Avid Mac User

Date: May 15, 2008

      I am an avid MAC user.
      That should go without saying.
      I have six computers at home (only 1 is a PC) because I gave 7 others away. (Schools, nephews, friends, etc.).
      I follow software development - or did - up until they want $3000 for an upgrade to "everything Adobe makes". I am thinking about it.
      Oh good Lord! I am nearing retirement! Mercy!
      I drool over the big new Mac Pro - with all eight cores and the myriad USB ports and the ability to drive a "more than I could watch" number of 30" monitors (each of which takes two video cards----) more RAM than a CRAY and more disk space than NASA.
      My G5 tower (an early one - only 2.2 GIG DUAL core - 1 MB memory - although my son promised me more) runs with the same cement mentality that the old IIci had - run - run - run. I don't even know where the TechTools disk is. My G4 needed it applied often.
      My 3400 15-yr old, wildly fast 200MHz - that is am "M" not a "G", running at 10% the speed of the G5 tower, is still running.
      The G3 laptop never got up and running other than to park at the hospital in case my son wanted it. He got a new titanium one when he came home for awhile. Mine never had the power supply (converter power plug) replaced although it was under recall. I never had a problem. I guess it can catch fire----- I never leave it powered up.
      My G4 is waiting for me to plug it in and download the back-up DVDs. Then it will depart.
      The G3 behind it.
      The 3400? May leave too once I unload all the data.
      I have an old removable media disk drive I can't open and read. May need to hunt down a way to service that. Or not.
      I have a back-up drive on the floor. May put that on the G4 and just dump data off the sleeved DVDs that way.
      I need to re-load all the zip disks into a folder someplace and toss them out.
      I am - as you can guess - housekeeping. Because Adobe has Creative Suite CS3 - FrameMaker 8 and I am going to FORCE them to make       I am an avid MAC user.
      That should go without saying.
      I have six computers at home (only 1 is a PC) because I gave 7 others away. (Schools, nephews, friends, etc.).
      I follow software development - or did - up until they want $3000 for an upgrade to "everything Adobe makes".
      Oh good Lord! I am nearing retirement! Mercy!
      I drool over the big new Mac Pro - with all eight cores and the myriad USB ports and the ability to drive more than I could watch number of 30" monitors (each of which takes two video cards----) more RAM than a CRAY and more disk space than NASA.
      My G5 tower (an early one - only 2.2 GIG DUAL core - 1 MB memory) runs with the same cement mentality that the old IIci had - run - run - run. I don't even know where the TechTools disk is. My G4 needed it applied often.
      My 3400 15-yr old, wildly fast 200MHz - that is am "M" not a "G", running at 10% the speed of the G5 tower, is still running.
      The G3 laptop never got up and running other than to park at the hospital in case my son wanted it. He got a new titanium one when he came home for awhile. Mine never had the power supply (converter power plug) replaced although it was under recall. I never had a problem. I guess it can catch fire----- I never leave it powered up.
      My G4 is waiting for me to plug it in and download the back-up DVDs. Then it will depart.
      The G3 behind it.
      The 3400? May leave too once I unload all the data.
      I have an old removable media disk drive I can't open and read. May need to hunt down a way to service that. Or not.
      I have a back-up drive on the floor. May put that on the G4 and just dump data off the sleeved DVDs that way.
      I need to re-load all the zip disks into a folder someplace and toss them out.
      I am - as you can guess - housekeeping. Because Adobe has Creative Suite CS3 - FrameMaker 8 and I am going to FORCE them to make Acrobat 8 actually talk to the HP printer! It has an early EOF and halts jobs.
      My Toshiba is still pumping along too - best PC I have ever worked on and the only one I have ever owned. Creative Suite 3 goes there too. In fact, that is the only place I currently store FrameMaker.
      I have two things bugging me.
      WordPerfect stopped putting out versions for the Mac.
      FrameMaker doesn't run on the MAC either.
      My son (who has 5? 6? Macs in his living room) tells me to get Parallels and load the PC stuff onto the Mac. Runs faster. (Apple doesn't fall far from the tree.) (Ouch - bad pun!)
      In the meantime, pack-rat that I am, I am consulting to a company that is reverse-engineering the Q20000 array I wrote manuals for 15 years ago! I have a copy! And the Bit-Slice book is coming out on FPGACentral.com shortly - and those notes are from 20 years ago! Never say die!
      Oh yes. I have 5 printers, and two scanners. And a CD R/W drive. And a floppy drive (USB). And a Zip drive (USB). The expensive scanner uses SCSI. UGH! The G4 drives it. I have USB drives my cat gnawed out of their cases.
      I like HP Laserjet printers. And I now run an inexpensive HP scanner. Good enough for web-based work.