Viewing: mac

iSad

I was a latecomer to the Apple party. It was only three years ago, when I had first moved to Singapore and was looking for a job. I was so frustrated with how slow my old laptop took to start up. The afternoon when it took over an hour and a half reduced me to tears. 
I ordered a refurbished Macbook Pro that same evening. All it took to get over the cost hurdle was the prospect of writing—more than just, my livelihood but my expression—becoming “fun, portable, inspiring and pleasurable” once again. It did. It still is.
I then became part of an industry that depended on Final Cut Pro. It was a constant in my workaday world. Before I moved to Amsterdam, I became a certified Apple Final Cut Pro user. Only last month, I did my first-ever editing job from home, all by myself. 
Thank you, Steve Jobs. 

How you lived your life changed not only how I feel about technology or listen to music. It changed how I do my work, earn my living and express myself.

In fulfilling your possibilities, you gave us new ones.

The world will miss you.

Rest in peace.

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Posted on October 6, 2011
Category: Uncategorized · Labels: ,

A slight hiccup

looks like that nice sunshiny afternoon of writing by the pool will have to be put on hold for the meantime. my lovely new refurbished macbook pro was apparently delivered with a battery that won’t charge. boo. thankfully, my research on refurbished macs warned me that this could happen.

i made a call to the applecare hotline, which not only gave me a human immediately (don’t you just hate those never-ending recordings?) but speedily referred me to the i-shop in cathay cineleisure on orchard road. this hiccup with the battery notwithstanding, i am still super impressed with apple service.

and after a quick visit, they tell me i’m going to get the battery back (or replaced) in five to seven working days. sigh. i guess lulu and i are going to have to muddle along just a wee bit longer than i thought.

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Posted on May 14, 2008
Category: The Singapore Years · Labels:

Hello there little lady

for the second time in as many days, i say: well, that was quick. less than 24 hours after checkout, my new baby showed up on my doorstep.


amidst my hushed reverence and tempered euphoria, matanong ko lang: when did my sony ericsson phone cam become this crappy? this looks more like a newspaper print from the mid-1800′s than an image of the pinnacle of modern personal computing.

now if you’ll excuse me, i believe a bit of getting-to-know-you is in order.

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Posted on May 13, 2008
Category: The Singapore Years · Labels: , ,

Thank you for your order

well, that was quick.

i stopped complaining and after a quick conversation with my husband, got over various compunctions (not least of all cost-related) and did something about it.

what finally did it: it wasn’t even the concept of “i am a professional, i need a tool that works” (marlon’s two cents). what finally got me was the possibility of writing as a fun, portable, inspiring and pleasurable process once more. not the technology-induced struggle/drama that would inevitably pop up before, during and after writing, like it’s been lately.

i merely had to think of being able to write by the poolside on a nice day (even by lovely riverside cafes like maya does) and my knees went weak. just to enjoy writing again, i would surmount the special brand of guilt that comes along with getting something you really, really want. and surmount it i did!

the more complex underlying choice finally made with a smile, in the end it all just boiled down to two options: wait a month till the PC show at suntec and hope for a good deal on a mac — or that a PC show will even have macs — or click the checkout button on the apple online store for a refurbished macbook.

i think you can figure it out.

i’m still a bit giddy, but i can’t wait for my new baby to arrive at my doorstep. and when she does, i think i’ll welcome her with a nice sunshiny afternoon by the pool.

3 Comments
Posted on May 12, 2008
Category: The Singapore Years · Labels: , , ,

Lulu the lachrymosely laggard laptop

lulu and i started off so fabulously three years ago, but lately things between us have not been going well at all.

our relationship began to deteriorate last year when she started showing little quirks and slowing down big time. the quirks were just quirks then, slowdowns still survivable by running a bit of anti-spyware, and i could still feel sentimental about considering a replacement for her. “what? but… but… it’s lulu…” i would say, lip quivering, whenever marlon would bring up laptop shopping after i reported my newest computer complaint.

then when 2008 hit, her battery life dropped to a record low of fifteen or twenty minutes, and she started to refuse to hook up to wifi unless she was plugged into a socket. ang arte diba. this was also the year where i began having to force-quit on an almost weekly basis. it would take me anywhere from three to ten minutes to start microsoft word, up to fifteen for photoshop.

i struggled with lulu laying out and printing my cv and portfolio for interviews, which would take me entire afternoons or even the whole day. i timed myself once — sending out one application by email, a process that consisted of opening word and recasting a cover letter, tweaking a cv and a couple of pages of sample writing, then opening firefox and sending my little e-packet out via gmail, would take me thirty to forty-five minutes. now imagine this done at least fifty times for each application i’ve sent out.

for the first time, i considered replacing her when an acer trade-in promo came up last month. i decided to live with lulu a little while longer and wait for the IT trade fairs that usually roll around at year-end to get myself a macbook. i just consoled myself by coming up with a lulu-inspired name for the incumbent (i considered lolita, i.e. a little lulu, but eventually settled on something else).

just last thursday, i suddenly lost all my firefox bookmarks. like magic. they just disappeared — along with them over dozen job postings filed into “to apply” and “follow up”, not to mention all my various resources and hobby-related bookmarks. what was the point of a bookmark function, i thought, if i had to write everything down next time “just to be sure”? oh and did i mention that this was the second time in the span of one month that this happened to me?

and today i waited an hour and a half for lulu to restart.

so now i am browsing refurbished macbooks on the apple online store and feeling downright miserable because i feel like marlon and i can’t afford this right now. we have a credit card to zero out in june and shared goals and all that crap.

sooooo… that ends my rant. any feedback on refurbished macs?

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Posted on May 12, 2008
Category: The Singapore Years · Labels: ,