iMac

Still learning. And let me say that, thus far there's been no real head scratchers, its all been plain sailing. There's a huge amount of depth to OSX but the average user doesnt need half of it. Stuff like Expose and Spaces is useful if you are going to have twenty windows open at once but I don't see myself being in that situation. Nevertheless, the power of the machine and its ability to run loads of open applications at once could eventually lead to me needing to investigate these options. Whatever, its all fun and interesting.

Unboxed and set up.

One of my sons remarked to me how easy he found setting up his iMac and its true! An unbelievably smooth and easy experience. As soon as up and running I downloaded Firefox 3.6.2, Lightroom 3 beta and Skype. A bit puzzled about the final stages of the download but it all worked out in the end.
The first impressions? WOW is probably number one. Its like a computer from the future or from some parallel universe where things are really nicely designed and all work well. Its absolutely amazingly fast and runs lightroom 3 like lightening. All in all a very positive experience thus far, No negatives. OSX is pretty damn intuitive but I'll clearly have to read my Rough Guide to Mac and OSX very carefully to ensure I'm in the groove. Was agonising over 21.5 vs 27 inch. Sitting here looking at the 21.5 inch screen it seems VAST to me and so I am more than happy with the decision I made.

The Big Switch!

Hi, my new iMac arrives today according to UPS packaging tracking and I have been reading all I can about making the switch from Windows to OSX or Windows XP to OSX Snow Leopard to be precise. Unfortunately I find virtually all of the resources on the net ( and there are many) assume a level of geekiness or intelligence that I dont have and am therefore viewing the fast approaching learning curve with a a small degree of trepidation ameliorated only by the exitement of having a shiny new and hopefully fast machine to play with. I have to say I love the look of the GUI on Macs and am assuming that over the next days and weeks I will come to love it. I have to say that I, seemingly alone, find iTunes very un-intuitive, it must be my age. Whatever, I'm going to post my feelings and impressions on converting to OSX over the next days and weeks, heres to it being a positive experience!

My name is Chris and I come from England

I’m attempting to learn Marathi, the language of Mahrasthra and I have to say that over the last few weeks I have actually enjoyed some small degree of success! The principle reason for this is that , outside of work, pretty much everybody I interact with are Marathis and I can thus get instant feedback on the quality of my attempts.
Hindi defeated me because of its many versions and subtleties, it’s a ‘poetic’ language – and full of ‘silent’ n’s and h’s and these guttural sounds that frankly all sound the same to me although slight changes change the meaning of a word or sentence completely, enough said I think.
So Marathi is the way to go and let me tell you it seems to gain me instant kudos (something I’m in desperate need of, let me freely admit). Of course |I’m only learning the spoken language, the script? Ha! Forget it, it aint gonna happen! My first words were Maza now Chris, me England la ratau (see the title of this piece). No sooner had I learned it than I was presented with an opportunity to use it. I was in a small seaside town South of Mumbai and was taking a photograph of a restaurant, as I pressed the shutter a large family group came out and the man immediately came towards me, I thought ‘shit’ and decided to try and disarm him with my command of his language so I said ‘Maza now Chris, me England la ratau’ and the effect was electric! He smiled and grasped my hand, called his family over and introduced me, asked me to pose for a photograph with them! Ashok, my driver told me that I have been lucky as he was a Senna guy, a right wing firebrand type and I had managed to reverse a potently difficult situation with a few words of his native tongue. Let me say that there are relatively few European Marathi speakers! Great, so I was off to a good start. I try and learn a couple of useful words a day on the way to work and Ashok is diligent in making me practice. Yesterday I was able to completely rid myself of hawkers on the beach by explaining that I lived in New Mumbai and was not a tourist, that I did not want to buy there wares, what was their name?, mine was Chris. I’d surely see them again soon! Again a few sentences worked wonders, they smile and say OK, fair enough! See you! Bye! This is really first class confidence building feedback, and the feeling that I can make myself understood is really thrilling and satisfying, unlike my attempts at Hindi which have always been met by stares of blank incomprehension! The major issue now is being able to recognize Marathis. Out in the countryside it’s easy – it’s everybody! In town the issue is more complex as I can’t tell from looking what language they will speak, whereas ‘the locals’ can. Anyway, I’m currently enjoying the experience, not that it will be of much use in the UK! Whatever – ‘ Chal y a tomi!