Keynote and Style

[yesthattom]

A few weeks ago I saw something that at first really upset me. Someone asked someone else, "Why do you have a Mac laptop instead of something that runs Windows?" The reply was simply, "Because I have style!"

I was floored. Really floored.

As a long-time non-Mac user (I can't say "mac hater" because I've always had a lot of respect for Macs, and how could I be a "mac hater" if I bought a Mac laptop for myself 6 months ago) that was the exact kind of flip, smug, arrogant remark that makes everyone hate mac users. Then I realized that while the reply was smug, it was correct. Mac hardware and software has style. In a commodity market where everyone is in a 'race to the bottom' to get things our quicker and cheaper, it has been a delight to finally be using a system that is a delight to use. It has style.

That's why I went out and bought Apple Keynote and stopped using Power Point for new presentations. Keynote, unlike PowerPoint, was designed by people with a keen eye for style so that people like me (without a keen eye for style) have a fighting chance. I've seen very impressive presentations with PPT, but they were designed by professional designers and cost thousands of dollars. I'm presenting 1, 3, and 6-hour presentations. I want my presentations to keep people's attention visually (Keynote) and verbally (my presentation style) at the same time.

What really sold me on Keynote is when I walked into the Apple store and asked for a demo. The sales guy was able to put together some really impressive looking stuff in front of my eyes without much effort. It was so cool, I pulled out my credit card right away.

Comments

[xeger.livejournal.com]

Hrm. Don't suppose you have any examples of Keynote handy?

[cloacabutt.livejournal.com]

Macs are simply way cuter than PCs. PCs are butt ugly, frankly. PC users accept Windows because they don't know any better. I am a Mac user but I can use PCs too, and I find Windows to be maddening and user-surly. Macs are much more intuitive. Also I am a very visual person, so the way things look is important to me. Macs seem, I dunno, more human to me.

PS I love Nick Drake/Pink Moon!

[ctseawa.livejournal.com]

You say that as if the only option on a PC was that horrid crap from Redmund.

My PCs all run FreeBSD. The PCs I support at work all run Linux.

There are options.

[cloacabutt.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I'm not enough of a geek to have seen either one. I know lots of folks use Linux and love it, but the masses think Windows is the cat's meow. Of course, they have aol accounts too...

[kimuchi.livejournal.com]

I demoed Keynote recently and really liked it, too. I was tempted to buy it "just in case", but I'm not really in the business of making presentations and couldn't imagine needing it for quite a while.

[holzman.livejournal.com]

I wasn't a Mac hater until I SysAdmin'd a Mac shop. (Programming on a Mac with only volumes I and II of "Inside MacIntosh" just made me aggrivated, not hateful.

But jadegirl likes Mac, and that's what she's got. A Mac salesman lost the sale because all he would tell her about the PowerBook was how stylish it was. I can understand the style -- and the excellent graphics design you can do with it -- as selling points, but this guy didn't realize that when someone is asking tech questions is time to stop talking about style. Particularly if the person asking is female. Happily, she was treated much more nicely at another store.

[kimuchi.livejournal.com]

Ugh. It's like the tech equivalent of being shown the passenger sunvisor mirror while shopping for a performance car. :(

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

Now that there's a new crop of freshman showing up at WPI, I end up explaining every couple of weeks why the senior unix admin at a tech school has a Mac notebook. This usually happens at the helpdesk training sessions, which are full of arrogant freshmen who have been The Smart Ones for years and have been telling people how to build cheap fast PCs since they were 12. Having the advice they've been giving for most of their sentient lives refuted by an authority figure makes them really defensive. Then I explain it, and they at least claim to get it.

Or they don't, and I get to try not to have arguments and dick-size wars every time I go down to the helpdesk office to talk about something.

I almost wish I had to give real presentations these days. Keynote looks pretty neat.

[nulldevice.livejournal.com]

Mac people are often a snide lot, since the past 20 years of OS persecution have made us a bit defensive about things. I mean, if I had a nickel for every time somebody called into the local cable-access computer show to scream "macs suck!" and hang up, I'd be a wealthy, and slightly less embittered man.

[donia.livejournal.com]

I have a Mac and I often give smug, arrogant answers to smug, arrogant questions. Why am I not using something that runs Windows? Why does that matter to anyone except me? Get outta my business or get beat down, I say. I love my Mac and it has only given me minor problems compared to the PCs I have to use at work.

[dieppe.livejournal.com]

Why I Currently Like Mac.

Mac OS X = a variant of FreeBSD.

I *know* UNIX(tm)... Mac OX X is Unix with a Pretty Wrapper. What's not to like? I can still, for the most part, do all the Unixy things I'm used to.

Oh yes, and Vim is available for Mac OS X. *cough*

I'm not a Mac prophet or anything, just when I'm able to get a Mac laptop for work under the guise of supporting a customer who wanted our client available under Mac OS X... it's just really damn cool. ;)

I use my PC to get to Unix. Heh...

No, Its Not.

[ex-mommabear187.livejournal.com]

As a resident FreeBSD developer, advocate, etc. I can say with stress that OS X is NOT BSD. It has a FreeBSD/NetBSD userland. It has a Mach 4 kernel. It is the logical progression of NeXTStep.

Does that mean its bad?

Hell no, I wish I had a Mac :)

But instead I run FreeBSD on sparc64 ;)

-Trish

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

Many many Mac users love their machines, and love using them. Very few Windows users can say the same thing, or will say it.

Many many Windows users hate their machines but use them anyways. Very few Mac users would say that or continue to use a product they actively disliked.

I, of course, love my Macs. All 22-someodd of them. ;)