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Two months ago, I switched to a MacBook Pro. Am I feeling the Mac love yet?
Sorta.
The transition from PC to Mac is not easy. Everything seems backward, nothing is automatic, you must think about everything. So, let me walk you through some of the changes.
Why Change?
I switched to a Mac because, my old PC was eight years old. Ancient. Prehistoric. The processor—which was once young and strong—was antiquated. I was running WindowsXP, like half the computers in the world today, but Microsoft recently announced that with the new Windows 8 operating system coming out this fall, they will no longer support XP.
Worse, I am doing more and more video and my PC kept hanging up. The old processor wasn’t designed to handle 1080HD video. See my YouTube page (youtube.com/DarcyPattison) for some of my recent videos. I’m planning more for this fall.
Once I decided to get a new computer, it was up in the air: Mac or PC.
PCs were cheaper. But I was definitely in the iPhone halo; I love my iPhone and wondered what Macs would be like. I went to our local Apple store and blatantly told the salesman, “I am a PC person; convince me.”
Wow, that salesman was great.
Basically, what I expected is that Macs would handle video and photos in a cleaner way than PC. That’s the main reason I changed.
Making the Switch
One immediate purchase was Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Lion version. It is, indeed, the missing manual and should be required reading when making this switch. It explained the difference in keyboards: I still stumble over Mac’s missing “Delete” key (reverse delete), but I’m dealing with it. It explained where files are kept and the structure of the files. It explained and explained until I started to understand and could function again.
Technology Binge
I downloaded programs and generally went on a technology binge: I bought a Wacom pen tablet ( to do videoscribing and play with digital art, a Bose headset for computer work and travel, and a Samson Meteor microphone to do webinars, tape audio for video and for podcasting.
Painted on my new Wacom pen tablet.
I am using MicrosoftWord for Mac, Aperture photo organization program, Thunderbird for Email, Firefox for browsing, FinalCutPro for video editing, Audacity and GarageBand for audio editing. I am playing with my new pen tablet and may eventually download Corel’s Picture 12 drawing program. Everything works fine, few hang ups, and those
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Last week, I made the jump from a PC user to a Mac user. Thanks to a great deal offered to my husband at his work, I got a screaming deal on a MacBook Pro. It took a week or two to get my files and such transferred and then I finally did it.
Last Friday, I broke the reliance on my PC. First time for years that I didn't turn on my laptop and use it. I'm all Mac now.
Before now, all my word processing has been on Microsoft Word. Now I'm left to wonder if I should invest in a copy of Microsoft Office for Mac as a default, fall back to my old comfort zone, or do I explore the new range of options available to Mac users? What say ye?
A good friend of mine recommended Scrivener. Any of you heard of it? Any of you use it?
What other Mac programs do you recommend I look into? If I'm going to break out of old habits, then I want to do it all the way. But since I'm a Mac novice, I need your help/suggestions/insight.
I'm a die-hard Mac user, and I do all my writing on Scrivener. I love it. But, if you're going to use Scrivener, take the time to learn it. Watch the instructional videos online and use their website often. I find those who don't like Scrivener are the ones who don't know how to use it's features.
Since most artists, graphic designers and illustrators work on a Mac, we thought we'd post the Apple video below which highlights some of the features of the new OS X Lion. With Lion, Apple has taken the "gestures", such as tapping, scrolling, pinching and swiping, that were once only possible on a tablet, and brings them all to your computer. The features of Lion being "touched" upon in the video below include:
Because my husband is a computer geek, guru, professional and more, I always have an able pro at my side when I have a disaster such as the one I had yesterday.
First of all he had convinced me to get a new extra external drive for back ups with loads of GBs. I am glad he insisted. Most of the time I remember to back up what I need as I work on a book or project. I don't use automatic back up because I create so much in a day it would overload the external too quickly. I kinda like to pick and choose and try not to duplicate too much.
Yesterday was a lesson in being too lazy to do the normal back up. Here's a clue...back up everything you think you will need before you do any UPDATES that your computer insists you need.
I was in the UPDATE mode when the computer told me to restart. When I did, however, the computer would not start up. I did all the fixes that the Mac manual and professionals suggested and still ... nada.
