Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Love My Mac

I'm bringing more work home again.

My work PC, a hand-me-down from a former director, has been serviced and refitted and serviced again, but it still can't handle the desktop publishing tasks I need it to perform. However, my cool Mac at home is more than capable of doing the job, and I wish the Club's budget allowed me to purchase one of these awesome machines for the office. Maybe then, instead of contending with a slow and cantankerous computer that keeps shutting down or losing page formats or contents, I could actually be getting work done. What a concept.

In order to buy the Mac, I went into debt, not my favorite modus operandi, and took almost two years to pay for it. I'd rather do that, though, than spend half the money for a computer I didn't want and couldn't use.

When I bought my first Mac several years ago, it was a floor model on clearance, on the verge of obsolete. I just wanted a workhorse, though, and the price was right, so I picked up the elephantine blue critter (didn't even get a box for it) and carried out of the store. I still have that machine, and my niece gets a lot of use out of when my brother's family visits; one of the best deals I ever made.

Never thought I'd do much creating direct to a document until I bought the current Mac -- I still prefer pen and paper, then transcription via keyboard -- but this one is so easy to move around, despite being a desktop computer, that I haul it to different parts of the house so I can work standing up or sitting down (mostly standing up).

So, tonight, instead of writing science fiction, I'll be standing in front of the computer propped on the bookshelf, and working on a book highlighting the Club kids who placed or received honorable mention in the recent photography contest. Betcha the Mac, in a matter of hours, will chew through pages that would take me several days to compose on the PC.

4 comments:

Alexander Field said...

Keanan, I am still impressed and a little bewildered that you can write standing up. That's totally unique, but very cool. As for Macs and PCs, I have a couple MAC laptops, one for work, and an old beater - plus I have a PC laptop that my wife uses and an old PC desktop, for bills etc. Overall, I love my MACs too. They're very easy to use and I am so comfortable on that computer. PCs aren't bad...but MACs are just my preference, through and through.

Keanan Brand said...

I'm about to quit this standing up business for the night (uh, morning), since it's 3:30 a.m., and I've been at this computer for several hours. Believe it or not, I can get so absorbed in work or writing that I get puzzled by the sore feet or aching knees or crossed eyes. But if I were sitting down, I'd probably have fallen asleep at the keyboard hours ago.

I have a friend who has finally ceased to hassle me about my Mac (he's a PC guy, and an engineer). He used to call me a snob, laughing when he said it, but I kept reminding him that I had fewer issues with my computer than he had with his, and he gradually left me alone.

My brother would convert to Mac, except that a lot of the computer games he and his wife like to play are best played on PC, and they had a whiz-bang computer built to support the gaming.

Eaglewing said...

Switching to a Mac was the best thing I ever did, computer wise. I can actually do something instead of banging my head against a machine. They are expensive, but hold their value, and you do get what you pay for. I could never do computer stuff standing up though - I need a comfy chair :)

Keanan Brand said...

Eagle - For my birthday last year, my dad bought me a tall chair that keeps me at the right height for the bookshelf, so I can sit down when the standing is too tiring. Aside from the nieces, who are children, I'm the shortest person in the family, so finding the right tall chair, with rungs that I can rest my feet on, was a challenge. I have an office, with proper desk and chair, but I fall asleep too often in there!