Mac Convert

For Christmas last year, my husband gave me a mini Mac. I loved the idea of it. I loved the look of it. I hated using it.

I complained here on my blog. I complained to colleagues who were Mac converts and I persisted.

I've spent quite a bit of time using it and therein is the secret to using the Mac. I've figured out shortcuts and the text editor offers far richer features. The machine is far more stable than my other pc. Firefox actually remembers my passwords when I tell it to. The predictive text consistently works.

I haven't by any stretch of the imagination used the Mac as much as I should but that is due to demands on my time to do other things. we still keep all of our photos on the pc and with our photos are our videos. this means it is a bit of a fiddle to get the videos over to the Mac and edit them. I'm still trying to find the time to edit the video from Sebastian's performance of The Sound of Music. But first I have to figure out how to get it over to the Mac.

This would all be solved if we had a file server but again, Marc has been unable to carve out some time to set it up. My verdict is a definite thumbs up!

Mac

For Christmas, my darling husband decided to give me a Mac. Now he did not come to this conclusion on his own and to be fair I tried to convince him that he really wanted one so that I could actually use it. So when I opened up the boxes Christmas morning I was super duper excited. Now (1 week after) not so much. Marc has gotten it all set up. In theory I should be able to run both computers and switch between the two with just the switch of a button. The reality is far off that. The button doesn't work for some reason and my wise hubby can't quite figure it out. It is bad when he can't figure something out.

To make matters worse my beloved puppy is eating the cables. that's right, first he ate the cable that goes between the 2 computers and now he has eaten through the cable to the microphone. Grrrrrrr!

Blogger Beta doesn't seem to work so well with Macs. I have no rich text editor and uploading pictures is a real test of my html skills and as you can probably tell from a couple of my previous posts I am failing that test. Who would have thought that I could learn a new trick? OK, so am still learning but getting there.....Think I will have to spend some time messing about with the Mac to get to know it and return to using the Windows machine for the time being. The trouble is I learn by doing so if I can't force myself to use it I won't. If anyone wants to give me some hands on lessons, I will more than happily sign up! Any Mac experts out there?

I'm struggling to download photos and edit them (although this is supposed to be one area that Macs do so much better than Windows. Now I hear Macs are great with movies.....well I've given You Tube a go so will see how this works with Macs. Will advise!

PS I am back to work and sifting through the rather large stack of email (although not as bad as it could have been given my Blackberry).

Panto

It is a Christmas tradition in the UK to go to a panto performance over the Christmas holidays. You can read about it here PANTO. This is a tradition which I had succeessfully avoided until this year. The children (specifically Abigail) had finally reached an age where I thought she might sit still long eneough (and it was longer than I thought it would be).

Pantos can range from very professional productions with C-list celebrities giving guest performances (with fairly hefty ticket prices to go with it) or amatuer theatre in local villages ( with lower ticket prices). Patrick Ewing (from Dallas fame) is in one in Woking. He must be broke!

Given that I wasn't sure what my children (or I would think) I opted for the amatuer performance in a village not far from ours called Sunninghill. We got a couple other children from Seb's school (with siblings and mums) to go along with us. We saw Cinderella which I have now learned (courtesy of Wikipedia) is the most popular of all pantos. We had a great time and the children really enjoyed it with the exception of Abigail who covered her eyes and trembled each time the fox came on stage. I am sure I have scarred her for life.

I have some photos of the children dutifully awaiting the start of the performance. Unfortunately I am experiencing some technical difficulties with my photo uploads. Not so much technical difficulties as much as our dog, Bailey, ate the cable that connects the Mac and the Windows PC to the screen and allows everything to be connected at once. Marc would have liked to have killed the dog. Bailey has been laying on his bed with his tail between his legs for the last hour or so whilst Marc dutifully goes off to find a new cable. As soon as said cable has been restored I will load up the photos and you can see the bunch of them. they behaved so well and we all had laods of fun.

We had a rather strange start to the day. I have awoke every morning since Boxing Day no later than 4 am and could not get back to sleep. I then fall back to sleep about 6 am just before the children get up. This morning Marc let me sleep until I awoke at 10 am only for me to find out that Seb had gone back to bed about 9 am and is still there. it is nearly 11 am as this goes to press. Both he and Abigail have had a barky cough for the last week and i know he was coughing thorughout the night. i reckon he just didn't sleep well.