When my husband started hearing the constant "chimes" from my mac as I tried all the book solutions and called my mac computer people... he came into the studio and began his magic. He also asked why I didn't call on him first. (Well that one was easy...he was repainting our guest bathroom.)
He was able to restart everything but he had to reinstall the operating system from scratch. Here is the main reason for a substantial back up.... sometimes when you have to re install the OS on a mac you might lose all the data on your hard drive. In this case my accomplished "geek in residence" was able to restore the OS without losing a bit of my work. Had the work disappeared I would have lost the final images, the PDF and all the CMYK conversions I had just finished for a new book.
What did I learn. Two things. 1.) Back up is essential. AND.... 2.) If you have an expert in the house, don't be afraid to ask for his help first.
5 Comments on When Disaster Strikes.... and why you always need a back up, last added: 11/22/2010
Ginger, this is such sage advice. My own computer has failed and my husband is not a professional geek. He's good, but not trained. Most of my work has been backed up, but my computer ( only 8 months old) is in the shop :(. Fortunately, I have access to other computers, but not my scanner. Thank you for sharing the important advice to back-up your valuable work!
Apple’s latest iPhone app will clean up your text messages and force you to brush up your French, or Spanish, or Japanese, all at the same time.
This week the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office approved patent 7,814,163, an Apple invention that can censor obscene or offensive words in text messages whie doubling as a foreign-language tutor with the power to require, for example, “that a certain number of Spanish words per day be included in e-mails for a child learning Spanish.”
Parents are sure to love this multitasker, which puts an end to teen-age sexting while also checking homework. In the spirit of the Supreme Court’s 1978 ban on George Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words You Can’t Say on TV,” Apple’s app will shrink their children’s stock of English expletives—or at least render them unprintable—while setting the kids on the path toward bilingualism, or at least a passing grade in French. This new invention from Apple is two things in one: Mary Poppins and the Rosetta Stone, or, for those parents of a certain age, it’s a floor wax and a dessert topping.
Of course, when Apple closes one door, it opens another. Apple may cut off access to bad words in English, but it then redirects that lexical energy in the profitable direction of foreign-language learning. Teens may find their texting vocabulary circumscribed, but if children’s grades go down, Apple’s iPhone censor lets parents activate a tool that “can require a user . . . to send messages in a foreign language, to include certain vocabulary words, or to use proper spelling, grammar and/or punctuation based on the user’s defined skill level. This could aide [sic] the user in more quickly improving his or her fluency of a language.”
As if Steve Jobs wasn’t already intruding enough into people’s wallets and their private lives, the iPhone device will not only watch your language, it will require you to correct your mistakes and rat you out if you screw up. The app doesn’t just make you do your homework, it even tells you when to do it. According to the Apple patent,
The control application may require a user during specified time periods to send messages in a designated foreign language, to include certain designated vocabulary words, or to use proper designated spelling, designated grammar and designated punctuation and like designated language forms based on the user’s defined skill level and/or designated language skill rating. If the text-based communication fails to include the required language or format, the control application may alert the user and/or the administrator/parent of the absence of such text.
The control application may require the user to rewrite the text-based communication in the required language, to include the required vocabulary words and/or to correct spelling and punctuation errors. The control application may require the user to locate the error. If the user cannot correct the error, the control application may provide hints as to the location of the error by first indicating the paragraph, then, the line and, finally, the exact location.
As figure 10 from Apple’s patent application shows (see below), writers of objectionable texts
0 Comments on Killer app: Seven dirty words you can’t say on your iPhone as of 1/1/1900
The essential elements of books written for younger children, tweens, and teens
How your kid reader thinks about fiction and what they want
What agents and editors look for in terms of pitch, writing, and book premise
How to make your hook absolutely irresistible
What separates an aspiring writer from a contracted author in this field
PLUS YOU can submit 1-2 pages of your work and all submissions are GUARANTEED a critique by instructor/agent Mary Kole!!! This is worth it alone...
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My Favorite Writing Tools
Today I wanted to give you guys some writing tools I use. I could not write without them. Some you have heard of, some you may not have. BTW - I get no kickbacks or anything from these. It is just what I use as a writer.
