Assimilation is nearly complete
14 01 2008These Mac toys aren’t all that bad, really. I’m finding a few niggles with the Mac Pro such as the cursor stuttering all over the place when an application is loading up - I’m finding it very very annoying, and am in the process of doing something about it. Surely this Mac which cost over 10 times as much as my trusty old Windows PC should be able to cope with the same kinds of load that my butterfly mind can put on it (10 applications open, doing stuff in each simultaneously - you know the kind of thing)? Anyway, moves are afoot to cure this.
I once vowed that I would never need an iPod, because the most useful thing about my iRiver is that it allows me to recrod straight into it. You can’t do that with an iPod, so nar nar de nar nar. The thing I rarely mention is that if I want to add an external mic to the iRiver I have to amplify the signal from the mic, which means another piece of kit (Behringer amplifier) that has to plug into the mains, so there goes my roving reporter capability. I tried a mic with it’s own (alleged) power supply but it didn’t work. So I’m left to using the barely-adequate internal mic on the iRiver, or sticking to recording things in reach of a power socket.
So, now I’m becoming a Macboy I tend to read some of their fansites. Sometimes it’s gut-wrenchingly cringeworthy, the level of simpering loyalty that people have for their computer (it’s a MACHINE, FGS) and it’s creators, but I’ve found some useful stuff (no cure for mouse stutter yet though except the Mac equivalent of a ctrl-alt-del). This is my favourite so far - a Podcasting Studio for the iPod. Oops, checking again reveals that this isn’t a Mac Fanzine site, but Podcasting News. This might just see me buying an iPod, but really I wanted one of those nifty iTouch jobbies. Bet it doesn’t work with one of those.
You need a much older mac, no stuttering cursor on born in 2000 box. Hopefully your mac will last a long time bringing down the ‘total cost of ownership’.
If you are a macfan you might want a new theme for your blog.
Thanks John, 8 year old computers weren’t an avenue I was thinking of following but it’s an idea. Looking forward to the new beast arriving and praying that it copes with Leopard better.
Not thinking that I’ll go for the new blogtheme but I’m flattered by the suggestion. Personalisation being such a big thing these days, I’m wondering why I Really Don’t Care what the theme is but I’m more impressed by people Doing Important Things like here and here and.. I could go on. You know who they are. Keep up the good work, folks. (Edit - On reflection this sounds way too terse and I really don’t mean it that way - thanks for commenting John I appreciate it. Of course, I understand that an attractive theme will draw a readership and server the community it is intended for. Never was a graphical type mesel’, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate art when I see it).
Hi Dale,
Sorry my second comment was off the cuff and I forgot the smiley at the end of the second one, I wasn’t really expecting you to change theme just a wee joke.
Hopefully the 8 core will behave better with leopard, if not you could run linux. In fact you can run lunux on Parallels or VM Fusion which might help you with your desire to spend a bit more time with linux (I’ve not tried these myself, but they get good press). Another thing that might help a move towards linux is the fact that macs are unix machines, I’ve found that on the rare occasions I’ve used linux my baby steps with the terminal have helped me.
Thanks for the link to the children’s blogging, it is of course the main point.
No worries John - it was taken in jest. You’ll be pleased to know that the 8 core is behaving nicely. I wonder if I just had a Friday Afternoon one before. This one has the aluminium keyboard too, which apparently has shown a difference in the mouse stutter arena.
Linux - I love Linux! Glad to know that you’re a user too. It was the knowledge that Mac OS is based on Unix that helped me make the leap in the first place. Didn’t quite believe it at first, but the joy of having everything work in Terminal the way I’m used to caused quite a few chuckles of glee. One of the first things I did with my last Mac was to put Parallels on it and install Fedora, and then Windows as virtual machines. Not done it yet with this one, but soon. I want to get Bootcamp working nicely first.
I’ve used Linux a while now - apart from a few Tank Engine games on the Windo$e machine, my children have rarely touched Windows - theirs is a Linux box, and a new Asus eeePC found them perfectly at home in Xandros Linux.
Which goes to show really - it’s not the OS that counts, it’s what you DO with it.