The Life and Blog of MacGeek Pro

Today has been a good day. Nay, it has been a great day! Today I banished Microsoft from my MacBook. For the past couple of months, my copy of Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac has been acting slower and fussier than normal. I figured it was because of my upgrade to Mac OS X Leopard, and the fact the Office 2004 runs in the Rosetta emulation layer, as it isn’t a Universal Binary for Intel Macs. Well, for the past week, neither Word, Excel, nor PowerPoint would even load past the splash screen.

Now, I could go and buy Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, as it should run more swimmingly than not on my Intel MacBook. But…well…it’s $150. And I have been using iWork, Apple’s office suite solution. It has comparable apps to Mr. Softy, called Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.

Pages and Keynote are veterans and are very well developed. Numbers is new in the latest version of iWork, and approaches spreadsheets in a whole new way. The best part, is that iWork can read the new Office XML format, something that my Office 2004 couldn’t do. 

Long story short, I was fed up with Office 2004 taking up hard drive space if it’s going to be completely and utterly useless. Therefore, I nuked it off my hard drive. Gone. Kaput. Heck, I even threw the new Messenger 7 for Mac in the trash, too. Say hello to a wonderful Apple experience in iWork. For the MSN Messenger needs, I’ll use Adium. 

Here’s to a Microsoft-free life. Mr. Softy, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Disclaimer: I still love my XBox 360. It doesn’t feel like a Microsoft product. Though it has been neglected since Mario Kart Wii came out. The 360 is the one and only thing Microsoft has done right. Other than the 360, though, Microsoft is gone. I wash my hands of it.

Baby is due to arrive three months from today. This is going to go by quick!

It is no secret that social networks are the “in” thing. Social networks keep you in touch with other people. Mainly, I think they serve as a way to give new insight into the people you know. Facebook and MySpace probably the most well-known networks. I don’t use MySpace, mainly because it is just a jumbled mess of crap cluttered. Since the advent of Facebook Apps, Facebook has a slight tendency to be a little cluttered, as well, but not nearly as flagrant as MySpace.

As you know from my previous post about Facebook, I use it mainly as a way to keep tabs on current and old friends. However, the type and amount of information presented by Facebook gives me the larger bullet points of events in friends’ lives. It isn’t all that personal.

Flickr is a photo (and now video!) sharing site and is probably my favorite social network of all time. That’s a little biased though, as I love photography. Also, I can’t say I know (as in actually have met) too many of the people I keep in touch with on Flickr, because very few of my “real life” friends or my family actually use it. I like Flickr because photography is something I enjoy and the site allows me to find people who have similar photography styles and interest, while also exposing me to different styles of photography.

Recently, though, I have come across a new (well, new to me, at least) type of social networking. And that is the micro-blog. There are many, and the one that reigns supreme is Twitter.  Now, I could write a few sentences trying to explain, but the video embedded just below does just such a darn good job of it.

See? Wasn’t that a great video explanation? Twitter is incredibly fun. I find myself tweeting (we call posts on twitter “tweets.” Keep up with the lingo) just about everything. I say Good morning when I awaken, I announce when I am hungry and going to find food, and I tell everyone what I’m watching on tv. Hmm, I just remembered that I taped Battlestar Galactica last night and haven’t watched it yet. See, I could tweet that.

I encourage you to give Twitter a shot. It’s cool. If you join, Follow me.

P.S. If you join I highly recommend downloading and using a desktop client. I use Twitterrific for the Mac, but there are Mac/Windows clients such as twhirl.

I have gone with the Glossy Blue theme and added a contact page (although I haven’t quite figured out how to edit it to look great on the page yet).

Enjoy the fresh coat of paint!

I have very much enjoyed the current theme (called iTheme) for my blog. It is Mac to the core. However, it is Mac from a couple version ago, it seems. To me, as I use Leopard exclusively now, iTheme feels dated visually. I am considering another theme by the same designer. I have posted a screenshot of my blog in “Glossy Blue” below.

Take a look at the site as is, and at the screenshot. Which do you prefer? Leave your vote in the comments.

And thank you.

To my surprise, I logged onto Flickr this evening only to discover that Flickr has added video uploading! It’s pretty cool. There are some limitations:

• You must be a paid Flickr Pro member. ($25/ year, totally worth it. I’ve been one for two years!)
• Videos must be 90 seconds or less. (If greater than 90 seconds, only the first 90 seconds will play.)
• Videos must be 150 MB or less. (And that’s that.)
• Videos must be “safe”. (i.e. Not pr0n.)

I think these parameters are all valid. The Pro status makes sense, because a Pro membership gives you unlimited upload space, and video is the bane of hard drive space.

Also, I am more likely to shoot short little videos and call it good. I am not much of a video person. For me, YouTube is fun to watch videos, but I won’t make videos for that site, because I am not part of the “social network” on YouTube.

On Flickr, I have many contacts, friends, and family. It is in the top three of my social networks. Those are Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter. In that order.

Flickr, well done. This came as a total surprise, and it rocks!

Readers, embedded below is my first Flickr video. Bon appétit.

Anyone remember these?!

Originally uploaded by MacGeek Pro

I remember I was so sad the day the Sub Club died…

My wife found this in an old wallet of hers today. Very nostalgic.

Unfortunately, no money was found in the old wallet :(

I’ll be back soon, hopefully.

EDIT: I’m back, upgrade seems to have worked well. Loving the new dashboard UI of WordPress 2.5.

In case you haven’t had to be anywhere this gloriously sunshiney Sunday morning, I’d like to remind you that you need to stop for a moment, and set your clock(s) forward 1 hour. It’s Daylight Savings Time.

Go ahead. Be a hero. Save some daylight.

Save the daylight, save the world. ;)

That’s right, boys and girls, Karen and I found out we’re having a BOY! Isn’t that crazy? High-Five.

Click here to see the whole set, including the money shot that confirms he’s a BOY!