Character, Line-for-Scene, Conflict, and Language are all finished. Next up are Culture, Map and Terrain, and Throwing Stuff Against A Wall. But those are for Monday. Today and tomorrow I’m doing non-writing, non-fun stuff, unfortunately.
So I’m really looking forward to Monday.
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LOL, it’s a school computer. What do you expect? (Comments on the public education system aside, I think we got them about five or six years ago. The last time I used them was this afternoon. Not fun. To elaborate- we’ve had about five class periods to write reports in English, but I dislike the Macs so much I took it home on a weekend instead of having to use them.)
I’ve found that our academic teachers and computer teachers alike both prefer Windows (to the point where they aviod doing work on their school-provided Mac) and our computer teachers tell us with relish that we don’t have to deal with them at the high school. I imagine the high school, with it’s mandatory computer classes, has computers that acutally -work-, though, be they Macs or PCs.
I suppose it is really dependant on what kind you use, though. Our school Macs are pretty bad, but that’s not to say PCs can’t be absolutely sucky, either.
How long ago did you use these school Macs? My Mini is blazingly fast compared to every Winbox I’ve ever used, simply doesn’t have the kinds of problems which require several hours to fix, and everything meshes together in a way that does not happen when running any other operating system I’ve encountered — and I’ve at one point or another used Gentoo Linux and every Windows version from 95 on (sans ME). Everything on a Mac is so integrated, and it improves the user’s experience dramatically.
To play the devil’s (read: Bill Gates’s) advocate here, I’ve been using PCs since I was about four (so, a decade) and I’ve never had problem I couldn’t get fixed in several hours. In my limited use of school Macs, if it freezes (and in a pool of about 30 computers and 20 kids, it has happen about 1/3 times we use the computers to somebody) the only suggestion our computer teachers can make is to move to another one.
Also, so many programs come in freeware via the Web nowadays, I wouldn’t use “it has/doesn’t have programs I want” as a deciding reason to get anything.
However, I’m far from bipartisan, despising the slowness of school computers and the prettified-yet-evil layouts that keep me from getting anything worth doing done. And I love my PC, probably more than a person should.
“Nothing on earth can give you a Mac on your PC.”
Nothing on Earth that’s legal can, but OS X86 is a way to emulate Mac OS X on any Intel-driven computer which Apple’s switch to Intel made possible.
Thanks very much for the help! I’ve been about to go bonkers over it.
And as a side note about Macs – there aren’t anywhere NEAR as many viruses for them as there are for PCs.
Macs are not friendly when it comes to opening the box and doing your own repairs. This is true. I’m not sure how friendly any laptops are, though–I had a PC laptop that went tits-up on me in the middle of a project, and I had to send it off to the manufacturer for repairs, and not because I’m PC-illiterate, either.
As for everything you want to do coming preloaded on a Mac, yeah, pretty much. I have extra software, of course, but aside from Word (oh, that Scrivener had been available then–I could have saved several hundred bucks), I could have gotten by (and for a while did) just on what Apple sends as freebies.
And, like your aunt, I’ve owned several Macs now, and have never had one go bad. I still invest in the Apple Care insurance, and I invest in a copy of the current edition of Mac OS X: The Missing Manual by David Pogue. And Disk Warrior. And I back up religiously.
I’d recommend a Mac whole-heartedly for the superb OS and for the high-quality hardware and software, the security, and the ease of use for even insanely complicated projects. Plus, if you want to have a PC, you can get a free copy of Boot Camp or something cool like Parallels and have a fully-functional PC (not an emulation) on your Mac. Nothing on earth can give you a Mac on your PC.
For hugely graphics-intensive PC games, though, go with a top-of-the-line PC.
I apologize if this is way of topic, Holly, but I need help. I’ve heard both sides of the arguments for or and against Macs and PCs, and I need a laptop before I go off to college. When I looked up Macbooks, they seem to carry all the stuff that I love to do–video editing, word processing (scrivener), photo editing, music editing, etc, but someone recently told me, “The PC’s crash more, sure, but you can fix a PC with a simple click of a button. When a Mac fries, it’s dead. You can’t fix it yourself, you have to have Apple fix it.” And “You can do everything you can do on a Mac on a PC.” However, my aunt has told me that she’s had the same Mac for 12 years and it’s never crashed. Advice? I was gonna send you an e-mail, but I forgot your e-mail address, and I wasn’t sure if you could get around to answering it with your revisions and stuff. Anyway, I apologize for the offtopicness of this post, and if cannot respond immediatly or even very soon, I understand, I’m just seeking advice about which direction to go.
Thanks for any advice you may offer,
Jason
As usual, can’t wait to get my hands on the plot clinic. Oh, you know what else would be a cool clinic for you to write? (Because I’m sure you’re sitting there scratching your head wishing someone would give you a writing idea…) Time management! You seem to be good at it and I, for one, SUCK at it. Got any pointers?
Also, I picked up Night Echoes on Saturday and finished it that same day. Excellent! I loved the characters and the paranormal action. The House seemed to be a character itself. Very, very cool. I wanna live there! Okay, maybe visit.
Throwing Stuff Against A Wall sounds like something I should try. Maybe that’s a way to give me a much needed baddie (and motivation for his badness) for Eagle of the Sea. 🙂
That’s okay, I’ll wait. You can have time off from the keyboard. I don’t feel the need to keep you chained to you desk, much.
Have a great weekend, and if you roll that way a great holiday.
Is chocolate on the menu?
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