Mac Daddy
Well I did it. I mused last week about buying a Powerbook. Traveling through airport after airport with wireless access, and visiting campuses that have wireless networks made me lust after connectivity. So I ordered a little 12 inch G4. I won’t be able to afford the applications I really need until fall, but at least I can get the OS figured out before then.
Or maybe it was peer pressure, I don’t know. Most of the scholars I talked to this week were tapping away at their Powerbooks, or showing off their new I-pods. Maybe it was seeing all Mac classrooms. Maybe it was the depressing business of shopping for one shoddy looking plastic PC box after another.
After all this travel, my credit card won’t forgive me for a while. But a person needs the right tools, damn it! Another deciding factor was seeing that the library at the school I hope to go to has its own online reference manager software, so I won’t need to get ProCite or EndNote for the Mac either. All I really need is Adobe CS, and I’ll be set. I think I can use OpenOffice for a while; I’ve been alternating between that and M$ Office for a while. Though I like M$ Office better, I think OpenOffice is livable.
I hand code almost everything I do most of the time, but I’ll miss PhotoShop in the meantime. I’ll also miss my scroll-wheel mouse, but maybe I can get that taken care of soon. It’s not fun being poor, and thinking about all the blasted moving expenses on top of all the academic stuff I need to do. O well, if I didn’t have something to worry about I don’t know what I would do.
Nice to see you’ve come over from the dark side, Jeff.
Now if you could just convince Jonathon.
Jeff: Nice to see you’ve switched. A few things. Your powerbook (the same one I have) will come with the wonderful image editing application, GraphicConverter, pre-installed. OpenOffice is OK, but there’s really no substitute on the Mac for Office (which is $150 with an education discount). Finally, any USB scroll wheel mouse will work fine with OS X, and usually won’t even require drivers.
I’ll have mine with me at 4Cs, if you have yours by then. I’ll be glad to help you out with anything you might need.
The scrolly mouse is the only thing lacking. I understand from the muttering behind me (B, trying to get a paper formatted) that Office is useful but he says “OSX is wonderful” because it allows you to save things as pdfs. Whatever that may mean.
Me, I’m a girly and obviously I only like them for their looks.
The education edition of Office is only $150, allows 3 installations, and is a complete package, just not upgradeable. You might want to try the Gimp for image manipulation—it’s free and works well with Apple’s X11 (included by default). Grapic Converter is good, too, though not as feature complete. For very simple manipulation, the included iPhoto might work.
Chills
Unlike Karl or my GP, my mother holds to the belief that colds and influenza are always the result of "catching a chill" rather than from contact with an infected person or object. I’m not s…
Heheh, Loren, funny you should say that.
Ticket to Macland
A week ago I ordered a Macintosh. After eight years of using Windows–95, 98, 2000, and XP–I simply can’t stand it any longer.