After a very good birthday weekend I waited today for my present to myself; an Apple iMac. I've been wanting to convert to Apple for a while now and have finally taken the plunge. It arrived today, and I'm writing this post on it. If there was sound with this you would hear much squealing of delight.
Why did I want a Mac? Well I kept hearing that they were better for writers, as it has writing programmes that give you more options and allow you to do outlines, background notes, character studies and such, all in one place. And I hate MS Office. Really, really hate it - it just seems to make writing harder than it needs to be, with few options to segment your work or make referencing easy. Writing a 10,000 word dissertation was hard enough in that bloody thing - trying to get to 100,000 words was proving incredibly unpleasant. I also wanted one because, well, they look cool. I am that shallow.
So now I have my shiny Mac set up and so far I'm not suffering from Microsoft fever but have found it to be pretty sensible and well laid out. No doubt I'll get confused over some things but then that's part of the fun.
And while I have everyones attention, I want to give a big thank you and hug to my fabulous friends, for making my birthday so much fun this year. Partying until the wee hours is something I've not done in ages and almost makes me miss being a teenager. Almost.
Cruising the writer's blogsphere, I just came across yours. Fun! Happy birthday, and I've got to say you have *great* taste in computers. :) I have used Macs forever, and I love my laptop. When Apple came out with iWork, I happily switched over to that and haven't looked back at MSAnything. Have you tried Scrivener yet? I'm just getting started with the app, but I have to say that I'm liking the way it works -- and the opportunities it offers for the way I work.
ReplyDeleteHi Robin, yes, I have just set up the free trial for Scrivener and am loving it already. I tend to have tonnes of bits of paper everywhere, of notes, character studies and outlines - Scrivener is letting me put it al in one place so I'm not going to lose anything! I can see why so many professional writers use it.
ReplyDeleteAlso did I mention how purty the machine is? It also still has that wonderful new computer smell...
I think you're going to love your Mac! :) They're user-friendly as well as beautiful. What's not to like? As for the wonderful new computer smell... It's just too bad they don't sell it in cans like they do 'new car smell'!
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