Friday, November 27, 2009

Learning new things

I'm pretty comfortable with my Mac now; when I first got it, I spent untold hours searching for "how-to" tutorials on one thing and another. Lately I've been able to do about anything I've wanted to, so I've just run with what knowledge I have. The older I get, the less I want to learn new things.
I'd only had this thing a few days when I remembered that the son-in-law wanted me to burn a CD for him. Since my daughter was here at the time, we decided to figure out how to do it. Now, she uses a Macbook all the time, but she's never needed to burn a disc; she's never worked with the Iphoto program, either. These are things I've had to learn for myself. Looking back, it's been good for me.
After a few frustrating attempts, we decided the Mac Mini must not be capable of burning CD's. I seldom burn them anyhow, but it was rather disappointing that I had paid so much for a computer that couldn't perform such a simple task. Kevin brought over an external CD burner that he no longer uses, just in case I ever needed something put on CD. Since all six of my USB ports are filled, I never plugged it in, though.
This morning I went to the Apple site and started perusing information given about the Mac Mini, and lo and behold, I learned that it does have a CD burner! I then searched "help" on my Mac and found instructions on two different ways to burn a CD or DVD; seemed simple enough. I inserted a blank disc and before you know it, I had burned those songs Kevin wanted to a disc.
I was so proud, I even emailed my daughter at work to tell her about it.
I had no sooner clicked "send", though, than I realized I didn't know how to eject the disc. Talk about feeling stupid!
It took another half-hour or so of reading "help" topics, but I finally found the solution. It wasn't hard; in fact, it's ridiculously simple. Most everything you do on a Mac is more straight-forward and sensible than a PC; it's just so totally different, that it takes a little study. If I had an Apple keyboard, I would have clicked the "media eject" key. Since I don't, I simply needed to hit the "F12" key.
My daughter learned from a coworker, and relayed on to me, this simple fact: If you're having trouble figuring something out about your Mac, you're probably trying to make it too hard.
That has proven to be the case, so far, with every difficulty I've had with this computer.
I love my Mac.

5 comments:

  1. Bet you have a list of how to do things laying by your computer, I know I would. Good for you figuring how to burn that disk. Helen

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  2. You are a very wise person.

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  3. No, Helen. All the instructions are ON the computer. I just have to type the right words into "help" and I get my answer.

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  4. no problems like that exist on windows.can you still return this and get a real computer?

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  5. Yeah, yeah. You're so funny, Meesha.
    The only problem here is the ignorance of the person at the keyboard. It's sort of a challenge relearning things. The acid test is going to be whether this thing lasts longer with less problems. If it doesn't keep working for at least four years, I'll be switching back to Windows.

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