1) MAC set up -
MAC AIR - I have had a couple Macs over the years - Old MacBooks, the new Macbook. I must say my MAC air is awesome. It's so light. You'd be surprised how much of a different 2 obs is when you take your laptop everywhere. It also has back lit keys. Now I never thought I'd have backlit keys but i must say it comes in very handy on airplanes (especially at night) and if I write in bed when hubby is sleeping. Now as a side note, I used to be a PC user. Anti MAC but I have converted. It takes a couple weeks to get used to it but you can get Microsoft word so it did not hinder my writing at all.
Wireless keyboard and docking station. Since I wrote so much, the lap top was forcing me to look down alot. This is not good for someone who has bouts of vertigo. So my hubby got me a docking station. When I am at my desk, i dock my laptop so the screen is at eye level and use the wireless keyboard. That way I don't have to look down as much.
Mighty Mouse - If you have a MAC (especially the AIR b/c it only has one
14 Comments on Rocking Writing Tools, last added: 9/2/2010
I do love myself some Tweetdeck. I also like the new internet browsers - chrome being my fave - because it doesn't force me to have a million windows open to have the websites I reference to most often available to me. Headphones. Pandora or iPod. Oh, and a door that shuts me into my office without the shrieking 5yo & 2yo is always nice too.
My blog Sister LOVES Scrivener and as I have a Mac, I'm seriously considering it. I just discovered Tweetdeck myself and love it--and just a month ago, I was terrified of all things Twitter. Who knew?
Interesting ideas. I use a free mind-mapping software called FreeMind for plotting. It helps me to organize my thoughts in a neater way since my notebooks often get very messy.
Scrivener rocks! That's really the only thing I use to write. I export to Word so I can send the ms to betas, but Scrivener makes the writing part easier. :) *hearts Macs*
After months of buzz building around the iPad and its potential to revolutionize mobile learning, magazine publishing and much, much more, the device was finally released this past Saturday. As you'd expect, along with the fanfare in Apple stores... Read the rest of this post
Can a good bargain beat street cred? Microsoft hopes so: the brand's most recent "Laptop Hunters" campaign features young shoppers on a quest to meet all of their computer needs for under $1000, finding time and again that they can't beat the price... Read the rest of this post
If you’re using a Mac, you might like the quick and simple Illustration Friday Dashboard Widget the folks over at Utopian.net Labs whipped up as a bit of fun for IF’ers.
The Illustration Friday widget will keep you posted on each week’s exhibition, showing the 30 most recent entries hot off the IFri presses, with links to each author’s own post of their image, and of course ways to click on to the main IFri site.
You can grab the Mac-only widget right here. (We’ll do versions for iGoogle and possibly for Vista, should demand arise.)
To install the Illustration Friday Mac Dashboard Widget:
“MAC Cosmetics has teamed up with Sanrio Global Consumer Products to create a Hello Kitty collection. Now, this is a collection to meow about! This fabulous line will claw it’s way on MAC’s web-site on February 10th, in North American stores on February 12th, and into stores that are overseas sometime in March.”
Hopefully it won’t cause any cat-fights. Har har!
0 Comments on Hello Kitty x MAC as of 11/24/2008 11:24:00 AM
Check out this interview from WABC-TV featuring three authors who share tips for getting kids to read over the summer. Picture book author Jane O'Connor (Fancy Nancy), middle-grade author MAC (Anna Smudge: Professional Shrink) , and YA author Scott Westerfeld (Uglies) are interviewed.
My favorite tip came from MAC, a new author who recently sold out of her debut novel at its sneak preview during NY Comic Con, who advises parents to run over the video game console with the vacuum cleaner. Here's her book cover.
I switched to a Mac because, my old PC was eight years old. Ancient. Prehistoric. The processor—which was once young and strong—was antiquated. I was running WindowsXP, like half the computers in the world today, but Microsoft recently announced that with the new Windows 8 operating system coming out this fall, they will no longer support XP. 
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I'm a die-hard Mac user, and I do all my writing on Scrivener. I love it. But, if you're going to use Scrivener, take the time to learn it. Watch the instructional videos online and use their website often. I find those who don't like Scrivener are the ones who don't know how to use it's features.
There are also great Mac tutorials online.