Friday, February 04, 2005
Just Working
I meant to blog on this earlier in the week (or late in last week), but it kept slipping my mind when I sat down at the computer....
One of Apple's selling points for their computers is that they "just work." Plug it it in. Get your work done. No fooling with drivers and settings and control panel radio buttons. Plug in, get done. I had two such experiences at the ECCC conference last week with my Apple Powerbook.
As you may recall, there was free wireless internet in the big common room (dining hall/lounge). The first afternoon we were there I pulled out my laptop, powered it on, clicked the Airport icon and got online (I think I had to select their network, but that was it for setup). Meanwhile a woman at the table next to me was becoming increasingly frustrated at her PC laptop and eventually gave up without getting online. (There were plenty of people at the conference who had PCs that were able to get connected (and this woman eventually got hers online), but mine "just working" at the same time the PC so very wasn't brought Apple's slogan to mind.)
The second incident occured two nights before the conference ended when some of the guys wanted to project hunting/fishing slideshows/DVDs on the wall. They started with the projector hooked up to a Dell. After failing to get the projector to recognize the PC (or vice-versa), they tracked down the CD with drivers on it and installed the proper one. Then the PC and projector spoke to each other, but we never could find how to get the PC to switch to "clone view" so what appeared on the screen also appeared on the projector. The projector appeared as a second, adjacent monitor, so we dragged the "picture viewer" program off to the right so it appeared on the projector, made it as large as possible, and manually advanced through the slideshows.
When that was done we hooked my Powerbook up to the projector. We needed to use an adapter to get the projector's VGA plug to work (thanks Jack), but beyond that it was smooth sailing: the projector was immediately recognized and with the push of an F-button on the keyboard switched to clone view. An audio cable from the headphone port to the projector and we were in business. Fishing and hunting videos aren't my thing, but they sure looked good.
So there you have it: my "it just works" stories.
(Someone from Apple, please read this and offer me some goodies in exchange for my testimonial. Thanks!)
One of Apple's selling points for their computers is that they "just work." Plug it it in. Get your work done. No fooling with drivers and settings and control panel radio buttons. Plug in, get done. I had two such experiences at the ECCC conference last week with my Apple Powerbook.
As you may recall, there was free wireless internet in the big common room (dining hall/lounge). The first afternoon we were there I pulled out my laptop, powered it on, clicked the Airport icon and got online (I think I had to select their network, but that was it for setup). Meanwhile a woman at the table next to me was becoming increasingly frustrated at her PC laptop and eventually gave up without getting online. (There were plenty of people at the conference who had PCs that were able to get connected (and this woman eventually got hers online), but mine "just working" at the same time the PC so very wasn't brought Apple's slogan to mind.)
The second incident occured two nights before the conference ended when some of the guys wanted to project hunting/fishing slideshows/DVDs on the wall. They started with the projector hooked up to a Dell. After failing to get the projector to recognize the PC (or vice-versa), they tracked down the CD with drivers on it and installed the proper one. Then the PC and projector spoke to each other, but we never could find how to get the PC to switch to "clone view" so what appeared on the screen also appeared on the projector. The projector appeared as a second, adjacent monitor, so we dragged the "picture viewer" program off to the right so it appeared on the projector, made it as large as possible, and manually advanced through the slideshows.
When that was done we hooked my Powerbook up to the projector. We needed to use an adapter to get the projector's VGA plug to work (thanks Jack), but beyond that it was smooth sailing: the projector was immediately recognized and with the push of an F-button on the keyboard switched to clone view. An audio cable from the headphone port to the projector and we were in business. Fishing and hunting videos aren't my thing, but they sure looked good.
So there you have it: my "it just works" stories.
(Someone from Apple, please read this and offer me some goodies in exchange for my testimonial. Thanks!)
Mikesell
2 Snarky Remarks:
My son had the loan of an iMac the year he did correspondence school at home. Both my kids were really impressed with it, but it was before my true computer crazy days myself. We've had our share of hassles with the pc, but...that's what we've got anyway!
Valerie Comer, at 8:01 PM
Hey Val,
I like WinXP well enough; Win98 wasn't bad either. If you take reasonable precautions to keep the machine clear of spyware and virii/trojans, it gets the job done.
My wife's looking at getting a new laptop and we're seriously looking at a Gateway model; I don't think she's even considered an iBook.
Plus, this way the boy gets raised bilingual on computer operating systems.
I like WinXP well enough; Win98 wasn't bad either. If you take reasonable precautions to keep the machine clear of spyware and virii/trojans, it gets the job done.
My wife's looking at getting a new laptop and we're seriously looking at a Gateway model; I don't think she's even considered an iBook.
Plus, this way the boy gets raised bilingual on computer operating systems.
