Manzana
Many years ago, my circle of friends was full of techies. Early adapters, we all were. I sold computers, a few friends worked in the tech sector, others worked in television production. We all subscribed to the various magazines espousing the joys of new technologies.
It wasn't really a surprise when Bob showed up with a top of the line camcorder that recorded in three modes, when Joe had his first real job and got a four track mixing board (this is a guy who made a drum machine out of a piece of cardboard and pins!) and eventually, we all got computers.
Back then, Ed was dubbed 'Mr. Incompatible', for while everyone who had a camcorder owned a VHS based one, he bought an 8mm. We all purchased IBM clones, he purchased a Mac. At the time, Apple had a 10% market share-and a handle on most of the software that Ed coveted.
When we began dating, I was quite excited to purchase him a 3.5 floppy of Castle Wolfenstein for Mac the day it came into my store. Meanwhile, he was drooling over the NASCAR game that had just come out on CD Rom for PCs, one of the first games that was legitimately too big for a half dozen floppies.
He moved in, we had two machines side by side. He got used to the PC architecture and over time, the LC-II was outdated and replaced with a succession of IBM clones. He became adept at building his own machines, something you cannot do on the Mac side.
And so it was for a good ten years.
Then came the iPod.
A few friends online were raving about theirs, how it was great to have their whole music library on one handy-dandy little device. I had a serious case of "I want", even though the biggest one wouldn't come close to holding my entire CD collection. It would carry enough of it that I would be very happy.
Ed bought me one, and it was love at first insertion of those ear buds. Well, the earbuds had to go-they hurt. iTunes was intuitive and didn't crash the way most other programs were wont to do. A few months later, he revealed that he was convinced I would grow bored of that iPod and he'd get to load his stuff on it. So, nine months later, he got one of his own-a much bigger one than I possessed (mine's a 30gig, his an 80).
I wouldn't say I was a gung ho Apple fan girl, but they definitely made a product that I enjoyed, especially since all I had to do was buy a three dollar RCA jack to RCA jack cord at Radio Shack, and my music library and playlists were cranking in the car. (That worked out better than the free XM that came with the car, honestly)
Then came the iPhone. For two years, I REALLY had a case of the "I wants", because it was just too cool. Not practical for my needs, mind you, but it had all the things I would love in a phone.
I became a college student, I had issues where I needed to access the Internet and realized that a smart phone was the next step (to make a long story short). After missing a dozen extremely important calls when Jane was in the hospital and Ed's mom was newly ensconced in a nursing home, it was time.
It was even better than the iPod. The only quibble I've had is that it's kind of weird in how it imports music out of iTunes, not allowing you to select songs or even specific albums by an artist, but importing everything from the artist that's in your iTunes account. As a result, there were two Apple products in my handbag.
When I started thinking about the grad program, I wondered if it would be a good idea to make the jump to dual platform. Would it make me more marketable to employers when I finish that Master's degree? In conversing with the professor who is now my advisor, he affirmed that it isn't a necessity to be well versed in both, but depending on the route I choose, it might give me a slight advantage.
Thus, I decided that my graduation present to me would be a MacBook Pro.
Further thinking was that maybe it'd be a good idea to get it early, so that I could become comfortable with le difference between the two platforms. In addition, it'd give me some time to play with the software I intended to purchase for it, that is a requirement for students to own. One program is only Windows based at this time, but dual boot will make that a non issue.
So, for these reasons, I finally walked into the Apple store that has been enduring my episodes of drooling for nearly a year and walked out with this:
As I said on Facebook the past few weeks, I kept hearing a voice saying "Come to the dark side, we have Apples."
Now I do, too.
It wasn't really a surprise when Bob showed up with a top of the line camcorder that recorded in three modes, when Joe had his first real job and got a four track mixing board (this is a guy who made a drum machine out of a piece of cardboard and pins!) and eventually, we all got computers.
Back then, Ed was dubbed 'Mr. Incompatible', for while everyone who had a camcorder owned a VHS based one, he bought an 8mm. We all purchased IBM clones, he purchased a Mac. At the time, Apple had a 10% market share-and a handle on most of the software that Ed coveted.
When we began dating, I was quite excited to purchase him a 3.5 floppy of Castle Wolfenstein for Mac the day it came into my store. Meanwhile, he was drooling over the NASCAR game that had just come out on CD Rom for PCs, one of the first games that was legitimately too big for a half dozen floppies.
He moved in, we had two machines side by side. He got used to the PC architecture and over time, the LC-II was outdated and replaced with a succession of IBM clones. He became adept at building his own machines, something you cannot do on the Mac side.
And so it was for a good ten years.
Then came the iPod.
A few friends online were raving about theirs, how it was great to have their whole music library on one handy-dandy little device. I had a serious case of "I want", even though the biggest one wouldn't come close to holding my entire CD collection. It would carry enough of it that I would be very happy.
Ed bought me one, and it was love at first insertion of those ear buds. Well, the earbuds had to go-they hurt. iTunes was intuitive and didn't crash the way most other programs were wont to do. A few months later, he revealed that he was convinced I would grow bored of that iPod and he'd get to load his stuff on it. So, nine months later, he got one of his own-a much bigger one than I possessed (mine's a 30gig, his an 80).
I wouldn't say I was a gung ho Apple fan girl, but they definitely made a product that I enjoyed, especially since all I had to do was buy a three dollar RCA jack to RCA jack cord at Radio Shack, and my music library and playlists were cranking in the car. (That worked out better than the free XM that came with the car, honestly)
Then came the iPhone. For two years, I REALLY had a case of the "I wants", because it was just too cool. Not practical for my needs, mind you, but it had all the things I would love in a phone.
I became a college student, I had issues where I needed to access the Internet and realized that a smart phone was the next step (to make a long story short). After missing a dozen extremely important calls when Jane was in the hospital and Ed's mom was newly ensconced in a nursing home, it was time.
It was even better than the iPod. The only quibble I've had is that it's kind of weird in how it imports music out of iTunes, not allowing you to select songs or even specific albums by an artist, but importing everything from the artist that's in your iTunes account. As a result, there were two Apple products in my handbag.
When I started thinking about the grad program, I wondered if it would be a good idea to make the jump to dual platform. Would it make me more marketable to employers when I finish that Master's degree? In conversing with the professor who is now my advisor, he affirmed that it isn't a necessity to be well versed in both, but depending on the route I choose, it might give me a slight advantage.
Thus, I decided that my graduation present to me would be a MacBook Pro.
Further thinking was that maybe it'd be a good idea to get it early, so that I could become comfortable with le difference between the two platforms. In addition, it'd give me some time to play with the software I intended to purchase for it, that is a requirement for students to own. One program is only Windows based at this time, but dual boot will make that a non issue.
So, for these reasons, I finally walked into the Apple store that has been enduring my episodes of drooling for nearly a year and walked out with this:
As I said on Facebook the past few weeks, I kept hearing a voice saying "Come to the dark side, we have Apples."
Now I do, too.
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