iMac, therefore iAm
Apr. 26th, 2003 05:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynSo, I'm sitting here typing this on my new iMac, with my same old crappy internet connection of course, whch took me three tries just now to make, and I'm expecting it to disconnect me anytime now. It's like sticking a Space Shuttle on a Radio Flyer wagon or something.
But! I'm also listening to the very first CD I've ever burned! Whee! I made a little iTunes playlist and burned it onto the blank CD they so kindly provided in the box (they also provide you with a blank DVD, the little sweeties, and a special screen cleaning cloth); it's my little Spuffy tunes disc (probably the first of many), and it sounds quite sweet to my ears -- I've wanted to make a Spuffy disc for a long time, and never fully got around to bugging my friends who could rip discs. This probably seems so old hat and like breathing to you young whippersnappers, but it's a big deal to me.
I didn't plan to buy a new computer. But my old G3 which cost such a fortune way back when and totally screamed with speed when I bought it was incapable of doing anything modern -- read only CD, etc., and when I got the new HDTV-ready television it made it excrutiatingly hard to vid with my editing decks. Stuff looked wonky, and it was hard to sit in front of because it's so big. So i realized the only way I'd ever keep making vids (without going over to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
feochadn's house all the freaking time to make her make my vids was to get a new computer. Only it was all too expensive -- I had a tiny bit of money from my dad from Christmas, but not even a drop in the bucket for a G4 tower with a superdrive. So I put my plans away for a while, and then my beloved Apple display monitor blew up on me. It's stabilized, so i could probably have got away with not getting anything new for a while, but... I realized the iMac would get me where I wanted to go. I bullied merryish into going to the University store today, and was planning to abuse my friends for the staff discount, which wasn't much, but it turned out that not only could Merry interpret the questions I had and the answers, and tell me what I needed to do, but we got to use her discount too, no problemo. And anyways, it's her fault I'm doing this -- I've ogled her Titanium Powerbook now for a long time with the OS X interface, plus she's my worst possible electronics enabler: first it was the TiVo, then LJ, now the iMac -- is there no end to the reach of this evil woman's tentacles?? I ask you.
Ah, there we go, the connection dropped. Sigh. High tech on a low tech budget. I have to figure out what I can do without foodwise to get a better connection now. ;-)
Anyways, it comes with all kinds of spiffy stuff, the full iLife package -- iTunes, which I just used to make this disc, and iMovie, iDVD for authoring, and iPhoto or whatever which is largely useless to me since I don't have a digital camera. But soon... or at least, maybe at Christmas. I figure it's going to be a learning curve -- I'm going to start small, with iMovie before I try to make the jump to Final Cut. And I figured that to learn to vid on computer, I'd remake an older vid -- so just for you,tzikeh, I'll redo Do What You Have to Do. I know where every single clip goes and comes from, and now I have all those eps on DVD, and most of my source for that vid was horrid. I can't imagine I'm going to have enough time and skill to learn this before Vividcon, but I'm going to try and hopefully maybe have something ready for it. I'm still going to be a hyrbrid of old skool and new in vidding -- I can't afford the pass through device, so I'm going to have to use my dad's camcorder and record my clips from dvd or vcr onto the hi-8 tape, then load them into iMovie. But that's okay. This is all so new and scary to me that I don't know if I could handle it being that different.
The screen's kinda cool, 17 widescreen style for watching DVDs on. It's darker in color and not as "true" as my old one, but I love the pivoting arm thingie. The packaging on this thing is a marvel (I work for a packaging design firm, so this, I know) -- there wasn't a millimeter of wasted space in the box, and everything was packed in a way that made total sense. You really can pull these out and go. Apple really is the master of form plus function. They have cemented my love for them even further. Everyone said, when I said I couldn't afford a vidding system, that I should look away from Apple and go with a Windows system. I said, "Mac. Pry. Cold dead hands." And I'm even more convinced now that's a good way to be.
Now if I could just get this effing connection thing to work.
But! I'm also listening to the very first CD I've ever burned! Whee! I made a little iTunes playlist and burned it onto the blank CD they so kindly provided in the box (they also provide you with a blank DVD, the little sweeties, and a special screen cleaning cloth); it's my little Spuffy tunes disc (probably the first of many), and it sounds quite sweet to my ears -- I've wanted to make a Spuffy disc for a long time, and never fully got around to bugging my friends who could rip discs. This probably seems so old hat and like breathing to you young whippersnappers, but it's a big deal to me.
