Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Thanks Steve...

In my undergraduate work at The University of Nevada in Reno, I majored in Journalism (surprised?). One of THE BEST things about majoring in journalism in the early '80s, is that journalism students at UNR had access to a newfangled device called a word processor. We saved our work on these enormous 8" floppy disks.

I found this picture on the Interwebs and decided to use it because 1. It shows how FRIGGEN ENORMOUS the orignal disks were and 2. because I probably had a similar hairstyle in the mid '80s...LOVE the mullet!
No longer did I have to retype a whole paper because of a typo I discovered I'd made in the middle of the page. I thought it was the best thing ever (the word processor, not the hairstyle).

Somewhere around 1991, I bought my first Apple product. It was an Apple IIe. I was working on getting my teaching credential at the time and having used a word processor in the past, I couldn't imagine typing all those papers. I'd never heard of an Apple product. All I know is that the high school where I was student teaching had these computers available for students, and I wanted the computer that was going to be used in education.

The world is made up of two kinds of people...Apple people and PC people. I became an Apple person.

Over the years, I eventually owned other Apple desktop computers (the original 68K Mac, a Macintosh Performa (from the Sculley era...the worst Apple product I ever owned), The first blue iMac, a blue and white Power Mac G3, and and iMac G4. Along the way, I've owned three or four Apple laptops (how crazy is that...I lost count). I may have gone through two of those Black Powerbooks (they weighed a TON!), and a Powerbook G4, I'm on my second Macbook Pro right now, and am lusting for a Macbook Air. I work on an Intel Duo Cor iMac at work (I'm typing on it now), and our primary home computer is a beautiful 27" Intel iMac.

Don't even get me started on the number of iPods I've owned. It's embarrassing.

I've dropped an iPhone in the toilet (twice). In fact, you might say that the iPhone started this blog.

I sometimes blog from my iPad. I cannot run without my Shuffle. I regularly upload running information using my iPhone.

I regularly watch TV on my Apple TV. We have a wireless network in my house thanks to two Airports. 

I'm an Apple junkie...I admit it. I've pulled my whole family (as well as several friends) into the cult of Mac as well. Walter just dumped his Blackberry in favor of (I'm not lying) my old first generation iPhone. It's seriously a better product. We'll be among the first to order the new iPhone 4S even though I'm disappointed it isn't an iPhone 5.

To say that Steve Jobs has had an impact on my life...well that's an understatement.

So rest in peace Steve....and thanks so much for all the toys.


8 comments:

  1. I want to go Mac... Great post. :)

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  2. That's quite a line up of Macs! Let's see. A Performa that succeeded an Atari 1040 ST, which succeeded something even older. Then the Cube. I love that computer and still use it during spin sessions. The current big iMac. A classic iPod (only one), an iPhone 4 (never been drowned and don't take this the wrong way, but I think of you every time I take it out of my pocket to play Sudoku in the bathroom) and the iPad. Love them all.

    I think when they look back on the history of personal computing, Steve Jobs will be far more prominent that Bill Gates.

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  3. I'm disappointed that there wasn't an iPhone 5, still debating on getting the 4s.

    Nice post... I felt a sadness when I learned of Steve Jobs' death too. I've got a lot of mac gear. (iMac, Macbook, iPhones, iPad)

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  4. I *know* I had a hairstyle like that in the 80's. LOLOL ;)

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  5. I heard something on the radio today ... they said Steve made their lives more "fun". I thought this was great! Isn't life suppose to be filled with a lot of fun!?!?

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  6. Alice - I want my jean vest back!

    I worked in my first education job as a computer lab assistant. We had a room full of lle's and llc's. I remember being so happy later when I started teaching when I traded in my Radio Shack "Tandy" computer for a Macintosh with a screen that was probably 8 inches big. Back then we called them Macintoshes and now we just have Mac's. We also are a Mac-based family! Great post

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  7. she has some big floppies.

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  8. And...

    YOu probably used Wordstar with those funky dot commands!

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