The Mac-Convert effect

My girlfriend is a professional translator and interpreter (if anyone needs one – I can supply a contact) and she uses a 2005 (!!) Acer Travelmate 3012 WTMI as her main computer. Now I know what the common opinion is regarding Acers product lines but I must say it served her quite well. It has a nice build, decent performance (2005 context) and is quite small/light (12"). The problem is obvious – it’s old and needs to be replaced by something a bit more – well current. As I am a recent convert to the Mac platform and Apple just released a new portfolio of great notebooks I’m thinking a beautiful new MacBook would be the best choice for her.

We all know this situation – me a tech guy, recently jumped the Windows ship and am happily swimming in the Mac sea – am trying to persuade my girlfriend that this new 1300 $  MacBook is a perfect solution to her problems. Smell bias? Normally I would say she absolutely does not care about tech – she just needs to get her work done – but these new Macbooks have really penetrated the ignorance aura of a completely un-techie person. This means two important things:

1. I think I can get her to buy it:)
2. Apple did hit a cord with the non-ethusiast consumer with the new Macbooks

As I mentioned in the earlier post – the decision made by Apple not to go to the low-cost notebook market seems to have a decent chance of paying of. The new Macbooks are really polished, beautiful looking and powerful which does not only justify the higher price but also gives you the feeling your main tool for work is not some grey box but a work of art made by people that enjoy their work.

It will be perfect for her. Or is that just the Mac-Convert effect?

Anyway I still have to get all her stuff running under OS X – especially dictionaries. Anyone got experience?

What now?

Today, I have finally delivered my thesis and now I am wondering what to do. After 2 years during which this unfinished business was always on the back of my mind I at last feel a bit free. The problem is – what do I do with the newly won time? One thing is I started this blog, though I still ain’t sure what’s it gonna be about but I am not sure this will take up much of my interest. I am thinking of getting back to some coding but will see… Until then I guess I’ll vent my frustruations here.

Non-Tech people and Tech

I am a tech person. What does this mean? Well it means I spend a lot of time with tech stuff – computers, internet, online services, gadgets – everything. Any new tool, gadget or service will get my attention and I’ll most probably at least try it out. People who have no idea what Flickr, iTunes music store or Audible is are for me difficult to understand. These services are amazing and really use the power of the internet to deliver value – so why don’t all people use them.

Well non-tech people don’t know and don’t care. My mother is on 6 week stay in Ireland and she wanted to share some photos from her stay. Before she went I set her up with a gmail account, including blogger. She wanted to document her stay and was willing to give blogger a try. Now after a few weeks she is ok with blogger but also wanted to share pictures she made there and she didn’t know how. So I helped her over Skype to get picasa and upload some albums on to the internet. It is not something she would have done without me but as I recommended her these things she got used to them and now is happily adding pictures to her web albums all the time.

The point is it’s up to us tech people to sort the really good tech stuff from the crappy stuff so the non-tech people can be what they want to be – just plain users.