I didn't plan to buy a new computer. But my old G3 which cost such a fortune way back when and totally screamed with speed when I bought it was incapable of doing anything modern -- read only CD, etc., and when I got the new HDTV-ready television it made it excrutiatingly hard to vid with my editing decks. Stuff looked wonky, and it was hard to sit in front of because it's so big. So i realized the only way I'd ever keep making vids (without going over to
feochadn's house all the freaking time to make her make my vids was to get a new computer. Only it was all too expensive -- I had a tiny bit of money from my dad from Christmas, but not even a drop in the bucket for a G4 tower with a superdrive. So I put my plans away for a while, and then my beloved Apple display monitor blew up on me. It's stabilized, so i could probably have got away with not getting anything new for a while, but... I realized the iMac would get me where I wanted to go. I bullied merryish into going to the University store today, and was planning to abuse my friends for the staff discount, which wasn't much, but it turned out that not only could Merry interpret the questions I had and the answers, and tell me what I needed to do, but we got to use her discount too, no problemo. And anyways, it's her fault I'm doing this -- I've ogled her Titanium Powerbook now for a long time with the OS X interface, plus she's my worst possible electronics enabler: first it was the TiVo, then LJ, now the iMac -- is there no end to the reach of this evil woman's tentacles?? I ask you.Ah, there we go, the connection dropped. Sigh. High tech on a low tech budget. I have to figure out what I can do without foodwise to get a better connection now. ;-)
Anyways, it comes with all kinds of spiffy stuff, the full iLife package -- iTunes, which I just used to make this disc, and iMovie, iDVD for authoring, and iPhoto or whatever which is largely useless to me since I don't have a digital camera. But soon... or at least, maybe at Christmas. I figure it's going to be a learning curve -- I'm going to start small, with iMovie before I try to make the jump to Final Cut. And I figured that to learn to vid on computer, I'd remake an older vid -- so just for you,
tzikeh, I'll redo Do What You Have to Do. I know where every single clip goes and comes from, and now I have all those eps on DVD, and most of my source for that vid was horrid. I can't imagine I'm going to have enough time and skill to learn this before Vividcon, but I'm going to try and hopefully maybe have something ready for it. I'm still going to be a hyrbrid of old skool and new in vidding -- I can't afford the pass through device, so I'm going to have to use my dad's camcorder and record my clips from dvd or vcr onto the hi-8 tape, then load them into iMovie. But that's okay. This is all so new and scary to me that I don't know if I could handle it being that different.The screen's kinda cool, 17 widescreen style for watching DVDs on. It's darker in color and not as "true" as my old one, but I love the pivoting arm thingie. The packaging on this thing is a marvel (I work for a packaging design firm, so this, I know) -- there wasn't a millimeter of wasted space in the box, and everything was packed in a way that made total sense. You really can pull these out and go. Apple really is the master of form plus function. They have cemented my love for them even further. Everyone said, when I said I couldn't afford a vidding system, that I should look away from Apple and go with a Windows system. I said, "Mac. Pry. Cold dead hands." And I'm even more convinced now that's a good way to be.
Now if I could just get this effing connection thing to work.
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no subject
Date: 2003-04-26 09:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-04-26 11:33 pm (UTC)thank you for the iMovie offer, too -- I may end up asking you more than you want! I'm feeling very stupid about getting started, I don't even really know how. But did lay down the song for the test drive vid! How stupid is it that I felt like miss thang for just doing that? Yeesh. This is a very nice toy, with some very nice stuff on it, and i feel incredibly lucky that I was able to get it, and that I have friends who can help me with this sort of thing. I'm totally sailing on others' coattails, and I feel really fortunate that I can!
no subject
Date: 2003-04-27 12:25 am (UTC)Wooo!
Date: 2003-04-27 07:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-04-28 10:19 pm (UTC)Jill
no subject
Date: 2003-04-29 05:05 pm (UTC)So yes, cool toys, but also? Lots of small headaches and a really big hole in my wallet. Ouchie.
Pretty
Date: 2003-04-29 09:08 am (UTC)And I just realized what those cool little speakers remind me of: Logan's Run! You have a Logan's Run system!
Christy