Introducing Saruman (and Eilonwy)
Alan* and I have gone over to the dark side. Or rather, the white and shiny, but somewhat confusing side. Oh, don't worry, we aren't there permanently. We are jumping around between this new (for us) shiny side, the old (for us) side, which is dark if you think of the current common outwards colour and the alleged evilness of its creator, and the middle way, which Alan considers to be The Ideal, and which has no colour, only a flightless seabird.
Yes, we have acquired a Mac.
We both wanted a laptop, for portability if nothing else. I'm using Zeratul, our oldest computer in use, as my own computer now that my old laptop is dead, and I wanted good access to something a little newer and faster, not to mention one with a mainstream operating system. Zeratul, just like Thoth (Alan's main computer) and Kerrigan (Alan's older laptop), is Linux-only.
Perhaps I'd better interrupt here to explain our naming schemes. All our computers have names. My old laptop was Lizzie - not after myself, but after Phillip's pet lizard in one of the Adventure Series books by Enid Blyton. I name my computers, gadgets and so on after book characters, as does my mother. Alan names his computers after computer game characters. Both Zeratul and Kerrigan are from Starcraft. Thoth is really named after the Egyptian god of wisdom and knowledge, but Alan justifies that name because Thoth is a "really awesome god" in Age of Mythology.
All the computers that aren't Linux-only (Marduk: games computer, character from the game Sacrifice; Hercule: Mom's computer, as in Hercule Poirot; Hodgson: Dad's computer) are dual-boot Linux and Windows. We were a Windows family since 3.1, but in the last few years Alan has managed to at least partially convert us to Linux. I don't think we've used a Mac since the Apple 2E. But Alan and I like experimenting with computers, and we both (more him than me) are interested in software and in operating systems themselves. So we wanted to have access to all the major OSs.
Hence the addition of Saruman, a very white and shiny MacBook, to our computer family.
I haven't had all that much chance to play with Saruman yet, but I think the Mac OS will take a bit of getting used to. But that's okay. And Alan is going to install Linux on it as well, so we won't be tied to either system. I'm looking forward to getting to know both Mac and Linux better. Let's hope Saruman doesn't go entirely the way of his namesake!
Due to the educational discount, we also received an iPod, which I got to keep as Alan already has one that he won last year (his is a Shuffle and mine is a Nano - hah!). So I get more goodies to play with. I've never really had or used an mp3 player before, and I'm not a big music-listener, but I'm hoping to load it up with all the podcasts and audiobooks that my mother has recommended to me over the years. The iPod is named Eilonwy, from The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander. Possibly not the most appropriate name, as book-Eilonwy is all golden and circuitry-Eilonwy is silver. But I still like the name.
So welcome to Saruman and Eilonwy, and Saruman says hello to you all, as it is from him that I write this.
* Alan is my little (in age only, alas) brother, for those of you who don't know.
Yes, we have acquired a Mac.
We both wanted a laptop, for portability if nothing else. I'm using Zeratul, our oldest computer in use, as my own computer now that my old laptop is dead, and I wanted good access to something a little newer and faster, not to mention one with a mainstream operating system. Zeratul, just like Thoth (Alan's main computer) and Kerrigan (Alan's older laptop), is Linux-only.
Perhaps I'd better interrupt here to explain our naming schemes. All our computers have names. My old laptop was Lizzie - not after myself, but after Phillip's pet lizard in one of the Adventure Series books by Enid Blyton. I name my computers, gadgets and so on after book characters, as does my mother. Alan names his computers after computer game characters. Both Zeratul and Kerrigan are from Starcraft. Thoth is really named after the Egyptian god of wisdom and knowledge, but Alan justifies that name because Thoth is a "really awesome god" in Age of Mythology.
All the computers that aren't Linux-only (Marduk: games computer, character from the game Sacrifice; Hercule: Mom's computer, as in Hercule Poirot; Hodgson: Dad's computer) are dual-boot Linux and Windows. We were a Windows family since 3.1, but in the last few years Alan has managed to at least partially convert us to Linux. I don't think we've used a Mac since the Apple 2E. But Alan and I like experimenting with computers, and we both (more him than me) are interested in software and in operating systems themselves. So we wanted to have access to all the major OSs.
Hence the addition of Saruman, a very white and shiny MacBook, to our computer family.
I haven't had all that much chance to play with Saruman yet, but I think the Mac OS will take a bit of getting used to. But that's okay. And Alan is going to install Linux on it as well, so we won't be tied to either system. I'm looking forward to getting to know both Mac and Linux better. Let's hope Saruman doesn't go entirely the way of his namesake!
Due to the educational discount, we also received an iPod, which I got to keep as Alan already has one that he won last year (his is a Shuffle and mine is a Nano - hah!). So I get more goodies to play with. I've never really had or used an mp3 player before, and I'm not a big music-listener, but I'm hoping to load it up with all the podcasts and audiobooks that my mother has recommended to me over the years. The iPod is named Eilonwy, from The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander. Possibly not the most appropriate name, as book-Eilonwy is all golden and circuitry-Eilonwy is silver. But I still like the name.
So welcome to Saruman and Eilonwy, and Saruman says hello to you all, as it is from him that I write this.
* Alan is my little (in age only, alas) brother, for those of you who don't know.