The truths and myths of being a Mac user
While it is true that many things that you do with a Mac are much easier, because of the built in ease of use that Macs are famous for, there are some small niggles. The reason for these niggles could be that we try to push the boundaries of what can be done with the computer. Just because that is what you do as a creative computer user. Macs are great for editing video and making music and the best Mac applications are all part of the myth of the perfectness of the Mac. I have not used a Windows computer for anything other than data entry, for a very long time and I intend to keep it that way. Certainly for me it is ‘Once a Mac user always a Mac user.’ I have drunk the coolaid and have got to the point of detesting the Windows way of doing things.
So is there anything that bugs me about using a Mac then?
I do have to think long and hard about what bugs me and I am going to try to be as objective as possible. I probably have less to bug me than a new or inexperienced Mac user because I probably have altered my way of doing things to suit the platform. I know this, because when my wife want to do things, she will try to work in a Windows way with documents sent to her by Windows users. She does sometimes have things to struggle with and often it comes down to the file formats used and also the way that the text has been typed into the document. Quite often you get inexperienced computer users that have Windows running, that will go crazy with tables or using the spacebar to set up text rather than the tab key. Weird formatting issues!
Then you have the problem with the conversion of Word document files. For the most part the docs will convert no problem at all. I can read any word file in Pages on my iMac. There will be the odd ooccasion that the formatting of the document gets messed up, as I pointed out. Not a big problem and easy to fix, but is one of those little niggles to deal with. To be honest the problem is more to do with the way that people in general work with text files. I have gone back to basics with text and I use Markdown as my prefered method of writing. Markdown is plain text and has not got the fancy formatting, that you get in the Word documents. You know, the stuff and nonsense that takes a tiny text file and makes it ten times the size, when it is a Word Document. We are talking bloat here.
More about Markdown
What is so good about Markdown is that it is simple to read and to write. You have all you need to make a document readable and then it is easily converted into html. There are online services that will do the conversion for you, or you may have apps on the iPad or the Mac that will do the conversion of the text. You have the option of putting in links and even pictures this way. With a few easy insertions of symbols you can have text that is either in bold or italics. Headers that convert into html headers 1–6, is easy to do and still very easy to read.
When there are so many tools for writers that let you work WYSIWYG, why use Markdown? Well the fact that it is just text means that it will always be readable whatever the fashion dictates for the Word processor. You can have smaller files that will open on absolutely any computer. You only need a simple text editor, but you could work on a document in the latest Microsoft Word if you had to. All of the applications I have used that are made for writing or reading Markdown, produce excellent html code that will be good on any website or can be opened in any browser.
Seeing as there as fewer documents being printed on paper these days, often you don’t need all of the facilities that MS Word throws at you. Simple text, that is easy to read is the way forward and if you need more, then there is Multi-Markdown that will let you set up tables too. Some of the text editors that are made especially for writing Markdown are able to colour code the text to help you. This is called syntax highlighting. I am writing this in texttastic on the iPad and it gives me blue text for the headers. The lists are in a red/purple colour and there are colours for marking the links.
With the links I like to use the reference link that has the referred link at the bottom of the text document, as it makes it easier to read not having the html link in the main body of the text. I tend to keep the document as text only and move the html code to my blogging software, when I am ready to put in any pictures. The same would be the case if I was making a document that I intended to do some desktop publishing with, using Pages on my iPad or iMac.
Recomended apps for writing Markdown
- Any text editor on whatever operating system
- On the iPad I like to use Byword, Textastic, I also have Edito, SimpleNote and a few others. I like the apps that give me an extra row of keys for quick access to the hash symbol # and the Asterisk * symbol.
- On my iMac I use Dragon Dictate and that gives me a text document that can be read by an app called Marked which converts and shows me what the document will look like in a browser. Another app on the Mac which has a better faster preview window is NVAlt. Then you have Writeroom and I just bought Byword for the Mac too, so I have the good synchronisation of iCloud.
OK – I digressed from the truths and myths surrounding the Mac
- While it is true that sometimes I see the spinning beach ball, I never see the blue screen of death. Most likely I have opened up too many apps and I should close a few down at beach ball time.
- Despite the latest knowledge that the Mac is now being targeted by the virus writers, I still like that I am safer on a Mac.
- Sometimes I get annoyed by how long it is taking Final Cut Pro to render some video. That is not necessarily a Mac problem though.
- I was disappointed by the failure of Apple to get the iCloud working right on the Mac, as well as it was working on the iOS platform. I was supposed to be able to start working on a document on one of my Apple devices and be able to just pick up where I left off on any other Apple computer or device. Worked fine with docs in iCloud and on the iPad or iPhone, but then on the iMac I would have to use a web browser to get at the document to continue working on it.
- I have been getting miffed with Textastic, that I am using to write this article at the moment. Mostly it is working fine but sometimes it quits working and I have to restart the app. I only lose a couple of words when it does it, but still irks me. Not sure if the problem is due to the bluetooth keyboard I connected to the iPad or if it is the app that is messing up.
So this was supposed to be a bit of a moan about Apple but….
I couldn’t help myself, I got only so far into the article and found I got enthusiastic about one part of my computing experience. Markdown is pretty good though and I couldn’t help but write about it. Truth be told, I am a big fan of the Apple computers and the Apple Ecosphere way of working. Many of the things that I like are small things, but they all build up to give me a way of doing things with the computer that pleases me. I can’t help be be enthusiastic and I find that I look for geeky fun ways to complete tasks. I would rather be messing with my computer than watching yet another episode of CSI on the TV. Wouldn’t you get fed up with all of that death and dead bodies on the television all of the time.