Author Topic: OOOOH LOOK AT ME I'M A MAC EVERYTHING JUST WORKS  (Read 2008 times)

A bit of backstory for this little tale.

At my school we have short assembly every day for different events, which usually ends up being speakers or presentations from people in the community or abroad. I do A/V for this little gathering and this involves getting out of 1st ~5 minutes early to go down and set this up.

STORY.

So I roll up in the auditorium like normal and find that the two people presenting today need a slide show and a mic. They plug the flash drive into the computer (A laptop running Windows) while I set up the mic. Once back at the soundboard with the laptop next to it, I pull up the slideshow and see that all the pictures had red x's for broken links in place of the pictures... kind of a problem when the slideshow consists of only pictures and they were planning to refer directly to the pictures.

Okaaaay, odd, and a potentially unfix-able problem but one of the guys that was presenting asked if we could just set up his laptop on the podium (which had a working copy of the slide show). We had video hook-ups and have done it before so I said sure. I brought the necessary VGA cable down there and was plugging that into the floor jack when he asked me "DVI-D or VGA?" I answered him, a bit befuddled as VGA is kind of a standard for laptops. I look up, and what is he brandishing but a Mac complete with what's probably $60 of video adapters hanging off of its annoyingly proprietary video out jack.

We hook it up, and at this point the bell has rung and kids are filing in. I make the necessary hand signals to my compadres in the back of the room and the projector is set to the requisite input... nothing. This is normally a matter of pressing windows key+F8 or whatever the key sequence is for switching display set-ups on Windows laptops, but this guy didn't know it and we sure as hell didn't. Everyone was sitting down at this point so I told him I'd bring it back to the desk, and we'd try hooking it up there and working on it.

They started their presentation and we (me, two other A/V guys and the faculty that works with all the A/V stuff in the auditorium) sat at the Mac for ten minutes trying to figure out how the forget to switch it to presentation or video out or whatever mode. Nothing. I'm pretty damn computer literate, so is the faculty and the other two guys aren't idiots, though I don't know if they are as well versed in the language of computers. The point is is that between us we couldn't figure out how to switch it around, the presenters had to awkwardly say "Well we DID have pictures but you know how that is" and for the rest of the day I get asked where WE forgeted up.

OOOHHH MACS EVERYTHING IS SO EASY JUSTING LONG GAAAAHHHH

tl;dr: Macs apparently aren't user friendly enough that I can figure how to do something (that takes two keystrokes and half a second on a Windows laptop) in ten minutes.
« Last Edit: September 03, 2010, 07:07:00 PM by Sirrus »


TL;DR
Sirrus has never used a mac before and is pissed because he can't figure out how to do stuff in 5 seconds with no knowledge of the operating system.

Well, things aren't going that well for me either. This is a fresh install of it and I've been on ubuntu for a year now.


« Last Edit: September 03, 2010, 07:10:17 PM by Devvy »

I don't like the mac because they have to make the PC look bad in their commercials.

TL;DR
Sirrus has never used a mac before and is pissed because he can't figure out how to do stuff in 5 seconds with no knowledge of the operating system.
I couldn't figure it out in ten minutes, and if I was mac literate and was doing this on a PC it would've taken me no more than a minute to think to try this button



Nothing doing on the Mac. We poked around the keyboard and the preferences relating to display for, as I said, ten minutes.

If I recall using a projector or any kind of TV on a macintosh laptop is as simple as opening up the application that you're using and plugging the VGA to usb converter into the laptop and the projector.

What were you trying to use. Was it some screen or were you using a projector.

TL;DR
Sirrus has never used a mac before and is pissed because he can't figure out how to do stuff in 5 seconds with no knowledge of the operating system.
This

I don't like the mac because they have to make the PC look bad in their commercials.
I like Macs but those commercials are loving stupid, they're one of the worst advertising ideas ever.

TL;DR
Some kid couldn't just use a PC and it made the pictures on the thing not do something.

I like Macs but those commercials are loving stupid, they're one of the worst advertising ideas ever.
I don't know about that.

Mudslinging obviously works well since it wins presidential elections.

TL;DR
Sirrus has never used a mac before and is pissed because he can't figure out how to do stuff in 5 seconds with no knowledge of the operating system.
Isn't that what a Mac is designed for?

Isn't that what a Mac is designed for?
Macs are very user friendly since it's easy to find files on your computer and the directories are simple and very little troubleshooting is often needed.

But there's a limit to how userfriendly something can be.

If you're a gamer or have a knowledge of computers then buy a PC

That's what I'm gonna do finally >_>

If I recall using a projector or any kind of TV on a macintosh laptop is as simple as opening up the application that you're using and plugging the VGA to usb converter into the laptop and the projector.

What were you trying to use. Was it some screen or were you using a projector.
No, we were using Mac powerpoint. We plugged in the VGA cable that had just been working perfectly on the dedicated auditorium laptop five minutes.

I don't know about that.

Mudslinging obviously works well since it wins presidential elections.
They're pissing Windows fanboys off and don't really advertise about themselves.

ITT maccigarettes still convinced their system is infalliable