I feel a disturbance in the Force....

[lagilman]

Let's get one thing straight, first. I love my Dell Inspiron One. I would never be parted from it.. if it didn't have this habit of occasionally refusing to recognize the frackin' hard drive for occasional and intermittent hours at a time. This, despite Dell coming out and replacing Essential Bits.

It is a lovely machine. But it is Not Dependable.

I'm a writer on deadline. I need Dependable.

And so today, after accepting that my beloved Wolfe was never going to get its shit together, I went down to the Apple store on 70th and I said to the very nice boy at the door "you have the chance to turn a lifelong PC user into a Mac user. Show me what you've got."

After some serious discussion about what I needed vs what they wanted to sell me (the first guy was not so good about understanding that and so I walked away. The second guy was much better) I ended up handing over my whimpering credit card for a brand-new Mac Pro 13", and Office:Mac software.

This is going to be my dedicated writing machine, with Wolfe as backup. If Wolfe finally dies the death, I should be able to hook her up to his gigantic monitor, and use the wireless keyboard, and all will be Happy and Productive.

And now I have to learn all the ()*_^& new icons. This, I am not looking forward to. Nor, for that matter, next month's credit card bill. Ouch and ohshit, I really could not afford this right now. But I couldn't afford to not have a dependable machine, either.

So. Here we go....

[just in time for not only work on PSI#4, but also a Sekrit Potential Project, huzzah!]

EtA: *snerk* And the Guy, who is a Mac user, just texted "welcome! You will be much happier."




(This isn't my first Mac - I was a Mac Grrl back in 1988-89 -- but my memory of Mac products was they they were great for graphics types but crap for text support. Here's hoping y'all are right and that has changed...)

Comments

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

Welcome back into the fold, girl! I've been a Mac girl since Day Of Olde and work only on PCs for work. I find Macs overall to be far more reliable and, frankly, most of the writers I know out this way work on them. You're not alone and you've made a good choice.

[lagilman]

Back in the Day, WordPerfect and Word were light years ahead of any Mac text program, to the point of being absurd. But now that I can 'port over and back again with publishing-preferred Word....

[barbhendee.livejournal.com]

Laura Anne, we switched over to Macs in September of 2009, and I really do love my Mac Pro. There was a learning curve, but I love some of the "little things," like being able to turn the screen brightness up and down right from my keyboard.

There were some strange "key combinations" that I had to get used to--at least for me. For example, when I'm writing in a big file, I like to be able to jump from the beginning to the end a lot, and I couldn't find the key codes for "end" or "beginning" from the manual. I finally figured it out, but it took me a little while.

Anyway, happy new computer day!

[jennielf.livejournal.com]

Grats! Welcome to the cult! We have cookies!!! *hands you a big plate of Oatmeal Chocolate Chip*

Seriously, there are lots of mac comms on LJ. I frequent most of them. (I am a professional Mac tech in Real Life^tm.)

The hardest thing to remember is that macs are not windows. :)

Let us know if you have any questions!

[lagilman]

Right now I'm trying to figure out how well Calibre and Adobe will play, and how to get my music files from my iPod to the new laptop without having to re-burn everything... (they were loaded onto Wolfe and transferred, and it won't acknowledge the fact that Wolfe is not speaking to us right now.)

[natf.livejournal.com]

Although if you have an app that you need to use that only runs on windoze (I used to code apps for windoze myself way back in the 90s and 00s) and you have an intel mac (which suricattus's should be because it is so new) then you can actually install and run windows on it. Hubby worked (until very recently) with both macs and PCs for a living as a tech support guy and his clients had far fewer major problems with macs than with PCs/windoze.

[g33kboi.livejournal.com]

Yay and congrats! Feel free to pester me with questions although I'm sure your guy will be able to answer them just as easily.

First lesson: Keyboard shortcuts on the Mac are very similar to those in Windows. The difference is, where you would press the Control key in Windows, press the Command key on the Mac. So to copy, press Command + C.

Have fun with your new baby!

[lagilman]

The first and most important thing was to set up a tap function on the touchpad, because having to hard-click just sloooooows me the hell down....

[rosefox]

I'm amused by how many of us have Apple userpics. Someday you will too! Or maybe not.

If you ever need local tech support, give me a call.

[reannon.livejournal.com]

As a dedicated Mac user and possessor of an extremely reliable MacBook Pro, I welcome you to the collective. :) They are reliable, virtually virus-proof and they simply work. Feel free to yelp if you need advice. We are happy to help you assimilate. :)

[lagilman]

ok, so how do I get Garage Band and other unwanted apps off my dock?

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

The mighty have fallen.

::shakes fist in general direction of California:: "Wilt no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?"

[lagilman]

Yeah, I know. But in the end, they're all just tools, and the most dependable one wins.

[jslinder.livejournal.com]

Actually based completely on my iPhone and iPad experiences recently, tech support is the one area I have absolutely no concerns about apple with.. Price, yes. But so far every time I have ever had an issue in the past few years, I have been able to make an appointment at the local store and had it handled knowledgeably and as promptly as I could expect.

[lagilman]

er, I don't think anyone was worrying about tech support issues....?

[klingonguy.livejournal.com]

You are being very patient with all of the Mac folk who are smiling at you. Very gracious.

Now that you've joined the fold / drunk the kool-aid / are of the body, after you've caught your breath and gotten settled, you might want to take a look at a particularly fine writing tool named Scrivener. Among its many features is the ability to generate ePub files for you with ease.

[lagilman]

You are being very patient with all of the Mac folk who are smiling at you. Very gracious.

Actually I was just wondering who was going to be the first snide twit. Congratulations.

