Bells and Whistles 14 Aug 2007 07:45 am
A New Computer Experience
Remember the first PC’s? The big heavy IBM-like AT’s? 8088’s? CGA, VGA, SVGA monitors. The bigger the better and heavier too. It was a struggle for some of us, me in particular, to learn DOS. Directories, files, folders. When to use forward slash and back slash. .bat, .config or config.bat, and *.* if you didn’t know… I was given a program called “Pathminder” from a friend of mine that really helped me do what I wanted more easily without having to get everything typed in just right. Then Microsoft came along with Windows. Apple never was in my picture back then for some reason. I liked the GUI’s. I thought they were cute and kinda made sense in some ways but I never looked into Apple or Macintosh. I was caught up in the Microsoft storm of sorts sweeping the PC world, and I tried to keep up with it and learning all the new things that came along. But I never could. I got to the point of feeling a little bit like it is hopeless to try. Helpless in some ways.
Then, early last year as I got back into my music collection and started to think about how I could copy most if not all into my computer after hauling all my CD’s and a turntable down to the lake for the Fourth of July, how nice it would be not to have all that stuff. If I just had it on a laptop like my kids were doing, how much easier that would be? I had heard about the MP3 players and something called iPod and I didn’t understand the iPod commercials very well. In truth, to this now 54 y/o, they were kind of annoying. Then, my daughters boyfriend brought his iPod to the lake and with a FM gizmo, brought it out on the boat with us and I was hooked. If I get one of those things and put as much of my music on it as possible, I won’t have to lug around all those darned CD’s, 45’s and LP’s anymore. I still didn’t have an Apple computer. A Mac they call them. But with the iPod came a program I would need to use called iTunes. It was by Apple but was compatible with my Dell/PC laptop. So, I loaded the program onto my PC, figured out how to copy my CD’s into it and BOOM! I was off to the races! So simple, and it worked like it told me it would. And then I hooked up the iPod and whoosh! It started “syncing” just like it said it would. Amazing. And I didn’t have to understand or know anything about what was happening, why it did what it did or do anything except follow simple instructions and plug it in. And with help from the iTunes Store, it even found the names and information about almost all of the songs from my “collections” CD’s so I didn’t have to go back and fill in the information manually. Sometime during the winter of 06, my Dell started a glitchy thing and it got worse come January. My oldest son had a MacBook for about a year, and as I was getting the hang of my iPod and the ease of use of the iTunes, I got curious about the Mac. And of course the son was telling me and showing me things on the Mac and I was open to possibly getting a Mac and trying it out. September of that year (06) I had a TIA or mini-stroke. And though I mostly recovered to normal, I have noticed some difficulty tasking on a computer when it came to fine tuning a program or application. And god help me if I have to do something with network set-up or changes, or anti virus software set up and such. So I was ready to find something that is easy to use, somewhat more intuitive for a user yet powerful enough for the techies who just can’t leave anything alone.
So I got a MacBook Pro 15″. As luck would have it, it has the intel duo core something or other with Apples OS X 10. something or other.
Very nice machine, and for the past few months, I have been learning what the machine can do and play with the programs on it and tinkering mostly.
In June I got a real confidence boost when Apple’s iPhone came out. I got one. Within an hour I was syncing music, checking e-mail on two accounts and setting up my photos, albums and playlists just like on my iPod.
One of the things I have been wanting to do is make movies from the video I have taken and the films and slides I have. iMovie and IDVD came on my Mac but I was having some difficulty with them. I had some success and some frustrations with iMovie in particular but I figured if I just spend more time with it and hung in there I would get things figured out. I’ve had to do that more/longer with things I want to do lately. Then I learned that Apple had upgraded or improved iLife 06. They came out with iLife 08. Go figure…some of this stuff is a no brainer even with a slightly damaged brainer like mine. Apple is real good about having demo video and announcements/keynotes by Steve Jobs about new things and products they come out with. When Steve showed me how iMovie 08 works right after I was having my struggles with some things in the 06 version, and the updates directly addressed the issues I was having, I had to have it. I ordered it and had it sent NEXT DAY. I got it on Friday afternoon, installed it and on Saturday I shot some video scenes, imported the shots into iMovie and within an hour I was viewing an edited movie with transitions titles and music just the way I wanted it, just like that.
Just last night, my almost 1 year old Grandson was over and I shot a bunch of video of him… he’s walking now you know…such a brilliant child of course, and after he and his Daddy left, I sat down and started editing. In just under 2 hours I had selected the clips, transitions, composed the titles, added sound effects and music to complete the movie. Then I uploaded the whole thing to my .mac “My Gallery”. Boom, just like that.
Now, I know there will be at least one reader that thinks I have abandon him and/or Windows or PC and fled over to Mac. No I haven’t. I still use my Dell for stuff and I still work with PC’s at work. And for now, I think PC’s can still kick butt in video intensive gaming. And there are other OS’s out there that are or will be key players it the personal computer world as well.
However, for me, for now, in this point and time in my life, my experiences with the Mac is reassuring and uplifting, and I am actually having fun again with computers and I just want to thank the gang at Apple for giving me something to look forward to using each time I open the lid. Well done. Keep it up!