple users as rabid fanboys lying prostate at the feet of Jobs and throwing him money for what on the surface appear to be incremental updates to OS X.  On the surface, it does seem screwy, after all, who else who pays for a DECIMAL upgrade?

I won’t be fogoing the world of Windows anytime soon, though.  After all, I have no intention of abandoning my netbook (which runs XP, and allowed me to maintain a semblance of sanity this last desktop-free week) and of course my cell phone runs Windows Mobile, which is deserving of a good tongue-lashing once I have time to get it all down on paper.  I will also probably install XP on my Mac as well, there are a few things (particularly old programs) that I don’t think will have a Mac equivalent.

It is time to find out how the “other side” lives.

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Computers, TECH

Lilliputing

So my desktop went kerplotz this past Sunday; the lousy Gateway junkheap didn’t even make it three years.  I’m trying to figure out what to get next.  I’m leaning toward Mac, but I’ll have to save up a few paychecks to float the cost.  I could get another Windows machine (and still might) but for the time being, I’m getting by with a little help from my netbook.

I must say, I’m pretty impressed with my HP Mini 1000 so far.  It gets a little pokey every so often because of the slow SSD drive, but it gets the job done.  I kicked up the memory to 2GB and the storage to 8GB.  Granted, I’m not certain I’m going to need all that, but its nice to know its there.  🙂

I took it to my parents’ house for Easter, and everyone was quite impressed.  I used my T-Mobile Dash to connect it to the tubes (folks are on dial-up, gak) and it worked quite well.  No more being “off the grid” for me or using my brother’s old crappy PC.

Its somewhat fortuitous that I have my netbook to tide me over until I get a new desktop…otherwise I may have done something CRAZY like put an iMac on my Mastercard.

Hmmm.

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