You seem to have missed the part where I still love my Dell and am still using it. Also the fact that Scrivener's available for Windows now, too.

Also, the fact that the only writing tool I use is my brain. The rest is just technology. (See? I can be snide, too)

[rkbwrites.livejournal.com]

Congrats on the new gear. :)

[mutantenemy.livejournal.com]

Congrats on the new acquisition! I'm on a MacBook and if you want a really good writing application, I would recommend Scrivener.

http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php

Worth every nano-cent. It has helped me through four NaNoWriMos and a few of my professional writing friends swear by it.

[lagilman]

It's been available for Windows for a while now, too. Noodled with it, but find that the only 'tools' I really use are a keyboard and a pen. Everything else is a distraction from the actual work of the story. Mileage, obviously, varies.

[birdhousefrog.livejournal.com]

This is sort of what I do, only I don't have the macpro 13inch. I settled on this machine for something that I could cart around and write on. My Dell does the tax crap. Keep your Dell for other things and it will be happier. But yes, welcome to the dark side.

[lassarina]

I was a Mac girl and then had a decade-long exile to Windows. I am now back to Mac and loving it.

When you are no longer on deadline, you may want to have a gander at Scrivener. I am loving it for writing.

(The command key is different on your MacBook, but most of the common keys--for bold, italic, save, new, open, close, quit, etc--have remained identical.)

[lagilman]

Again: thanks for the suggestion of Scrivener, I know a lot of people love it, but it's not how I write/plan/revise at this point, and there's no real draw for me to change it.

[moonstorm.livejournal.com]

Good luck with the new computer! Dependable is always a good thing.

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

I started tiptoeing into the Mac fold some years ago--five? six? when I bought a MacBookPro. It's been my best laptop ever. I love that keyboard--the only laptop keyboard I've ever liked.

Last year, in a fit of frustration when my five year old homebuilt machine (by the son) started behaving unreliably, as well as awareness of impending Day Jobbe doom, I bit the bullet and spent mucho buckos on an iMac desktop (21 inch, 24 is too ginormous and I don't need it) and a heavy-duty color laser, with a thought of starting a freelance educational consulting business. I knew that it might be my last chance for a while to achieve this sort of upgrade, so I did it.

Haven't regretted the change one bit. I did go for a wired keyboard instead of the wireless keyboard (one of the last old Apple wired keyboards) but that was a comfort issue. The one drawback with the wireless keyboard is that you can only backspace to delete, which is annoying. Otherwise, the feel of it works wonderfully for me.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

Wish I'd known. I would have sent you to Tekserve, where they'll sell you the machine you *need* rather than what will make the best commission.

That said, I love my mac. I just upgraded my hard drive and my RAM in about a half hour, all told. I've never opened up a laptop before, but *wow* was it easy to upgrade my Mac.

Do you have a backup drive on your network? Time Capsule is awesome and easy.

[lagilman]

Wish I'd known. I would have sent you to Tekserve, where they'll sell you the machine you *need* rather than what will make the best commission.

That's what the second guy did, after I walked away from the first guy. I knew what I wanted and how much I wanted to spend (okay 'wanted' the wrong word) and the second guy respected that. Was I unclear in my original post? *goes back to look, frowning*

[javacatz.livejournal.com]

Adobe works very well on Mac. I've been using both for years with no problems. The biggest differences are the command codes, although there are a few variations depending on which version you have. If you are comfortable using the Windows version, then the Mac version is easy enough to decipher.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

You'd better baptize the new machine with a single malt.

Just to be sure it understands the new environment.

I was first a Mac girl -- then my Ex started writing for Windows (REALLY early) and insisted we go to the dark side. Now, I'm too poor to go back. But someday I shall return from exile!

Have fun, and may it prove extremely reliable!

[fakefrenchie.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the fold. I KNEW that you would buy a MAC eventually.

[lagilman]

[annoyed voice]

And again, we have the "mac-itude" that does Apple in more than anything the actual company does.

I still hate the Mac OS, and how they assume you want exactly the system they design and god forbid that you try to personalize any of the settings to fit how you work, rather than adjusting how you work to what they offer. It's the nanny-state of computers, IMO. So while I have bought a Mac, I have not drunk the kool-aid. So everyone needs to put away the party favors, this is not the prodigal daughter returned.

[As evinced by the fact that I am happily typing this on the Dell desktop]


[/annoyed]

[jperceval.livejournal.com]

I love my MacBook (not with Office), but yes, it was quite a culture shock. I used a Mac (with Office) back in college and loved it, but when I went to the corporate world, it was all PC, all the time.

I went back to Mac 3 years ago, and was stunned that practically EVERYTHING had changed. "But...but...I was a Mac user before!" I found myself mumbling at random to people on the streets.

Still, once you get used to it, it's (relatively) smooth sailing.

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

I've had Macs since about 1990, and they're not perfect, but they are fairly robust, both in virus terms and in mechanical terms. The thing I'm typing on, which is covered in filth (bad me) and crumbs, and has been dropped on its head several times, still remains pretty viable, 3 years on. There are some annoying issues with them (I punched Word out this afternoon) but they don't, on the whole, infuriate me nearly as much as the PC laptops on which I also have to work.

They're like cars. We have an ancient anonymous Peugeot and a rather flashier old Jaguar (2nd hand): both have let me down appallingly on occasion and both are largely reliable, but not always, and usually in the latter instance when you least need to be let down. Such is the nature of machines.

[natf.livejournal.com]

I may not write as much as some but macs are for the win! I also do some photography so mine is great for writing (in Scrivener) and photo editing (in Photoshop). I also play World of Warcraft on mine but that may not be your bag. Also, macs also seem to get many fewer viruses if any.

Welcome to the bright fully functioning side!