Computerlove™

June 6th, 2008

Oh Mac, How We Love Thee...

Yes, another convinced Mac user living in new computer bliss. I'm not new to the mac OS or platform. Actually, my parents bought our first "home" computer and it was an Apple IIGS (Nice, hmm?). Well, that "PC" would go on to get stolen and replaced by the almighty Windows based Compaq. Computers were fast becoming the cool thing to have and no one could stop me and my 14.4 Mbps AOL account. I loved it and was truly getting a taste of the "Information Super Highway".

A good buddy of mine happened to use an Apple and I remember talking down to him because "Who uses Apples?". He wasn't a software savant in the least, but could work Syndicate The Game) like no other. Well, at this time I bought a "Multimedia Extreme" Dell loaded up on RAM & processing speed for my journey to college at The Art Institute of California, Los Angeles That would totally warp my brain for the next 3 years as I did all of my graphic design and web design projects on it. All the while living with the blue screen crashes, hidden site viruses and decent internet speed since I was one of the 1st to hook up Cable Modem through my cable company. (Thanks DMF for hooking me up w/ that nugget of info).

Well, 3 years down at school and as a graduation gift and entry into the graphics industry, I treated myself to the purchase of the almighty Apple Titanium Powerbook G4 I remember getting it and setting it on my desk and literally thinking, "When the hell am I going to use that?" Enter the mother of all hard drive crashes on my Dell and the need to have a computer working.

So, I popped open my $3200 investment into me and fell in love. No crashes, no blue screens, NO VIRUSES! It was awesome, a whole 40GB of HD memory and 1GHZ of PowerPC G4 greatness. I never looked back and have been a Mac fiend ever since.

Did I mention how sexy Mac's look? That never hurts either.

Anyhow, present day, working on my Powerbook for about 5 years now (2003-2008), 1 OS Upgrade and several headaches later due to large Photoshop files killing my now lowly BUS speed and RAM, it was time for a new Mac. I had been wanting one for a while and knew it was coming soon, but the cost was just killing me. Not to mention, good ol' Cisco needed his own computer in the office since he's been using his own laptop and tower to work the whole time he's been with SFIMG. So, I figured, what the hell... time to get him his own Mac too. Projects have been great to us this year and I had just received the end payment to a profitable project. It was time to hold on tight and spend some cash.

I opted to buy the computers out right. Apple Business leasing would have me paying $200 or so and I just didn't want to go down that route. Then, I checked out the prices on the educational Apple store since I now instruct at AICLA. I did some price comparisons and would you know I was saving about $1000 by being a teacher. So, I hooked us up and got the Apple MacBook Pro 15 for me and the Mac Pro Quad-Core with a sweet "23 Apple Cinema Display. Oh yes, we are hooked up ;) (And in case you're wondering - all of the Macs were secured and insured in the office in case the night time cleaning crew got an itch to pick up a new home computer.)

So, bliss is the only word to explain our new computing environments. I'm typing away on my lovely 15" MacBook Pro an Cisco is testing away on MOA while loving the 23" ACD in his face.

Oh Mac, How We Love Thee...