May 24, 2007

Have Gone Mac, Reportedly Not Going Back

My never-all-that-reliable Dell laptop wheezed its last breath the day before yesterday, and I made a long-delayed trek to the Apple store to acquire more debt, I mean my first Apple since the early '80's. I got a shiny white little MacBook which is currently rocking my world.

Issues I have to sort out: my Epson multipurpose printer/scanner/fax is not Mac compatible. I don't know how to do screen captures. I don't know how to resize pictures with iPhoto or whatever other graphics program I have.

Things I already like - this thing is speedy. It's also tiny and light and doesn't hurt my back when I lug it around in my backpack. It's also super intuitive and much more nicely designed - the power cord is never going to weigh so heavily on the motherboard that the whole thing starts to loosen up (stupid Inspiron), the CD-ROM drive doesn't pop out a fragile and clunky tray that can easily be broken. I have a lot to learn but so far I'm digging this thing.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Macs are cool and I can type faster on them, but having gone through engineering school, there was no hope to go Mac. I considered it recently, but it's the network of people that have PC's that keeps me from doing it. On the other hand, my brother, a graphic artist, is uncomfortable around PC's, only likes Macs.

Have fun with it,

k.barrick said...

I'm friends with Macs after the last one I played with was one with an actual floppy floppy with Oregon Trail on it.

Screen capture: Grab.

Totally agree about no CD-ROM tray. That was my first "eureka" moment with my laptop.

Dr. Zaius said...

They both suck.

Prego said...

Welcome to the dark side, pal.

Chancelucky said...

Do comedians have a preference between Macs and PCs?

It does strike me that there are a lot more Bill Gates MS jokes than there are Steve Jobs jokes or even Ipod jokes.

Elizabeth McQuern said...

Thanks, K, for trying to help, but dang, I still can't figure out a screen capture. I played with "grab" at one point but now I can't seem to use it. And I can't resize pictures yet, either. Eh. I'm going to take advantage of the one-on-one lessons I signed up for and get this stuff figured out at the Apple store downtown.

Chance: I'd imagine more comedians identify with the "outsider" status of the Macs, but whether or not they can afford them might be another matter.

Collin said...

To capture the entire screen: Command (Apple key)-Shift-3

To marquee and capture a section of your screen: Command (Apple key)-Shift-4

It won't allow you to do screen captures of a movie playing in the DVD player, however if you really need that there are likely ways around.

Enjoy your Mac! If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask.

Timothy Carter said...

Yeah! Macs are the best, aren't they?

Elizabeth McQuern said...

It's pretty darned sweet. Especially since I finally figured out the "grab" feature.