How can I enhance my Macbook experience?

[arcite]

First of all, don't worry about what others say here. You wanted a Mac so you bought one. Back in the stone ages I bought a Commodore Vic 20. I had no need I knew of. I just wanted a computer. I was very excited to get it, but quickly grew to dislike it. The screen was character based, and only 19 characters across and 25 lines deep. I learned a little programming on it. Not too much but a little.

I later sold it and bought a Commodore 64. I started playing games on it. Loading them took a long while on my cassette drive. One year I saved for a year and managed to buy a $279 floppy disc drive. Loading apps then took 2 minutes rather than 20 minutes. I bought a modem and I met all kinds of interesting people from around the world. I turned into quite the pirate back then. I grew to feel very guilty about that. But I also learned a lot. I wrote a small BBS app. A friend wrote co-wrote a terminal app. And I learned about protocols like Steve Punter's Punter Protocol and XMODEM and so on.

Later I bought an Amiga 1000 for $2,499 with extra drive and CRT monitor. Was blown away by how awesome it was at the time. I learned more about modems and became an even more evil pirate. I was so good at it I got bored. I had thousands of apps and a good friend of mine with a Mac IIx was just coming out of art school. She drew the most amazing things. And I felt like I had wasted all my time and money to play games. Here she was creating art.

I bought Deluxe Paint II and started to learn to use it pretty well. After a while, I decided to build a PC. A 286, 12 MHz machine for the purpose of getting on IRC. I later attached it to a Unix terminal and started to learn a little UNIX.

Again I got bored and decided I didn't really need a computer. I sold it and about 5 years later built a 386 with 4MBs of RAM. I wanted to install UNIX on it but settled for Windows 3. For a while anyway. Then I started to get interested in how to network computers together. I bought some books on NetWare, which was the leading SERVER OS of the time and I later certified as a NetWare Engineer. I took a job as an entry level tech at a major drug company. Then I moved to a consulting company and after 9 years on the job I became the Director of Network Engineering. I massed a CNE, MCSE, CLP and a Sun Solaris Admin Certification. I became a SAN engineer and started building very large storage Area Networks. By 1999 I was a speaker at StorageTeck.

About this this time I bought another Mac, and started to teach myself about DVDs. By 2004 I wrote and published a book on DVD authoring and menu design. I published about 40 articles on scripting for DVDs. I used my design skills for package design and combined it with my knowledge of DVDs and ended up working with a few huge companies creating, manufacturing and designing products based on DVDs and print.

I have a small lab where I work. I have DVD testing hardware and software, I've mastered thousands of DVDs, manufactured millions of them, and designed countless packages. I've flown all over the world and have business interests in Germany, Hong Kong, Taipei, New York, LA and San Francisco.

Everything I learned right down to programming modems has been useful to me along the way. Believe it or not, programming DVDs has something in common with IP protocols. Crazy huh? It's true. Modems are still used like crazy. You just don't know it. Your iPhone has one. Networking, hard drive arrays, lithography, DVD manufacturing and good computer skills have given me extraordinary control over my projects.

It all started with me buying a VIC20 for no other reason than I wanted one. Being curious about things is best asset you could ever hope to have. Even if you don't know it, you're experiencing something new. I never thought knowing UNIX would do a thing for me. Turns out I use it all the time. How in the world would lithography ever fold into DVDs? It does BIG TIME. Almost every skill I have is utilized all the time.

You've no idea how the things you learn today can and will help you in the future. I learned Photoshop, Illustrator and PageMaker back in 1994. Back then I had no reason to learn them. I just wanted to. When I was a technical consultant, I was the only one who could solve not just technical problem, but do so in a Mac environment and right down to the desktop apps like Quark. And that made me valuable. Virtually everyone at the time had just one learned skill. Learned from a book. They never understood how it all worked together.

I could build a SAN array, and start ingesting HD footage with Avid or Final Cut Pro myself. I could test the RS422 connection to lay off to tape. I wasn't part of a team.. I am the team.

Just be you. Play around with a rendering app. I used to use Cinema 4D. Learn a little photoshop or illustrator. Try your hand at making a little movie. Try to write a iPhone app. Try to re-create a print ad you see. Ask yourself how they did those graphics. Learn about type styles a little. There are so may things you can do today. But don't second guess yourself. Give yourself a little credit. You're exploring, and that is the first step into a bigger universe. Maybe even a multiverse. Maybe those crazy quantum theorists are on to something, eh?

Now this is a Mac user. Take a bow Sir!

 

[TimBroers]

BetterTouchTool!

 

[heimbachae]

mine is a robot in disguise.

 

[Suno]

You can enhance your Macbook experience by playing around with it. Play around with each application and use what the Macbook was meant for.

Now... the question is, why buy a machine that's obviously beyond what you need? On top of that, it's a very expensive machine too. I mean, I didn't buy a supercomputer only to not know what to do with it. I think you might be better off getting the Macbook Air, as that's more of a "casual" user computer (still expensive as hell though, but better suited than the MBP).

 

[WarpSpawn]

Now... the question is, why buy a machine that's obviously beyond what you need? On top of that, it's a very expensive machine too. I mean, I didn't buy a supercomputer only to not know what to do with it.

I think it is fair to say that just about any computer you can buy these days will be capable of much more than most people will ever need.

I think you might be better off getting the Macbook Air, as that's more of a "casual" user computer (still expensive as hell though, but better suited than the MBP).

But unless you are talking about the 11" model, your alternative to buying an expensive machine that is beyond his needs is...well, to buy an even more expensive machine that is just slightly less beyond his needs.

 

[Suno]

I was under the impression that the Macbook Air was cheaper. I just checked and I was half-right. For the sake of my comment above, let's just assume I meant the cheapest available Macbook right now. To be honest, I'd much rather recommend a netbook, but as this -IS- a Mac community, I hesitate to bring that up.

 

[WarpSpawn]

Well that would be why I mentioned the 11" model. That is the cheapest Mac portable. The 13" Pro is the cheapest that could perhaps be considered a full sized laptop. Although it is much more powerful inside, the 11" is closer to a netbook in terms of size.

And being in possession of a netbook, I can say that I would not recommend one to anyone unless they specifically want the smaller size and cannot afford a better ultraportable. I guess if your expectations are pretty low to begin with, you can get along ok with them but they really give you no room to grow. Any MacBook may be overkill for a lot of people but a netbook is likely to disappoint in the long run as anything like a main computer.

 

[ThoseBackPages]

i enjoy surfing the internet in the buff.

 

[maccie13]

You can enhance your Macbook experience by playing around with it. Play around with each application and use what the Macbook was meant for.

Now... the question is, why buy a machine that's obviously beyond what you need? On top of that, it's a very expensive machine too. I mean, I didn't buy a supercomputer only to not know what to do with it. I think you might be better off getting the Macbook Air, as that's more of a "casual" user computer (still expensive as hell though, but better suited than the MBP).

I'm an engineering student, an IT engineer. So I dont need to hear that I'm buying a high-end computer for nothing. I just asked a very casual question which some people take too seriously. I'm a computer engineer so my passion for computers is unquestionable! Its just that Mac is a completely different OS and I don't know where to start from, so I thought I'll just borrow a few opinions 'cause thats what forums are for. I believe that when you want to learn something, it doesn't matter how stupid your question is!
Like Steve Jobs put it - Stay hungry, stay foolish.